龍樹菩薩勸誡王頌

This counsel was composed in verse by the Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna and sent to a king of South India who was his friend. This poem was first translated by people of the land of Shénzhōu; but for the most part it did not follow these fine words and beautiful meanings, and was not clear. In order to fix this text anew and make it circulate here and there, the Śramaṇa Yijing, when he came to the region of Eastern India in the country of Tāmralipti, translated it from Sanskrit into Chinese.

Sentient beings, without wisdom, have their minds obscured

Therefore, out of compassion, this is set forth and revealed

The Venerable Nāgārjuna, for the sake of the king,

Sent this letter to him, exhorting him to cultivate and study.

This is precisely the counsel, and people of later ages recounted it in verse, with the general meaning as follows.

Endowed with virtue, I speak in this way

In order to give rise to merit and blessings, I relate it again

Being truly good, now you can hear it

This counsel should therefore be called a Sacred Poem.

Just as, following the wood, one carves a statue,

So it is because the wise are able to make offerings

Even if this poem is not artful and subtle,

Relying on the True Dharma it is spoken, do not slight it.

Though the king already understands such teachings as taught before,

Upon hearing the Buddha's words, his faith increases all the more

Like the moonlight shining upon the dust of a wall

How could it not be plainly the most excellent and wondrous?

The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha community,

Giving, morality, together with the heavens,

The ten wholesome courses of action—

Body, speech, and mind: draw near to them constantly.

Keep far away from wine and drunkenness,

And, moreover, a life that is pure and clean

Understanding that wealth, at its root, is not secure,

In accord with the Dharma, make offerings to the bhikṣus.

Greed, the thief, and rebirth—

In the life to come they become companions

The virtues abide in dependence on the precepts,

Just as the earth gives birth to all things.

Do not wither, grieve, suffer, or fear

The Buddha says one should constantly practice

Giving, morality, patience, vigor, concentration,

And wisdom that cannot be fully named together—

These should be clearly understood and cultivated,

To cross beyond the ocean and become a Buddha.

If one filially supports father and mother,

This household possesses a Brahmā King

Seen in the present, it earns a good name,

And in the life to come one is born in the heavens.

Killing, stealing, lust, false speech,

Greed for food, craving, and a lofty seat,

Abstaining from wine, song, and dance,

The wearing of flowers and the anointing with oils—

If men and women carry out

These eight branches of the Noble Path,

From the desire realm of the Six Heavens of Desire

They shall be born in the Heaven of Lasting Purity.

Flattery, mad greed, and sloth,

Pride, lust, anger gathered together,

Great learning that in youth becomes arrogant—

Regard these as enemies and thieves.

It is said that the unborn comes through diligence,

That there is death, and its cause is heedlessness

Diligently practice those wholesome dharmas,

For thereby one is able to guard and protect.

First one must abandon heedlessness,

Afterward, if one again cultivates diligently,

It is like wholesome clouds that part

And a fine dew reveals the bright moon.

Sundarī and Nanda,

Fully accomplishing the principle of Māra,

Aṅgulimāla, Darśaka—

Casting off evil, they all became good.

Advance swiftly, with patience that has no end

Do not let anger grow strong and increase

In the end one does not turn back

To realize Buddhahood one must remove hatred.

When others merely call me a fool,

Or revile and insult what is mine,

To harbor anger and carry on hateful disputes—

Renounce hatred, and you will sleep at peace.

Markings in water, in earth, in stone—

The minds of people, at the last, resemble these

The arising of afflictions is as the first,

While one who loves the Dharma is as the last.

The Buddha spoke of three kinds of speech:

Words pleasing, true, and false

They are like honey, like flowers, like dung

Cast off the latter to make the former foremost.

Bright before and bright after as well,

Dark before and dark after as well,

Or bright before and dark after,

Or dark before and bright after—

In this way there are four kinds of people,

And the king should rely on the first.

In one's own body there is the ripe born of the ripe,

And again the ripe as though newly born,

And again the ripe like the ripe,

Or again the born like the born—

Within the fruit of the āmra mango

There are such distinctions

People too are like those four kinds:

Hard to understand, the king should know.

Do not gaze upon a woman's quarters

You must regard her as a mother

Toward elder and younger sisters, think according to their age

Should greed arise, contemplate impurity.

