by Nāgārjuna

The Pratītyasamutpādahṛdayakārikā is Nāgārjuna's verse root text on the heart of dependent origination — a compressed philosophical poem of seven and a half stanzas that distills the Buddha's teaching on the twelve links into three categories (affliction, karma, and suffering), demonstrates their cyclical interdependence, and proves through eight analogies that the aggregates reconnect at rebirth without any self or essence transmigrating. The concluding verses reject both the nihilist and eternalist extremes: there is nothing to posit and nothing to remove. Look at reality as it is, and liberation follows.

This is the verse root text (mūla kārikā) that Nāgārjuna's own prose commentary, the Pratītyasamutpādahṛdayavyākhyāna (Tohoku 3837), expounds verse by verse. Together they form a pair: D3836 states the teaching in compressed verse; D3837 unfolds it through dialogue and analogy.

The text survives as Tohoku 3836 in the Degé Tengyur, Madhyamaka section (Volume ཙ), folios 146b.2–146b.6. No freely available English translation has existed until now.

Homage to the youthful Mañjuśrī!

I.

The twelve distinct links
the Sage declared as dependent origination —
they are wholly gathered
in the three: affliction, karma, and suffering.

II.

The first, eighth, and ninth are affliction;
the second and tenth are karma;
the remaining seven are suffering —
the twelve dharmas subsumed in three.

III.

From the three, two arise;
from the two, seven; from the seven,
three again — the wheel of existence
turns again and again.

IV.

All wanderers are cause and result.
In this, there is no sentient being at all.
From dharmas that are merely empty,
only empty dharmas arise.

V.

In dharmas devoid of self and what belongs to self —
as with recitation, a butter lamp, a mirror, a seal,
a crystal lens, a seed, sourness, and a sound —
even the linking of the aggregates at rebirth

VI.

occurs without transfer — the wise should understand.
Even regarding the most subtle entities,
those who conceive of annihilation —
those unwise ones

VII.

have not seen the meaning of what arises from conditions.
In this, there is nothing to clarify
and nothing to posit.
Look truly at reality itself —

Seeing truly, one is utterly liberated.

Colophon

Pratītyasamutpādahṛdayakārikā (རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་པར་འབྱུང་བའི་སྙིང་པོའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ།), Verses on the Heart of Dependent Origination, attributed to Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE). From the Madhyamaka section of the Degé Tengyur (Toh 3836, volume ཙ, folios 146b.2–146b.6).

This is the verse root text that the prose commentary Pratītyasamutpādahṛdayavyākhyāna (Toh 3837, also attributed to Nāgārjuna) expounds verse by verse. The two texts form a pair: D3836 states the teaching in compressed verse; D3837 unfolds it through dialogue and eight analogies.

The twelve links and their three groups:

• Affliction (ཉོན་མོངས, kleśa): 1st (ignorance), 8th (craving), 9th (grasping)
• Karma (ལས, karma): 2nd (formations), 10th (becoming)
• Suffering (སྡུག་བསྔལ, duḥkha): 3rd (consciousness), 4th (name-and-form), 5th (six sense bases), 6th (contact), 7th (feeling), 11th (birth), 12th (aging-and-death)

The wheel turns: from the 3 affliction-links, the 2 karma-links arise; from the 2, the 7 suffering-links; from the 7, the 3 affliction-links again. The cycle is self-perpetuating, driven entirely by conditions — no agent, no self, no sentient being stands behind it.

The eight analogies (verse V) illustrate how the aggregates reconnect at rebirth without any essence transferring:

1. Recitation (ཁ་ཐོན) — a teaching passes from teacher to student without any substance moving
2. Butter lamp (མར་མེ) — one flame lights another; the second arises from the first without the first flame traveling
3. Mirror (མེ་ལོང) — a face appears in the mirror without entering it
4. Seal (རྒྱ) — an impression is made in wax without the seal itself entering the wax
5. Crystal lens (མེ་ཤེལ) — fire is kindled through a crystal without the crystal burning
6. Seed (ས་བོན) — a sprout arises from a seed without the seed becoming the sprout
7. Sourness (སྐྱུར) — eating something sour makes the mouth water; the effect arises from the cause without any substance transferring
8. Sound (སྒྲ) — a sound produces hearing in the ear through conditions, not through substance traveling

Each analogy demonstrates dependent origination at the point of rebirth: continuity without identity, causation without transfer.

Good Works Translation from Tibetan. Translated by Dawa (ཟླ་བ), Tibetan Translator of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, from the Esukhia Degé Tengyur etext. The English is independently derived from reading the Tibetan. No existing English translation was consulted — none is known to exist freely.

Scribed by Dawa, the forty-seventh of the Tibetan translator role, NTAC Good Works Project.

See also: Exposition of the Heart of Dependent Origination (D3837) — Nāgārjuna's own prose commentary on these verses, expounding each stanza through dialogue and eight analogies. · Twenty Verses on the Great Vehicle (D3833) · The Middle Way: Destroyer of Error (D3850) · Establishing Rational Reasons for Refuting Errors (D3847) — Āryadeva's systematic dismantling of non-Buddhist philosophical errors, concluding with the twelve links of dependent origination. · Commentary on the Compendium of Essence of Wisdom — Bodhibhadra · Sixty Verses on Reasoning — Nagarjuna (D3825) · The Vaidalyasutra — Nagarjuna (D3826) · The Akutobhaya — Nagarjuna (D3829)

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Source Text: རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་པར་འབྱུང་བའི་སྙིང་པོའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ།

Classical Tibetan source text from the Esukhia Degé Tengyur digital edition (GitHub: Esukhia/derge-tengyur, CC0). Toh 3836, volume ཙ (096), folios 146b.2–146b.6.

༄༅༅། །རྒྱ་གར་སྐད་དུ། པྲ་ཏི་ཏྱ་ས་མུཏྤད་ཧྲྀ་ད་ཡ་ཀཱ་རི་ཀཱ །བོད་སྐད་དུ། རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་པར་འབྱུང་བའི་སྙིང་པོའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ།

འཇམ་དཔལ་གཞོན་ནུར་གྱུར་པ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ།

།ཡན་ལག་བྱེ་བྲག་བཅུ་གཉིས་གང་།
།ཐུབ་པས་རྟེན་འབྱུང་གསུངས་དེ་དག
།ཉོན་མོངས་ལས་དང་སྡུག་བསྔལ་དང་།
།གསུམ་པོ་དག་ཏུ་ཟད་པར་འདུས།

།དང་པོ་བརྒྱད་དང་དགུ་ཉོན་མོངས།
།གཉིས་དང་བཅུ་པ་ལས་ཡིན་ཏེ།
།ལྷག་མ་བདུན་ཡང་སྡུག་བསྔལ་ཡིན།
།བཅུ་གཉིས་ཆོས་ནི་གསུམ་དུ་འདུས།

།གསུམ་པོ་དག་ལས་གཉིས་འབྱུང་སྟེ།
།གཉིས་ལས་བདུན་འབྱུང་བདུན་ལས་ཀྱང་།
།གསུམ་འབྱུང་སྲིད་པའི་འཁོར་ལོ་དེ།
།ཉིད་ནི་ཡང་དང་ཡང་དུ་འཁོར།

།འགྲོ་ཀུན་རྒྱུ་དང་འབྲས་བུ་སྟེ།
།འདི་ལ་སེམས་ཅན་ཅི་ཡང་མེད།
།སྟོང་པ་ཁོ་ནའི་ཆོས་རྣམས་ལས།
།སྟོང་པའི་ཆོས་རྣམས་འབྱུང་བ་ཟད།

།བདག་དང་བདག་གི་མེད་པའི་ཆོས།
།ཁ་ཐོན་མར་མེ་མེ་ལོང་རྒྱ།
།མེ་ཤེལ་ས་བོན་སྐྱུར་དང་སྒྲས།
།ཕུང་པོ་ཉིང་མཚམས་སྦྱོར་བ་ཡང་།

།མི་འཕོ་བར་ཡང་མཁས་རྟོགས་བྱ།
།ཤིན་ཏུ་ཕྲ་བའི་དངོས་ལ་ཡང་།
།གང་གིས་ཆད་པར་རྣམ་བརྟགས་པ།
།རྣམ་པར་མི་མཁས་དེ་ཡིས་ནི།

།རྐྱེན་ལས་བྱུང་བའི་དོན་མ་མཐོང་།
།འདི་ལ་གསལ་བྱ་གང་ཡང་མེད།
།གཞག་པར་བྱ་བ་ཅི་ཡང་མེད།
།ཡང་དག་ཉིད་ལ་ཡང་དག་བལྟ།

།ཡང་དག་མཐོང་ན་རྣམ་པར་གྲོལ།

རྟེན་ཅིང་འབྲེལ་པར་འབྱུང་བའི་སྙིང་པོའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ། སློབ་དཔོན་འཕགས་པ་ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་ཀྱིས་མཛད་པ་རྫོགས་སོ།།

Source Colophon

Degé Tengyur, Toh 3836. Volume ཙ (tsa), folios 146b.2–146b.6. File: 096_དབུ་མ།_ཙ.txt, lines 2306–2311 in the Esukhia digital text.

Esukhia Degé Tengyur etext (GitHub: Esukhia/derge-tengyur), CC0 Public Domain. Based on the Degé Tengyur woodblock print edition.

The Tibetan colophon reads: སློབ་དཔོན་འཕགས་པ་ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་ཀྱིས་མཛད་པ་རྫོགས་སོ།། — "Composed by the noble master Nāgārjuna. Complete."

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