On Prakṛtinirvāṇa-Prakṛtinirvṛta in the Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Study in the Indo-Tibetan Commentarial Tradition

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On Prakṛtinirvāṇa/Prakṛtinirvṛta in the Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Study in the Indo-Tibetan Commentarial Tradition
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Influence and Reception of Śāntideva's Works in India and Beyond


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According to Tsong kha pa, writing in his early Legs bshad gser phreng commentary to the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, in general texts speak of four types of nirvāṇa: the prakṛti or 'natural' nirvāṇa, the nonabiding (apratiṣṭhita) nirvāṇa of bodhisattvas and Buddhas, and the nirvāṇas with and without remainders familiar — although not necessarily with the same meaning — from both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna Buddhism. The first of these, the prakṛtinirvāṇa (rang bzhin gyis mya ngan las 'das) is defined by Tsong kha pa as 'the nature of dharmas which is free from extremes of verbal differentiation'.[1] It is clear therefore that for Tsong kha pa the prakṛtinirvāṇa is a type of nirvāṇa although why it should be called this remains to be seen. It is a rang bzhin, a (fundamental) nature, the nature of dharmas. The Tibetan rang bzhin translates prakṛti here, but of course it is more familiar as the Tibetan translation for svabhāva, inherent existence. The equivalence of prakṛti and svabhāva in the expressions prakṛtinirvāṇa and prakṛtinirvṛta is attested from Sanskrit sources. Prajñākaramati, commenting on Bodhicaryāvatāra 9:104cd Tib. 103cd) glosses the verse's prakṛtyā parinirvṛtāḥ with prakṛtyā svabhāvena parinirvṛtāḥ. Interestingly, the Tibetan here uses only one expression, unusually in this context rang gi ngo bo nyid kyis mya ngan las 'das pa. Rang bzhin had been used for prakṛtyā in the verse, so the use of rang gi ngo bo nyid in the commentary preserves some sort of distinction although it lacks the clarity of the Sanskrit. For Prajñākaramati the equivalence of prakṛtyā or svabhāvena parinirvṛta with prakṛtinirvāṇa is attested from his subsequent comment — enormously important from the point of view of Tsong kha pa and the dGe lugs interpretation — that living beings have the nature of liberation 'because of the continued existence in the continuums of all sentient beings of the prakṛtinirvāṇa which is defined as absence of inherent existence'. This time the Tibetan for prakṛtinirvāṇa is the usual rang bzhin gyis mya ngan las 'das pa.[2] Much earlier the Samādhirājasūtra had spoken of all dharmas by nature (svabhāvena) conforming to an identity with nirvāṇa, 'in all dharmas nirvāṇa is set forth'.[3] The idea that all dharmas are by nature 'nirvanated' is of course familiar from the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras and works in the same genre. It is clear that for Tsong kha pa, presumably following Prajñākaramati, the prakṛtinirvāṇa is another name for emptiness found in all dharmas without exception but particularly with reference to the mental continuum of sentient beings. It is the nirvāṇa which is the rang bzhin of dharmas. For a Tibetan there immediately resonates two references here. The prakṛtinirvāṇa as an unchanging nature within the continuum of sentient beings, a nirvāṇa, carries with it a flavour of the tathāgatagarbha theory found in the Ratnagotravibhāga. The prakṛtinirvāṇa as a nature, a rang bzhin, in dharmas indicates Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatārabhāsya on 6:181-2 in which Candrakīrti talks about the true nature of things, the dharmatā which is the same whether Buddhas occur or not, the true rang bzhin, svabhāva, of entities which is their emptiness of any svabhāva.[4] In dGe lugs thought these two frames of reference come very firmly together. The prakṛtinirvāṇa is emptiness, which applies to all dharmas. In the mental continuum of sentient beings this emptiness is called the tathāgatagarbha, and with it goes other terms perhaps originally not thought of in this vein in the Madhyamaka context of the Bodhicaryāvatāra such as 'purified by nature' (prakṛtiparisuddha) and 'radiant by nature' (prakṛtiprabhāsvara).[5] In Tibetan almost invariably the standard word for nirvāṇa — mya ngan las 'das, the transcendence of sorrow — is used for prakṛtinirvāṇa and prakṛtinirvṛta. If all dharmas are fundamentally or by nature nirvṛta, in Tibetan they have by nature transcended sorrow. There is a psychological and soteriological aspect implicit in the language used which draws together the two dimensions of emptiness and tathāgatagarbha in a much stronger way than is necessarily the case with the Sanskrit. In spite of the apparent identity of prakṛtinirvṛta and prakṛtinirvāṇa for Prajñākaramati, it is the former term which is used more often than not in Sanskrit texts, with its implications of 'by nature, fundamentally, from the point of view of inherent existence, extinguished', that is, empty. As the sūtras say, this is the nature of things whether there are Buddhas or not. It does not necessarily carry with it the direct psychological and soteriological overtones of 'nirvana' . And if we look at the use of these notions in the commentaries to the Bodhicaryāvatāra it is striking that there is no employment of what might be called 'tathägatagarbha concepts' in Indian commentaries on the relevant verses. These are, however, abundant in Tibetan commentaries, where the notion of the prakṛtinirvāṇa/ prakṛtinirvṛta — and thus also the Bodhicaryāvatāra — become absorbed into the nexus of tathāgatagarbha thought.
      The concepts of prakṛtinirvāṇa and prakṛtinirvṛta, and their relationships to the tathāgatagarbha, have been dealt with in his usual thorough and lucid way by David Seyfort Ruegg in his monumental La Théorie au Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra. Ruegg has noted some of the relevant verses from the Bodhicaryāvatāra, together with Prajñākaramati's commentary. In addition he has particularly devoted some space to a discussion of the prakṛtinirvāṇa and the prakṛtiprabhāsvara nature of citta found in the work of the eighteenth-nineteenth century Tibetan lama Gung thang 'Jam pa'i dbyangs. In common with late dGe lugs writings, Gung thang lama's work is a culmination of much that had gone before and is replete with subtle definitions and distinctions. As I have pointed out elsewhere, however, the contemporary study of Tibetan Madhyamaka is rather like shining a narrow beam at various points in a dark attic.[6] We cannot see the whole picture, we do not yet know much about relationships and rivalries involved, the development of ideas, alternative interpretations of the same text and how these relate to their Indian precedents. In spite of the pioneering work by scholars like David Seyfort Ruegg, we cannot yet write a history of Tibetan Madhyamaka. Ruegg has approached the issue of the prakṛtinirvāṇa in Tibet largely through reference to dGe lugs materials. By way of a footnote to his study I would like to take just four verses of the Bodhicaryāvatāra which their commentators deem to be particularly relevant to our issue, and see what of interest for understanding the development of Madhyamaka can be derived from looking at a wider range of Indo-Tibetan commentaries.

