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Mahayanavimsaka of Nagarjuna
ADORATION TO THE THREE TREASURES
1
I make my obeisance to the Buddha who is wise, free from
all attachment, and whose powers are beyond conception, and
who has kindly taught the truth which cannot be expressed by
words.
2
In the transcendental truth there is no origination
(utpada), and in fact, there is no destruction (nirodha).
The Buddha is like the sky (which has neither origination
nor cessation), and the beings are like him, and therefore
they are of the same nature.
3
There is no birth either on this or the other side (of
the world). A compound thing (samskrta) originates from its
conditions. Therefore it is sunya by its nature. This fact
comes into the range of knowledge of an omniscient one.
4
All things by nature are regarded as reflections. They
are pure and naturally quiescent, devoid of any duality,
equal, and remain always and in all circumstances in the
same way (tathata).
5
In fact, worldings attribute atman to what is not atman,
and in the same way they imagine happiness, misery,
indifference, passions and liberation.
6 – 7
Birth in the six realms of existence in the world,
highest happiness in the heaven, great pain in the
hell,these do not come within the perview of truth
(i.e. cannot be accepted as true); nor do the notions that
unmeritorious actions lead to the extreme misery, old age,
disease, and death, and meritorious actions surely bring
about good results.
It is owing to false notions that beings are consumed by
fire of passions even as a forest is burnt by forest
conflagration and fall into the hells, etc.
As illusion prevails so do beings make their appearance.
The world is illusory and it exists only on account of its
cause and conditions.
8
As a painter is frightened by the terrible figure of a
Yaksa which he himself has drawn, so is a fool frightened in
the world (by his own false notions).
9
Even as a fool going himself to a quagmire is drowned
therein, so are beings drowned in the quagmire of false
notions and are unable to come out thereof.
10
The feeling of misery is experienced by imagining a thing
where in fact it has no existence. Beings are tortured by
the poison of false notions regarding the object and its
knowledge.
11
Seeing these helpless beings with a compassionate heart
one should perform thc practices of the highest knowledge
(bodhicarya) for the benefit of them.
12
Having acquired requisites thereby and getting
unsurpassable bodhi one should become a Buddha, the friend
of the world, being freed fron the bondage of false
notions.
13
He who realizes the transcendental truth knowing the
pratityasamutpada (or the manifestation of entities
depending on their causes and conditions), knows the world
to be sunya and devoid of beginning, middle or end.
14
The samsara and nirvana are mere appearances; the truth
is stainless, changeless, and quiescent from the beginning
and illumined.
15
The object of knowledge in dream is not seen when one
awakes. Similarly the world disappears to him who is
awakened from the darkness of ignorance.
The creation of illusion is nothing but illusion. When
everything is compoond there is nothing which can be
regarded as a real thing. Such is the nature of all
things.
16
One having origination (jati) does not originate himself.
Origination is a false conception of the people. Such
conceptions and (conceived) beings, these two are not
reasonable.
17
All this is nothing but mind (citta) and exists just like
an illusion. Hence originate good and evil actions and from
them good and evil birth.
18
When the wheel of the mind is suppressed, all things are
suppressed. Therefore all things are devoid of atman
(independent nature), and consequently they are pure.
19
It is due to thinking the things which have no
independent nature as eternal, atman, and pleasant that this
ocean of existence (bhava) appears to one who is enveloped
by the darkness of attachment and ignorance.
20
Who can reach the other side of thc great ocean of
samsara which is full of water of false notions without
getting into the great vehicle (i.e., Mahayana) ?
How can these false notions arise in a man who thoroughly
knows this world which has originated from ignorance?
Here ends the Mahayanavimsaka of Acarya Nagarjuna.
Edited by Vidhusekhara Bhattacharya
©1931 Visvabharati Bookshop, Calcutta
Nagarjuna links
Nagarjuna Sagar
Thinking in Buddhism:
Nagarjuna’s Middle Way
Sampling of Nagarjuna’s “Seventy Stanzas”
A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness
bibliography
A Study of Nagarjuna’s Twenty Verses
on the Great Vehicle (Mahayanavimsika)
and His Verses on the Heart of Dependent Origination
(Toronto Studies in r . . . )
by R. C. Jamieson, Nagarjuna Mahayanavimsaka,
Nagarjuna
To be Published in 1999
information and order from:
amazon.com | * | barnes and noble
Nagarjuna and the Philosophy of Openness
by Nancy McCagney, Ninian Smart
1997
information and order from:
amazon.com | * | barnes and noble
Nagarjuna’s Letter to King Gautamiputra
Translated by Venerable Lozang Jamspal, Venerable Ngawang
Samten Chophel and Peter Della Santina.
With Explanatory Notes based on Tibetan Commentaries and
a Preface by His Holiness Sakya Trizin
Nagarjuna’s Philosophy
(As Presented in the Maha-Prajnaparamita-Sastra)
by K. Venkata Ramanan
Nagarjuna by K. Satchidananda Murty
The Vedantic and the Buddhist Concept of Reality
as Interpreted by Samkara and Nagarjuna
by Ram Chandra Jha, Ph.D.
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The Unique Sixth Stage Foreshadowings
of the Only-By-Me Revealed Seventh Stage of Life
Sri Adi Da Samraj
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