As one who hears that a child is in danger of dying

Guards the mind with care and concern—

Birds, potent drugs, the dread of fire—

Do not let the pleasures of desire encroach.

Through desire one creates what is not beneficial,

Just like the kiṃpāka fruit

The Buddha said these should be removed

The prison of birth-and-death binds and shackles.

Wild and frenzied, ever in agitation,

Apt to fall into the six consciousnesses,

One should at once sweep these enemies away—

This is precisely what is meant by courage.

The nine orifices, foul-smelling, all hold filth

The body is hard to make complete, bound up in skin

So look at a young maiden, beyond her ornaments:

Break apart the form—it is worse and more vile still.

Gnawed by worms, full of pain and suffering,

Seeking peace, in the end one is burned by fire

Truly this comes not from letting go

The defilement of desire is just like this.

For the sake of wisdom, surpass mere reasoning

Direct the mind to contemplate these matters

Though there be pleasure, virtue should be trained

The Dharma without remainder is easy to approach.

If everyone seeks to grow familiar—

Graceful, alluring, and widely learned,

Yet without wisdom, breaking the precepts—

What sufficiency does such a person have?

If a person does not seek such familiarity,

Whether of fair or foul report, hearing all clearly,

Possessing wisdom, keeping the pure precepts—

All would wish to make offerings to such a one.

Gain and loss, suffering and pleasure,

Praise and blame, fame and slander—

Understand these eight worldly dharmas

With a humble mind, leave behind deceptive realms.

Born again in the heavens, one prays for

Father and mother, together with wife and children

Do not, for the sake of pleasure, commit sins

The fruit of hell—of this they are unaware.

If one performs those evil deeds,

It is unlike a knife that harms when near

Waiting until the moment of death,

The fruits of evil karma rise up and cover one over.

Faith, morality, giving, clear hearing,

Shame and conscience, and right wisdom—

These seven riches, the Muni declared

When all things come to nothing.

Widely roaming, taking pleasure in motley scenes,

Relying on and drawing near to evil friends,

Drinking wine at improper times, doing the six deeds—

This life earns it a name; you must cast it off.

In seeking wealth, seek with few desires

Among humans, gods, and teachers, the most noble

Is called cultivating little wanting

Though they grasp little, such people are rich.

If a person widely seeks after these things,

In the end they are laid out, and suffering only increases

If the wise do not cultivate few desires,

After enduring suffering they are like serpents' heads.

By nature wrathful, like a killer,

Treating her husband with light mockery, as if meeting a foe,

Ordering about goods and chattels, surely making excuses—

You should cast off these three kinds of person.

The one who accords like a sister, loved as a mother,

The attendant who follows like an intimate friend—

These four kinds you should make offerings to

You should clearly understand: this is the household of the gods.

Eat and drink as if taking medicine

Understand the measure, avoid greed and anger

Not for the sake of growing fat or arrogant,

But only wishing to maintain this body.

Diligently strive to pass beyond the day

In the early, middle, and late watches of the night,

In sleep and dream, may you still see

Do not let your life come to be spent in vain.

Loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity—

Cultivate and train these constantly, again and again

Though one has not yet entered the higher streams,

Still one is born in the Brahmā World Heavens.

Casting off the motley, desire, and suffering, seeking joy and bliss,

According to karma one will be born in four realms:

Mahābrahmā, Ābhāsvara, and Śubhakṛtsna,

The Bṛhatphala heavens, and the like.

If one is able to cultivate the antidotes,

With surpassing virtue, loving sentient beings—

These five deeds are wholesome

Not doing them is great evil.

Rain of salt, sour and with little water—

How could it cause a flood within a pond?

Even if one commits small sins of karma,

The great good must be clearly understood.

Anger and delusion give rise to evil deeds,

Deep sleep, longing, greed, and doubt—

Like playing with the bandits of the five hindrances,

Constantly together with all wholesome deeds

There are five supremely excellent dharmas:

Faith, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom

In these one should diligently cultivate,

For they can strengthen all the faculties.

Sickness and suffering, death, and parting from loved ones—

All these arise from one's own karma

Come, then, and cultivate with diligence,

And with this, let pride and arrogance be forgotten.

