Abhisamayalankara
The "Ornament of/for Realization", abbreviated AA, is one of five Sanskrit-language Mahayana sutras which, according to Tibetan tradition, Maitreya revealed to Asaṅga in northwest India circa the 4th century AD. Those who doubt the claim of supernatural revelation disagree whether the text was composed by Asaṅga himself, or by someone else, perhaps a human teacher of his.
The AA is never mentioned by Xuanzang, who spent several years at Nalanda in India during the early 7th century, and became a savant in the Maitreya-Asaṅga tradition. One possible explanation is that the text is late and attributed to Maitreya-Asaṅga for purposes of legitimacy. The question then hinges on the dating of the earliest extant AA commentaries, those of Arya Vimuktisena and Haribhadra.
The AA contains eight chapters and 273 verses. Its pithy contents summarize—in the form of eight categories and seventy topics—the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras which the Madhyamaka philosophical school regards as presenting the ultimate truth. Gareth Sparham and John Makransky believe the text to be commenting on the version in 25,000 lines, although it does not explicitly say so. Haribhadra, whose commentary is based on the 8,000-line PP Sūtra, held that the AA is commenting on all PP versions at once, and this interpretation has generally prevailed within the commentarial tradition.
Several scholars liken the AA to a "table of contents" for the PP. Edward Conze admits that the correspondence between these numbered topics, and the contents of the PP is "not always easy to see..."; and that the fit is accomplished "not without some violence" to the text. The AA is widely held to reflect the hidden meaning of the PP, with the implication being that its details are not found there explicitly. One noteworthy effect is to recast PP texts as path literature. Philosophical differences may also be identified. Conze and Makransky see the AA as an attempt to reinterpret the PP, associated with Mādhyamaka tenets, in the direction of Yogacara.
The AA is studied by all lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, and is one of five principal works studied in the geshe curriculum of the major Gelug monasteries. Alexander Berzin has suggested that the text's prominence in the Tibetan tradition, but not elsewhere, may be due to the existence of the aforementioned commentary by Haribhadra, who was the disciple of Śāntarakṣita, an influential early Indian missionary to Tibet. Je Tsongkhapa's writings name the AA as the root text of the lamrim tradition founded by Atiśa.
Georges Dreyfus reports that "Ge-luk monastic universities... take the Ornament as the central text for the study of the path; they treat it as a kind of Buddhist encyclopedia, read in the light of commentaries by Je Dzong-ka-ba, Gyel-tsap Je, and the authors of manuals . Sometimes these commentaries spin out elaborate digressions from a single word of the Ornament." Dreyfus adds that non-Gelug schools give less emphasis to the AA, but study a somewhat larger number of works in correspondingly less detail.
Title of the work
The text's full title is:Which means:
Thus, a "Treatise Instructions Perfection of Wisdom, called Ornament Realization."
Sparham explains:
Conze adds some details about the term's origins:
As to whether we are speaking of one realization, or of eight, Sparham offers the following explanation by, a 14th-15th century Tibetan commentator:
Elaborating on the metaphor, Geshe Jampa Gyatso distinguishes between a "natural ornament", "beautifying ornament", "clarifying ornament", and "joyful ornament".
Philosophical perspective
The PP Sūtras form the basis for the Mādhyamika school of Indian Buddhist philosophy, which Tibetan consensus acknowledges as the "highest" tenet system. Other writings by Maitreya and Asaga, however, form the basis for the rival Yogācāra or Cittamātra school. It is therefore perhaps understandable that the AA, as Sparham writes, "straddles the ground between Indian Middle Way and Mind Only..." Conze concurs, ascribing to the AA "an intermediate position between Mādhyamikas and Yogācārins..."Conze discovers in the AA "some affinities with other Yogācārin works" and suggests a number of precise correspondences. At the same time, he notes, "Two of the specific doctrines of the Yogācārins, i.e. the 'storeconsciousness' and the three kinds of own-being are quite ignored." Eugène Obermiller on the other hand writes that "The main philosophical view expressed in the is that of strictest Monism and of the Non-substantiality and Relativity of all separate elements of existence, i.e. the standpoint of the Mādhyamikas." Obermiller sees the AA as the product of interaction between Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Hindu Vedānta philosophy.
