Madhyamakahṛdayakārikā/Full text
Madhyamakahṛdaya. (T. Dbu ma’i snying po). In Sanskrit, "Essence of the Middle Way"; the major work of the sixth-century Indian Madhyamaka (and, from the Tibetan perspective, Svātantrika) master Bhāvaviveka (also referred to as Bhavya and Bhāviveka). The text is written in verse, accompanied by the author's extensive prose commentary, entitled the Tarkajvālā. The Madhyamakahṛdaya is preserved in both Sanskrit and Tibetan, the Tarkajvālā only in Tibetan. The work is in eleven chapters, the first three and the last two of which set forth the main points in Bhāvaviveka's view of the nature of reality and the Buddhist path, dealing with such topics as bodhicitta, the knowledge of reality (tattvajñāna), and omniscience (sarvajñātā). The intervening chapters set forth the positions (and Bhāvaviveka's refutations) of various Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, including the Śrāvaka, Yogācāra, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika, Vedānta, and Mīmāṃsā. These chapters (along with Śāntarakṣita's Tattvasaṃgraha) are a valuable source of insight into the relations between Madhyamaka and the other Indian philosophical schools of the day. The chapter on the śrāvakas, for example, provides a detailed account of the reasons put forth by the mainstream Buddhist schools as to why the Mahāyāna sūtras are not the word of the Buddha. Bhāvaviveka's response to these charges, as well as his refutation of Yogācāra in the subsequent chapter, are particularly spirited. (Source: "Madhyamakahṛdaya." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 487–88. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
| Reference | Bhāvaviveka (slob dpon chen po b+ha bya). madhyamakahṛdayakārikā [मध्यमकहृदयकारिका]. dbu ma'i snying po'i tshig le'ur byas pa [དབུ་མའི་སྙིང་པོའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ]. [Verses on the Heart of the Middle Way (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3200 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3200&typ=2. |
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| People | Bhāvaviveka, Atiśa, Naktso Lotsāwa Tsultrim Gyalwa |
