Name for Collection of Nagarjuna's Five Main Treatises?

[Huifeng]

Hi,

A question for practitioners of Tibetan teachings. (It is not a Vajrayana question, but the way the board is set up, there is nowhere else to put it.)

I have come across a phrase in a Chinese work when referencing Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka as taught and practiced in Tibet. The phrase is "五正理聚" which means something like "collection of five [texts on] correct principle". It refers to these texts:


Mūla-madhyamaka Kārikā - Root Verses on the Middle Way
Vigraha-vyāvartanī - Refutation of Objections
Yuktiṣaṣtikā-kārikā - Sixty Verses According to Reason
*Bhāvasaṃkranti Śāstra - Continuation of Being
Sapta-śūnyatā Śāstra - Seventy Verses on Emptiness

(Some of the names may be slightly different in the Tibetan, I know, such as the first which is something like Root Wisdom or similar, no?)

These are considered to be Nagarjuna's fundamental texts to the Tibetan Madhyamaka schools, and the later Indian Madhyamaka too. (There are more, but these are the fundamentals.)

I am just wondering what this phrase for the five of them together is in Tibetan, so that I can ideally translate the phrase from the Tibetan rather than second hand through the Chinese.

Any pointers would be much appreciated!

~~ Huifeng

[ronnewmexico]

You do not mean the Pancakrama or Rim Inga?

I know nothing about these things but there are no replies. Just curious.

Here is one specific on one of the titles you suggest....Shunyata-saptatikarika (Tib. stong pa nyid bdun cu pa’i tshig le’ur byas pa).

Hope you get some good replies which mine is certainly not.

Here's a link on some of this stuffhttp://www.lotsawahouse.org/collection.html

[some1]

Ven Huifeng,

I was just trying my luck at google and found some of the information at the below web site. That seems to be relevant. Hope it helps.

http://www.gaya.org.tw/publisher/fachu/ ... pter12.htm

Anyway, I actually know nothing about the topic and nothing about Tibet texts as well.

「中觀六正理論集」（dBu ma rigs pahi tshogs drug）──
　　（一）《七十空性論》（sTon pa nid bdun cu pa, Sunyata-saptati）；
　　（二）《根本慧論》（rTsa ba ses rab, PrajJnamula）；
　　（三）《六十如理論》（Rigs pa drug cu pa, Yuktisastika）；
　　（四）《迴諍論》（rTsod pa bzlog pa, Vigrahavyavartani）；
　　（五）《廣破論》（Shib mo rnam hthag, Vaidalyapra-karana）；
　　（六）《名言成就論》（Tha snad grub pa, Vyavaharasiddhi）。

[mudra]

Venerable,

As far as I can remember there is usually reference to what is called something like the "Six Collections (of correct reasonings?)" of Arya Nagarjuna which has the five you quoted plus the Ratnavali. The names vary slightly yes, but they are definitely the same text plus one. According to some sources this why there are six nagas over Arya Nagarjuna

Usually in the Tibetan context when one speaks of five great treatises/texts the normal association would be to Maitreya's five treatises passed down through Arya Asangha.

[mudra]

Bingo! found this on Alex Berzin's site:

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/approaching_buddhism/teachers/lineage_masters/biography_nagarjuna.html

which calls them the Six Collections of Reasoning (Rigs-tshogs drug)

Another site
http://meditationincolorado.org/nagarjuna.htm simply calls it

These treatises, known as the Collection of Reasonings, include the famous Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, and its four limbs: Sixty Reasonings, Seventy Emptinesses, Finely Woven, and Refutation of Objections.

which omits the Ratnavali, which of course makes five.

[Huifeng]

You do not mean the Pancakrama or Rim Inga?

I know nothing about these things but there are no replies. Just curious.

Here is one specific on one of the titles you suggest....Shunyata-saptatikarika (Tib. stong pa nyid bdun cu pa’i tshig le’ur byas pa).

Hope you get some good replies which mine is certainly not.

Here's a link on some of this stuffhttp://www.lotsawahouse.org/collection.html

I'm not sure if it has a Skt name or not, but I'll check out "pancakrama" (though the meaning is different).

[Huifeng]

Venerable,

As far as I can remember there is usually reference to what is called something like the "Six Collections (of correct reasonings?)" of Arya Nagarjuna which has the five you quoted plus the Ratnavali. The names vary slightly yes, but they are definitely the same text plus one. According to some sources this why there are six nagas over Arya Nagarjuna

Usually in the Tibetan context when one speaks of five great treatises/texts the normal association would be to Maitreya's five treatises passed down through Arya Asangha.

I'm familiar with the expression for Maitreya / Asanga's works (though I really disagree on some of them, because they were totally unknown by Xuanzang, and must have come later).

[Huifeng]

Bingo! found this on Alex Berzin's site:

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/approaching_buddhism/teachers/lineage_masters/biography_nagarjuna.html

which calls them the Six Collections of Reasoning (Rigs-tshogs drug)

Another site
http://meditationincolorado.org/nagarjuna.htm simply calls it

These treatises, known as the Collection of Reasonings, include the famous Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, and its four limbs: Sixty Reasonings, Seventy Emptinesses, Finely Woven, and Refutation of Objections.

which omits the Ratnavali, which of course makes five.

Great! Thanks to that old Master, Alex Berzin! (A thoroughly under-rated teacher in my opinion.)

The name he uses, "Six Collections of Reasoning" - if the six --> five, is pretty much how I read the Chinese.

Curious too, that his translation for the Vigraha is identical to mine!

But I'm wondering about "Finely Woven" as "Mahāyāna Refutation of Existence Treatise (大乘破有論 *Bhāvasaṃkranti Śāstra)". Names of texts often differ a fair bit, (eg. Mulamadhyamaka = Prajnamula), so I'll have to double check.

[Huifeng]

Thanks for everyone's help!

[ronnewmexico]

Glad to help in any manner however slight may be my personal contribution.

Pancakrama is the only writing I have found that refers specifically to five, in that specific five stages. Most now, it seems, hold to there being 12 or so authentic writings by this master though many many more have been attributed it seems.

Different ways of catagorizing these writings have been made from the Tibeatan side of things in a manner which seems of diffrerence from perhaps others sides. So perhaps a exact word for the five writings found in a chinese interpretation may not actually exist from the tibetan side. That is my uneducated stupid guess.

But I guess stupidly on many things.....why not one more?

[mudra]

Great! Thanks to that old Master, Alex Berzin! (A thoroughly under-rated teacher in my opinion.)

The name he uses, "Six Collections of Reasoning" - if the six --> five, is pretty much how I read the Chinese.

Curious too, that his translation for the Vigraha is identical to mine!

But I'm wondering about "Finely Woven" as "Mahāyāna Refutation of Existence Treatise (大乘破有論 *Bhāvasaṃkranti Śāstra)". Names of texts often differ a fair bit, (eg. Mulamadhyamaka = Prajnamula), so I'll have to double check.

Alex has always had a penchant for reinventing Buddhist vocabulary. It is one of his "passions". Sometimes I find it inspiring, sometimes I find it dry. But the man is very sincere in trying to create an English lexicon that is closer to the meaning - no easy feat in the face of decades of wordsmithing born from the "old" style of the likes of Evans-Wentz, Conze etc.