Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra

Asanga and Maitreya, Tibetan drawing.

Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra [alt. Sūtrālaṃkāra] (T. theg pa chen po’i mdo sde’i rgyan ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ་སྡེའི་རྒྱན་; C. Dasheng zhuangyan jing lun 大乘莊嚴經論), known in English as The Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras, is an important Mahayana treatise that, according to tradition, was presented to Asanga by the Buddha Maitreya. In the Tibetan tradition, this text is identified as one of the Five Treatises of Maitreya.

It comprises twenty-two chapters with a total of 800 verses. There is a commentary on this text by Vasubandhu and several sub-commentaries by Sthiramati and others.

Text

Sanskrit text

Two Sanskrit editions are available:

• Lévi's edition of 1907 (French translation: 1911) and
• Bagchi's edition of 1970, which is based on Lévi's edition but adds corrigenda to the text.

Chinese translation

• Title: Dasheng zhuang-yanjing lun [大乘莊嚴經論], T. 1604,
• Translated by Prabhākaramitra, circa 630=633 CE

Tibetan translation

• Title: theg pa chen po mdo sde'i rgyan zhes bya ba'i tshig le'ur byas pa (Skt. Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra-kārikā)
• Dergé Tengyur Toh 4020
• Translated by zhu chen gyi lo tsa ba ban+de dpal brtsegs and Śākyasiṁha; translation revised by Parahitabhadra, lo tsA ba dge slong blo ldan shas rab, and Sajjana
• Tibetan text: ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་མདོ་སྡེའི་རྒྱན་, theg pa chen po mdo sde'i rgyan, mahayana sutralamkara karika

This text is counted among the thirteen great texts in the Nyingma tradition.

Traditional commentaries

Indian commentaries:

• Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkārabhāṣya by Vasubandhu
• Sub-commentaries by Sthiramati and others

Tibetan commentaries:

• Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle by Mipam Gyatso

Translations into Western languages

English

• Maitreyanatha. Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature Mahayanasutralamkara (Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences), translated by American Institute of Buddhist Studies (Robert Thurman), 2004
  • The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature (Overview), Buddha Nature: A Tsadra Foundation Initiative
  • Archive version
• Maitreya. Ornament of the Great Vehicle Sutras: Maitreya’s Mahayanasutralamkara with Commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham. Dharmachakra Translation Committee (Shambhala Publications, 2014) ISBN 978-1559394284
• Asanga & Jamgön Mipham. A Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle: An Explanation of the Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras, Maitreya's Mahāyānasūtrālaṅkāra with a commentary by Jamgön Mipham, Padmakara Translation Group (Shambhala, 2018)

French

• S. Levi, Mahāyāna Sūtrālaṅkāra. Exposé de la doctrine du grand véhicule selon le système Yogācāra, Honoré Champion, Paris, 1911

Further reading

• D'Amato, M. "Three Stages: An Interpretation of the Yogacara Trisvabhava-Theory." Journal of Indian Philosophy. (2005) 33:185-207

External links

• Mahayana-sutra-alamkara-karika, Wikipedia
• The Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras, Rigpa Shedra Wiki
• Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche's teachings on the Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras
• An overview of the Five Treatises of Maitreya