Ratnāvalī
88081
Nāgārjuna
85097
Phur Tsham 2024
68
| # | Pariccheda | Phurtstham edition | Dunne-McClintock 2024 transl. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Abhyudayanaiḥśreyasopāya | 65 | 77 |
| 2 | Miśraka | 108 | 93 |
| 3 | Bodhisaṃbhārasamāsa | 152 | 109 |
| 4 | Rājavṛttopadeśa | 195 | 125 |
| 5 | "Pañcama" (*Bodhisattvācāra) | 241 | 141 |
Ratnāvalī (“Precious Garland”) is a five-chapter work traditionally attributed to Nāgārjuna, composed in 500 didactic verses addressed to a king. It combines ethical instruction, political counsel, and the Madhyamaka analysis of emptiness, presenting Buddhist practice as concerned both with worldly welfare (abhyudaya) and with ultimate liberation (naiḥśreyasa). The opening sections distinguish these two aims, while later portions develop explicitly bodhisattva-oriented commitments and sustained reflections on the conduct and responsibilities of rulership. Rather than functioning as a purely technical treatise on emptiness, the text brings philosophical insight and practical governance into deliberate conversation, grounding compassion, generosity, and nonviolence in the recognition that self, power, and kingdom lack intrinsic existence. Long transmitted through Tibetan and Chinese translations (including the Indian commentary of Ajitamitra), the work has recently acquired renewed textual interest with the surfacing of a complete Sanskrit manuscript in Tibet. That manuscript forms the basis of the present edition and the electronic text made available here. Thorough peer review of the edition and the underlying manuscript are still a desideratum.
Personal Academia.edu page of editor Phur Tsham (here).
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
I (Tyler Neill) produced this HANSEL edition by copying embedded text from the posted PDF, then processing to remove extraneous material, followed by thorough proofreading and structuring for HANSEL. The text should be fully in line with the edition.
Numbered verse
Roman-like (ity evam, not ityevam)
2026-02-16
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2026-03-30