View source for Primary Sources

<div class="h1 large">The Source Texts</div>__NOTOC__


<div class="bnw-panel depth-2 rounded my-4 p-0">
	<div class="row m-0">
		<div class="col-lg-3 p-0 maitreya-wideback"></div>
		<div class="col-lg-9 pb-5 pt-3 px-5">
			<div class="bnw-heading-3">A note about source texts</div>In relation to source literature, on this site, we generally divide these into the two broad categories of sūtras and commentaries. While traditionally both of these categories entail a wide range of internal divisions and classifications, here these two can be simply understood to demarcate the difference between scriptures orated by the Buddha, or his attendant Bodhisattvas, and authored works, which draw upon those discourses in order to elucidate a particular aspect of the Buddhist teachings. In terms of the former, these texts are traditionally referred to as “buddhavacana,’’ literally “the speech of the Buddha,’’ and are considered to represent actual discourses that were recalled and passed down through oral lineages until they were eventually set into writing in the ensuing centuries. And though much has been written about these works in academic literature, especially in terms of the potential dates and locals of their composition, little is known of the actual authorship of these works and thus they are generally considered to be anonymous compositions. On the other hand, what we are referring to here as commentaries are generally signed by their authors, even if the contents of these compositions are credited to earlier figures. Though again, exact authorship of a particular text might still be uncertain or contested, in either traditional or academic circles, these types of texts, as opposed to sūtras, are universally considered to have been intentionally composed.
		</div>
	</div>
</div>


<div class="row my-5 sticky-container">
	<div class="col-lg-9 mt-5 mt-lg-0">

<h2 class="mt-0"> Sources for buddha-nature Teachings </h2>

The seeds of buddha-nature teachings are sprinkled throughout the sutras and tantras of the Buddhist canon. However, without doubt, the single most influential teaching that has spread the idea of buddha-nature to traditions all across the world is Maitreya's ''Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra'' or "Gyu Lama" as it is known in the Tibetan traditions. 

This page provides a listing of some of the key sources for buddha nature teachings found in the sutras, as well as the key texts found in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan traditions, as well as influential commentaries from centuries of traditional scholarship on the subject. 

[[Research/Primary_Sources#The_Texts|Jump to full source text list below...]]

== Sutra Sources ==

*[[Karl_Brunnhölzl%27s_Translator%27s_Introduction,_%27%27When_the_Clouds_Part%27%27,_pp._3-12.|Details on the sutra sources for the Ratnagotravibhāga by Karl Brunnhölzl]]
*[[Dhāraṇīśvararājasūtra]] = ārya-tathāgata-mahākaruṇā-nirdeśa-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra
*[[Śrīmālādevīsūtra]]
*[[Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta]]
*[[Sarvabuddhaviśayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkārasūtra]]
*[[Tathāgatagarbhasūtra]]
*[[Sāgaramatiparipṛcchāsūtra]]
*[[Mahāyānābhidharmasūtra]]
*[[Dṛḍhādhyāśayaparivarta]] (or Sthirādhyāśayaparivartasūtra)
*[[Tathāgataguṇajñānācintyaviṣayāvatāranirdeśa]]
*[[Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra]]
*[[Kāśyapaparivartasūtra]]
*[[Gaganagañjaparipṛcchāsūtra]]
*[[Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra]]
*[[Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra]]
*[[Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra]]
*[[Samyutta Nikāya]]
*[[Ratnadārikāsūtra]]
*[[Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra]]