Gelugpa writers, following Bu ston, affirm Maitreya's text to represent the Prāsaṅgika viewpoint, but consider Haribhadra and later commentators to have taught something called "Yogācāra Svātantrika Madhyamaka." The category is often criticized as artificial, even by the standards of Tibetan doxography. Nyingma and Sakya writers agree that the AA contains Madhyamaka teachings, without necessarily endorsing the subdivisions proposed by Gelugpas.
In an aside, Ian Charles Harris finds it "curious" that
Harris goes on to note the "strange fact" that Tsongkhapa would be a self-avowed Prasangika, despite his system's assignment of "all the great Madhyamaka authorities on the Prajñāpāramitā" to Yogācāra Svātantrika Madhyamaka.
According to Makransky, the AA was designed to impose a Yogācāra framework and vocabulary onto the PP. AA commentator Arya Vimuktisena preserves this Yogācāra reading; however, Makransky sees Haribhadra's reading as an attempt to "Mādhyamika-ize" the AA. Later Tibetan commentators broadly follow Haribhadra.
The Eight Categories and Seventy Topics
The AA is divided into eight categories, which correspond to the eight chapters of the work, and to the eight "realizations" said to be necessary for full enlightenment.This division into eight appears thus at the beginning of the AA itself:
These eight categories naturally fall into three groups, as shown below. The seventy topics are their subdivisions. Obermiller traces this list to a manual attributed to 'Jam dbyangs Bzhad pa, who also created the various definitions and category-boundaries familiar to Tibetan debaters. The text may be subdivided further still, into 1,200 items.
Unless otherwise indicated, the English terms below follow Sparham's translation.
The Three Knowledges
The first three categories represent the objects or goals of practice, whose attainment leads to peace for the four classes of Buddhist practitioner. Obermiller calls them "the 3 Kinds of Omniscience," while Toh prefers "the Three Exalted Knowers" and Berzin, "the Three Sets of Realized Awareness."Berzin explains these categories as
Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas, in order to discern the truths of anitya, anatman, and dukha, must acquire knowledge of the fundamental constituents of reality --namely the skandhas, ayatanas, and dhatus which are the subjects of Abhidharma. This is the "all-knowledge" of chapter three. A bodhisattva, in order to benefit all sentient beings, must additionally cognize the various possible paths by which others may progress, so that he may, for example, teach in different ways in accordance with their various situations and capacities. This is the "knowledge of paths" of chapter two. According to the Mahayana understanding, only a fully enlightened Buddha has eliminated obstacles to omniscience as well as obstacles to liberation. "Knowledge of all aspects" in the first chapter refers to this ultimate state. The AA begins with this as the most impressive of the three, and the ultimate goal of the Mahayana practitioner.
The Four Practices
Categories four through seven represent progressive stages of spiritual practice en route to enlightenment. Conze calls them four "understandings"; Obermiller, "practical methods"; Toh, "applications"; and Berzin, "applied realizations."Referring to the above, Dreyfus explains that
Tibetan tradition lays special emphasis on chapter four, perhaps because it is the longest and most complex, and therefore best suited to commentary and debate. This fourth chapter enumerates, and extensively describes, "173 forms of the Bodhisattva's yoga as realizing respectively the 173 aspects."
