Precious Garland
Precious Garland – (Skt. Ratnāvalī, Wyl. rin chen phreng ba), a shastra written by Nagarjuna. It belongs to Nagarjuna’s Collection of Advice.
In the Precious Garland, Nagarjuna offers intimate counsel on how to conduct one's life and how to construct social policies that reflect Buddhist ideals.
The advice for personal happiness is concerned first with improving one's condition over the course of lifetimes and then with release from all kinds of suffering, culminating in Buddhahood. Nagarjuna describes the cause and effect sequences for the development of happiness within ordinary life as well as the practices of wisdom realizing emptiness and compassion that lead to enlightenment. He describes a Buddha's qualities and offers encouraging advice on the effectiveness of practices that reveal the vast attributes of Buddhahood.
In his advice on social and governmental policy, Nagarjuna emphasizes education, compassionate care for all living beings, not using the death penalty but reforming criminals, and charity for the homeless. Calling for the appointment of government figures who are not seeking profit or fame, he advises that a selfish motivation will lead to misfortune.
Translations
- Nagarjuna's Precious Garland, translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, Snow Lion Publications, 2007