Texts/Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra/Root Verses

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  ·  001 T1,611

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Root Verses

The root verses presented here have been parsed from the Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos), which according to the Tibetan tradition is attributed to Maitreya. Tibetan texts, even when written in verse, are generally not styled in any particular format; this page was created for ease of reference to allow readers to quickly navigate between verses. The prose commentary that accompanies these verses has also been extracted so that it may be read alongside the associated verses. This commentary, attributed by Tibetans to Asaṅga, is known in the contemporary scholarship that follows the Tibetan tradition as the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā (Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos rnam par bshad pa). Only in the Tibetan tradition were the verses extracted from this complete text to create a separate work, and thus this title is not attested in either India or East Asia.

This page also allows the reader to view the verses and commentary in a variety of languages, namely Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, English, and French. We have undertaken this concordance with the understanding that none of these texts are the same; ours is at best an approximation. This is because both the Tibetan and the Chinese versions are not translations of the surviving Sanskrit text, which was discovered in a Tibetan monastery in the 1930s. At best the three versions can be said to share a common ancestor. The English translation we have used is based on both the Tibetan and the Sanskrit.

As for the sources of the various languages presented, the English is taken from Karl Brunnhölzl's translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga published in his book When the Clouds Part and the French is from Christian Charrier and Patrick Carré's 2019 translation, Traité de la Continuité suprême du Grand Véhicule. However, on the individual verse pages we have also presented a selection of alternative translations as well. The Tibetan is taken from the Derge edition of the Tengyur (sde dge bstan 'gyur), with the verses extracted from Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos and the commentary extracted from the Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos rnam par bshad pa. The digitized input of these were drawn from the input provided on the Adarsha website. As for the Sanskrit, both the verses and the commentary were taken from E. H. Johnston's 1950 publication of the Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, with the digitized text extracted from the input created by the University of the West as part of the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Project. And, finally, the Chinese verses have been extracted from the website of the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association. Furthermore, readers can find links to these various sources on the individual verse pages, as well.

In terms of the numbering of the verses and their order, we have followed Brunnhölzl's presentation in When the Clouds Part. The order appears to be fairly standard, except for one instance in which verses I.27 and I.28 are reversed in the Tibetan edition found in the Derge Tengyur. However, in terms of the numbering, there are a couple of instances in which verses appear to have been added to the Tibetan redactions. In these cases, such as the two verses appearing between verses I.83 and I.84, these presumed additions have been numbered as I.83.1 and I.83.2 in order to maintain the numbering schema of the core verses. There are many complex issues with the Chinese text where it does not match as closely to the other versions and we hope to get expert input on updating the information here for Chinese readers.

The Title - Translated into English by Karl Brunnhölzl

Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra—An Analysis of the Jewel Disposition, A Treatise on the Ultimate Continuum of the Mahāyāna

Oṃ namaḥ Śrī Vajrasattvāya—Oṃ I pay homage to Glorious Vajrasattva

Chapter I

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

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

Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt. महायान Tib. ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ། Ch. 大乘

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

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

Tsen Tradition - Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the Uttaratantra; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana. Tib. བཙན་ལུགས་

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

tantra - Tantra, when juxtaposed with Sūtra, generally refers to the scriptures and texts which discuss esoteric topics. While the term is used to refer to texts on other topics, it is mostly used to refer to the genre of scriptures and texts on themes and topics associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism. Skt. तन्त्र Tib. རྒྱུད། Ch. 密宗

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

Mahāyānottaratantraśāstravyākhyā - This is the title of Asaṅga's commentary to the Gyü Lama that is given by Tibetan sources instead of the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā. Skt. महायानोत्तरतन्त्रशास्त्रव्याख्या Tib. ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་རྣམ་པར་བཤད་པ།

According to the Tibetan tradition this is Asaṅga's commentary to the Uttaratantra.

RGVV - Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā