Liùshí sòng rúlǐ lùn 六十頌如理論
Sixty Verses on Reasoning (Yuktiṣaṣṭikā) by 龍樹菩薩 (Lóngshù púsà / Nāgārjuna, 造) and 施護 (Shīhù / Dānapāla, 譯)
About the work
A short Mādhyamaka treatise in one fascicle, comprising sixty mnemonic stanzas (ṣaṣṭi-gāthā) by Nāgārjuna, translated by 施護 Dānapāla 施護 at the Northern-Song imperial yìjīngyuán 譯經院 c. 982–1000. T1575 is the only Chinese witness to the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā “Sixty Verses on Reasoning” — one of the canonical six core texts of the Nāgārjuna yukti-corpus (the others being the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Vigrahavyāvartanī, Śūnyatāsaptati, Vaidalyaprakaraṇa, and Ratnāvalī). The Sanskrit original is preserved only in fragmentary form in citations; the Tibetan translation by Mūlaśrī (Tōh. 3825) is the principal full witness alongside T1575.
Structural Division
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Abstract
The opening verse — “I bow my head to the silent lord of the three times, who proclaims the right doctrine of dependent arising; whose pure wisdom-light extinguishes existence and non-existence, perfectly equanimous towards all dharmas” 歸命三世寂默主，宣說緣生正法語… — establishes the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā’s doctrinal programme: the doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda “dependent arising” is presented as the correct alternative both to the eternalist position (śāśvatavāda) and to the annihilationist position (ucchedavāda).
The work is one of the philosophically central treatises in the Nāgārjuna corpus. Its principal target is the realist conception of bhāva (existence): each verse argues that the doctrine of dependent arising entails the absence of intrinsic existence, with the consequence that the yukti (reasoned argument) of the Buddhist path leads to the realisation of śūnyatā. The treatise was foundational for both the East-Asian Mādhyamaka and (especially) the Tibetan reception of Nāgārjuna; Candrakīrti’s Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvṛtti (Tibetan only, Tōh. 3864) is the principal Indic commentary, and Tsongkhapa wrote one of his most important Mādhyamaka treatises (Rigs pa drug cu pa’i ‘grel pa) on the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā.
The Chinese rendering by 施護 is unusual in the Northern-Song imperial corpus for its literary care: the sixty verses are rendered in seven-character Chinese verse, preserving the metrical regularity of the Sanskrit anuṣṭubh. The work was largely overlooked in subsequent Chinese commentarial literature, but is now recognised as a key witness to the Indic Nāgārjuna corpus and is the subject of substantial modern philological scholarship.
Translations and research
- Lindtner, Christian. Nāgārjuniana: Studies in the Writings and Philosophy of Nāgārjuna. Indiske Studier 4. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1982. (Critical edition of the Sanskrit fragments and Tibetan, with translation; principal modern study of the Yuktiṣaṣṭikā.)
- Loizzo, Joseph John. Nāgārjuna’s Reason Sixty (Yuktiṣaṣṭikā) with Candrakīrti’s Reason Sixty Commentary (Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvṛtti). New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies / Columbia University Press, 2007. (Annotated English translation from the Tibetan, with comparative apparatus on T1575.)
- Tola, Fernando, and Carmen Dragonetti. “Nāgārjuna’s Yuktiṣaṣṭikā.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 6 (1983): 94–123.
- Scherrer-Schaub, Cristina. Yuktiṣaṣṭikāvṛtti: Commentaire à la soixantaine sur le raisonnement, ou Du vrai enseignement de la causalité par le maître indien Candrakīrti. Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 25. Bruxelles, 1991. (Critical edition and French translation of Candrakīrti’s Tibetan commentary.)
- Yamaguchi Susumu 山口益. Chūgan bukkyō ronkō 中観仏教論考. Tōkyō: Sankibo, 1965.
Other points of interest
The Yuktiṣaṣṭikā is one of the principal philosophical treatises of the Nāgārjuna corpus and the locus classicus for the Mādhyamaka argument that pratītyasamutpāda and śūnyatā are mutually entailing. The work’s textual history — preserved in Chinese as one Northern-Song translation, in Tibetan via the Phug-brag and standard Tanjur witnesses, and in Sanskrit only as scattered citations — makes it a key case-study in the comparative philology of the Nāgārjuna corpus.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (1000): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/