Āryāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyākhyānābhisamayālaṃkārālokanāma
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आर्याष्टसाहस्रिकाप्रज्ञापारमिताव्याख्यानाभिसमयालंकारालोकनाम
Āryāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyākhyānābhisamayālaṃkārālokanāma
ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་བརྒྱད་སྟོང་པའི་བཤད་པ།་མངོན་པར་རྟོགས་པའི་རྒྱན་གྱི་སྣང་བ
shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa brgyad stong pa'i bshad pa/ mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan gyi snang ba
An Explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, An Illumination of "The Ornament for Clear Realizations" (84000)
Text
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Description
The Āryāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyākhyānābhisamayālaṃkārāloka (Tib. Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa brgyad stong pa'i bshad pa/ mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan gyi snang ba, "Illumination of the Ornament of Realization"), also known as the Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā, is a commentary by Haribhadra (Tib. Seng ge bzang po; late 8th century), an Indian paṇḍita active under the Pāla emperor Dharmapāla. It works by taking Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāra—traditionally read as an outline of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras' structure—and showing where each of its categories is being taught within the actual text of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, making it at once a commentary on the sūtra and one of the traditional twenty-one Indian commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra. It is distinct from Haribhadra's other, better-known work in that same set of 21, the Sphuṭārthā ("Clear Meaning"), which instead explains the Abhisamayālaṃkāra,'s verses directly, without correlating them to any one sūtra's wording. This commentary was translated into Tibetan by Rinchen Zangpo, with a subsequent revision involving Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and a further translation by Ngok Loden Sherab.
Quoted in the aligned translations
Reference
Haribhadra (སེངེ་གེ་བཟང་པོ་). Āryāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāvyākhyānābhisamayālaṃkārālokanāma [आर्याष्टसाहस्रिकाप्रज्ञापारमिताव्याख्यानाभिसमयालंकारालोकनाम]. shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa brgyad stong pa'i bshad pa/ mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan gyi snang ba [ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་བརྒྱད་སྟོང་པའི་བཤད་པ།་མངོན་པར་རྟོགས་པའི་རྒྱན་གྱི་སྣང་བ]. [An Explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, An Illumination of "The Ornament for Clear Realizations" (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3136 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3136&typ=2.
Interconnections
All 19Books 15Articles 2Classical Works 1Dissertations 1
3 Recensions
This is a critical Sanskrit edition of the Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā by Haribhadra, together with the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā. Edited by Unrai Wogihara.
A critical Sanskrit edition of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā with Haribhadra's commentary, edited by P. L. Vaidya. Published by The Mithila Institute.
Sanskrit text, with Newari translation of a Buddhist canonical text; includes Abhisamayālaṅkārāloka commentary of Haribhadra, 9th cent.
1 Classical commentary of
The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, like other sūtras on the Perfection of Wisdom, deals with the topic of emptiness and the understanding of the ultimate truth or the way things are. Modern scholars date the sūtra roughly to the 2nd and 1st century BC and consider it to be the earliest sūtra on which other Perfection of Wisdom sūtras are based. Its adherents claim the sūtra to be a part of the words of the Buddha. It is believed to have been taken to the subterranean world and brought back to the human world by Nāgārjuna. It is sometimes known as the Condensed Mother (ཡུམ་བསྡུས་པ་), the term Mother referring to the Perfection of Wisdom which gives rise to all buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is said to be the condensed version of the long version in one hundred thousand lines and the middle version in twenty-five thousand lines. Having spread across Asia and beyond and having been translated into many languages, it is one of the most common books to be found in the Buddhist Himalayas.
The sūtra takes the form of a series of dialogues between the Buddha Śākyamuni, Subhūti, Śāriputra, and others, such as Indra, the king of gods, and a goddess of the Ganges. In the final chapters, the sūtra contains the inspirational narratives of Sadāprarudita and his quest for the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom from the Bodhisattva Dharmodgata. The sūtra is also one of the earliest Mahāyāna sources proclaiming the luminous nature of the mind.
