Ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭanāmamadhyamakopadeśa/Full text
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Texts/Ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭanāmamadhyamakopadeśa/Full text
रत्नकरण्डोद्घाटनाममध्यमकोपदेश
Ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭanāmamadhyamakopadeśa
Personal Instructions on the Middle Way called "An Open Basket of Jewels" (84000)
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Description
Atiśa's Open Basket of Jewels: Special Instructions on the Middle Way (Ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭamadhyamakopadeśa)m is one of the primary works among his collected writings and perhaps the most extensive of his extant writings composed in India. The text outlines a number of significant features regarding his theory and practice of Mahāyāna Buddhism in general, as well as his understanding of Madhyamaka in particular. The term ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭa refers to an open karaṇḍa, a "basket or covered box," made of jewels (ratna) or containing jewels. In this instance, the jeweled box or box of jewels is the text itself, containing over 120 citations from sūtras and tantras, as well as śāstras and hymns attributed to seminal Buddhist figures such as Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva. The citations of these sources indicate that Atiśa had access, possibly in a temple or monastic library or depository,
to a great number of Indian Buddhist texts when he composed this work.
Date and Place of Authorship
According to the colophon of the canonical version of Open Basket of Jewels, the text was written in the great temple of Vikramaśīla, under the patronage of King Devapāla. The colophon explains that Atiśa composed the work at the requests of his Tibetan disciple and translation partner Tsultrim Gyalwa. The colophon also mentions that the translation was redacted by Atiśa, Tsultrim Gyalwa, and the layperson Tsöndrü Sengé. Therefore the text must have been composed before Atiśa left for Tibet circa 1040, as Tsöndrü Sengé passed away in Nepal on the journey to Tibet (Chattopadhyaya 1981, 302). This information also demonstrates the pedagogical relationship Atiśa had with his Tibetan students in India, in that Atiśa composed Open Basket of Jewels as an introduction for them to understand his Madhyamaka lineage, its source texts, and its primary practices. (Apple, Jewels of the Middle Way, 63)| Reference | ma hA paN+Di ta dpal mar me mdzad ye shes. ratnakaraṇḍodghāṭanāmamadhyamakopadeśa [रत्नकरण्डोद्घाटनाममध्यमकोपदेश]. dbu ma'i man ngag rin po che'i za ma tog kha phye ba [དབུ་མའི་མན་ངག་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་ཟ་མ་ཏོག་ཁ་ཕྱེ་བ]. [Personal Instructions on the Middle Way called "An Open Basket of Jewels" (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3271 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3271&typ=2. |
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| People | Atiśa, Naktso Lotsāwa Tsultrim Gyalwa, Rgya lo tsA ba brtson 'grus seng+ge |
