Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, "The Analysis of the Source of the [Three] Jewels", is an important text of Buddhist philosophy associated with tathāgatagarbha thought. A secondary title for this work is Uttara-tantra (The
Ultimate Doctrine), highlighting the text's claim that the tathāgata-garbha teachings represent the final, definitive
teachings of the Buddha, in contrast to the earlier teachings on emphasizing intrinsic emptiness, such as contained in the
Perfection of Insight Sutras (prajñā-pāramitā) and other Mahāyāna scriptures. In addition to the group of scriptures known as the Tathāgata-garbha sūtras, this
work is the corner-stone of the tathāgata-garbha trend of thought in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
The text consists of about 430 verses with a prose commentary that includes substantial quotations from tathāgata-garbha oriented sūtras; as well as a single extant Sanskrit version, translations exist in Chinese and Tibetan, though it should be noted that each of these versions show a degree of recensional
variation.
The text is attributed to a certain Sthiramati or Sāramati in the earlier Chinese
tradition, while the Tibetan tradition considers the verse portion to have been composed by Maitreya-nātha and the prose commentary by Asanga. The question of
authorship may possibly be resolved by an analysis of the structure of this multi-layered text. The verses actually comprise two
separate groups: a core set of 27 verses (śloka) and 405 additional or supplementary
verses of explication (kārikā). Some scholars have suggested that the former set of verses
should be attributed to Maitreya-nātha, the secondary verses to Asanga, and the prose commentary to Sāramati.
References
Takasaki, Jikido A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga – Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna
Buddhism, Serie Orientale Roma XXXIII ISMEO 1966
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