4 Partial translations
Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāra is the most widely studied book in Tibet, where it was brought from India many centuries ago. It is used in all the monasteries to teach the path to Buddhahood, in accordance with the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. It teaches this in outline form, so it requires a commentary to be understood. The oldest extant commentary is Arya Vimuktisena's Vṛtti. Haribhadra, the most influential Indian commentator, drew upon this to write his Ālokā. Virtually all of the many famous Tibetan teachers who wrote their own commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra relied on Haribhadra as their primary source. This is the first of four volumes. (Source Accessed July 26, 2026)
This second of four volumes includes translations of chapters two ("Knowledge of Paths") and three ("All knowledge") of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Arya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a very brief, but nonetheless insightful, explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, mainly of the version in Twenty-five Thousand Lines. According to Haribhadra, it is also a self-conscious explanation of the Eight Thousand. (Sparham, translator's introduction, ix)
This is the third of four volumes of translations of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Ārya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a brief explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines, and, according
to Haribhadra, the version in Eight Thousand Lines as well. (Sparham, translator's introduction, ix)
This is the last of four volumes completing the translation of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Arya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a brief explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines (the Large Sutra), and, according to Haribhadra, the version in Eight Thousand Lines as well. (Sparham, translator's introduction, xiii)
5 Scholarship
No abstract given. Here is the first relevant paragraph:
From ancient times, the origin of "tathāgata", which has been usually translated as 如 來 (one who comes thus), is not unknown. This has been used as the title of Buddha, chiefly in Buddhism from the start.
Now, I will consider the meaning of "tathāgata" in the Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā of Haribhadra (ed. by Wogihara) (W.). This includes the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (As.), Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāraśāstra-kārikā (A.) which is a summary of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (P.), and Haribhadra's commentary which is based on the P. and the As. Accordingly at first, I point out sentences of "tathāgata", which I think as the etymological explanations, and then survey the character of it. (Mano, "'Tathāgata' in Haribhadra's Commentary," 22)
From ancient times, the origin of "tathāgata", which has been usually translated as 如 來 (one who comes thus), is not unknown. This has been used as the title of Buddha, chiefly in Buddhism from the start.
Now, I will consider the meaning of "tathāgata" in the Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā of Haribhadra (ed. by Wogihara) (W.). This includes the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (As.), Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāraśāstra-kārikā (A.) which is a summary of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (P.), and Haribhadra's commentary which is based on the P. and the As. Accordingly at first, I point out sentences of "tathāgata", which I think as the etymological explanations, and then survey the character of it. (Mano, "'Tathāgata' in Haribhadra's Commentary," 22)
This is a critical Sanskrit edition of the Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā by Haribhadra, together with the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā. Edited by Unrai Wogihara.
A critical Sanskrit edition of the Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā with Haribhadra's commentary, edited by P. L. Vaidya. Published by The Mithila Institute.
This thesis examines Ratnākaraśānti's (ca. 970-1045 C.E.) explication of
Prajñāpāramitā in his doxographical works and his Sāratamā. Based on extant Sanskrit and Tibetan primary sources, it argues that Ratnākaraśānti's main teacher was Dharmakīrtiśrī (late 10th C.E.) and that Ratnākaraśānti's Sāratamā sought to replace his teacher's Yogācāra-Mādhyamika framework with a causal explanation of Prajñāpāramitā through redefining the term Prajñāpāramitā as the path to awakening, rather than its goal. By unpacking that causal explanation in light of his broader system, the thesis demonstrates the way that Ratnākaraśānti's own version of Nirākāravādin-Yogācāra-Mādhyamika refutes cognitive images (ākāra) as unreal ultimately, but claims they are still perceived by buddhas out of compassion. This conclusion debunks the long-standing theory that Ratnākaraśānti was an Indian proponent of the controversial Tibetan gZhan-stong despite later gZhan-stong proponents' attempts to claim him as their own.
There are two parts to the study. The first part introduces Ratnākaraśānti's life, philosophy and doxography based upon evidence from a Tibetan colophon to his Mādhyamika commentary and the Tibetan hagiography of his student Adhīśa (a.k.a. Atiśa) and upon a comparative analysis of his doxographical works that are prerequisites for reading his Sāratamā. The second part consists of an annotated translation of the Sāratamā's introductory section, contrasted with the prior standard interpretation by Haribhadra's (9th century C.E.).
In the two appendices are included a Tibetan critical edition and a separate hybrid Sanskrit and Tibetan critical edition of the Sāratamā's first parivarta based on the extant 11th and 13th century incomplete MSS and on the Tibetan translations in the sDe dge, Peking and sNarthang editions. The hybrid edition also includes my
provisional critical edition of the root text—i.e. the first parivarta of the Āryāṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra—and my own translation of two small sample sections of the Sāratamā, which are extant only in Tibetan, back into Sanskrit.Sanskrit text, with Newari translation of a Buddhist canonical text; includes Abhisamayālaṅkārāloka commentary of Haribhadra, 9th cent.
1 Related
The "Rong ston Phar phyin" is an important commentarial work of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. Its author, Rong-ston Shes-bya-kun-rig (1367–1449), was one of Tibet's greatest scholars, and the subject he expounded in it was Haribhadra's brief "Sphuṭārthā" commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.