If you are afraid, the heavens lead to liberation

Therefore cultivate right view

Tell others to do good

Wrong view, together with evil fruits.

Without pleasure, permanence, and without self,

Impurity—to the wise, these are clear

Deluded thoughts, the four inversions,

The hardships and sufferings located in the body.

It is said that form is not the self,

The self does not exist within form,

Form and self do not exist together as one—

Clearly understand the four aggregates as empty.

Not arising from the seasons,

Not from a spontaneous, inherent nature,

Not without cause, nor from the Lord (Īśvara)—

When conditions meet, karma and craving arise.

The grasping of rules and observances, the view of a self in the body,

And the doubt of fixed views—

You should understand these three kinds of fetters

They will bind shut the gate of the precepts.

Liberation thereafter relies upon this,

It is not through them that one becomes a friend

Exhort the cultivation of hearing, morality, and concentration,

And the Four Noble Truths will arise.

Higher morality, the mind and wisdom—

Through learning one can constantly cultivate

The hundred and fifty precepts are supreme,

Or returning, the three categories.

Abiding in the body, with mindfulness,

By the wholesome path constantly cultivate

When one abides in this right mindfulness,

All dharmas are extinguished completely.

This lifespan has many calamities and afflictions,

Like the wind blowing froth upon the water

If one's breath should come to a stop,

To lie down or sit is truly difficult.

In the end it is like charcoal,

Foul and defiled, hard to keep for long

Contemplate the body—it is no real dharma,

When ruined and destroyed, it falls apart and disperses.

The great earth, like the vast ocean,

The seven suns scorch and burn it up

How much more this small body of ours—

Will it not be turned to ash?

In this way impermanence is again not lasting,

No refuge, no rescue, no house for shelter

Birth-and-death in the human realm one must shun and leave behind,

Truly no different from a plantain tree.

The sea turtle putting its head into a piece of wood—

Such a thing is truly hard to encounter just once

Casting that off, to attain a human body,

If one does evil deeds, the fruit returns again.

A golden plate does not hold filth

To deceive thereby is great folly

If, born as a human, one commits sins,

In the end, young and indolent—

Yet if one is born among good friends,

And again gives rise to the right resolve and vow,

The former body, through merit and karmic deeds,

The four great elements revolve and circle around.

The Buddha said: draw near to good friends,

And contemplate the entirety of the holy life

The good ones, relying upon the Buddha,

For the most part realize complete quiescence.

Wrong view gives birth among hungry ghosts and beasts,

In Niraya, where the Dharma is not heard

In border lands one dies and the corpse is cast off,

Born into a nature dark with delusion.

Or one is born in the Heaven of Long Life

Apart from these eight conditions, there is no place

Of leisure and ease that can be obtained

That state, then, can be attained.

Parting from loved ones, old age, sickness, and death—

The pleasure here is a place of suffering

The wise should give rise to revulsion

Speaking little or much, you should listen.

A mother may change and become a wife,

A father may turn into a son,

Foes become friends,

Drifting and floating with no fixed course.

Each person, drinking mother's milk,

Has drunk more than the water of the four seas

Passing through and taking up another body,

They then drink much more there.

In the past, each and every birth produced bodies and bones,

Changing and accumulating into Mount Sumeru

The earth, rounded like a bright pearl bead—

Each and every form: how could they ever be exhausted?

As lords of Brahmā, all made offerings,

In the end, by the force of karma, fell to the earth,

Became Wheel-Turning Kings,

And when that life ended, were transformed into servants.

In the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, with courtesans' delights,

After enjoying the three portions, one falls into Niraya

Leaving pain, then poison, passing through much suffering,

The body ground, the bones in pain, the feet shackled.

Enjoying pleasures lofty as Mount Sumeru,

The hells follow, fully complete

Turning to suffer being roasted and seared,

Passing through the hell of dung and urine.

Delighting in the rear garden,

Heavenly maidens following in play,

One falls down into a forest of swords,

Severing hands, feet, ears, and noses.

Or one enters the wondrous Mandākinī ponds and lakes,

Heavenly maidens adorned beautifully with golden flowers,

But casting off that body, one then suffers Niraya,

Burning, hard to flee, escaping the heat.

In the heavens, one enjoys the bliss of the Dharma,

But except for removing greed, the Mahābrahmā King

Then falls into Avīci,

Like grass set ablaze, the fire spreading.

