Continuum vs. Teachings

Continuum vs. Teaching: Translating the term tantra (rgyud) in the title Uttaratantra

When it comes to translating the title of the text Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, often referred to simply as the Uttaratantra or rgyud bla ma in Tibetan, there is a clear discrepancy between those that render the term tantra (rgyud) as a 'teaching' or 'text' and those that translate it as 'continuum'. These two camps tend be divided based on the primary source language from which they approach the task of translation, with Sanskritists gravitating toward the former and those following the Tibetan tradition, by and large, consigned to the latter. And while, as readers, we too may find one of these choices more acceptable than the other, it is nevertheless useful to try and understand the reasons behind the choices that translators are inevitably forced to make when bringing a text into a new target language. In this particular case, it seems that the translators' fidelity to their source material lies at the heart of these choices.

On the Sanskrit side, there is somewhat less ambiguity surrounding the word tantra as it only appears eight times in the text. Seven of those usages are mentioned in the context of either the actual title at the start of the text or in the repetition of that title which occurs at the conclusion of each of the five chapters of the text, as well as in the colophon. Unfortunately, these mentions don't give us much to go on in terms of context, as the term is somewhat out of place in a sūtra-based Mahāyāna treatise that most likely predates the rise of Buddhist Tantric literature.

However, it is in the sole other appearance of the term in verse I.160 that we get a gloss of the meaning of the title. To paraphrase the context in which this appears in the text, this occurs in a discussion of the difference between how the emptiness, or lack of existence, of phenomena was explained earlier as resembling clouds, dreams, and illusions, but again in this later tantra the existence of the basic element (i.e. buddha-nature) was explained for the sake of eliminating five flaws. This is generally taken to be a reference to the second and third turnings of the dharmacakra with the second emphasizing non-existence due to emptiness and the third presenting the basic-element as actually existing. Though, it is perhaps the usage of uttara that gives us the greatest clue in this regard, as it is used in opposition to pūrva giving these two terms the meaning of earlier (pūrva) and last (uttara) or former and latter, and thus tantra in this instance clearly seems to reference a type of teaching, doctrine, or exposition that was the latest to occur.

Therefore, in this vein, the subtitle of the text, Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, might be translated as the Treatise on the Uttermost Teaching of the Great Vehicle. As pointed out by Brunnhölzl, this reading seems to be confirmed in Vairocanarakṣita’s Mahāyānottaratantraṭippaṇī by the author's gloss of the phrase tantre punarihottare as uttaragrantha, thus interchanging tantra with grantha a term that means binding, in the sense of how palm leaves were bound together to create books, and thus references literature. And this is certainly how early Sanskritists approached this passage as Obermiller's translation of it as "Highest of Teachings" and Takasaki's "'ultimate' Doctrine", attest. Moreover, both of them took pains to further explain this in their citations on this verse, with Obermiller stating succinctly that "Uttaratantra = the Scripture of the latest period" and Takasaki giving a more detailed clarification of each of the terms involved.

On the Tibetan side, however, the situation is a bit more complicated. First of all, the word rgyud appears some twenty-three times in the full text, including the verses and commentary, though only in the aforementioned eight instances does it translate tantra. The rest of the time it is translating the term saṃtāna or some derivative thereof, which is commonly rendered as 'continuity' or 'continuum' in the sense of the mental continuum and thus we often see this translated as mind-stream by those translating from the Tibetan. With that being the predominant usage of the term rgyud in the body of the text, it is not entirely implausible that one could read the above verse as stating that it was taught that buddha-nature exists in the supreme [mental] continuum, rather than that its existence was taught in this later exposition. In that case, we could simply chalk it up to an instance of the Sanskrit referent of the Tibetan term rgyud having been lost in translation. However, this doesn't seem to be the source of the ongoing usage of continuum in the title, which more than likely is derived from the Tibetan commentarial tradition.

Though more thorough research is certainly warranted, upon perusing a few prominent Tibetan commentaries I found that in sections on the explanation of the meaning of the title (mtshan don bshad pa), the term rgyud was repeatedly equated with the term rgyun chags. This term, which is defined in Tibetan as "unlimited or uninterrupted" (mtshams mi 'chad pa'am bar mi 'chad pa), in other words "continuous", seems to be the source of the continuum we find in the titles of the work. In this sense, that which is expressed (brjod bya) by this rgyud is the overarching subject of the text, buddha-nature, which as Kongtrul explains is "because it is continuous throughout the three occasions of the ground, path, and fruition". It seems that this reading of rgyud by Tibetan commentators is fairly widespread across sectarian lines.

On the other hand, bla ma, the Tibetan equivalent of uttara, is apparently much more contentious as it can be glossed as either "highest" (gong na med pa) or "last" (phyi ma). For example, the Sakya scholar Rongtön Sheja Kunrik takes issue with the latter explanation as it is commonly used to associate the text with the third turning of the dharmacakra, while he asserts it to be in accord with the emptiness explicated in the second turning. However, his one time student Gö Lotsāwa, who takes the opposing position in terms of the turnings, represents the three dharmacakra in terms of the continuation of guidance imparted in successive stages to individuals as a reason for the usage of rgyud. In other words, even when paired with "later" or "last" he still sticks with "continuum" as the intended meaning of rgyud. Therefore, it is not surprising at all that those translating from the Tibetan would necessarily follow suit.

This brings us back to the notion of fidelity in translation and what it means in this particular case. While a reading of the text in Sanskrit, aptly referred to in Tibetan as the "well-ordered language" (legs par sbyar ba skad), seems rather straightforward in its usage of uttaratantra, the Tibetan exegesis tells a different story. That is not to say that the Tibetan reading of the term necessarily supersedes the Sanskrit reading, but rather that the translation of rgyud as continuum is actually faithful to the Tibetan commentators. And while one could argue that the Sanskrit is literal and the Tibetan is figurative, both translations are indeed representative of the source material upon which they are based and can equally refer to buddha-nature.