The Resultant Truth Body
The last Category concerns the result of spiritual practice:By this is meant the Dharmakāya, one of several glorified spiritual bodies which a Buddha is said to possess. A commentarial tradition beginning with Arya Vimuktisena interprets the AA as teaching the existence of three such bodies ; a rival tradition follows Haribhadra in identifying four such bodies, with the fourth, disputed kāya being the Svabhāvikakāya or "Nature / Essence Body". Makransky, whose Buddhism Embodied focuses on this eighth chapter of the AA, writes that
For Makransky, the controversy reflects a fundamental tension between immanent and transcendent aspects of Buddhism, which is also reflected in debate over the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma, or gradual vs. sudden enlightenment. In his view, all these controversies stem from a fundamental difficulty in reconciling the transcendent nature of Buddhahood with the immanent nature of bodhicitta.
Ancillary Topics
Obermiller, describing the curriculum of Drepung's Go mang college, reports that the monks studied the AA in a four-year sequence ; and that each class also studied a prescribed "secondary subject" for that year:Obermiller adds that "All these studies are conducted in the form of lectures which are accompanied by controversies between the different groups of students according to the method of 'sequence and reason'."
Twenty Sangha
The subject of "Twenty Sangha" aims at schematizing the various spiritual levels through which one might pass on the way to enlightenment. Here "Sangha" refers not so much to actual monks and nuns, but to an idealized, gradated schema of all the types of accomplished Buddhist. The AA explains that it is the latter sense of "Sangha" which constitutes the object of Buddhist Refuge, and in an especially cryptic verse, offers the following subdivision into twenty types:What does this mean? "Akanistha" is the name of the highest Buddha-field in the Form Realm, inhabited by pious gods and tenth-ground bodhisattvas. The solitary nature of the rhinoceros made that animal a traditional symbol for pratyekabuddhas. Beyond that, the list is quite difficult to decipher.
The basic project seems to have been inspired by an earlier typology of four, which may be expanded to eight by distinguishing between approachers to, or abiders at, each level. Unfortunately the list of twenty does not correspond very well with this earlier one. Furthermore, Tibetan exegetical tradition estimates the actual number of types of Sangha to approach the tens of thousands. Such difficulties seem to account for much of the subject's popularity in debate.
Definitive and Interpretable Scriptures
Tibetan tradition accepts the common Mahayana view that Sakyamuni Buddha taught various kinds of teachings that do not seem to agree—hence the various discrepancies between nikaya Buddhism and the Mahayana scriptures—and following the Sandhinirmocana Sutra, hold that the Buddha taught three grand cycles called "Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma." According to the sutra, the first of these consists of Hinayana teachings; the second, of Mahdyamaka teachings; and the third, of Yogacara teachings. The sutra seems to assume the third cycle to consist of the "highest" teachings. However, Tibetan tradition generally sides with Madhyamaka, and therefore must read the sutra in this light.The issue becomes more pressing in view of the fact that Tibetan Buddhist doctrine in fact combines elements from all three cycles, and is therefore faced with the task of defending its authorities while simultaneously minimizing contradictions between them.
Form and Formless Realm Absorptions (Trances)
Commentarial literature
In India
The oldest extant commentary is that of Ārya Vimuktisena, called Illuminating the Twenty Thousand: A Commentary on the Ornament. Written in a different style from its successors, it makes frequent reference to Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośaśāstra.Even more influential have been the commentaries of Haribadra, especially his Blossomed Meaning and Light for the Ornament.. Haribhadra also edited an abridgment of this work, called the "Short Commentary".
Altogether, 21 ancient Indian AA commentaries are said to have been translated into Tibetan, although it is possible to doubt the existence of some of the titles listed. For example, an ambiguous reference at the beginning of Haribhadra's prefatory homage is sometimes interpreted to mean that Asanga wrote an AA commentary. If so, the work is no longer extant. Haribhadra also mentions an AA commentary by Vasubandhu entitled Padhati, and one by Bhadanta Vimuktisena called Excellent Explanation of the Twenty Thousand. However, the commentaries by Ārya Vimuktisena and Haribhadra are most fundamental to the subsequent commentarial tradition. Sparham writes that
Makransky, on the other hand, feels that Arya Vimuktasena's commentary better captures the AA's Yogācāra assumptions.