Notes
  1. Lhasa edition of the Legs bshad gser phreng reproduced in the microfiche edition of the Yab sras gsung 'bum by The Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, New York, vol. 44, Tsa, folio 35b: spyir myang 'das bzhir gsung rab las 'byung ste / rang bzhin dang mi gnas pa dang / lhag bcas dang lhag med kyi myang 'das so // de la dang po ni/ chos rnams kyi rang bzhin spros pa mtha' dag dang bral pa'o // gnyis pa ni / sangs rgyas dang byang sems kyi myang' das so // tham gnyis la gnyis las / theg dman gyi dbang du byas pa ni / This passage has been noted by David Seyfort Ruegg in his La Théorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra, Paris: Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1969, p. 450. On the translation of spros pa (prapañca) as 'verbal differentiation' see my 'Some aspects of language and construction in the Madhyamaka', Journal of Indian Philosophy 8 (1980), pp. 1-45, esp. pp. 30-4.
  2. See the Vaidya edition of the Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā, Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960:

    tan na kiṃcid ataḥ sattvāḥ prakṛtyā parinirvṛtāḥ//104//
    ataḥ asmāt karaṇāt sattvāḥ prāninaḥ prakṛtyā svabhāvena parinirvṛtāḥ
    parimuktasvabhāvāḥ / niḥsvabhāvatālakṣanasya prakṛtinirvāṇasya
    sarvasattvasaṃtāneṣu sadā vidyamānatvāt /
    =Tib.: de ni cung zad min de'i phyir /
    sems can rang bzhin mya ngan 'das //103//
    de'i phyir zhes te / rgyu des na sems dang srog mams rang gi ngo bo nyid kyis mya
    ngan las 'das pa yin la / yongs su grol ba'i rang bzhin yin zhing / rang bzhin med
    pa'i mtshan nyid rang bzhin gyis mya ngan la 'das pa /sems can thams cad kyi rgyud
    la rtag tu yod pa'i phyir ro /

