Ratnamati
Lifetime uncertain
In the past many tried to explain the unexplainable, to describe the indescribable or to comprehend the incomprehensible with Ratnamati. Every statement around him was barely anything about the course of his life, it was merely an attempt to give us an idea who he really was.
To offer insight into what is said about his properties in various texts and sources:
He is considered to be an emanation of Diamond Holder. In other sources he is seen as the human emanation of the Wisdom Buddha, depicted on thangkas in his tantric form. It is also said that together with the bodhisattva Sukhanatha he is an emanation of Diamond in Hand. Additionally, he is characterized as the human expression of Loving Eyes and in other scriptures as a direct emanation of the Buddha himself. Sometimes Ratnamati is described as one of Buddha Shakyamuni’s eight main disciples, the so called “Eight Children of Buddha’s Mind”: Wisdom Buddha, Loving Eyes, Diamond in (his) Hand, Samantabadhra, Sarvanirvarana Viskambhin, Akasagarbha, Ksitigarbha and Maitreya.
Everything around him can be described as a spiritual enigma, uniting innumerable enlightened qualities. Together with Sukhanatha, Ratnamati was the core figure in bringing the teachings of Mahamudra into our world. Both are famous as the sources of Saraha’s enlightened understanding.
The place and time of Ratnamati’s birth are unknown (as is most of his life story). There exists hardly any historical information about him. According to legend, his life did not happen in the frame of general samsaric perception, the so-called impure level. It is known that Ratnamati received the complete Mahamudra transmission from Diamond Holder and realized it in a “short” time, or “on one seat” as it is sometimes called. The place where it probably happened, Southern central India, was later essential to Saraha, Nagarjuna, Shavaripa and Tilopa because there they received the Mahamudra transmission directly from Ratnamati in a vision. He deserves our deepest gratitude for being the link between the primordial Buddha Diamond Holder and Saraha, making him first in the succession of Mahamudra lineage holders, who passed the teachings on through the Kagyü transmission lineage until today.
The bottom line is that Ratnamati cannot be understood through our rational, conceptual means; everything around him is beyond that. One lama once stated, “Ratnamati was Mahamudra.”
Key Transmissions
- Mahamudra
- Key-instructions how to conquer death
- Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way (Mūlamādhyamakakārikā or Madhyamaka)
- Mahamudra-Transmission in meditation/in a vision from Ratnamati in Southern India (where Ratnamati had lived)
- Tripitaka-texts (Triple Basket)
- Seventy Verses on Emptiness (Shunyatasapati)
- Two Truths Doctrine - about relative and absolute level (= level with delusion and level without delusion)“
- Six Collections on Reasoning (text)
- Root Verses on the Middle Way, called "Discriminating Awareness"
- Precious Garland
- Refutation of Objections
- Seventy Verses on Emptiness
- Sutra Called “Finely Woven”
- Sixty Verses of Reasoning
- Collections of Praises (text)
- Praise to the Sphere of Reality
- Praise to the Deepest Truth
- Praise to the Supramundane (Buddha)
- Collections of Didactic Explanations (text)
- A Commentary on (the Two) Bodhichittas
- Selected text-collection of Sutras
- Letter to a Friend
- all Mahakali and Mahakala-Tantras
- Guyhasamaja-Tantras
- Della Santina, Peter: Causality and Emptiness: The Wisdom of Nāgārjuna, Singapore: Buddha Dharma Education Association, 2002
- Garfield, Jay L. (1995), The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Garfield, Jay L. and Graham Priest (2003), “Nāgārjuna and the Limits of Thought”, Philosophy East and West 53 (January 2003): 1-21
- Hopkins, Jeffrey: Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland, Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 199
- Jones, Richard H. (2014): Nagarjuna: Buddhism's Most Important Philosopher, 2nd ed. New York: Jackson Square Books
- Kalupahana, David J. (1986): The Philosophy of the Middle Way. Albany: SUNY Press
- Lindtner, Christian (1982): Nagarjuniana: Studies in the Writings and Philosophy of Nāgārjuna Akademisk forlag
- Murty, K. Satchidananda (1971), Nagarjuna. National Book Trust, New Delhi. 2nd edition: 1978
- Ruegg, D. Seyfort (1981): The literature of the Madhyamaka school of philosophy in India (A History of Indian literature), Harrassowitz
- Siderits, Mark and Shōryū Katsura, 2013: Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way. Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Boston: Wisdom Publications
- Tuck, Andrew P. (1990), Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: on the Western Interpretation of Nāgārjuna, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Walser, Joseph (2005), Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press
- Westerhoff, Jan (2009), Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka. A Philosophical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Historical events at this time
Further Information
- https://www.palpung.org/english/mahamudra/refugetreemaster/default.asp?thepagename=02 lodro_rinchen
- Q & A with Khenpo Chödrak Tenphel about Ratnamati and Sukhanatha
- Q & A with Hannah Nydahl 2003 about Ratnamati