This work by Haribhadra was not only a key treatise of the late-8th-century Prajñāpāramitā-Madhyamaka synthesis within Indian Buddhism, but it was also a crucial source which shaped how Prajñāpāramitā philosophy was understood by generation after generation of Tibetan scholiasts.
Since the time of Rngog Io-tsa-ba Blo-Idan-shes-rab (1059-1109), the Prajñāpāramitā philosophy expounded in the Abhisamayālaṃkāra and its main commentaries such as Haribhadra's had been a fundamental topic for Tibetan scholars of Mahāyāna philosophy. Its study, together with the study of elementary dialectics (bsdus grwa) and Buddhist logic-epistemology (Pramāṇa, especially Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇaviniścaya), was considered in the tradition of Rngog's seminary Gsang-phu Ne'u-thog to be one of the three prerequisite subjects for Buddhist scholarship - this triad being sometimes referred to as phar tshad bsdus gsum. The fundamental importance of these subjects remains more or less unchanged today in the main surviving offshoot of that tradition — i.e. modern Dge-lugs-pa scholasticism.
Rong-ston's exegesis was the culmination of three centuries of intensive studies by scholars in the Gsang-phu Ne'u-thog and allied traditions, and it stands in the mainstream of Tibetan exegesis of this work. Not only did he receive detailed instruction on this subject during his early studies in the 1380s at Gsang-phu under Blo-gros-dbang-phyug, but he also studied it as a more mature scholar in the 1390s under the Sa-skya-pa teacher G.yag-ston Sangs-rgyas-dpal (1348–1414), a master of Prajñāpāramitā studies who at that time was almost unrivalled in this field. The lineage he received from G.yag-ston had been successively transmitted through such great masters as Tshad-ma'i-skyes-bu Bsod-nams-mgon, Bu-ston Rin-chen-grub (1290–1364), and G.yag-ston's teacher Sgra-tshad-pa Rin-chen-rnam-rgyal (1318–1388). (Jackson, introduction, I)5 A topic of
No abstract given. Here is the first relevant paragraph:
From ancient times, the origin of "tathāgata", which has been usually translated as 如 來 (one who comes thus), is not unknown. This has been used as the title of Buddha, chiefly in Buddhism from the start.
Now, I will consider the meaning of "tathāgata" in the Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā of Haribhadra (ed. by Wogihara) (W.). This includes the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (As.), Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāraśāstra-kārikā (A.) which is a summary of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (P.), and Haribhadra's commentary which is based on the P. and the As. Accordingly at first, I point out sentences of "tathāgata", which I think as the etymological explanations, and then survey the character of it. (Mano, "'Tathāgata' in Haribhadra's Commentary," 22)
From ancient times, the origin of "tathāgata", which has been usually translated as 如 來 (one who comes thus), is not unknown. This has been used as the title of Buddha, chiefly in Buddhism from the start.
Now, I will consider the meaning of "tathāgata" in the Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā Prajñāpāramitā-vyākhyā of Haribhadra (ed. by Wogihara) (W.). This includes the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (As.), Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāraśāstra-kārikā (A.) which is a summary of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (P.), and Haribhadra's commentary which is based on the P. and the As. Accordingly at first, I point out sentences of "tathāgata", which I think as the etymological explanations, and then survey the character of it. (Mano, "'Tathāgata' in Haribhadra's Commentary," 22)
Maitreya's Abhisamayālaṃkāra is the most widely studied book in Tibet, where it was brought from India many centuries ago. It is used in all the monasteries to teach the path to Buddhahood, in accordance with the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. It teaches this in outline form, so it requires a commentary to be understood. The oldest extant commentary is Arya Vimuktisena's Vṛtti. Haribhadra, the most influential Indian commentator, drew upon this to write his Ālokā. Virtually all of the many famous Tibetan teachers who wrote their own commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra relied on Haribhadra as their primary source. This is the first of four volumes. (Source Accessed July 26, 2026)
This second of four volumes includes translations of chapters two ("Knowledge of Paths") and three ("All knowledge") of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Arya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a very brief, but nonetheless insightful, explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, mainly of the version in Twenty-five Thousand Lines. According to Haribhadra, it is also a self-conscious explanation of the Eight Thousand. (Sparham, translator's introduction, ix)
This is the third of four volumes of translations of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Ārya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a brief explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines, and, according
to Haribhadra, the version in Eight Thousand Lines as well. (Sparham, translator's introduction, ix)
This is the last of four volumes completing the translation of Maitreya's Ornament for the Clear Realizations as explained in Arya Vimuktisena's Commentary and Haribhadra's Light. The Ornament is a brief explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines (the Large Sutra), and, according to Haribhadra, the version in Eight Thousand Lines as well. (Sparham, translator's introduction, xiii)
