Ratnāvalī. (T. Rin chen phreng ba; C. Baoxingwang zheng lun; J. Hōgyō ō shöron; K. Pohaengwang chöng non 寶行王正論). In Sanskrit, "Garland of Jewels," a Sanskrit work by the Madhyamaka philosopher Nāgārjuna. The work consists of five hundred verses arranged in five chapters. While the Ratnāvalī contains many of Nāgārjuna's fundamental philosophical ideas, grounded primarily in the notion of emptiness (śūnyatā), the work is more focused on issues of ethics. The Ratnāvalī is addressed to King Gautamīputra of Āndhra, a friend and patron of Nāgārjuna, and much of the text discusses the proper conduct of the laity, particularly those in administrative positions such as ministers and kings. In particular, the fourth chapter is devoted to an exploration of kingship and the proper management of a kingdom. The work also contains a defense of the Mahāyāna as the word of the Buddha (buddhavacana), an exposition of the collection of merit (puṇyasaṃbhāra) and the collection of wisdom (jñānasaṃbhāra), a description of the ten bodhisattva stages (bhūmi) based on the Daśabhūmikasūtra, and a correlation of the practice of specific virtues with the achievement of the thirty-two marks of a superman (mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa). There are complete versions of the work extant in Tibetan and Chinese translations, but only parts survive in the original Sanskrit. (Source: "Ratnāvalī." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 704. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
| Citation | Nāgārjuna. rājaparikathāratnāvali [राजपरिकथारत्नावलि]. rgyal po la gtam bya ba rin po che'i phreng ba [རྒྱལ་པོ་ལ་གཏམ་བྱ་བ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་ཕྲེང་བ]. [The Precious Garland, A Letter to the King (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3496 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3496&typ=2. |
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| Author | Nāgārjuna |
