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Two Hymns of the Catuḥ-stava of Nāgārjuna
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The two hymns here edited are respectively the first and p the last of the four stavasattributed to Nāgārjuna, and generally known and quoted under the comprehensive name Catuḥ-stava or Catu-stava; the other two stotras, missing in our manuscript, are the Lolātīta-stava and the Citta-vajrastava. As to their authorship, there is but little doubt; the style itself is the same as that of the kārikās of the Mūlamādhyamika-kārikās. Moreover, Candrakīrti in his Prasannapadā quotes from the Catuḥ-stava, attributing one of them, viz. the Lokātīta-stava to the Master, ācārya-pādāḥ (p. 413).
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References
page 312 note 1 The MS. reads vādine, but the Ṭikā vedine, which is supported by the Tibetan text.
page 312 note 2 MSS. na ca nāsatvayā.
page 313 note 1 Inasmuch as you do not see anything, because everything is void, just for this you see the truth, viz. the āūnyatā sarvadhārmāṇām.
page 314 note 1 Quoted by pañjikā on Bodhicaryāvatāra, p. 420, and by Advayavajra, (in Advayavajra-safigraha, ed. by Shāstrī, Haraprasāda), p. 22Google Scholar.
page 314 note 2 Quoted by pañjikā on Bodhicaryāvatāra, p. 489.
page 315 note 1 Nirvāṇa is not the result of suppression of sanisāra; suppression of something implies previous existence of something; but sanisara is not existence—inasmuch it is pratītya-samutpanna, relative; nirvāna also is relative, if it is considered as the result of suppression of kleśas, viz. of sanisāra. As a matter of fact, neither merit nor demerit exist, because any judgment of values as well as any notion is vikalpaor saṃkalpa. But truth is beyond the two; nirvāṇa and saṃsāra are therefore equivalent, since they are imagined as reciprocally connected, but in the realization of paramartha they must disappear just as all contraries must necessarily vanish.
page 316 note 1 MS. yāto.
page 316 note 2 Quoted by Candraklrti, , commenting on Mūla-mādhyamika-kārikās, p. 215Google Scholar, where in a we read ekatvānyatva; in c Candrakīrti's reading is defective.
page 318 note 1 My xylograph is effaced here, and the reading is doubtful.
page 319 note 1 The various ways of worshipping the Buddhas are the first moment in the long anupurvī or krama, which leads to the supreme realization. The same theory is accepted by the Śaiva system of Kashmir, and generally by all Indian systems following Vedanta philosophy. The idea of God and the meditation on God as a personal being are mere upāyas for the śuddhi, which makes the sādhakafit for higher stages of mystic realizations.
page 320 note 1 Quoted by Advayavajra, p. 22.
page 320 note 2 Quoted by Advayavajra, p. 1.
page 321 note 1 Viz. elcayāna theory, as opposed to the thiee-yāna theory; the truth being one, the vehicle to its realization must be one. But the truth appears to beings in a different way according to their different preparation and maturity.
page 321 note 2 The usual puṇyaparṇāmaṇā is contained in thia verse.
page 323 note 1 The paramārtha is beyond words; how can it be praised? It is the Absolute and therefore, by definition, no further determination is possible. When we want to say something about it we cannot help limiting it within our ideas. But it is always through words and ideas that truths become present to our spirit and are afterwards realized. The following verses insist therefore on the negative description of the paramārtha, of which the best determination is complete negation of all predicables; omnis determinatio est negatio.
page 323 note 2 Śāśvata, when used with nitya, indicates that being which, having had an origin, is never destroyed; nitya is the being without beginning or end, aadasatpariṇāmaśūnya.