Texts/Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra

रत्नचूडपरिपृच्छासूत्र

Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra

འཕགས་པ་གཙུག་ན་རིན་པོ་ཆེས་ཞུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་པ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།

'phags pa gtsug na rin po ches zhus pa zhes bya pa theg pa chen po'i mdo

寶髻菩薩會

Bǎo jì pú sà huì

SOURCE TEXT

The Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchā ("The Questions of Ratnacūḍa," Tib. dkon mchog brtsegs pa) is a Mahāyāna sūtra preserved in the Tibetan Kangyur (D 91, dkon brtsegs, cha 210a1–254b7, vol. 44) as part of the Ratnakūṭa collection of sūtras. The text is cited extensively by Śāntideva in the Śikṣāsamuccaya, where it appears under the abbreviated title Ratnacūḍasūtra ("Sūtra on the Jewel at the Crown of the Head"), most prominently in Chapter 13, which is devoted to the four applications of mindfulness (smṛtyupasthāna). In that chapter the text is cited in connection with each of the four applications in turn. On the application of mindfulness to the body, it teaches that the body is impermanent and ends in death, and that those who truly understand this become servants of all sentient beings, avoid crookedness and hypocrisy, and give up clinging to possessions; it further teaches that the bodhisattva connects the bodies of all sentient beings to his own, aspiring that all beings attain the body of a Buddha. On the application of mindfulness to feelings, it teaches that bodhisattvas cultivate great compassion for beings caught in pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings, giving up the underlying tendencies to attraction, aversion, and delusion respectively, while experiencing all feelings as impermanent, as suffering, and as without self. On the application of mindfulness to mind, it addresses the impossibility of locating mind internally, externally, in the aggregates, components, or sense-spheres, using the analogy that mind cannot perceive itself just as a sword cannot cut itself. On the application of mindfulness to phenomena (dharma), it teaches that when bodhisattvas look at phenomena they see no phenomena at all—no arising without a cause, and no producer—and that they never give up the recollection of the mind of awakening no matter how deeply they look into the teachings. The abbreviated title Ratnacūḍasūtra used by Śāntideva is confirmed as referring to this text by comparison with the Kangyur recension. The Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra is also quoted briefly in the Ratnagotravibhāga without mentioning it by name.

References:

Goodman, Charles. The Training Anthology of Śāntideva: A Translation of the Śikṣā-samuccaya. Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 222–229.

Bendall, Cecil, ed. Śikṣāsamuccaya. Bibliotheca Buddhica 1. St. Petersburg, 1897–1902.

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Description from When the Clouds Part

The Ratnakūṭa also includes the Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra,^[1] in which we find the example of the painters illustrating the emptiness endowed with all supreme aspects, which is also used in the Uttaratantra (without mentioning this sūtra source). However, in themselves, both this example and this emptiness are not usually a part of the teachings on buddha nature. In addition, a passage from the Kāśyapaparivarta in the Ratnakūṭa is quoted in RGVV but without being related to tathāgatagarbha. Still, the Kāśyapaparivarta discusses the related notions of "the disposition of the noble ones" (āryagotra) and "buddha lineage or pedigree" (buddhavaṃśa). It says that the former is as equal and undifferentiated as space, devoid of both body and mind, in accordance with nirvāṇa, stainless, ultimately real, imperishable, permanent, without self, and nonreferential.^[2] The continuity of "the buddha lineage" prevents bodhisattvas from entering the limited personal nirvāṇa of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas.^[3] Also, compared to arhats, the gods have more love even for beginner bodhisattvas who have just given rise to bodhicitta and whose faculties are not yet matured. For those bodhisattvas maintain "the buddha lineage" without interruption.^[4]

Other Titles	~ ārya-ratnacūḍa-paripṛcchā-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra
Text exists in	~ Tibetan ~ Chinese
Canonical Genre	~ Kangyur · Sūtra · dkon brtsegs · Ratnakūṭa
Literary Genre	~ Sūtras - mdo

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"(47)" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 310.

D45.47 (forty-five folios) and Taishō 310.
Kāśyapaparivarta—A Mahāyānasūtra of the Ratnakūta Class in the Original Sanskrit, in Tibetan, and in Chinese, edited by A. von Staël-Holstein (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1926), secs. 102–4.
Ibid., sec. 83.
Compare RGVV (J16–17 and the phrase "not interrupting the lineage of the three jewels" in the second quote from the Dhāraṇīśvararājasūtra on J25).

[1] D45.47 (forty-five folios) and Taishō 310.

[2] Kāśyapaparivarta—A Mahāyānasūtra of the Ratnakūta Class in the Original Sanskrit, in Tibetan, and in Chinese, edited by A. von Staël-Holstein (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1926), secs. 102–4.

[3] Ibid., sec. 83.

[4] Compare RGVV (J16–17 and the phrase "not interrupting the lineage of the three jewels" in the second quote from the Dhāraṇīśvararājasūtra on J25).

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