♦ What is the *Paramārthanyāyagīti of Saraha?

In “Adversaria Buddhica”, an article published by Christian Lindtner on the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens 26 (1982), the author collects the references that Bhāviveka makes in his Madhyamakaratnapradīpa (MRP) to other contemporary or previous philosophers or works. In the list on pages 175-176, we meet with the following point «d) A verse from “Guruguru’s *Paramārthanyāyagīti (?)” (…bla ma’i bla mas kyaṅ Don dam par rigs pa’i glu…) […]. It may actually be traced to Saraha’s Dohākośa».

The verse quoted in the MRP runs thus (sDe-dge, dBu-ma, TSHa, 281a1-2):

raṅ gi sems ñid kun gyi sa bon te ||

gaṅ la srid daṅ mya ṅan ’das ’phro ba ||

’dod pa’i ’bras bu ster bar byed pa yi ||

yid bźin ’dra ba’i sems la phyag ’tshal lo ||

Clearly, as is well-known, this is – with little variants – nothing but the Dohākośa’s stanza:

sems ñid gcig pu kun gyi sa bon te ||

gaṅ la srid daṅ mya ṅan ’das ’phro ba ||

’dod pa’i ’bras bu ster bar byed pa yi ||

yid bźin nor ’dra’i sems la phyag ’tshal lo ||

Lindtner, in the abovementioned article (p. 175, n. 40), quotes also the Apabhraṃśa version of this excerpt (the translation of the verse is here irrelevant). The presence of a passage from the Dohākośa is very helpful for dating the MRP, because Saraha (with all probability 7th-8th century), as we have seen, is there said to have been the guruguru (the master’s master) of Bhāviveka (on this subject see David Seyfort Ruegg’s arguments in his “On the authorship of some works ascribed to Bhāvaviveka/Bhavya”, pp. 62-63). Hence, if we take for granted the fact that Saraha is the author of the stanza quoted in the MRP – and I do not see, for the moment, any valid reason for refuting that –, it follows that the problem does not point at all on Saraha, rather on the name of Saraha’s work as referred to by Bhāviveka: Don dam par rigs pa’i glu (*Paramārthanyāyagīti, according to Lindtner’s reconstruction), which is undoubtedly a title quite different from Dohākośagīti (Tib. Do ha mdzod kyi glu).

So, the question is: should we perhaps suppose that the *Paramārthanyāyagīti is a lost work of Saraha? I personally think that this supposition is unnecessary. Indeed, if we translate don dam par rigs pa’i glu, we would have something like «The song of the argument(s) for/concerning the supreme meaning». Interestingly, this definition reminds us the colophon of the Dohākośagīti, which runs thus (sDe-dge, rGyud, Wi, 77a3):

rnal ’byor gyi dbaṅ phyug chen po dpal sa ra ha chen po’i źal sṅa nas mdzad pa do ha mdzod ces bya ba de kho na ñid rnal du mtshon pa don dam pa’i yi ge rdzogs so ||

That is:

Here finishes the letter (*lekha) concerning the supreme meaning [which] actually exhibits reality, called Dohākośa and composed by the great master of yoga Saraha.

On the basis of all this, I suggest that Bhāviveka attempted a general description of the work of Saraha – probably inspired by the colophon quoted above – instead of mentioning its title. A possible/plausible explanation of don dam par rigs pa’i glu could therefore be: a) glu stands for do ha mdzod [kyi glu] in the colophon; b) rigs pa conceptually stands for (de kho na ñid) rnal du mtshon pa in the colophon; and c) obviously don dam pa refers to the same word in the colophon.