Verse I.68

From Buddha-Nature

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Ratnagotravibhāga Root Verse I.68

Verse I.68 Variations

जन्ममृत्युजराव्याधीन् दर्शयन्ति कृपात्मकाः
जात्यादिवि निवृत्ताश्च यथाभूतस्य दर्शनात्
janmamṛtyujarāvyādhīn darśayanti kṛpātmakāḥ
jātyādivi nivṛttāśca yathābhūtasya darśanāt
E. H. Johnston as input by the University of the West.[1]
ཇི་བཞིན་ཡང་དག་མཐོང་བའི་ཕྱིར། །
སྐྱེ་སོགས་རྣམས་ལས་འདས་གྱུར་ཀྱང་། །
སྙིང་རྗེའི་བདག་ཉིད་སྐྱེ་བ་དང་། །
འཆི་དང་རྒ་དང་ན་བར་སྟོན། །
Due to their character of compassion,
They display birth, death, aging, and sickness,
[But] they are beyond birth and so on
Because they see [the basic element] as it really is.
而依慈悲力故示現生老病死而遠離生等以見如實故
(This verse is not marked as such in the Chinese translation.)
Comme ils voient tel quel et correctement,
Ils dépassent la naissance et ses suites,
Mais comme ils incarnent la compassion,
Ils se montrent naissants, malades, vieux et morts.

RGVV Commentary on Verse I.68

Other English translations[edit]

Obermiller (1931) [29]
As he has perceived the Absolute Truth,
He is delivered from birth and the other (stages of Phenomenal Life);
But being full of Great Commiseration,
He appears as (being subjected to) birth, death, decrepitude, and illness.
Takasaki (1966) [30]
They, being full of mercy, make appearance
Of birth, death, decrepitude and illness,
Though they have got rid of birth, etc.
Because of their perception of the truth.
Fuchs (2000) [31]
Since they have seen reality as it is,
they are beyond being born and so on.
Yet, as the embodiment of compassion itself
they display birth, illness, old age, and death.

Textual sources[edit]

Commentaries on this verse[edit]

Academic notes[edit]

  1. Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Unicode Input
  2. Brunnhölzl, Karl. 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.
  3. I follow MA °saṃyojanā hi bodhisattvāḥ (supported by DP bhang chub sems dpa’ rnams ni . . . kun tu sbyor ba can) against J saṃyojanād dhi bodhisattvāḥ.
  4. VT (fol. 13r3) glosses aparikhedaḥ as "unimpeded"with regard to maturing sentient beings.
  5. I follow MA kuśalamūlabalādhānena and MB kuśalamūlabalādhādhānena (dittography of –dhā) against J kuśalamūlabalānvādhānena.
  6. DP "merchant or householder" (tshong dpon nam khyim bdag).
  7. MB reads matṛjñātayaḥ, which accords with DP and the Chinese translations of this sūtra, while the Tibetan translation has *mātṛmitrajñāyataḥ. MA mātāpitṛjñātayaḥ accords with C and is also found in VT (fol. 13r3), but the latter unravels this compound to mean "the relatives of father and mother (mātāpitṛṇāṃ jñātayaḥ)." The translation follows Schmithausen, who prefers the reading of MA since mātāpitṛ can also mean "family." As such, it does not have to include the father, who only appears later on the scene.
  8. I follow Schmithausen’s suggestion °adhyālamba° (supported by DP ’don pa) against °adhyāśaya°.
  9. I follow MA kaḥ punar artho draṣṭavyaḥ (supported by DP don gang yin par lta zhe na) against J kaḥ prabhando draṣṭavyaḥ and MB purartho.
  10. I follow MA/MB hanyate (DP gnod) against J lipyate.
  11. D152, fols. 85b.5–86b.4.
  12. Compare the detailed discussion of bodhisattvas on the bhūmis deliberately retaining subtle portions of the afflictions in order to be able to take rebirth in saṃsāra for the welfare of sentient beings, while not being affected by these afflictions or saṃsāra, in the Eighth Karmapa’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (Brunnhölzl 2010, 549–59, 589–90, and 596 and Brunnhölzl 2011b, 135–36).
  13. gainst yadā in MB and J, but with Schmithausen, I follow MA yathā (P ji lta bar [text: ba’i]) as the correlate of tathā in the text below.
  14. DP omit "created" in the preceding sentence and "Being thus created," but the Sanskrit quote accords with D152.
  15. DP gzhan du mi ’gyur ba’i chos.
  16. DP khong khro.
  17. DP khro bar mi gyur.
  18. D152, fol. 85a.2–85b.5.
  19. D45.48, fol. 271b.2–3.
  20. DP omit "minds" (sems).
  21. I follow Schmithausen’s emendation of J āsravakṣayābhijñābhimukhy° (MB °ābhimukhyām) to āsravakṣayābhijñābhimukhyād.
  22. This is the sixth and most supreme of the six supernatural knowledges, which only a buddha possesses. Here, bodhisattvas on the sixth bhūmi are said to be very close to this knowledge.
  23. DP "man" (mi; Skt. nara instead of nagara)
  24. This example in the Ratnacūḍaparipṛcchāsūtra (D45.47, fols. 241b.7–242.a5) describes a huge city free from suffering and with many pleasures, which can be reached by several dangerous roads. A man with a single son hears of it, leaves his child behind, and traverses all these dangerous paths. However, when he sets one foot on the thresh- old of the gate of this city, while his other foot is still outside, he remembers his son. Overwhelmed by his fatherly love for him and the worry about his well-being, the man does not enter the city, but returns to fetch his son in order to provide its pleasures for him too. What follows in our text here is the explanation of the meaning of this example. VT also mentions this example here and says that the father stands for bodhisattvas, while his only son exemplifies all sentient beings.
  25. Ibid., fol. 242a.5–7. The passage in "[ ]" is from this sūtra (de snying rje chen po’i sems skyes nas sems can thams cad yongs su bskyab pa’i phyir zag pa zad pa’i ye shes ’dris par byas pa las sems can rnams la lta bas phyir phyogs te / slar log nas so so’i skye bo’i sa na yang kun du snang ngo /). It seems that both the Sanskrit and DP are missing something here since the first part of this paragraph up through "in order to protect all sentient beings" is clearly an (unfinished) quotation, while the remainder is a further explanation of this quotation.
  26. DP "unattached" (chags pa med pa) instead of "unobstructed" (thogs pa med pa).
  27. As it stands, the text’s sentence sa mahākaruṇācittotpādena sarvasattvaparitrāṇāyāsravakṣayajñāne parijayaṃ kṛtvā punar api suparikarmakṛtacetāḥ ṣaṣṭhyām asaṅgaprajñotpādād āsravakṣaye ’bhimukhī bhavati includes the above phrase, "by virtue of having generated the mind-set of great compassion, in order to protect all sentient beings . . ." Thus, this sentence reads as something like: "Having trained in the wisdom of the termination of contaminations by virtue of having generated the mind-set of great compassion, in order to protect all sentient beings, once again, by virtue of giving rise to unobstructed prajñā through their excellently purified mind, they come to face [the wisdom of] the termination of contaminations on the sixth [bhūmi]." However, given the above example and its explanation in the sūtra as well as the text’s own explanations immediately above and below it, it appears to be unsuitable to connect "by virtue of having generated the mind-set of great compassion, in order to protect all sentient beings"with the cultivation of the wisdom of the termination of contaminations. Rather, it is to be connected with the fact that bodhisattvas do not enter this wisdom fully, but return to saṃsāra in order to help sentient beings.
  28. With de Jong, I follow DP may ngan las ’das pa la mngon du phyogs pa (nirvāṇābhimukhasya) against J nirvāṇavimukhasya.
  29. Obermiller, E. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism." Acta Orientalia IX (1931), pp. 81-306.
  30. Takasaki, Jikido. A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra): Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Serie Orientale Roma 33. Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (ISMEO), 1966.
  31. Fuchs, Rosemarie, trans. Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra. Commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul and explanations by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso. Ithaca, N. Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 2000.