Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra

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LibrarySutrasSaṃdhinirmocanasūtra


संधिनिर्मोचनसूत्र
Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra
འཕགས་པ་དགོངས་པ་ངེས་པར་འགྲེལ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།
'phags pa dgongs pa nges par 'grel pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo
解深密經
Jiě shēn mì jīng
Mahāyāna Sūtra which Decisively Reveals the Intention
D106   ·  T676,675,677,678,679
SOURCE TEXT

A crucial source text for the Yogācāra school and many of its central tenets, including the theories of consciousness-only, all-ground consciousness (Skt. ālayavijñāna; Tib. kun gzhi rnam par shes pa), and the three natures. It is also noteworthy for its discussion of the relationship between the two truths (Ch.3), the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma (Ch.7), and meditation (Ch.8). Furthermore, it is commonly included in the Tibetan lists of sūtras that teach buddha-nature and/or the definitive meaning.

Relevance to Buddha-nature

Often included as one of the tathāgatarbha sūtras and, or, the sūtras that teach the definitive meaning.

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Translations of This Text

Book
Soûtra du dévoilement du sens profond
The Sūtra of the Unveiling of the Profound Meaning or Saṃdhinirmocana is one of the most important sūtras of the Great Vehicle. It is considered to be the founding text of one of the two main philosophical currents of the Indian Mahâyâna, the idealist current of "Mind-Only" which developed from the 4th century onwards under the influence of Asanga and Vasubandhu. The Sūtra of the Unveiling of the Profound Meaning emphasizes the role of consciousness in the genesis of illusion and a more moderate interpretation of emptiness. But it is presented above all as a meditation manual that will inspire many Indian, Chinese and Tibetan practitioners. The meditations of tranquility (shamatha) and eminent vision (vipashyanâ) are described here with precision, in their relation to the Ten Stages that bodhisattvas must go through to attain the ultimate awakening. The translation presented in this volume was made from the Tibetan version of the 8th century. (Source: Fayard)
Cornu, Philippe. Soûtra du dévoilement du sens profond. Paris: Fayard, 2005.
Book
Unraveling the Intent: Saṃdhinirmocana (Forgues, G.)
Translation of the Saṃdhinirmocana sutra
Forgues, Gregory, trans. Unraveling the Intent: Saṃdhinirmocana, v 1.0.0. 84000.co, 2020. https://read.84000.co/translation/toh106.html.
Book
The Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning
Taishō 676

Volume 16

The basic sūtra of the Faxiang School, The Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning expounds the thought of the Yogācāra or Mind-Only School (Vijñānavāda), stating that all phenomena are manifestations of the mind. It belongs to the middle period of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism and is considered to have been composed at the start of the fourth century A.D. It is divided into eight chapters, and gives a detailed exposition of the philosophy of the Yogācāra School. Judging from the fact that the greater part of this sūtra is quoted in the Yogācārabhūmi (Taishō 53), and that numerous citations from it are to be found in such works as the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Taishō 57) and Jō-yui-shiki-ron (Taishō 54), it is clear that it exerted considerable influence in later times.

Source

Skt. Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra. Translated into the Chinese by Xuan Cang as Jie shenmi jing (解深密經). 5 fascicles.
(Source: BDK America)
Keenan, John P., trans. The Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning. Translated from the Chinese of Hsüan-tsang (Taisho Volume 16, Number 676). BDK English Tripiṭaka 25, no. 4. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000. https://bdkamerica.org/product/the-scripture-on-the-explication-of-underlying-meaning/.
Book
Samdhinirmocana Sutra - L'Explication des Mysteres
Lamotte, Étienne, trans. Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra - L'Explication des Mystères. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 1935.
Lamotte, Étienne, trans. Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra - L'Explication des Mystères. Louvain: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 1935.
Book
Wisdom of Buddha: The Saṁdhinirmocana Mahāyāna Sūtra
Wisdom of Buddha: The Samdhinirmochana Sutra was translated from the Tibetan by John Powers as a PhD thesis in Buddhist Studies.

