Texts/Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra

रत्नगोत्रविभाग महायानोत्तरतन्त्रशास्त्र

Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra

ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས།

theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos

究竟一乘寶性論

jiu jing yi cheng bao xing lun

Traité de la Continuité suprême du Grand Véhicule

D4024   ·  T1611

SOURCE TEXT

The Ratnagotravibhāga, commonly known as the Uttaratantra, or Gyu Lama in Tibetan, is one of the main Indian scriptural sources for buddha-nature theory. It was likely composed during the fifth century, by whom we do not know. Comprised of verses interspersed with prose commentary, it systematizes the buddha-nature teachings that were circulating in multiple sūtras such as the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, and the Śrīmaladevisūtra. The Tibetan tradition attributes the verses to the Bodhisattva Maitreya and the commentary to Asaṅga, and treats the two as separate texts, although this division is not attested to in surviving Indian versions. The Chinese tradition attributes the text to *Sāramati (娑囉末底), but the translation itself does not include the name of the author, and the matter remains unsettled. It was translated into Chinese in the early sixth century by Ratnamati and first translated into Tibetan by Atiśa, although this text is not known to survive. Ngok Loden Sherab translated it a second time based on teachings from the Kashmiri Pandita Sajjana, and theirs remains the standard translation. It has been translated into English several times, and recently into French. See the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā, read more about the Ratnagotravibhāga, or take a look at the most complete English translation in When the Clouds Part by Karl Brunnholzl.

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Relevance to Buddha-nature

This text by Maitreya/Asanga is the main source of buddha-nature teachings in India and Tibet.

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Adarsha
Thesaurus Literaturae Buddhicae
Buddhist Digital Resource Center
The AIBS Buddhist Canons Research Database
Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages
Asian Classics Input Project
Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association
SAT Daizōkyō Text Database
Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon

Philosophical positions of this text

Other Titles	~ rgyud bla ma ~ Uttaratantra ~ Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra ~ Ratnagotravibhāga ~ theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos dkon mchog gi rigs rnam par dbye ba
Text exists in	~ Sanskrit ~ Tibetan ~ Chinese
Canonical Genre	~ Tengyur · Sūtra · sems tsam · Cittamātra
Literary Genre	~ Tengyur

These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

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These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

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These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

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Uttaratantra - The Ultimate Continuum, or Gyü Lama, is often used as a short title in the Tibetan tradition for the key source text of buddha-nature teachings called the Ratnagotravibhāga of Maitreya/Asaṅga, also known as the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra. Skt. उत्तरतन्त्र Tib. རྒྱུད་བླ་མ་ Ch. 寶性論

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These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

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An important sūtra source for the Ratnagotravibhāga, particularly for its discussion of the nine examples that illustrate how all sentient beings possess buddha-nature.

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"This sūtra became an important scriptural source for the discussion of buddha-nature in China and is famous for associating the term buddhadhātu with tathāgatagarbha.

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt. बोधिसत्त्व Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ། Ch. 菩薩

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sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经

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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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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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