Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra
by Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön | 2001 | 941,039 words
This is the English translation of the Maha-prajnaparamita-sastra (“the treatise on the great virtue of wisdom�) by Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century A.D.). The book, in the form of an encyclopedia on Buddhism, is a commentary on the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita (“the perfection of wisdom in five thousand lines�). Volume I describes the conditions...
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Introduction to second volume
In Volume II, the reader will find an attempted translation of chapters XVI to XXX of the Ѳñśٰ. These fifteen chapters, which make up a consistent whole, comment at great length on a short paragraph of the ʰñūٰ (ʲñṃśaپ, p. 17�18; Śatasāhasrikā, p. 55�56), of which the following is a translation:
“Then the Blessed One addressed the venerable Śٰܳ: ‘O Śٰܳ, the Bodhisattva-ٳٱ who wishes to know all dharmas in all their aspects completely should exert himself in the ʰñ.� Then the venerable Śٰܳ asked the Blessed One: ‘O Blessed One, how should the Bodhisattva-ٳٱ who wishes to know all dharmas in all their aspects exert himself in the ʰñ?� At these words, the Blessed One said to the venerable Śٰܳ: ‘The Bodhisattva-ٳٱ who abides in the ʰñ by the method of non-abiding should fulfill the virtue of generosity by the method of refraining, by abstaining from distinguishing the thing given, the donor and the recipient; he should fulfill the virtue of morality by being based on the non-existence of evil deeds and their contrary; he should fulfill the virtue of patience by being based on non-agitation [of the mind]; he should fulfill the virtue of exertion by being based on the non-slackening of physical and mental energy; he should fulfill the virtue of rapture by being based on the non-existence of distraction and rapture; he should fulfill the virtue of wisdom by being based on the non-existence of good and bad knowledges (variant: by not adhering to any system).�[1]
The main interlocutors of the Buddha in the ʰñūٰ are Śٰܳ and ܲūپ; chapter XVI of the Treatise is dedicated to their story: it contains a detailed biography of Śٰܳ and a short note on ܲūپ (p. 634F). But it may seem strange that the ʰñūٰ, which belongs to the literature of the Greater Vehicle, should be preached, not by the bodhisattvas affiliated with the ѲԲ, but by ś屹첹, adepts of the Lesser Vehicle. The reason for this is simple, as the Treatise explains (p. 636F): the bodhisattvas, called upon to dwell among beings whose conversion is their mission, have not entirely eliminated their passions and do not enjoy indisputable authority among men; if they were responsible for teaching the ʰñ, their word could be open to doubt. On the contrary, ś屹첹 like Śٰܳ and ܲūپ who have attained arhathood and destroyed every impurity (ṣīṇ) are assured of an unequalled prestige and their testimony cannot be disputed: therefore it is to them that the Buddha entrusted the task of preaching the ʰñ. Among all the ś屹첹, the Buddhas chose Śٰܳ and ܲūپ who excelled over all the others, the first by the extent of his wisdom, the second by his acute vision of universal emptiness.
The religious ideal of the ś屹첹 is the destruction of the passions, the arrival at arhathood and the attainment of Ծṇa; to this end, he practices the Noble Path in its threefold aspect: morality (śī) which keeps him from any wrong-doing, concentration () which purifies his mind, wisdom (ñ) by means of which he understands the general characteristics (峾Բⲹṣaṇa) of dharmas, impermanence, suffering, emptiness and lack of self. The practice of the virtues occupies only a subsidiary place in the career of the ś屹첹; his excellent qualities are, however, contaminated at the base by the essentially individualistic and egocentric character of his effort. The religious ideal of the bodhisattva is quite different: renouncing entry into nirvana for the moment, he seeks to obtain the supreme and perfect enlightenment (Գܳٳٲⲹṃbǻ) which characterizes the Buddhas, to conquer the knowledge of all things in all their aspects (sarvadharmāṇāṃ sarvākārajñānam), knowledge that permits him to dedicate himself entirely to the benefit and welfare of all creatures. In order to attain this omniscience, the bodhisattva must exert himself throughout his career in the six perfect virtues () which liken him to the Buddha. Among the heretics and ś屹첹, the practice of the natural virtues is marred by errors and egotism; among the bodhisattvas, on the other hand, the practice of the virtues attains perfection because it is disinterested and based on ʰñ.
Chapter XVII explains what this ʰñ means and how to use it. The ʰñ is not an entity of metaphysical order, an absolute existent to which one could become attached; rather, it is a state of mind, a mental turning of mind which assures a radical neutrality to the person who adopts it. Transcending the categories of existence and non-existence, lacking any characteristic, the ʰñ can be neither affirmed nor denied: it is faultless excellence. The bodhisattva adheres to it by not grasping it or, to use the time-honored expression, “he adheres to it by not adhering to it� (پṣṭٲ ٳԲDzԲ). Confident in this point of view which is equally distant from affirmation and negation, he suspends judgment on everything and says nothing whatsoever. Practiced in this spirit, the virtues which, among the religious heretics and ś屹첹, are of ordinary and mundane (laukika) order, become supramundane perfections (lokottara) in the bodhisattva. Besides, since the bodhisattva refuses to conceive of the said virtues and to establish distinctions amongst them, to practice one is to practice them all; not to practice them is also to practice them.
However, as the bodhisattva resides of choice in the world where he daily rubs shoulders with beings intoxicated by the three poisons of passion, hatred and ignorance, it is important to explain to people what distinguishes the s from the profane virtues. This is the subject of chapters XVIII to XXX.
