Asaṅga · tr. Prabhākaramitra · Tang · 大乘莊嚴經論

The Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras.

An "ornament," the treatise announces at its own opening, is not decoration for its own sake but a set of similes for how a teaching actually moves a mind, from first faith through to realization. From there Asaṅga's Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra takes up, in order, the case that the Mahāyāna is genuinely the Buddha's own word; the bodhisattva lineage and the arising of bodhicitta; a single vast chapter on enlightenment itself, where the eight consciousnesses are said to transform into four wisdoms furnishing the three bodies; the seeking of reality through consciousness-only and the three natures; the path from the first incalculable eon through the classical thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, reworked around the bodhisattva grounds; and a closing sequence of verses venerating the Buddha's own qualities one at a time. Prabhākaramitra's early-Tang translation unfolds this across twenty-four chapters and thirteen fascicles. This collection translates the whole of it, fascicle by fascicle.

Browse the 13 fascicles → Translation notes →

How to read this collection

The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra is attributed in its Chinese colophon to Asaṅga (無著菩薩造), and unfolds, like the site's other Yogācāra root texts, as verse (偈) followed by prose exposition (釋) — the two given together, continuously, exactly as Prabhākaramitra's translation interleaves them. Its twenty-four chapters (品) do not map cleanly one-to-one onto the thirteen fascicles: three chapters — 述求品 "Seeking," 度攝品 "Perfections and Gathering Beings," and 覺分品 "The Factors of Enlightenment" — each run on across two fascicles with no chapter break at all, marked only "之一" and "之二" in the source; two chapters — 菩提品 "Enlightenment" and 功德品 "The Buddha's Merit" — are each so extensive that a single fascicle holds nothing else. The fascicle divisions below follow the source text's own volume breaks rather than imposing a cleaner but artificial one-chapter-per-page structure.

Terminology is matched wherever an established rendering already exists on this site's other Yogācāra pages — most closely the Treatise on the Sūtra of the Ten Grounds, which shares this treatise's ten-ground names and etymologies in its own closing fascicle — and recorded in the translation notes below wherever this treatise required a fresh one.

What each page includes

The Chinese source text — verse and prose exposition together — beside our English translation.
A "Where This Fascicle Picks Up" note at the top of every fascicle after the first, narrating the hand-off from the fascicle before it.
Reading notes drawn from this site's own close reading of the treatise, original commentary rather than a translated classical sub-commentary.
Terminology matched to this site's existing Yogācāra pages, most closely the Daśabhūmika-śāstra and the Cheng Weishi Lun.

13 of 13 fascicles translated — complete

24 chapters (品) across the thirteen fascicles

~89,600 Chinese characters across the full bilingual text

T1604 · tr. Prabhākaramitra, early Tang

Thirteen Fascicles, Twenty-Four Chapters

Two chapters fill an entire fascicle each; three others run unbroken across two fascicles. The rest gather two to five shorter chapters into a single volume.

Fascicle 1

緣起品・成宗品・歸依品・種性品

Origin and the five similes for the treatise's own "ornament"; eight causes proving the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's word; refuge in the royal-birth register of seed, mother, and wet-nurse; the bodhisattva lineage's nine topics, down to those who altogether lack it.

Fascicle 2

發心品・二利品・真實品・神通品・成熟品

Twenty-two similes for the aroused mind of enlightenment; why self and other's benefit are without difference; the fivefold character of ultimate reality; six kinds of knowledge behind supernormal power; maturing oneself and others.

Fascicle 3

菩提品第十

A single unbroken chapter — the treatise's longest so far — on enlightenment itself: the transformation of the basis, the eight consciousnesses becoming four wisdoms, the three bodies, and the statement that all sentient beings are called the tathāgatagarbha.

Fascicles 4–5

明信品・述求品第十二之一、之二

Faith's four similes — a hungry dog, a blind tortoise, a fearful servant, a sovereign king — then a single continuous chapter seeking reality through consciousness-only and the three natures, closing with the illusion similes and freedom from the ten discriminations.

Fascicle 6

弘法品・隨修品

Why the bodhisattva teaches at all despite the ultimate being inexpressible, and the sixty kinds of the Tathāgata's voice; the chapter on cultivation, introducing the amala-consciousness and arguing the bodhisattva's love for beings is not craving.

Fascicles 7–8

教授品・業伴品・度攝品第十七之一、之二

The path from a first incalculable eon of faith through the classical warmth-summit-forbearance-supreme-worldly-dharma sequence and a vajra-like absorption; then, continuously, why the perfections number exactly six and the four means of gathering beings.