    The Tibetan is cited from the Cone microfiche edition produced by The Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, New York, mDo vol. 26, folio 253b. Unless noted otherwise, all bsTan 'gyur texts will be taken from this edition. Verses from the Bodhicaryāvatāra, however, are from the version published with the commentary by the twelfth century Tibetan rGyal sras dNgul chu Thogs med: Byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la jug pa'i rTsa ba dang 'grel pa Legs par bshad pa'i rgya mtsho, Sarnath: Sakya Students' Union, 1982.
  3. Vaidya edition, Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, Ch. 24, verse 4 cd: evaṃ sūnyeṣu dharmeṣu nirvāṇaṃ saṃprakāśitam // See also verse 6ab: sarvadharmāḥ svabhāvena nirvāṇasamasadṛśāḥ /
  4. For a discussion of these issues in the context of Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya 6:181-2 see Paul M. Williams, 'Silence and truth — some aspects of the Madhyamaka philosophy in Tibet', The Tibet Journal, VII; 1/2, 1982, pp. 67-80.
  5. For a short recent discussion of Tibetan views on the tathāgatagarbha, particularly from a dGe lugs point of view (the position of rGyal tshab rje), see Doboom Tulku, 'Tathāgatagarbha', Dreloma No. 14, July 1985, pp. 24-8. Doboom Tulku also has studied works by Mi pham, Kong sprul and Shākya mchog ldan. He suggests that Rgyal tshab rje does not want to maintain that the emptiness of the mental continuum alone is the tathāgatagarbha. Rather this term can also apply to various potencies within the mind.
  6. See Paul Williams, 'Introduction — some random reflections on the study of Tibetan Madhyamaka', The Tibet Journal, vol. XIV;1, Spring 1989, pp. 1-9.
Citation
Williams, Paul. "On Prakṛtinirvāṇa/Prakṛtinirvṛta in the Bodhicaryāvatāra: A Study in the Indo-Tibetan Commentarial Tradition." Asiatische Studien 46, no. 1 (1992): 516–50. https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=ast-002%3A1992%3A46%3A%3A798.
Interconnections
Works related to this item
1 Scholarship on
Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.
Classical WorksAbout this item
An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.



Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of the Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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Svabhāva - The nature or essence of a thing, which originates only from itself and is not dependent on any external entities, causes, or conditions. Skt स्वभाव  Tib རང་བཞིན་  Ch 自性  

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Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.

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Ngo bo - Essence or the most basic, fundamental nature or natural state of being. It is often used as a synonym for rang bzhin. Skt भाव  Tib ངོ་བོ་  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空;空門  

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Tathāgatagarbha - Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." Skt तथागतगर्भ  Tib དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་  Ch 如来藏  

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Dharmatā - The true nature of phenomenal existence. Skt धर्मता  Tib ཆོས་ཉིད་  Ch 法性  

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Madhyamaka - Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Skt मध्यमक  Tib དབུ་མ་  Ch 中觀見  

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Sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt सूत्र  Tib མདོ།  Ch 佛经  

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Tathāgatagarbha - Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." Skt तथागतगर्भ  Tib དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་  Ch 如来藏  

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Gotra - Disposition, lineage, or class; an individual's gotra determines the type of enlightenment one is destined to attain. Skt गोत्र  Tib རིགས་  Ch 鍾姓,種性  

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Prajñākaramati (ཤེས་རབ་འབྱུང་གནས་བློ་གྲོས་). Bodhicaryāvatārapañjikā [बोधिचर्यावतारपञ्जिका]. byang chub kyi spyod pa la 'jug pa'i dka' 'grel [བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་དཀའ་འགྲེལ།]. [A Commentary on the Difficult Points of (Śāntideva’s) "Entering into the Deeds of a Bodhisattva" (84000)]. Translated by Gnyan lo tsA ba, Sumatikīrti, Mar pa do pa chos kyi dbang phyug. Tengyur, RKTST 3217 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3217&typ=2.

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Sakya - The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre. Tib ས་སྐྱ་  

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Candrakīrti. madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya [मध्यमकावतारभाष्य]. dbu ma la 'jug pa'i bshad pa [དབུ་མ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་བཤད་པ]. [An Explanation of "Entering into the Middle Way" (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3207 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3207&typ=2.

Go to the page with the definition of 'Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན།;ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན།;ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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Ātman - Though it can simply be used as the expression "I" or "me", in Indian thought the notion of self refers to a permanent, unchanging entity, such as that which passes from life to life in the case of people, or the innate essence (svabhāva) of phenomena. Skt आत्मन्  Tib བདག་  Ch 我;灵魂  

Go to the page with the definition of 'བདག་'
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