Ratnagotravibhāga.
The great systematic treatise of Indian tathāgatagarbha doctrine, traditionally attributed to Maitreya and Sāramati — an analysis, built from the Three Jewels outward, of a single claim argued from every angle: that every sentient being, without exception, already possesses the tathāgatagarbha, obscured only by affliction that was never truly part of it. This collection translates the full treatise across 33 pages, verse and prose commentary together, from its opening homage through its closing warning against slandering the very teaching it contains.
How to read this collection
This is the largest single treatise on this site outside the great sūtras themselves — a systematic argument built on its own repeating pattern of root verse followed by prose commentary explaining that verse phrase by phrase, quoting supporting sūtra passages at length. Ratnamati's Chinese translation gives this pattern twice over: once as bare verses alone in its first fascicle, and once, across three further fascicles, with full commentary attached. This collection translates the unique introductory chapter once and the remaining ten chapters in their fuller verse-and-commentary form only, exactly as explained in the translation notes, so that no verse is translated twice.
The treatise's longest chapter, on how every being possesses the tathāgatagarbha, follows its own ten-point outline — essence, cause, fruit, function, correspondence, manifestation, difference across time, pervading every place, immutability, and non-differentiation — and this collection's page divisions follow that same outline wherever it applies.
What each page includes
- The Chinese source text beside our English translation, verse and prose commentary translated together as a single continuous text.
- Reading notes — Ru-Yi Meditation Center's own, since this treatise's own prose commentary already functions as its ancient exegesis.
- Cross-references to this site's already-translated Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa Sūtra, and Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, all quoted directly and repeatedly throughout this treatise.
The Treatise's Own Structure
Eleven chapters move from the Three Jewels through the tathāgatagarbha's ten meanings, its concealment within affliction, the reasons it must be taught at all, and finally the fruit of buddhahood itself — its purity, its qualities, its spontaneous activity, and the merit of simply having faith in what has been explained.
Read by Part
All 33 parts are translated. Each links to the full bilingual text with reading notes.
Translation Notes
Recurring terms, kept consistent across all 33 parts. See the full translation notes for the complete glossary and the treatise's structural history, and also this site's note on translation method.