The Samdhinirmochana Sutra demonstrates how our common modes of viewing reality and our habitual ways of living are fundamentally mistaken. It details how the full force of our mental and physical faculties can be harnessed for the task of clearing up the ignorance that clouds the continuum of every being who is not a Buddha, describing in detail the views, stages, and practices necessary for this transformation.

This Sutra presents the Buddha's dialogues with ten great Bodhisattvas on such topics as ultimate reality, base-consciousness, the threefold character of phenomena, the teachings of definitive meaning, the ten stages of the Bodhisattva Path and the six perfection, and the union of wisdom and compassion at the Buddha level. Read, studied, outlined, and meditated upon, this Sutra can reveal the architecture of enlightenment and open awareness to the profound and expansive vision that informs the third turning teachings. Correctly understood, it can guide the reader on a path that leads to mental balance, insight into the view of sunyata, and deep commitment to work selflessly for the benefit of others. To encourage students to investigate the text more closely, this publication contains the complete typeset Tibetan text on facing pages, extensive notes, glossary, and index. (Source: Dharma Publishing)
Powers, John, trans. Wisdom of Buddha: The Saṁdhinirmocana Mahāyāna Sūtra; Essential Questions and Direct Answers for Realizing Enlightenment. Tibetan Translation Series. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1995. http://lirs.ru/lib/sutra/Wisdom_of_Buddha,The_Samdhinirmocana_Sutra,Powers,1995.pdf.

Recensions of This Text

Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra. (Mahāyāna Sūtra which Decisively Reveals the Intention). Recension information:
Sanskrit Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra, Sanskrit fragments:
  • Buescher 2007: 102–104 (quotations in Sthiramati’s Triṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣyam, 33.25–34.4 drawn from Saṃdh. §V.5 and §V.7; see also Lévi 1925: 33–34)
  • Matsuda 1995 (complete reconstruction from manuscript of Saṃdh. §IX.1–6)
  • Matsuda 2013 (fragments of Saṃdh. §II.4 and §III.1, fragments of §VIII.39–40, complete reconstruction from manuscript of § VIII.41)
  • Nagao 1964 : 43 (§VIII.20.2 as quoted in the Madhyāntavibhāgabhāṣya)
  • Nagao 1982–1987: I.4, I.7.
  • Tucci 1971: 1 (two verses from Saṃdh. §III.7 that are quoted in Kamalaśīla’s Bhāvanākrama: nimittabandhanāj jantur atho dauṣṭhulabandhanāt / vipaśyanāṃ bhāvayitvā śamathañ ca vimucyata iti) and ibid., p. 22 (a sentence drawn from §VII.15 also quoted in the Bhāvanākrama: ekāntasattvārthavimukhasya ekāntasaṃsārābhisaṃskāravimukhasya [nā] uttarā samyaksaṃbodhir uktā mayeti)
Tibetan འཕགས་པ་དགོངས་པ་ངེས་པར་འགྲེལ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།, ('phags pa dgongs pa nges par 'grel pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo). ISTB Link: https://www.istb.univie.ac.at/kanjur/rktsneu/verif/verif2.php?id=106

Tibetan witnesses:

