The Verse of Aspiration for Rebirth
This page opens Ru-Yi's translation of Vasubandhu's Rebirth Treatise (無量壽經優波提舍願生偈), the "one treatise" (一論) that completes the traditional "five sūtras and one treatise" (五經一論) of the Pure Land canon. It carries the treatise's own twenty-four-stanza verse in full — Vasubandhu's own summary, in Tanluan's words, of "the passages of the Immeasurable Life Sūtra," compressed into a single continuous poem of refuge, description, and vow.
Translation Method
The Chinese source is Taishō volume 26, no. 1524, formally titled Wuliangshou Jing Youpotishe (無量壽經優波提舍) — "an upadeśa on the Immeasurable Life Sūtra" — more commonly known by its shortened title, the Yuansheng Ji (願生偈, "Verse of Aspiration for Rebirth") or simply the Rebirth Treatise (往生論), the name used throughout this site's other Pure Land pages. It was composed by Vasubandhu (婆藪槃頭, here rendered by Tanluan as "Kinsman of the Gods," 天親), the same Yogācāra master whose name appears repeatedly across this site's Abhidharma and Consciousness-Only pages, and translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci (菩提流支) during the Northern Wei dynasty, in the early 6th century. Unlike the Treatise on Ten Doubts, whose attribution to Zhiyi carries a genuine, textually grounded modern dispute, this treatise's authorship is not seriously questioned — Vasubandhu's authorship and Bodhiruci's translation are both well attested in early bibliographic sources, and the text's place in the canon has never been in doubt.
What is worth pausing over instead is Vasubandhu's own biography. Tradition holds that he spent much of his career as a formidable critic of Mahāyāna teaching from a Sarvāstivādin standpoint, before his elder brother Asaṅga — the same Asaṅga whose story appears in Doubt 7 of the Ten Doubts treatise — converted him to Mahāyāna thought; Vasubandhu is said to have been so stricken with remorse at his earlier polemics that he considered cutting out his own tongue, and instead devoted the rest of his life to composing Mahāyāna treatises with that same tongue. This short verse and its prose commentary, composed near the end of that long career, is his own testament to Pure Land practice specifically — not a peripheral text among his voluminous output, but read by the tradition as his final word.
This treatise is read here with the commentary of Tanluan (曇鸞, 476–542?), a monk of the Northern Wei whose two-fascicle exegesis, the Wangsheng Lun Zhu (往生論註, "Commentary on the Rebirth Treatise," T1819), is arguably the single most consequential work of doctrine in the entire history of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism after the sūtras themselves. It is Tanluan who first systematically develops, from a single line in Nāgārjuna's Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā quoted at the very opening of his commentary, the distinction between the "hard path" (難行道) and the "easy path" (易行道), between self-power (自力) and other-power (他力) — the master framework later inherited, expanded, and in places directly quoted by the Ten Doubts treatise already translated on this site, and, centuries later, by Japan's Hōnen and Shinran, who counted Tanluan as one of Jōdo Shinshū's seven patriarchs. The particular manuscript this translation draws on carries an unusually direct link to that later transmission: its colophon records that it was personally annotated, brushstroke by brushstroke, by Shinran himself in 1256, at eighty-four years old — seven centuries after Tanluan wrote it, and roughly the same distance again from where this translation now stands. Classical text is set in the left-hand column below, our English in the right. See also this site's note on translation method.
The Verse, in Full
世尊我一心， 歸命盡十方，
無礙光如來， 願生安樂國。
我依修多羅， 真實功德相，
說願偈總持， 與佛教相應。
觀彼世界相， 勝過三界道，
究竟如虛空， 廣大無邊際。
正道大慈悲， 出世善根生，
淨光明滿足， 如鏡日月輪。
備諸珍寶性， 具足妙莊嚴，
無垢光焰熾， 明淨曜世間。
寶性功德草， 柔軟左右旋，
觸者生勝樂， 過迦旃隣陀。
寶華千萬種， 彌覆池流泉，
微風動華葉， 交錯光亂轉。
宮殿諸樓閣， 觀十方無礙，
雜樹異光色， 寶欄遍圍繞。
無量寶交絡， 羅網遍虛空，
種種鈴發響， 宣吐妙法音。
雨華衣莊嚴， 無量香普熏，
佛慧明淨日， 除世癡闇冥。
梵聲語深遠， 微妙聞十方，
正覺阿彌陀， 法王善住持。
如來淨華眾， 正覺華化生，
愛樂佛法味， 禪三昧為食。
永離身心惱， 受樂常無間，
大乘善根界， 等無譏嫌名。
女人及根缺， 二乘種不生，
眾生所願樂， 一切能滿足。
故我願往生， 阿彌陀佛國，
無量大寶王， 微妙淨花臺。
相好光一尋， 色像超群生，
如來微妙聲， 梵響聞十方。
同地水火風， 虛空無分別，
天人不動眾， 清淨智海生。
如須彌山王， 勝妙無過者，
天人丈夫眾， 恭敬繞瞻仰。
觀佛本願力， 遇無空過者，
能令速滿足， 功德大寶海。
安樂國清淨， 常轉無垢輪，
化佛菩薩日， 如須彌住持。
無垢莊嚴光， 一念及一時，
普照諸佛會， 利益諸群生。
雨天樂花衣， 妙香等供養，
讚佛諸功德， 無有分別心。
何等世界無， 佛法功德寶？
我皆願往生， 示佛法如佛。
我作論說偈， 願見彌陀佛，
普共諸眾生， 往生安樂國。
無量壽修多羅章句，我以偈總說竟。
World-Honored One, with a single mind, I take refuge throughout the ten directions entire, in the Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light, and vow to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss.
Relying on the sūtras, on the mark of true and real merit, I speak this verse of aspiration, held complete and entire, according with the Buddha's own teaching.
I contemplate the mark of that world: it surpasses the paths of the three realms entirely; ultimate, like empty space itself, vast and without any boundary.
The true path of great compassion gives rise to wholesome roots that transcend the world; its pure light is perfectly full, like the disc of sun and moon in a mirror.
Complete with the nature of every kind of jewel, perfect in wondrous adornment, its stainless light blazes forth, bright and pure, illuminating the world.
Grasses of jeweled nature and merit sway softly, curling left and right; whoever touches them gives rise to a joy surpassing even kācalindī grass.
Jeweled flowers of ten million kinds spread over the pools and flowing springs; a light breeze stirs their petals, and their crossing light swirls and turns.
From every palace hall and tower, one gazes on the ten directions unobstructed; trees of every kind, each with its own light and color, and jeweled balustrades surround them all.
Boundless jewels, woven together, form nets that spread across the sky; bells of every kind ring out, proclaiming the wondrous sound of the Dharma.
A rain of flowers and robes adorns everything, and boundless fragrance perfumes it all; the Buddha's wisdom, a sun bright and pure, dispels the world's darkness and delusion.
His Brahmā-voice speaks profound and far, subtle and wondrous, heard throughout the ten directions; the truly awakened Amitābha, the Dharma-King, sustains and upholds it well.
The Tathāgata's pure assembly, lotus-born, transformed and born from the flower of true awakening, delights in the flavor of the Dharma, taking meditation and samādhi as its food.
Forever free of every torment of body and mind, receiving joy constantly, without a single gap; a realm of Great Vehicle wholesome roots, equal, without any name of reproach.
Women, and those with deficient faculties, and the seed of the two lesser vehicles, are not born there; whatever sentient beings wish and desire, all of it can be entirely fulfilled.
And so I vow to be reborn in Amitābha Buddha's own land, before the king of boundless great jewels, upon a wondrous and pure lotus throne.
His excellent marks and light extend a fathom all around, his form surpassing every living being; the Tathāgata's subtle and wondrous voice, its Brahmā-echo heard throughout the ten directions.
Equal to earth, water, fire, and wind, and to empty space, without any discrimination at all; an assembly of gods and humans, unshakable, born from the pure sea of wisdom.
Like Sumeru, king of mountains, supreme and wondrous, with nothing surpassing it; the great assembly of gods and humans reverently circle him, gazing upward in homage.
Beholding the power of the Buddha's own original vow, none who encounter it ever pass by it in vain; it is able to bring one swiftly to the full completion of the great treasure-sea of merit.
The Land of Peace and Bliss, pure and undefiled, constantly turns the stainless wheel of the Dharma; its transformation-buddhas and bodhisattva-suns sustain it, steadfast as Sumeru.
Its stainless, adorning light, in a single thought and a single moment, universally illuminates every assembly of every buddha, benefiting every kind of being.
A rain of heavenly music, flowers, and robes, wondrous fragrances offered equally to all, praising every merit of every buddha, with a mind entirely free of discrimination.
In whatever world there is none of this treasure of the Buddha-dharma's merit, I vow to be reborn there too, and to show forth the Buddha-dharma, exactly as a buddha would.
I have composed this treatise and spoken this verse, wishing to behold Amitābha Buddha, and, together with every sentient being everywhere, to be reborn in the Land of Peace and Bliss.
As for the passages of the Immeasurable Life Sūtra, I have, with this verse, now given a complete summary of them.
Tanluan's commentary opens not with the treatise at all, but with a full citation of Nāgārjuna's Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā: "the bodhisattva seeking non-retrogression has two paths — the hard path and the easy path. The hard path means seeking non-retrogression, in this evil world of the five turbidities, in an age without a buddha present — a thing exceedingly difficult... like traveling by land, on foot, which is bitter. The easy path means simply having faith in the Buddha, and, through this causal condition, vowing to be born in the pure land; riding upon the Buddha's own vow-power, one thereby attains rebirth in that pure land, sustained by the Buddha's own power, and enters at once into the definitely-settled company of the Great Vehicle... like traveling by water, by boat, which is a joy." Only after establishing this frame does Tanluan turn to the treatise itself, calling it "the ferry and the wind for the sail of non-retrogression" — meaning that everything which follows, the whole of this twenty-four-stanza verse, should be read as one extended demonstration of what the easy path actually looks like from the inside.
On the opening word "I" (我), Tanluan raises and answers an objection any careful Buddhist reader would have: doesn't Buddhism deny any real self at all — so how can Vasubandhu open his own treatise by saying "I"? His answer distinguishes three senses of the word: a false view asserting a real, permanent self; an arrogant self-assertion; and simple, conventional usage, "the currency of ordinary speech." Vasubandhu's "I," Tanluan insists, is only the third — no more a metaphysical claim than any other author naming himself. On "taking refuge" (歸命), Tanluan reads this single act as already containing two of the treatise's own five gates of practice at once: "taking refuge" is itself the gate of worship, and "throughout the ten directions... Tathāgata of Unobstructed Light" is itself the gate of praise, since to name a buddha by his own light-derived title is already to praise him. He backs this compressed reading with a citation from Nāgārjuna's own Hymn to Amitābha, which uses exactly this vocabulary of "taking refuge" interchangeably with plain "bowing" — evidence, Tanluan says, that the two acts were never meant as separate at all.
On the treatise's own repeated claim that Amitābha's light reaches "the ten directions... without obstruction," Tanluan anticipates the obvious challenge: if this light is truly unobstructed, why do beings in this world not see it? "Obstruction belongs to the sentient being," he answers, "not to the light. It is like sunlight reaching the four continents everywhere at once — and yet the blind do not see it. This is no fault of the sunlight's own reach. Or it is like a heavy cloud pouring down rain everywhere — and yet a stubborn stone is not moistened by it. This is no fault of the rain's own falling." The metaphor recurs throughout Tanluan's commentary whenever the treatise's claims about universal reach meet an obvious counterexample: the limit, each time, is located in the perceiver, never in what is offered.
Part 1 Complete
This closes Part 1: the treatise's full twenty-four-stanza verse, Vasubandhu's own compressed statement of refuge, description, and vow, together with Tanluan's account of why this treatise stands at the head of an entire tradition's later thinking about self-power and other-power. Part 2 turns to the treatise's own prose commentary, which opens by naming, explicitly, the five gates of practice this verse has already performed without naming them.
Continue to Part 2 — The Five Gates of Mindfulness →