== The titles of the [[On the Ratnagotravibhāga|Gyu Lama]] ==

The title ''Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra''<ref>According to the Sanskrit grammatical rules associated with ''sandhi'', the word boundaries of the “a” of Mahāyāna and the “u” of Uttaratantra combine as “o.” The title could just as easily be rendered “''Mahāyāna Uttaratantra Śāstra''.”</ref> is attested in the surviving Sanskrit manuscripts. It roughly translates as “The Superior Continuum (''uttaratantra'') of the Mahāyāna, A Treatise (''śāstra'') Analyzing (''vibhāga'') the Source (''gotra'') of the Three Jewels (''ratna'').” One surviving Sanskrit reference, Abhayākaragupta’s ''Munimatālaṃkāra'', gives the name as ''Mahāyānottara: [Treatise] on the Superior Mahāyāna [Doctrine]''.<ref>[[Kano]], ''[[Buddha-Nature and Emptiness]]'', 27, note #41.</ref> Western scholars only became aware of Sanskrit versions in the 1930s (see below); prior to this, they knew the text only in Chinese or Tibetan translation, and this was complicated by the fact that both the Chinese and the Tibetan traditions divide the text into two. Where in India the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' was a single work comprised of root verses, explanatory verses, and prose commentary, the Chinese and Tibetan translators and commentators considered the root and explanatory verses to be one text and the complete text, including the prose commentary, to be a second. Thus not only do we have multiple names in multiple languages for the treatise, but multiple names in Chinese and Tibetan for its different parts.... [[On the Ratnagotravibhāga|Read the whole essay here]]

<h3 class="mt-0"> [[Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra]] <br>[[/ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས|ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས།]] </h3>

*[[Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra|Read the root text of the Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra here]] 
**[[Texts/Ratnagotravibhāga_Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra/Root_Verses|Root Verses - Comparative multilingual edition of the root verses only]]
***"The Three Reasons"  Verse: [[A_Treatise_on_the_Ultimate_Continuum_of_the_Mahāyāna/Verse_I.28|Verse I.28]]

=== Sanskrit Texts ===

*[[Maitreya]]. [[Ratnagotravibhāgamahāyānottaratantraśāstra]] (Theg pa chen po'i rgyud bla ma). D4024. Sanskrit edition by [[E. H. Johnston]]. Patna, India: [[The Bihar Research Society]], 1950 (includes the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā).
*[[Asaṅga]]. [[Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā]] or [[Mahāyānottaratantraśāstravyākhyā]] (Theg pa chen po'i rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos rnam par bshad pa). D4025. Sanskrit edition by [[E. H. Johnston]]. Patna, India: [[Bihar Research Society]], 1950.<ref>Besides this text, the only other two known Indian “commentaries” on the Uttaratantra are Vairocanarakṣita’s (eleventh century) very brief ahāyānottaratantraṭippaṇī (eight folios) and Sajjana’s (eleventh/twelfth century) Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa (a summary in thirty-seven verses). Brunnholzl, K. Luminous Heart pg 403 note 24</ref>
*[[Prasad, H. S.]], ed. [[The Uttaratantra of Maitreya]]. Containing [[E.H. Johnston]]'s Sanskrit text and [[E. Obermiller]]'s English translation. [[Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica]], 79. Delhi: [[Sri Satguru Publications]], 1991.

=== Tibetan Texts ===

* ''Please see the [[Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra]] or the [[Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā]] page for a detailed Tibetan catalog and source listing for this text''
**[[Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra|ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་]]
**[[Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā|ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པ།]]

=== Chinese Texts ===

*Ratnamati 勒那摩提 (508 A.D.), 究竟一乘寶性論 (Chinese translation of Rgvbh), in T 1611. Attributed author is Sāramati.

== Commentaries ==

=== Indian Commentaries ===

*[[Sajjana]]. [[Pith Instructions on “The Treatise on the Ultimate Continuum of the Mahāyāna”]] - [[Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa]]. Sanskrit edition in Kano, Kazuo. "[[rNgog Blo-ldan Shes-rab’s Summary of the Ratnagotravibhāga: The First Tibetan Commentary on a Crucial Source for the Buddha-Nature Doctrine]]" 513-18. PhD diss., [[University of Hamburg]], 2006.
*[[Vairocanarakṣita]]. [[A Commentary on the Meaning of the Words of the “Uttaratantra”]] - [[Mahāyānottaratantraṭippaṇī]] ([[rgyud bla ma’i tshig don rnam par ’grel pa]]. Sanskrit edition in Kano, Kazuo. "[[rNgog Blo-ldan Shes-rab’s Summary of the Ratnagotravibhāga: The First Tibetan Commentary on a Crucial Source for the Buddha-Nature Doctrine]]" 552–75. PhD diss., [[University of Hamburg]]. 2006.