Bd3.7 vol. 3 (ta) pha 1b1–84a6; C747 mdo sde, ca 1b1–71a7 (vol. 29); Cz082-001 mdo, na 1b1–82a5; D106 mdo sde, ca 1b1–55b7 (vol. 49); Dd031-001 mdo, ca 1b1–69b2; Dk034-001 mdo, na 1b1–87b1; Do mdo sde, da 196a–246b; F156 mdo sde, ba (tsha) 1b1–72a7 (vol. 68); Go19,01 ka 1b–36a6 (vol. 19); Gt028-001 mdo, na 1b1–72b3; H109 mdo sde, ca 1b1–87b7 (vol. 51); He64.6 mdo, wa 62b5–125b8; J51 mdo sde, ca 1b1–59b8 (vol. 44); Kʙ116 mdo sde, ca 1b1–71a1 (vol. 57); Kǫ774 mdo sna tshogs, ngu 1b1–60b7 (vol. 29, p. 1); L82 mdo sde, na 1b1–80b1 (vol. 42); Lg11.8 mdo, da-L74 224b5–276a2; N94 mdo sde, ca 1–81a7 (vol. 51); Ng13.07 mdo pa dgongs 111b3–162a8; Np012-001 mdo, na 1b1–87a7; O23 mdo sde, cha; Pj043-001 mdo, ca 1b1–62b4; Pz045-001 mdo ca 1b1–61a5; R106 mdo sde, ca 1b1–55b7 (vol. 49); S106 mdo sde, na 1b1–80b1 (vol. 63); T107 mdo sde, na 1b1–70b1 (vol. 68); U106 mdo sde, ca 1b1–55b7 (vol. 49); V156 mdo sde, na 1b1–69b6 (vol. 65); X mdo sde, wa 66a–132a; Z137 mdo, na 1b1–93a6 (vol. 59); Dunhuang manuscripts: Stein Tib. n°194 (49 folios); Stein Tib. n°683 (1 folio), see Hakayama 1984–1987; Ablaikit collection IOM, RAS Tib.979/117; Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi: Degé Tengyur D4038 mdo ’grel (sems tsam), zi 44a–97b; Golden Tengyur GT3542 mdo ’grel (sems tsam), ’i 59b–136a; Peking Tengyur Kǫ5539 mdo ’grel (sems tsam), ’i 47b–109a.
Chinese

Text Metadata

Other Titles ~ ārya-saṃdhinirmocana-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra
~ mdo dgongs pa nges 'grel
Text exists in ~ Tibetan
~ Chinese
~ Mongolian
~ Korean
~ Japanese
Canonical Genre ~ Kangyur · Sūtra · mdo sde · Sūtranta
Literary Genre ~ Sūtras - mdo
Commentaries on this text
  • Trisong Detsen (khri srong lde brtsan)’s *Samyagvākpramāṇoddhṛtasūtra (bka' yang dag pa'i tshad ma las mdo btus pa), D4352 mdo 'grel, co 173a–205b.
  • Changchup Dzutrül (byang chub rdzu 'phrul)'s *Āryasaṃdhinirmocanasūtravyākhyāna (bstan bcos sna tshogs), D4358 mdo 'grel, co 1b–jo 183b.

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Yogācāra - Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). Skt. योगाचार Tib. རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པ་ Ch. 瑜伽行派

ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 藏識,阿賴耶識

ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 藏識,阿賴耶識

kun gzhi - Although it is commonly used as an abbreviation of ālayavijñāna (kun gzhi'i rnam shes), in later Tibetan traditions, particularly that of the Kagyu and the Nyingma, it came to denote an ultimate or pure basis of mind, as opposed to the ordinary, deluded consciousness represented by the ālayavijñāna. Alternatively, in the Jonang tradition, this pure version is referred to as ālaya-wisdom (kun gzhi'i ye shes). Skt. आलय Tib. ཀུན་གཞི་

trisvabhāva - According to the Yogācāra school, all phenomena can be divided into three natures or characteristics: the imaginary nature (parikalpitasvabhāva), the dependent nature (paratantrasvabhāva), and the perfect or absolute nature (pariniṣpannasvabhāva). Skt. त्रिस्वभाव Tib. རང་བཞིན་གསུམ་

tridharmacakrapravartana - Three successive stages of the Buddhist teachings. Though they are traditionally attributed to the historical Buddha, modern scholarship tends to view them as developmental stages that occurred over the course of an extended period of time, with interludes of several centuries, in which we see major doctrinal shifts often based on seemingly newly emergent scriptural sources. Skt. त्रिधर्मचक्रप्रवर्तन Tib. ཆོས་འཁོར་རིམ་པ་གསུམ་

nītārtha - Refers to a teaching that is literally true. Skt. नीतार्थ Tib. ངེས་དོན་

Cittamātra - Though it is sometimes used synonymously with Yogācāra, it is in fact one of the more prominent philosophical theories associated with this school. It asserts that the objects in the external world with which we interact are actually mentally created representations appearing as those objects. The character of these perceptions is predetermined by our own karmic conditioning that is stored in the ālayavijñāna. Skt. चित्तमात्र Tib. སེམས་ཙམ་

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