Verse I.148

Ratnagotravibhāga Root Verse I.148

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Verse I.148 Variations

प्रकृतेरविकारित्वात् कल्याणत्वाद्विशुद्धितः
हेममण्डलकौपम्यं तथतायामुदाहृतम्

prakṛteravikāritvāt kalyāṇatvādviśuddhitaḥ
hemamaṇḍalakaupamyaṃ tathatāyāmudāhṛtam

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

།རང་བཞིན་འགྱུར་བ་མེད་པ་དང་།
།དགེ་དང་རྣམ་པར་དག་པའི་ཕྱིར།
།དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་འདི་གསེར་གྱི་ནི།
།གཟུགས་དང་མཚུངས་པར་བརྗོད་པ་ཡིན།

Dege, PHI, 122

Because of being changeless by nature,
Because of being excellent, and because of being pure,
Suchness is illustrated
By the analogy of a piece of gold.

When the Clouds Part, Brunnhölzl, 405 ^[2]

En raison de sa nature immuable,

Vertueuse et parfaitement pure, L’ainsité est comparable À une forme en or.

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

RGVV Commentary on Verse I.148

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Other English translations

Obermiller (1931) ^[9]

Being by nature inalterable,

Sublime, and perfectly pure,

This Absolute is spoken of

As having a resemblance with gold.

Takasaki (1966) ^[10]

Being unchangeable, by nature,

Sublime, and perfectly pure,

Reality is illustrated

By the analogy with a piece of gold.

Fuchs (2000) ^[11]

Since the nature is unchanging,

full of virtue, and utterly pure,

suchness is said to correspond

to the shape and color of gold.

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.
As Schmithausen remarks, the akṣaras between vikāra° and ataḥ are for the most part illegible. I follow his suggestion of a possible reading vikāran na bhajate (which would require Tib. bsten instead of DP ston).
As mentioned above, "having arrived at [pure] suchness" or "suchness’ having become pure" (lit. "having arrived at purity") is one of the meanings of "tathāgata" (as a shortened compound of tathatā and āgata).
As for this partly corrupt sentence (sa ca sarveṣām api . . . prakṛtinirviśiṣṭānāṃ sarvāgantukamalaviśuddhim āgatas tathāgata . . .), I follow Schmithausen’s emendation (sā [MB] ca sarveṣām api . . . prakṛtinirviśiṣṭāpi sarvāgantukamalaviśuddhim āgatā tathāgata . . .) based on DP (de yang . . . sems can thams cad la yang rang bzhin khyad par med du zin kyang / . . . rnam par dag pa la [text: las] gyur pa de bzhin gshegs pa . . .), whose structure moreover accords with a part of Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra IX.37 (sarveṣām aviśiṣṭāpi tathatā śuddhim āgatā tathāgatatvam . . .) quoted in the text below.
As already implied here, at the beginning of the second chapter (awakening), it will be explained that the tathāgata heart is an equivalent of suchness with stains, while buddhahood or tathāgatahood is equivalent to suchness without stains.
D100, fol. 297a.5–6. In D100, the first sentence reads: "The Tathāgata knows that the grasping at propounding a self is the root."Right before this, the sūtra speaks of four types of grasping, with the grasping at propounding a self being the most fundamental one.
IX.37. Besides pointing to the changelessness of suchness, the three elements in this verse (suchness without difference, tathāgata, and heart)—can also be seen as paralleling the three elements in Uttaratantra I.28 (suchness, dharmakāya, and disposition).
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.

[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] As Schmithausen remarks, the akṣaras between vikāra° and ataḥ are for the most part illegible. I follow his suggestion of a possible reading vikāran na bhajate (which would require Tib. bsten instead of DP ston).

[4] As mentioned above, "having arrived at [pure] suchness" or "suchness’ having become pure" (lit. "having arrived at purity") is one of the meanings of "tathāgata" (as a shortened compound of tathatā and āgata).

[5] As for this partly corrupt sentence (sa ca sarveṣām api . . . prakṛtinirviśiṣṭānāṃ sarvāgantukamalaviśuddhim āgatas tathāgata . . .), I follow Schmithausen’s emendation (sā [MB] ca sarveṣām api . . . prakṛtinirviśiṣṭāpi sarvāgantukamalaviśuddhim āgatā tathāgata . . .) based on DP (de yang . . . sems can thams cad la yang rang bzhin khyad par med du zin kyang / . . . rnam par dag pa la [text: las] gyur pa de bzhin gshegs pa . . .), whose structure moreover accords with a part of Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra IX.37 (sarveṣām aviśiṣṭāpi tathatā śuddhim āgatā tathāgatatvam . . .) quoted in the text below.

[6] As already implied here, at the beginning of the second chapter (awakening), it will be explained that the tathāgata heart is an equivalent of suchness with stains, while buddhahood or tathāgatahood is equivalent to suchness without stains.

[7] D100, fol. 297a.5–6. In D100, the first sentence reads: "The Tathāgata knows that the grasping at propounding a self is the root."Right before this, the sūtra speaks of four types of grasping, with the grasping at propounding a self being the most fundamental one.

[8] IX.37. Besides pointing to the changelessness of suchness, the three elements in this verse (suchness without difference, tathāgata, and heart)—can also be seen as paralleling the three elements in Uttaratantra I.28 (suchness, dharmakāya, and disposition).

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

[10] 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.

[11] 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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