Or one is born as the sun or moon,

The body's light pervading the four continents,

Yet each dawn it turns dark again

Lifting the hand, one sees no clear principle.

The three kinds of bright lamps of merit,

After death will be retained

One meets with darkness of every kind,

Where sun and moon do not shine through.

There are lives bound with hot ropes,

Crying out without cease or rest

Deception, then—the binding of suffering—

Burns those who do evil deeds.

Or there is the suffering in Māra-pura,

Or one is chopped fine as powder,

Or split with an axe like firewood,

Just like cleaving it piece by piece.

A fire strong as that which burns,

Forced to drink molten copper-water,

Upon the body, knives and swords cut,

Upon the body, an iron bed sears.

Or at times, raising the hands high,

Iron tongues fierce as dogs,

Vultures pecking at the toes and claws,

Tearing apart the very entrails and liver.

Flies, gnats, and all manner of worms,

Their number exceeding a thousand koṭīs,

They are able to bite and rend the body,

Falling swiftly, all casting off the flesh.

If a person commits all these wicked deeds,

He hears the suffering of body and flesh a hundred thousand times

How great then is such pain and anguish!

When Niraya ends, he meets a fierce fire.

One must contemplate it utterly transformed, hear it and recall it,

Reciting the sūtras and treatises, constantly seeking and striving

Merely to hear of Niraya is itself terrifying,

How could one through deception escape the burning?

Among those pleasures, which is the foremost?

The exhaustion of craving, where no further pleasure arises, is superior

Among those sufferings, which is the highest?

In the Niraya of No Interval, suffering harms the body.

If the people of the world, each day recited,

Were cut and severed three hundred times,

The suffering of these hells would still be little—

For there, every single hair is pierced through.

Here one undergoes extreme suffering,

Passing a hundred autumns of koṭīs

When this evil is at last exhausted,

To cast off this life—there is no such principle.

In this way the various fruits of evil

Are planted by body, speech, and mind

Therefore exhort: with the power of loving-kindness, help

Even a small mote of evil, do not commit.

Or one enters the realm of the Animals,

Killing, binding, the suffering of loved ones,

Far removed from the place of quiescent good,

One is then afflicted by those pains.

Or one is killed, bound in suffering,

Just like tails, horns, and hides,

Strung up, tied, and hung aloft,

Sat upon, grasped, held, and ridden.

One undergoes suffering like that of the ghosts,

Where, unceasing, suffering ever arrives—

Hunger and thirst, cold and heat,

Hardship, fear, and suffering constantly encroach.

The mouth small as the eye of a needle,

The belly great as a mountain peak,

Hungry and suffering, stinking as dung,

Gaining a little, one cannot bear even ease.

The form like a withered, dried-up tree,

Its skin made into garments,

The mouth of fire burns night after night,

Even fluttering moths it wishes to eat.

Blood, the foul, and the impure—

With little merit, never fully satisfied,

It causes the mouth to suffer bitterly,

And again one must eat hot things.

The moon shines, yet grows hotter still,

The sky makes the body cold again,

Wishing for fruit, but there are no trees,

The river's water too is wholly dried up.

In this way one undergoes the various sufferings,

Passing ten thousand years, a thousand years,

For long ages this body is beaten,

All because of that root of suffering.

If one is born among the hungry ghosts,

One meets, through deception, the single taste of suffering,

There is no one to love or care for them—

The Buddha said it is because of stinginess.

Born in the heavens, though one enjoys pleasure,

When the merit is spent, the suffering is beyond measure

In the end one meets with falling down

Do not delight—you must understand this clearly.

Weary of sitting in the lofty seat,

The radiance upon the body is lost,

Sweat flows from the body and the armpits,

Upon the head the flowers wither away.

In this way the five signs appear—

In the heavenly realms, death is beyond doubt

If one is reborn again as a human,

One is apt to be born in turmoil and much doubt.

If one falls from the heavenly realms,

That goodness is then exhausted,

Falling into the realm of Animals,

Niraya—accordingly one dwells there.

The inherent nature of the asuras

Causes the whole of perfect wisdom

To resent the heavens, giving rise to a suffering mind,

Yet gradually one delights in seeing the truth.

