Verse I.145

Ratnagotravibhāga Root Verse I.145

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Verse I.145 Variations

धर्मकायो द्विधा ज्ञेयो धर्मधातुः सुनिर्मलः
तन्निष्यन्दश्च गाम्भीर्यवैचित्र्यनयदेशना

dharmakāyo dvidhā jñeyo dharmadhātuḥ sunirmalaḥ
tanniṣyandaśca gāmbhīryavaicitryanayadeśanā

E. H. Johnston as input by the University of the West.^[1]

ཆོས་སྐུ་རྣམ་གཉིས་ཤེས་བྱ་སྟེ། །
ཆོས་དབྱིངས་ཤིན་ཏུ་དྲི་མེད་དང་། །
དེ་ཡི་རྒྱུ་མཐུན་ཟབ་པ་དང་། །
སྣ་ཚོགས་ཚུལ་ནི་སྟོན་པའོ། །

Dege, PHI, 121-122

The dharmakāya is to be known as twofold—
The utterly stainless dharmadhātu
And its natural outflow (teaching
The principles of profundity and diversity).

When the Clouds Part, Brunnhölzl, 404 ^[2]

身有二種清淨真法界
及依彼習氣以深淺義說

http://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/en/T31n1611_p0838b13

Le corps du Dharma présente deux aspects

La très pure dimension absolue

Et son analogue, les enseignements

Du mode profond et du mode détaillé.

Charrier, Christian and Patrick Carré. Traité de la Continuité suprême du Grand Véhicule. Plazac: Éditions Padmakara, 2019.

RGVV Commentary on Verse I.145

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Other English translations[edit]

Obermiller (1931) ^[5]

The Cosmical Body is to be known in 2 aspects:—

It is the Absolute perfectly immaculate,

And its natural outflow, the Word

Which speaks of the profound (Highest Truth)

And (of the elements of the Empirical World) in their variety.

Takasaki (1966) ^[6]

The Absolute Body is to be known in 2 aspects,

[One] is the Absolute Entity which is perfectly immaculate,

[The other] is its natural outflow, the teaching

Of the profound [truth] and of the diverse guidance.

Fuchs (2000) ^[7]

The dharmakaya is to be known [in] two aspects.

These are the utterly unstained dharmadhatu

and the cause conducive to its [realization],

which is teaching in the deep and manifold way.

Textual sources[edit]

Commentaries on this verse[edit]

Academic notes[edit]

Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Unicode Input
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.
This means that the Buddha’s words or scriptures are not regarded as outer matter, but as nothing but mental appearances, that is, the aspects of a being’s mind that appear—under the influence of a buddha’s dharmakāya—as the objects of the subjective cognitive aspect of that mind. This notion is commonly found in Yogācāra texts and, in particular, many commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra. For example, Sthiramati’s Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā (Pandeya ed., 1999, 4.7–10; D4032, fol. 190a.4–5) explains the nature of a treatise (Skt. śāstra) as follows: "A treatise consists of the cognizances that appear as the collections of names, words, and letters. Or a treatise consists of the cognizances that appear as the special sounds (or terms) that cause one to attain supramundane wisdom. How do cognizances guide one or express [something]? The cognizances of the listener arise due to the cognizance of the guide and explainer" (for variant readings of this passage in D4032 and Pandeya 1999, see note 1875). Haribhadra’s Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā (Wogihara ed., 7) states about the scriptural prajñāpāramitā, "This teaching [of prajñāpāramitā], on the level of the seeming, has the character of cognition’s appearing as words and letters."Compare also the Eighth Karmapa’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (Brunnhölzl 2010, 23 and 33), which defines the dharma wheel of scriptures as "the cognizance of a disciple that appears either in the form of a buddha’s speech, whose main topics are either the causes, the results, or the nature of nirvāṇa, or, the cognizance that appears as the collections of names, words, and letters that serve as the support for such speech" and the scriptural prajñāpāramitā as "the cognizance that appears as assemblies of names, words, and letters, and is suitable to be observed in the disciples’ consciousnesses that entail dualistic appearances."
These are the first six of the twelve types of the sūtrayāna teachings of the Buddha ("the twelve branches of the Buddha’s speech"), the remaining six being legends, narratives, reports on the Buddha’s former lives, extensive discourses, discourses on marvelous qualities, and ascertaining discourses.
Obermiller, E. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism." Acta Orientalia IX (1931), pp. 81-306.
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.
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.

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[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] This means that the Buddha’s words or scriptures are not regarded as outer matter, but as nothing but mental appearances, that is, the aspects of a being’s mind that appear—under the influence of a buddha’s dharmakāya—as the objects of the subjective cognitive aspect of that mind. This notion is commonly found in Yogācāra texts and, in particular, many commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra. For example, Sthiramati’s Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā (Pandeya ed., 1999, 4.7–10; D4032, fol. 190a.4–5) explains the nature of a treatise (Skt. śāstra) as follows: "A treatise consists of the cognizances that appear as the collections of names, words, and letters. Or a treatise consists of the cognizances that appear as the special sounds (or terms) that cause one to attain supramundane wisdom. How do cognizances guide one or express [something]? The cognizances of the listener arise due to the cognizance of the guide and explainer" (for variant readings of this passage in D4032 and Pandeya 1999, see note 1875). Haribhadra’s Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā (Wogihara ed., 7) states about the scriptural prajñāpāramitā, "This teaching [of prajñāpāramitā], on the level of the seeming, has the character of cognition’s appearing as words and letters."Compare also the Eighth Karmapa’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (Brunnhölzl 2010, 23 and 33), which defines the dharma wheel of scriptures as "the cognizance of a disciple that appears either in the form of a buddha’s speech, whose main topics are either the causes, the results, or the nature of nirvāṇa, or, the cognizance that appears as the collections of names, words, and letters that serve as the support for such speech" and the scriptural prajñāpāramitā as "the cognizance that appears as assemblies of names, words, and letters, and is suitable to be observed in the disciples’ consciousnesses that entail dualistic appearances."

[4] These are the first six of the twelve types of the sūtrayāna teachings of the Buddha ("the twelve branches of the Buddha’s speech"), the remaining six being legends, narratives, reports on the Buddha’s former lives, extensive discourses, discourses on marvelous qualities, and ascertaining discourses.

[5] Obermiller, E. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism." Acta Orientalia IX (1931), pp. 81-306.

[6] 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.

[7] 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.

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