Verse I.6 Variations
शान्तधर्मशरीरत्वादनाभोगमिति स्मृतम्
śāntadharmaśarīratvādanābhogamiti smṛtam
རང་བཞིན་ཡིན་ཕྱིར་འདུས་མ་བྱས། །
ཞི་བ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ཅན་ཕྱིར། །
ལྷུན་གྱིས་གྲུབ་ཅེས་བྱ་བར་བརྗོད། །
Is to be without beginning, middle, and end.
It is declared to be effortless
Because it possesses the peaceful dharma body.
- Comme par nature elle n’a ni commencement,
- Ni milieu, ni fin, elle est incomposée.
- Douée de la paix du corps absolu,
- On la dit spontanée.
RGVV Commentary on Verse I.6
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Obermiller (1931) [19]
- Having by nature no beginning,
- Middle, nor end, (the Buddha) is immutable.
- Being, in his Cosmical Essence, quiescent,
- He is spoken of as acting without effort.
Takasaki (1966) [20]
- As having neither beginning, middle nor end by nature,
- It is immutable;
- Being the body of quiet character,
- It is free from any effort, — thus remembered by tradition
Fuchs (2000) [21]
- Its nature is without beginning, middle, or end;
- hence [the state of a buddha] is uncreated.
- Since it possesses the peaceful dharmakaya,
- it is described as being "spontaneously present."
Textual sources
Commentaries on this verse
Academic notes
- 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.
- śāntadharmaśarīra.
- I follow de Jong’s emendation of ’bhipretotpādaḥ to ’bhipreto notpādaḥ, which is also supported by DP ’dod kyi skye ba ni ma yin no.
- MB avabodhāya against J anubodhāya.
- MB jātyandhabhūtānām against J jātyandhānām.
- I follow MB tadanugamamārga° (DP de rjes su rtogs pa’i lam) and VT (fol. 10v6) °vyapadeśa° against J tadanugāmimārgavyupadeśa.
- VT (fol. 10v5) says that the sword of wisdom cuts through suffering, while the vajra of compassion breaks through the wall (of views and doubts).
- D100, fol. 284b.3 (the insertions in "[ ]"stem from D100).
- This is another name of the god Indra.
- 'Sarvabuddhaviśayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkārasūtra, D100, fol. 280a.2–4. Note that, in the sūtra, this passage precedes the former one.
- Ibid., fol. 280a.4–6.
- J upaśamaprabhedapradeśa (DP nye bar zhi ba’i tshig gi rab tu dbye ba). According to Sarvabuddhaviśayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkārasūtra, D100, the difference between śama and upaśama is that the realization of phenomena’s not really existing results in the mind’s being free from clinging to them.
- J aśuddham avimalaṃ sāṅganam (DP ma dag pa dri ma dang bral ba skyon dang bcas pa). However, the Sarvabuddhaviśayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkārasūtra (D100, fol. 298a.7) has "pure, stainless, and unafflicted" (dag pa dri ma med pa nyon mongs pa med pa), which is confirmed and explained several times with regard to a number of phenomena right before that passage.
- Ibid., fol. 298a.6–7. In D100 this sentence reads, "Here, Mañjuśrī, [in] the Tathāgata, who has completely and perfectly realized all phenomena to be like that and has seen the basic element of sentient beings, great compassion, which is called "playful mastery,"arises for sentient beings because sentient beings are [ultimately] pure, stainless, and undefiled."
- With Takasaki, J abhāvasvabhāvāt is emended to abhāvasvabhāvān.
- See the text below (J29.1ff.) for an explanation of which sentient beings belong to which of these three groups.
- I follow MB °nirviśiṣṭaṃ tathāgatagarbham against J °nirviśiṣṭatathāgatagarbham.
- 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.