In this way one drifts and wanders through birth-and-death,

Gods, humans, beasts, and asuras

Base karma gives rise to those sufferings,

The ghostly destinies, together entering Naraka.

Letting go, one enters the fire that burns upon the head,

Burning away the garments wrapped all about the body

This suffering cannot be fully described—

Unborn, one abides in Nirvāṇa.

One must seek the virtue of morality together with concentration and wisdom,

Quiescent, supple, gentle, leaving behind defilement and filth

Nirvāṇa is inexhaustible, without aging or death,

Where the four great elements, the sun and moon, all dissolve away.

Mindfulness, discernment of dharmas, diligence,

Concentration, wisdom, joy, and pliancy—

These seven factors of enlightenment

Are able to lead one to Nirvāṇa.

Without wisdom, concentration does not truly exist,

With resolve, wisdom then grows weak

If one accomplishes both of these,

There is an ocean, like an ox's hoofprint.

The fourteen non-frivolous dharmas,

In daily approach to the place of speaking—

Here one should not think,

Nor should one let enlightenment be lost.

From ignorance, karma arises;

Through karma, consciousness again is born;

Consciousness is conditioned upon name-and-form;

Name-and-form gives rise to the six sense-bases;

The six sense-bases are conditioned upon contact;

Contact conditions the arising of feeling;

Feeling then is conditioned upon craving;

Through craving arises grasping;

That grasping in turn conditions becoming;

That becoming again gives rise to the condition;

The condition for birth, then aging-and-death;

Grief, sickness, seeking and not obtaining—

The great aggregate of suffering in saṃsāra

This deception should be cut off and removed.

As thus there is birth, so suffering ceases;

Of these sufferings there is no lack

The Supreme One spoke this teaching,

The profound and wondrous arising-through-conditions.

When, through this right view,

One then sees the Unsurpassed Honored One:

Right view, right livelihood, right mindfulness,

Right concentration, speech, action, and thought—

This is the Noble Eightfold Path,

For the sake of quiescence, cultivate and uphold it.

Not arising from the habit of craving,

Which causes the body and suffering to be born,

Removing deception, realizing liberation,

The Noble Eightfold Path should be practiced.

This very practice is the work of yoga,

The four kinds, the cause, the Noble Truths,

Lie only in the place of solemn adornment

Wisdom obscured, afflictions seep in.

It does not fall from a place of nothingness,

As rice arises from the earth

Those who first realize the Dharma are people

All are ordinary beings with afflictions.

Why recount it separately at such length?

Removing affliction, I have spoken of it in brief

The matter arises from those thoughts and intentions—

The Sage said the mind is the root.

As distinguished among the dharmas above,

The bhikṣu can hardly understand it all

Following the cultivation of a single matter,

Do not let yourself be born in the Void Heaven.

In all wholesome deeds, rejoice along with them,

The three wondrous conducts cultivate by yourself,

Dedicate them for the sake of becoming a Buddha,

And the accumulation of merit, used in this way,

Afterward, born, you shall receive the immeasurable,

Widely delivering the realms of gods and humans,

Just like Avalokiteśvara—

Truly difficult, with foe and kin alike.

Birth, old age, sickness, death—the mind's poison removed,

In the Buddha-land, taking birth, becoming a Father of the World,

The measure of your lifespan, hard to know,

Equal to the Greatly Enlightened Buddha Amitābha.

Revealing and illuminating the precepts and the wisdom of relinquishment,

Heaven and earth, empty space—your name pervades them all,

The great earth's dwellers and the heavenly multitudes,

Do not let beautiful charms and women's love be cherished;

Afflictions bind fast the sentient beings—

Cut off the stream of birth-and-death, realize true awakening,

Transcend and deliver the world, ever bearing a name,

For attaining the Unborn, leaving behind dust and defilement.

Āryā, Nāga, Arjuna, Bodhisattva, Suhṛd, Lekha—and the rest. "Āryā" means precisely "noble." "Nāga" is a dragon, an elephant. "Arjuna" is translated as "strong." "Bodhisattva" means "Enlightened Sentient Being." "Suhṛd" means "intimate." "Lekha" is precisely this book. The preceding is what the Venerable Nāgārjuna composed and produced.

The Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna's Exhortation and Encouragement to the Kings

The End