The Paramârtha-Gâthâs

By Asanga

1. There is no proprietor at all, no doer, no feeler ;

Although all the dharmas are inactive, yet activity elvolves

2. The twelve members of phenomenal existence are the skandhas, dyatanas, and dhâtus.
Pondering all those, a person (pudgala) is not found.

3. Void is all within ; void all without.

Nor exists anyone who contemplates the void.

4. The Self does not belong to the self ; it is deludedly imagined.

Here there is no being or oneself. These dharmas have their causes.

5. All the samskâras are momentary ; whence the activity of unstable things ?
Their origin is that activity, and that [origin] is called the doer.

6. Neither does the eye see form ; not the ear hear sounds.
Neither does the nose smell odors ; nor the tongue taste flavors.

7. Neither does the body feel tangibles ; nor the mind conceive mentals (dharma).
And these have neither controller nor instigator.

8. Another does not produce this ; nor it is produced of itself.

Entities arise in dependence. They are not old, but ever new.

9. Another does not destroy this ; nor it is destroyed of itself.

When there is the condition, things arise ; and having arisen, are perishable by their own essence.

10. One finds that creatures lie in two categories.

They are careless in sense fields ; moreover, waywardly advancing.

11. Truky those caught by delusion are those waywardly advancing,

While those caught by desire are those careless in sense fields.

12. Because dharmas have their cause, as does also suffering,

Since one has made the two fundamental corruptions, there are the twelve members, of two kinds.

13. The activity is not made by self, nor made by another ;

Another [life] does not cause the activity ; but also the activity does not fail to exist.

14. Wheter within , without, or between the two,

The samskâra that has not [yet] arisen in nowhere found.

15. Even when the samskâras has arisen, it is not therby found.
The future is devoid of sign. One imagines just the past.

16. One imagines not just the experienced, but imagines also the not-experienced.
The samskâras are beginningless. Still, a beginning is found.

17. The solar kinsman has proclaimed form to be like a lump of foam ;
Feeling like a bubble ; ideation like a mirage ;

18. Motivations like plantain trunks ; and perception like an illusion.

The samskâras arise alike, abide and perish alike.

19. A deluder does not delude a deluded one, nor does he delude another.
Another does not delude that one, and there is no lack of delusion.

20. That delusion is produced from improper mental orientation,

And the improper mental orientation is produced belonging to one not free from delusion.

21. Meritorious, demeritorious, and motionless are the samskâras (and) held to be threefold ;
And whichever be the threefold karma, all that is disjoined.

22. The present one are disintegrating ;

Those of the past abide nowhere ;
The unborn depend on conditions,
And mental substance evolves accordingly.

23. In an absolute sense not all [mental substance] has association – dissociation likewise – with all
[samskâra].
It is [merely] said that mental substance evolves accordingly.

24. Again, while the stream [of consciousness] has similar and dissimilar disruption,
This convention is employed by following the view of self.

25. The body of form breaks up ; the body of names also perishes.
And the self-made is declared 'fruit-eating' both in this and in the other world.

26. That is the 'doer' and the 'feeler' through difference by reason of priority and posteriority,
And through comprising in itself the cause and the fruit.
But one should not explain [that] as 'different.'

27. Through not disrupting the course of causes, activity evolves by reason of the combinaison [of
causes].
They arise through their own cause and take control.

28. When the cause is delight in constructive imagination, likewise the action (karma) is good or
evil.
When any seed matures, likewise the fruit is desirable or undesirable.

29. When any seed matures, the view of self arises.

What is to be known of one's own self is formless, invisible.

30. Ant that is what the immature and ignorant imagine to be the self within, having based
themselves on the view of self.
Thus there are many [false] views.

31. As a result of the cohering seed of self, the former concomitant habitual thinking,
And [present] hearing in conformity therewith, the view of self arises.

32. Attachment begins alongside that condition within ;

And attachment craving for acquisition [begins alongside] the cherished thing without.

33. Whatever this world fears, that brings the self of delusion.
Having forlmerly made an abode, it undertakes constructive imagination.

34. Whatever the abode that is made, that the noble one know as suffering.
Thereby the immature always suffer. It is not appeased even for a moment.

35. The mental substance that is filled with variations gathers suffering of like kind.
Whenever mental substance belongs to the immature, it is the condition of egohood, joy, and
suffering.

36. Where all fools are stuck, as an elephant sinks in a bog,

There is the remaining delusion, proceeding everywhere, given over to every activity.

37. No fire, wind, or sun could dry up those unbearable streams in the world, so as to lay bare all
streams-
Nothing but the practice of the Law.

38. When suffering, one thinks, « I am suffering, » or when happy, takes it to be suffering.
Imagination is the arouser of views. It is produced from them and generates them in turn.

39. The corrupted mind always arises and ceases together with corruption.
Its release has not occurred and will not.

40. That does not arise later. On another occasion it becomes pure.
Precisely that which formerly was unstained is called 'freed from curruptions.'

41. That which was corrupted here in the end is purified, with its intrinsic light.
Anything not purified here would surely not become pure anywhere !

42. By reason of the utter destruction of all seeds – the total elimination of all corruption ;
In the same place, as well, by reason of no stain, a portion of two kinds is specified.

43. Through what is to be known of one's own self, through elimination of suffering only,
Just so, through no contructive imagination, one does not constructively imagine at all.

44. The term 'person' (pugdala) means 'continuous stream' and the expression 'element' (dharma)
means 'characteristic.'
Neither is there any transmigrator here, nor is anything allayed [in parinirvâna].

Translated from sanskrit by Alex Wayman