འཕགས་པ་ཡ་ག་མད་པའ་ཟ་མ་ཏག་རྣམ་པར་སྣང་མཛད་ཀྱ་སྙང་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.14

intro.14

These sources may shed light on an ambiguity concerning the “two words” Viśeṣacintin refers to in his initial request. It is not entirely clear in the Tibetan translation what these two words are. Bodhiruci’s translation and Divākara’s translation The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Brilliant Treasury That Illuminates All, The Dharma Gateway without Words” appear to handle this ambiguity by grouping the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin’s three questions into two. The contemporary Chinese commentary referenced above¹⁶ asserts that they refer to rulai (如來), the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit compound tathāgata, which can be parsed as “thus gone” (tathā + gata) or “thus come” (tathā + āgata). Read in this light, the Buddha’s reply to the bodhisattva Viśeṣacintin seems to mirror a section in The Ornament of the Light of Awareness That Enters the Domain of All Buddhas (Sarvabuddhaviṣayāvatārajñānālokālaṃkāra, Toh 100),¹⁷ in which the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī asks the Buddha to explain the meaning of two words, “non-arising” and “non-cessation.” The Buddha responds that these two words refer to the Tathāgata¹⁸ and provides a list of the causes of affliction and purification, which he explains are by nature empty and not perceived.¹⁹