In Tibet
The AA was extremely influential in Tibet, resulting in the production of numerous commentaries. The first were those of "Ngok Lotsawa" or "Ngok the Translator" : Mngon rtogs rgyan gyi don bsdus pa, Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i man ngag mngon par rtogs pa'i rgyan gi tik chung, and an 8000-line Prajnaparamita summary called Yum brgyad stong pa'i 'grel pa'i don bsdus.Well known Nyingma commentaries on the AA include the sher phyin mngon rtogs rgyan gyi spyi don by Dza Patrul Rinpoche, Orgyen Jikmé Chökyi Wangpo which forms the whole of the sixth volume of his Collected Works; and The Words of the Invincible Maitreya, by Pöpa Tulku Dongak Tenpé Nyima.
Sakya commentators on the AA include 'Go rams pa bsod nams seng ge, Sakya Chokden, Shes ba Kun rig, and G.Yag ston. The latter's work is King of Wish-Fulfilling Jewels, in eight volumes.
Kagyu commentaries on the AA include Padma Karpo's "The Words of Jetsun Maitreya"; the "Short and Clear" commentary mngon rtogs rgyan gyi ‘grel pa nyung ngu rnam gsal by Shamar Konchok Yenlag; "Introducing the Lamp of the Three Worlds: A commentary on the Ornament of Realization" by Karma Thinleypa
Tsongkhapa's teacher Don grub Rin chen encouraged him to study the five texts of Maitreya, especially the AA. One of Tsongkhapa's major works, Golden Garland, is an AA commentary. His disciple Gyaltsab also wrote an AA subcommentary, called Ornament of the Essence''.
In East Asia
The AA seems not to have been translated into Chinese until the 1930s. At this time the Chinese monk Fazun, an associate of Taixu, produced a translation entitled 現觀莊嚴論, for use by the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Institute in Sichuan. The institute's leaders sought to harmonize the Buddhisms of China and Tibet, and improve relations between the Khampas and Han Chinese immigrants to Eastern Tibet. Fazun had studied in the geshe program of the Drepung college of Loseling, near Lhasa, and possibly even obtained the degree. The institute failed to survive the Chinese Civil War.In the West
The AA seems not to have attracted the attention of Western scholars until the 1930s, when Eugène Obermiller and Theodore Stcherbatsky produced an edition of the Sanskrit / Tibetan text. Obermiller, a specialist in Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha literature, also wrote a lengthy article on the AA and was in the process of composing Analysis of the AA when he died. While Obermiller approached the AA from the perspective of "Monism," which he associated with Vedanta, his studies in the Buryat Mongolian monastery of Dgah ldan dar rgyas gling exposed him to a more traditional hermeneutic framework. Along with a translation of the AA, he also provided a summary of Haribhadra's commentary for each section.Edward Conze, who was active from the 1950s to the 1970s, devoted his career to PP translations and commentaries, his AA translation being an early example. An especially significant work was his translation of the PP Sutra in 25,000-lines, which he organized according to the AA topics. This required a certain amount of creative editing on his part—for example, his translation does not strictly follow the 25,000-line AA, but incorporates text from other PP Sutras. Like Obermiller, Conze's writings betray a certain German idealistic influence, hence his references to "Union with the Absolute."
During the 2000s, several Western scholars with experience as Buddhist monks living among the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala, who had participated in traditional geshe studies, published articles and books related to the AA. Their ranks included Gareth Sparham and Geshe Georges Dreyfus. In addition, studies and translations by Karl Brunnhölzl and the Padmakara Translation Group have focused on non-Gelug readings of this text, which the earlier literature had neglected. The AA has also received attention from several Western dharma centers, with the result that the AA has now been transmitted to the West not only as a text, but as a living spiritual tradition.