Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
The Nirupamastava (Praise to the Peerless) is a devotional composition addressed to Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta. The text argues for the transcendental nature of the deity, positioning Mañjuśrī as an embodiment of compassion who operates beyond the dualities of conceptualization, such as pleasure and suffering or permanence and impermanence. The author emphasizes a paradox of presence: while Mañjuśrī manifests in the world to benefit sentient beings who lack right view, this manifestation is ultimately unreal, as the deity is free from the karmic obscurations and biological imperatives—such as hunger, thirst, and ailment—that characterize ordinary existence. By presenting the deity's worldly conduct as a strategic display rather than a result of karmic necessity, the text commits the reader to a view of the divine as an entity that transcends the laws of causality and entity-existence while remaining actively engaged in the liberation of others.
Provenance
About this text
A praise to the peerless, the Nirupamastava is a work of the Indo-Tibetan tradition attributed to the Indian author Nāgārjuna. The text was translated into classical Tibetan by Kṛṣṇa Paṇḍita and Tsültrim Gyalwa. It is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ཀ, where it comprises three pages and is situated within the Eulogy collection. Addressing Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta, the work enacts a devotional offering that argues for the transcendental nature of the deity. It positions Mañjuśrī as an embodiment of compassion who operates beyond conceptual dualities such as pleasure and suffering or permanence and impermanence. The text emphasizes a paradox of presence: while Mañjuśrī manifests in the world to benefit sentient beings who lack right view, this manifestation is ultimately unreal, as the deity is free from the karmic obscurations and biological imperatives—such as hunger, thirst, and ailment—that characterize ordinary existence. By presenting the deity's worldly conduct as a strategic display rather than a result of karmic necessity, the work provides a perspective on the divine as an entity that transcends the laws of causality and entity-existence, making it a point of study for those examining the intersection of devotion and the absence of entities.
Cite thisAnuvāda, “Praise of the Incomparable One” (Toh 1119), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh1119
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work illustrates the intersection of emptiness philosophy and devotional practice within the Indo-Tibetan tradition. It demonstrates how the conceptualization of a deity is reconciled with the doctrine of the absence of entities, suggesting that the deity's form is a skillful means rather than a permanent ontological reality.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Invocation and Purpose
Homage to Mañjuśrī and an acknowledgment of the deity's effort to benefit beings lacking right view.
2
The Nature of the Deity's Mind
A description of the deity's detachment from conceptual dualities and the unreal nature of their manifestation.
3
The Nature of the Deity's Form
An analysis of the deity's purity and the adoption of worldly conduct for the sake of sentient beings.
Themes
Non-conceptualization (2)
Skillful Means (Worldly Conduct) (1, 3)
Transcendence of Karmic Obscurations (3)
The Absence of Entities (1, 2)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
In the language of India: Nirupamastava. In the language of Tibet: Dpe med par bstod pa (Praise to the Peerless). Homage to Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta.
To you who strive for the benefit of this world, which is destitute of right view, and who, through knowing the meaning of the absence of entities, are peerless—to you I prostrate and offer praise.
That which you have not seen even slightly with the Buddha-eye, that which you have seen is the unsurpassed; it is the knowledge of the ultimate reality. The ultimate existence itself is without subject or object of realization. Oh, the dharmatā, so supremely difficult to realize, is realized by the Buddhas.
You have not produced anything at all, nor have you negated any phenomena. Through the view of equality, you have attained the unsurpassed state. By having abandoned saṃsāra, you do not desire nirvāṇa; through the very non-apprehension of saṃsāra, you, O Protector, have realized that peace.
Through knowing that the afflictions and the purified states have become of one taste, the dharmadhātu has become utterly pure and without distinction. O Lord, you have not spoken even a single syllable anywhere, yet you satisfy all beings to be trained without exception with the rain of Dharma.
You, who possess a mind equal to space, have no attachment to the aggregates, elements, or sense bases, and thus do not rely upon any phenomena. O Protector, although you have no engagement whatsoever through the perception of sentient beings, for those beings who have fallen into suffering,
Though you have become the very embodiment of compassion,
Your mind is not attached to various conceptualizations
Such as pleasure and suffering, or likewise permanence and impermanence.
Phenomena do not come or go anywhere;
In that same way, your coming [into the world] is also [unreal].
Since there is no accumulation of anything anywhere,
You are also the knower of the ultimate truth.
Although you have entered into the wake of all things,
You do not arise as anything at all.
Birth, phenomena, and the [three] bodies—
These are inconceivable to you, Great Sage.
Free from being one or other,
Beings are like echoes;
You have realized the irreproachable state
That is free from transition and destruction.
Free from permanence and nihilism,
And having abandoned both characteristics and the characterized,
The Lord has definitively realized saṃsāra
To be like a dream or a magical illusion.
Having abandoned the afflictions and misdeeds
That are the ultimate basis of habitual tendencies,
You have even transformed the very nature of the afflictions
Into the nectar of immortality (amṛta).
O Hero, you see the signs of forms
As being without form, like [the nature of] formlessness.
Yet your body, blazing with the [major] marks,
Is seen as the very object of the form realm.
Though seeing form is not truly seeing,
It is nevertheless said, "I see."
By seeing phenomena, one sees [truly],
But it is not the seeing of the dharmatā.
Your body has no hollow interior;
Though it lacks flesh, bone, and blood,
Like a rainbow in the sky,
Your body is displayed.
Your body is free from ailment and impurity;
Though hunger and thirst do not arise,
For the sake of following the ways of the world,
You also display worldly conduct.
Although you, the sinless one, have abandoned
All the defects of karmic obscurations,
For the sake of caring for sentient beings,
You also thoroughly demonstrate the abandonment of karma.
Because the dharmadhātu is indivisible,
The vehicles are not distinct;
Yet your teaching of the three vehicles
Is for the purpose of leading sentient beings.
The nature of your body is the dharma,
Eternal, stable, and peaceful;
Yet for the sake of training those to be subdued,
You yourself demonstrate passing into nirvāṇa.
In countless world-systems,
The past, the birth, and the manifest awakening,
And even the turning of the wheel for those
Who aspire to liberation, are seen by those devoted to you.
O Protector, though you are without thought
And without the movement of conceptualization,
By your very nature, for the sake of the world,
You engage in the activities of a Buddha.
Thus, the qualities of the Sugata are immeasurable and inconceivable.
Whatever merit is obtained from this Puṣpamālā-stotra,
May all these sentient beings without exception
Become vessels for the dharma of the Sage, so difficult to realize.
The Anupamastava composed by the master Ārya Nāgārjuna is complete.
Translated by the Indian abbot Kṛṣṇapaṇḍita and the translator-monk Tsultrim Gyalwa.