Verse I.21

From Buddha-Nature
Ratnagotravibhāga Root Verse I.21

Verse I.21 Variations

जगच्छरणमेकत्र बुद्धत्वं पारमार्थिकम्
मुनेर्धर्मशरीरत्वात् तन्निष्ठत्वाद्‍गणस्य च
jagaccharaṇamekatra buddhatvaṃ pāramārthikam
munerdharmaśarīratvāt tanniṣṭhatvādgaṇasya ca
E. H. Johnston as input by the University of the West.[1]
།དམ་པའི་དོན་དུ་འགྲོ་བ་ཡི།
།སྐྱབས་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་ཉག་གཅིག་ཡིན།
།ཐུབ་པ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྐུ་ཅན་ཕྱིར།
།ཚོགས་ཀྱང་དེ་ཡི་མཐར་ཐུག་ཕྱིར།
Ultimately, however, the single refuge
Of the world is buddhahood
Because the sage possesses the body of the dharma
And because it is the consummation of the assembly.
Au sens le plus sacré, les êtres
N’ont qu’un seul refuge : le Bouddha,
Car le Sage a pour corps le Dharma
Et qu’il est le but ultime de la Communauté.

RGVV Commentary on Verse I.21

Other English translations

Listed by date of publication
Obermiller (1931) [3]
In the absolute sense, the refuge
Of all living beings is only the Buddha.
Indeed, the Lord is possessed of the Cosmical Body,
And the multitudes of Saints, too, have their issue in the latter.
Takasaki (1966) [4]
From the ultimate standpoint,
Buddhahood is the sole Refuge of the world,
Because the Sage has the body of the Doctrine,
And because in that the Community sets the ultimate goal.
Holmes (1985) [5]
Ultimately, only the buddha constitutes a refuge for beings
because that great victor is the embodiment of dharma
which is the ultimate attainment of the sangha.
Holmes (1999) [6]
Ultimately, only buddha constitutes a refuge for beings,
because the great victor is the embodiment of dharma,
which is the ultimate attainment of the saṃgha.
Fuchs (2000) [7]
In a true sense only the Buddha is beings' refuge,
since the Great Sage embodies the dharmakaya,
and the Assembly also reaches its ultimate goal
when these [qualities of dharmakaya are attained].

Textual sources

Commentaries on this verse

Academic notes

  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. Obermiller, E. "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism." Acta Orientalia IX (1931), pp. 81-306.
  4. 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.
  5. Holmes, Ken & Katia. The Changeless Nature. Eskdalemuir, Scotland: Karma Drubgyud Darjay Ling, 1985.
  6. Holmes, Ken & Katia. Maitreya on Buddha Nature. Scotland: Altea Publishing, 1999.
  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.