Fascicle 9

供養品・親近品・梵住品

Offering to the Tathāgatas and drawing near to a good spiritual friend, each on an identical eightfold scheme; the four Brahmā abidings opening into an extended meditation on great compassion, likened to a tree grown from root to fruit.

Fascicles 10–11

覺分品第二十一之一、之二

Bodhisattva-specific qualities of shame and fearlessness precede the classical thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, its seven factors likened point-by-point to a wheel-turning king's seven treasures — then the treatise's most sustained philosophical stretch, momentary destruction and no-self argued as running debate.

Fascicle 12

功德品第二十二

The treatise's single longest and broadest chapter, by its own admission without one organizing thread — dozens of catalogues of bodhisattva merit, from the sevenfold benefit modeled on mother and father down to the five kinds of persons by stage.

Fascicle 13

行住品第二十三・敬佛品第二十四

The bodhisattva's conduct and training across all ten grounds, each ground's name given its own etymology; then the treatise's register turns from exposition to direct address, venerating the Buddha's qualities one at a time — the eighteen unique buddha-dharmas, the wisdom of all aspects, the three bodies — before the source text's own declaration that the exposition is complete.

Read by Fascicle

All thirteen fascicles are translated. Each links to the full bilingual text.

Fascicle 1The Case for the Mahāyāna, and the Bodhisattva Lineage Fascicle 2Arousing the Mind, the Twofold Benefit, Reality, and Supernormal Power Fascicle 3Enlightenment Fascicle 4Faith and Understanding, and Seeking Begins Fascicle 5Seeking, Continued Fascicle 6Propagating the Dharma, and Cultivation Fascicle 7Instruction, Karmic Companionship, and Gathering Beings Begins Fascicle 8Gathering Beings, Continued Fascicle 9Veneration, Drawing Near, and the Brahmā Abidings Fascicle 10The Factors of Enlightenment, Part One Fascicle 11The Factors of Enlightenment, Part Two Fascicle 12The Buddha's Merit Fascicle 13Conduct, Abiding, and Veneration of the Buddha

Translation Notes

Recurring terms, kept consistent across all thirteen fascicles. Where a term already has an established rendering elsewhere on this site's Yogācāra pages, we reuse it; where this treatise's own vocabulary needed a fresh rendering, we coined one here. See also this site's note on translation method.

莊嚴 — ornamentThe treatise's own title-word: not decoration for its own sake, but the five similes explained at the very opening for how a teaching moves a mind toward realization.

轉識成智 — transformation of consciousness into wisdomThe eight consciousnesses transformed into four wisdoms, furnishing the three bodies — the doctrinal core of Fascicle 3's single long chapter on enlightenment.

如來藏 — tathāgatagarbhaFascicle 3's statement that all sentient beings are called the tathāgatagarbha, treated here as a citation within this treatise's own argument rather than as this site's first appearance of the doctrine.

三性 / 唯識 — the three natures / consciousness-onlyThe epistemological core of the two-fascicle "Seeking" chapter (Fascicles 4–5): the imagined, dependent, and perfected natures, and reality sought as "two lights of mind without a dual mark."

阿摩羅識 — amala-consciousnessThe "stainless consciousness" introduced in Fascicle 6, alongside the eight-consciousness scheme of Fascicle 3 — left untransliterated throughout.

波羅蜜 — pāramitāLeft untransliterated throughout; each of the six perfections is analyzed into six meanings — own-nature, cause, fruit, function, correspondence, and class — across Fascicles 7–8.

三十七道品 — the thirty-seven factors of enlightenmentReworked around the bodhisattva path rather than simply repeated from śrāvaka Abhidharma; its seven factors of enlightenment are likened point-by-point to a wheel-turning king's seven treasures, in Fascicles 10–11.

剎那滅 — momentary destructionArgued three separate times with increasing rigor — fifteen, then nine, then fourteen reasons — in Fascicle 11's most sustained philosophical stretch, immediately preceding the treatise's arguments against a really existent self.

十八不共法 — the eighteen unique buddha-dharmasOne item in the closing sequence of verses venerating the Buddha's qualities one at a time, in Fascicle 13's final chapter, 敬佛品.

調柔果 / 攝報果 / 願智果 — the fruits of gentle taming, gathered retribution, and vow and wisdomShared with the Daśabhūmika-śāstra's own ten-ground structure, which this treatise's Fascicle 13 also names and etymologizes ground by ground.