=== Tibetan Commentaries ===

==== Select Tibetan Texts<ref>For an extensive list of Tibetan Commentaries, see [[A List of the Commentaries on the Ratnagotravibhāga]]</ref> ====

*[['Gos Lo Gzhon nu dpal]], [[Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi 'grel bshad de kho na nyid rab tu gsal ba'i me long]] (Lhasa 2006), in 2 volumes.
*[['Gos Lo Gzhon nu dpal]], [['Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā]], Edited text in Tibetan script by [[Mathes, Klaus-Dieter]]. [[Publications of the Nepal Research Centre]] 24, Stuttgart: [[Franz Steiner Verlag]]. 2003.  Reviewed by Pascale Hugon in Asiatische Studien, vol. 60, no. 1 (2006), pp. 246-253.
*[[Rinchen, Gyaltsap Darma]] . [[Commentary to the Uttaratantra]]. [[Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i ṭīkka]]. Collected works ga. Vol. 13. Mungod, India: [[Drepung Loseling Educational Society]], 1997.
*[[Mipham]]. [[Words of Mi-pham: Commentary on the Uttaratantra]] (theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi mchan 'grel mi pham zhal lung). Mi-pham's Collected Works, vol. 4 (pa), 349-361.
*Rin chen ye shes. rgyud bla ma'i 'grel pa mdo dang sbyar ba nges pa'i don gyi snang ba zhes pa'o. Jonan Publication Series 31, Pe cin: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2010.
*[[Rngog Lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab]] and [[Kano, Kazuo]]. "[[rNgog Blo‐ldan‐shes‐rabʹs Summary of the Ratnagotravibhāga: The First Tibetan Commentary on a Crucial Source for the Buddha‐nature Doctrine]]." Ph.D. Dissertation, [[University of Hamburg]], 2006. Contains a critical edition in Wylie transliteration.
*[[Rngog Lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab]] (1059-1109), [[Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa]], Dharamsala: [[Library of Tibetan Works and Archives]], 1993.
*shes rab rgyal mtshan ,  thogs med bzang po dpal. "[[theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi 'grel ba legs bshad nyi ma'i 'od zer zhes bya ba bzhugs so/]]." In rgyud bla'i TI ka. TBRC W2DB4614. : 153 - 305. pe cin: mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2007. [http://tbrc.org/link?RID=O2MS1067|O2MS10672MS1071$W2DB4614 TBRC]
*Ye shes rdo rje. theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi bshad pa nges don nor bu'i mtsod ces bya ba bzhugs so. Jonan Publication Series 31, Pe cin: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2010.

