Ratnamati

Ratnamati on the DRL

Classical Indian Authors • Translators

Devanagari	रत्नमति
Romanized Sanskrit	Ratnamati
Chinese Script	勒那摩提
Chinese Transliteration	Lenamoti
Japanese Transliteration	Rokunamadai
Korean Transliteration	Nungnamaje

Other names

• རིན་ཆེན་བློ་གྲོས

• Rin chen blo gros

Dates

Birth:	5th Century
Death:	6th Century

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

About

Other Biographical info:

Links

Wiki Pages

• Ratnamati on the DRL
• Ratnamati on the LIB
• Ratnamati on the BNW

Buddha Nature Project

Person description or short bio

In Sanskrit, "Bejeweled Intelligence," name of an Indian scholar and Chinese translator who lived during the fifth and sixth centuries CE. He was especially renowned for his prodigious memory of a great many sūtra verses. In 508 CE, Ratnamati traveled from India to the Northern Wei capital of Luoyang, where he began to work on a translation of Vasubandhu's "Treatise on the Ten Stages" (S. Daṡabhūmivyākhyāna; C. Shidijing lun) with Bodhiruci and Buddhaśānta (d.u.). However, disagreements between the collaborators over the nature of the ālayavijñāna (viz., whether it was pure, impure, or both) led them to produce different translations. Those who studied Bodhiruci's rendering came to be known as the Northern Di lun zong, while the followers of Ratnamati's version were known as the Southern Di lun zong. The Southern Di lun school was represented by Ratnamati's foremost pupil, Huiguang (468–537), who advocated that the ālayavijñāna was an ultimate truth (paramārthasatya) and coextensive with the buddha-nature (foxing), which thus was in fact innate. Ratnamati subsequently went on to collaborate with other scholars on the translation of other works, including the Ratnagotravibhāga, and the Saddharmapuṇdarīkopadeśa attributed to Vasubandhu. Ratnamati is also the name of a bodhisattva who appears in various Mahāyāna sūtras. (Source: "Ratnamati." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 703. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

Expand to see this person's philosophical positions on Buddha-nature.

Is Buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?
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All beings have Buddha-nature
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If "Qualified", explain:
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Which Wheel Turning
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Yogācāra vs Madhyamaka
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Zhentong vs Rangtong
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Promotes how many vehicles?
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Analytic vs Meditative Tradition
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What is Buddha-nature?
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Svātantrika (རང་རྒྱུད་) vs Prāsaṅgika (ཐལ་འགྱུར་པ་)
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Causal nature of the vajrapāda
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"Ultimate truth" or "absolute truth"; the reality of things as they truly are.

Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion.

Refers to something that is taught for a specific reason, rather than because it is entirely true.

Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana).

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature.

The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena.

Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the Uttaratantra; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana.