The Treasury of Lives

The precise dates of Ratnākaraśānti's birth, activity, and death are unknown.[1] The twelfth-century Indian historian Abhayadatta erroneously placed Ratnākaraśānti's birth during the reign of the Pāla Emperor Devapāla (810-850), but most scholars agree Ratnākaraśānti was born in the late tenth century, roughly 970.[2] According to Tāranātha (tA ra nA tha, 1575-1615) he took his post at the great Indian monastic university Vikramaśīla during the regency of *Canaka (AKA. *Cāṇaka or *Cāṇakya, active early eleventh century)[3] and he was already well known before Drokmi Lotsāwa Śākya Yeshe's (brog mi lo tsA ba SAkya ye shes, b.992?-1043/1072) visit there in the second decade of the eleventh century, because Śāntibhadra purportedly told him around that time:[4]

When you go to India, you should study with my Master, the great scholar called Śānti-pā, because he is renowned to be the second Omniscient One in the age of strife and is one of the six scholar guardians at the Vikramaśīla temple in Magadha.[5]

Other disciples of Ratnākaraśānti claimed he was one of the central four guardians and that the Buddha had predicted he would counter the increasing hegemony of Candrakīrti's incorrect and nihilistic interpretation of Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka.[6]

Sources do not agree on the place of his birth and early training.[7] Jamyang Khyentse Wangchuk ('jam dbyangs mkhyen brtse'i dbang phyug, 1524-1568) wrote that Ratnākaraśānti was born, educated and became a great teacher in Oḍḍiyāna, after which he moved east to Magadha because his chosen deity told him to go there in order to benefit the Buddhist doctrine.[8] Sumpa Khenpo (sum pa mkhan po, 1704-1788), however, reported that Ratnākaraśānti was born into a kṣatriya, vaiśya or brāhmaṇa family in Magadha, and received his Sarvāstivādin ordination at Oṭantapurī before studying at Vikramaśīla and taking a post there.[9] This later narrative is more likely, because Ratnākaraśānti is called an "Easterner" (pūrvadeśīya) in a twelfth-century Sanskrit manuscript and was often associated with other known Easterners.[10] It is not clear where the idea that Ratnākaraśānti was born in Oḍḍiyāna came from, but—since Ratnākaraśānti was reputed to have travelled (miraculously) from Vikramaśīla to Oḍḍiyāna, at the invitation of a wisdom ḍākinī—it may stem from some confusion about the direction of his travels.[11]

Whatever the case, Ratnākaraśānti's status as a scholar and siddha earned him power and position within Vikramaśīla and impacted many seminal Indian and Tibetan scholars during the first part of the eleventh century. But his philosophy was attacked by many subsequent critics and his important contributions were downplayed.[12] In this regard, since Ratnākaraśānti promoted Yogācāra (instead of Madhyamaka) hermeneutics, later Tibetan historians and hagiographers—who were all Mādhyamikas—sought to distance their own lineages from Ratnākaraśānti’s ideas by downplaying his accomplishments and his influence on their own lineage’s founders. For instance, in the collection of hagiographical stories about the eighty-four Mahāsiddhas, Śānti-pā is described as a mere intellectual who taught widely but neither practiced the teachings nor realized the ultimate reality. But when he was one hundred years old, his own disciple gave him Mahāmudrā instructions that he applied and finally reached realization (Dowman 1986:94–7). Given that such stories diminish the value of his numerous important tantric works, it is not surprising that Ratnākaraśānti’s legacy has been all but forgotten by most contemporary Tibetans. For this reason no modern Tibetan tradition consider him part of their lineage. But early evidence shows that Ratnākaraśānti was one of the most revered teacher of numerous students central to the Tibetan new translation movement (Seton, 2016, 17–35) and hence, the historiography about him, which is often contradictory, should be regarded with some suspicion.

The sources disagree about who Ratnākaraśānti's teacher was. According to an early Tibetan source, Ratnākaraśānti was said to have been the senior-most student of *Dharmakīrtiśrī (b. late tenth cent.), who was also known as *Dharmakīrti of Suvarṇadvīpa, Dharmapāla, and Dharmarakṣita, and to Tibetans as Lama Serlingpa (bla ma gser ling pa).[13] Ratnākaraśānti is said to have meditated for seven years in "Malawa" (ma la ba), which could easily derive frompossibly a typographical or editorial mistake for Malaya in Suvarṇadvīpa, the place in which *Dharmakīrtiśrī wrote his Durbodhālokā commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā.[14] Other Tibetan sources suggest that Ratnākaraśānti studied with other teachers. For instance, Tāranātha claims that Ratnākaraśānti was mainly a tantric disciple of Nāropā. And according to the lineage lists in Atiśa’s early biography rNam thar rgyas pa Yong grags and Lam Yig, Ratnākaraśānti appears to have transmitted to Atiśa various teachings that he himself received from Nāropā, Mañjuśrībhadra, Bodhibhadra, Jitāri. But it seems less likely that he was a disciple, as is sometimes claimed in different histories and Mahāsiddha stories, of Thaganapā, Koṭālipā, and Kṛṣṇa/Samayavajra, as the various Mahāsiddha stories claim—because there is strong evidence that all of these were actually students of Ratnākaraśānti. Furthermore, some Tibetans and modern scholars have suggested that Ratnākaraśānti studied with —or of Ratnakīrti. Recent scholarship, however, has demonstrated the likelihood that Ratnakīrti clearly came later and attacked Ratnākaraśānti’s writings.[15]