=== English Translations ===

{{InsertBook|Books/When the Clouds Part|float=right}}
*[[Brunnhölzl, Karl]], ed., trans. [[When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sūtra and Tantra]]. Boston: [[Snow Lion Publications]], an imprint of Shambhala Publications, 2014.
*[[Fuchs, Rosemarie]]. [[Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra]]. Commentary by Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé "The Unassailable Lion's Roar." Ithaca, NY: [[Snow Lion Publications]], 2000.
*[[Kilty, Gavin]]. [[The Tathāgata Essence Commentary to the First Chapter of the Uttaratantra]], by [[Rinchen, Gyaltsap Darma]] (1364-1432). Unpublished, FPMT.
*[[Kano, Kazuo]]. "[[rNgog Blo‐ldan‐shes‐rabʹs Summary of the Ratnagotravibhāga: The First Tibetan Commentary on a Crucial Source for the Buddha‐nature Doctrine]]." Ph.D. Dissertation, [[University of Hamburg]], 2006. Contains a critical edition in Wylie transliteration.
*[[Mathes, Klaus-Dieter]]. [[A Direct Path to the Buddha Within]]: Go Lotsāwa's Mahāmudrā Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga. Boston: [[Wisdom Publications]], 2008.
*[[Mathes, Klaus-Dieter]]. ''[['Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's Extensive Commentary on and Study of the Ratna-gotravibhāgavyākhyā]]''. In [[Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet]], 79-96. Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies ([[PIATS]]), Leiden, 2000. [[Brill's Tibetan Studies Library]] vol. 2, bk. 2 . Leiden : [[Brill]], 2002.
*[[Mipham]] ('jam mgon 'ju mi pham rgya mtsho). [[A Commentary on the Uttaratantra Shastra]] (rgyud bla ma). Translated by [[Padmakara Translation Group]], [[John Canti]], forthcoming.
*[[Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche]]. [[Buddha-Nature, Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra]], by Arya Maitreya. Edited by Alex Trisoglio. [[Khyentse Foundation]], 2007. 
*[[Obermiller, E.]], tr., [[Uttaratantra or Ratnagotra-vibhāga: The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism: The Work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsaṅga]], [[Acta Orientalia]] 9 (1931): 81-306. Re-printed in [[Prasad, H. S.]], ed. [[The Uttaratantra of Maitreya]], 1991. (Translated from Tibetan)
*[[Holmes, Ken]] and [[Katia Holmes]]. [[Maitreya on Buddha nature : A New Translation of Asaṅga's Mahāyāna Uttara Tantra Śāstra]]. Forres: [[Altea]], 1999. (Translated from Tibetan)
*[[Holmes, Ken]] and [[Katia Holmes]], trans. [[The Changeless Nature]]. Newcastle: [[Karma Kagyu Trust]], 1985. (Translated from Tibetan)
*[[Prasad, H. S.]], ed. [[The Uttaratantra of Maitreya]]. Containing [[E.H. Johnston]]'s Sanskrit text and [[E. Obermiller]]'s English translation. [[Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica]], 79. Delhi: [[Sri Satguru Publications]], 1991. (Translated from Tibetan)
*[[Takasaki, Jikido]]. [[A study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), being a treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha theory of Mahayana Buddhism]]. [[Serie Orientale Roma]] 33. Roma: [[Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente]] (ISMEO), 1966. (Translated from Sanskrit)
*[[Thrangu Rinpoche]]. [[The Uttara Tantra: A Treatise on Buddha Nature]], translated by [[Ken Holmes]] and [[Katia Holmes]], edited by Clark Johnson, Delhi: [[Sri Satguru Publications]], 2001.

=== French Translations ===

*[[Loyon, Etienne]], trans. [[Traité de la Continuité ultime du Grand Véhicule de Maitreya, avec le commentaire de Jamgœun Kongtrul Rimpoché, L'Inéluctable Rugissement du lion]].  With Commentary by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. 2007. Online Source: [http://www.khenpo.fr/rgv.html]

=== German Translations ===

*[[Buddha-Natur Mahayana-Uttaratantra-Shastra = Theg pa chen po rgyud bla maʼi bstan bcos kyi ʼgrel bśad]].  With Commentary by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. Berlin Manjughosha Editions, 2017.
*[[Fuchs, Rosemarie]], [[Tenzin Dordje. Ill.]], [[R. D. Salga, trans.]] [[Buddha-Natur : das Mahayana-Uttaratantra-Shastra Mit Kommentar "Das unerschütterliche Gebrüll des Löwen" / von Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thaye und Erl. von Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche]]. Freiburg [Breisgau]; Eckernförde: Khampa-Ed., 2014.

<references responsive />


== The Texts ==

=== Sutras ===

<div class="row">
{{PageTileQuery|query=[[TextClass::Sutra]]|classes=col-lg-6}}
</div>

=== Commentaries ===

<div class="row">
{{PageTileQuery|query=[[TextClass::Commentary]]|classes=col-lg-6}}
</div>


[[/Old Test Page Content/]]

	</div>
	<div class="col-lg-3 right-side-bar d-none d-lg-block p-0 pb-5 sticky-sidemenu" id="sticky-sidemenu">
		<div class="sticky-sidemenu-inner mb-4 p-0" id="sticky-sidemenu-inner">
			__TOC__
		</div>
	</div>
</div>