Despite the disagreement in sources about his teachers, many sources suggest that Ratnākaraśānti was also known for his ability to attract a lot of funding and teaching invitations from abroad. As a primary guru of Atiśa Dīpaṃkara and acting head (dbu mdzad pa) of Vikramaśīla, Ratnākaraśānti is reported to have expressed his appreciation for Tibetan financial support and to have loaned his student Atiśa to the Tibetans for three years in exchange for a large amount of gold that went to temple repair, to staff support, and to himself.[16] It is perhaps in connection with fundraising of this sort that Ratnākaraśānti came to be described as having been showered in extravagant gifts by kings and as having miraculously turned water into liquid gold that he distributed among the monks.[17]

Ratnākaraśānti produced a large number of commentaries on a variety of topics, with an unusually consistent style, terminology and viewpoint. Among extant works, one finds commentaries on tantric theory and practice, Prajñāpāramitā, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Pramāṇa, metrics, riddles and a short song of Mahāmudrā. His magna opera are his triptych of perfection-method works, namely Sāratamāpañjikā, Śuddhimatī, and Prajñāpāramitopadeśa, and his triptych of mantra method works, namely Muktāvalīpañjikā, Bhramaharasādhana, and Hevajrasahajasadyoga. His main doxographical works, namely *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, *Madhyamapratipadāsiddhi-nāma-Madhyamakālaṃkāravṛtti, and *Madhyamakālaṃkāropadeśa, present refutations of the major Madhyamaka systems, including those of Candrakīrti and Śāntarakṣita. Given Ratnākaraśānti's fame as a scholar, it is not surprising that scholars have identified four works wrongly attributed to Ratnākaraśānti.[18] : (1) dBang bskur ba'i rim par bstan pa (Abhiṣekanirukti) attributed to Rin-chen-'byung-gnas-zhi-ba. Trans. by Śāntibhadra & Tshul-khrims-rgyal-ba. Ōta. 3301,Tōh. 2476, (2) rDo rje 'jigs byed kyi tshogs kyi 'khor lo zhes bya ba (Vajrabhairavagaṇacakra-nāma) by Ratnākaraśānti. Trans. Dīpaṃkararakṣita & rDo-rje-grags. Ōta. 2848, Tōh. 1995, (3) Maṇḍal gyi cho ga zhes bya ba (Maṇḍalavidhi-nāma) by Ratnākaraśānti. Ōta. 5087 and (4) Maṇḍal gyi cho ga (Maṇḍalavidhi) by Ratnākaraśānti. Ōta. 5088.[19]

For Ratnākaraśānti, the two methods of Mahāyāna practice, namely pāramitā and mantra, both lead to the same goal. The slow and painstaking pāramitā method is for those with unbridled energy and strength, while the swift and painless mantra method is for the intensely faithful who have already done their work.[20] However, according to Ratnākaraśānti, the efficacy of both of these methods depends on Prajñāpāramitā—a term that he explained as primarily referring to the noble path of bodhisattvas on the bhūmis, not to the fruitional awareness of a buddha as Dignāga and Haribhadra had suggested—since Prajñāpāramitā alone transforms everything else into a path.[21] In this way, Ratnākaraśānti's explanation not only of sūtra but also of tantra revolves around his interpretation of the path implicit in the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures. Furthermore, Ratnākaraśānti couches his discussion of both the pāramitā and mantra methods in early Yogācāra terms, which do not mention tathāgatagarbha. From Ratanākaraśānti’s various comments, it appears that he saw Buddha-nature theory as, at best, superfluous in the exposition of tantra, and, at worst, an obfuscation of it [22]

Among the Indian and Tibetan masters counted as his students were Atiśa, Maitrīpā, Śraddhākaravarman, and Drokmi Śākya Yeshe.

Ratnākaraśānti seems to have lived a long life and was still in charge of Vikramaśīla in 1041 when Atiśa departed for Tibet.[23] Although most versions of Atiśa’s life story present Ratnākaraśānti as merely being the figurehead who gave Atiśa the permission to go to Tibet for three years, the early rNam thar rgyas pa Yong grags and Lam Yig suggest that (aside from his early studies with Jitāri and gSer ling pa) Ratnākaraśānti was actually Atiśa's main guru (Seton, 2016, 43–47). Despite the fact that some Tibetan travelers fail to mention Ratnākaraśānti being at Vikramaśīla during this period, Ratnākaraśānti was known to have travelled to teach for several years at a time and could have merely been absent during their visit.[24] Atiśa is reputed to have said while in Tibet that Buddhism in India was suffering at that time, because he himself had left for Tibet, while his teacher Ratnākaraśānti had "left" ('das pa) India, and his other main teacher Dharmakīrtiśrī (late tenth cent.) had "died" (grongs).25 On the basis of Atiśa's comments, it seems reasonable to suppose that Ratnākaraśānti's death may have occurred after 1042. Finally, since Śāntibhadra—who wrote the colophon to the *Madhyamālaṃkāropadeśa treating Ratnākaraśānti's life as a thing of the past—is thought to have died circa 1050 CE, Ratnākaraśānti seems to have died before 1050.[26]