Chapter XVIII-XX. � Generosity (Բ), for which great rewards are promised, consists of giving, in a spirit of faith, a material object or a spiritual advice to ‘a field of merit�, i.e., to a beneficiary worthy of receiving it. The of generosity makes no distinction between donor, recipient and gift because, from the point of view of the ʰñ, there is no person to give or to receive, there is nothing that is given. To understand that is “to give everything at all times and in every way.�
Chapters XXI-XXIII. � Morality (śī) makes one avoid the wrong-doings of body and speech that are capable of harming others. Apart from the general morality making up the rules of innate honesty essential to everyone, it is appropriate to distinguish the morality of commitment by means of which lay people and monastics of all classes solemnly undertake to follow a certain number of rules proper to their condition. The of morality singularly surpasses this restricted framework: is it based on the non-existence of wrong-doing and its opposite. The sinner not existing, the sin does not exist either; in the absence of all sins, the prohibitions forbidding it have no meaning. The sinner does not incur our contempt; the saint has no right to our esteem.
Chapters XXIV-XXV. � Although early Buddhism condemned anger, it did not attach great importance to patience (ṣānپ). On the other hand, the bodhisattva raises it to the rank of . Nothing moves him, neither people nor things: he keeps a cool indifference towards the people who flatter him, the benefactors who cover him with their gifts, the women who seek to seduce him, the enemies who persecute him. He endures with equal facility the external sufferings caused by cold or heat, wind or rain, and the internal sufferings coming from old age, sickness and death. It is the same insofar as his own passions are concerned: although he does not give himself up to them unreservedly, he avoids cutting them so as not to be hemmed in like an arhat in an egotistic complete quietude; whatever the case, his mind stays open to movements of great pity and great compassion. But it is by means of dharmaṣānپ that he attains the pinnacle of patience: he tirelessly investigates the Buddhadharma which teaches him not to adopt any definite philosophical position, which shows him universal emptiness but forbids him to conceptualize it.
Chapter XXVI-XXVII. � Throughout the entire Buddhist Path, the adept of the Lesser Vehicle displays a growing exertion (īⲹ) in order to ensure himself the conquest of the ‘good dharmas� or, if you wish, spiritual benefits. But the bodhisattva is much less preoccupied with the paths of salvation; in his of exertion, he ceaselessly travels the world of transmigration in order to bring help to beings plunged in the unfortunate destinies. As long as he has not assured the safety of an infinite number of unfortunate beings, he will never relax his bodily and mental exertion.
Chapter XXVIII. � For the purification of the mind, the ś屹첹 had built up a discipline of rapture (Բ), a grandiose but complicated monument of religious psychology in which India excelled. The de-intoxication of the mind is a long-winded job: the candidate for sainthood must resolutely turn away from the five sense pleasures and triumph over the five faults which constitute an obstacle to concentrating the mind by means of an appropriate method. Then he must ascend one after the other the nine successive absorptions (ԲԳܱū貹ٳپ) which lead to the destruction of consciousness and sensation (ṃjñ屹岹⾱ٲԾǻ), a state which constitutes Ծṇa on earth. In addition, a large number of secondary absorptions become grafted onto these main concentrations. In the of Բ, the bodhisattva manifests a virtuosity much superior to that of the ś屹첹; he enters at will and whenever he wishes into the concentration of his choice, but his complete disinterestedness prevents him from enjoying its flavor. The principal aim of his mental form of asceticism is to introduce ignorant and unfortunate beings to the purity of mystical states. Personally, he is disinterested because, from the point of view of the ʰñ, distraction and concentration of the mind are equal; the sole motive that guides him is his great pity and great compassion for beings.
Chapter XXIX-XXX. � Religious heretics, ś屹첹 and pratyekabuddhas all boast of possessing wisdom and they actually hold bits and pieces of it, but their wisdoms contradict one another and their partisans accuse one another of madness. If the wisdom of the ś屹첹 and the pratyekabuddhas has an advantage over that of the heretics � the advantage of being free of false views � nevertheless it has the error of defining the general characteristics of dharmas and thus laying itself open to debate and criticism. In his ʰñ, the bodhisattva knows these wisdoms fully but adopts none of them; his own wisdom is the knowledge of the true nature of dharmas which is indestructible, unchangeable and uncreated. Seen from this angle, the dharmas are revealed as unborn (anutpanna), unceasing (aniruddha), like Ծṇa; or more precisely, they do not appear at all. Not seeing any dharma, the bodhisattva thinks nothing of them and says nothing of them. Not recognizing any evidence, not adopting any system, he makes no distinction between truth and falsehood; he does not debate with anyone. The Buddha’s teaching presents no obstacle, no difficulty, to the bodhisattva. And yet, what forms this teaching has taken over the course of time! The Abhidharma sets out to define the dharmas and to specify their characteristics; the teaching on emptiness insists on the inconsistency of the atman and dharmas; the ʾṭa첹 defends a point of view sometimes realistic and sometimes nihilistic. Pursued into successive retrenchments, the ś屹첹 no longer knows what to believe and goes from one contradiction to another. Penetrating deeply into the threefold teaching of the ʾṭa첹, the Abhidharma and emptiness, the bodhisattva, free of opinions (Ծś), knows that the Buddha’s word never contradicts itself. Cognizing the identical and multiple characteristics of all dharmas, he confronts them with the emptiness of their self nature, but this very emptiness he refuses to consider. In order to acquire this ʰñ, the bodhisattva is not bound to any practice. The noble practice consists of practicing all the s together or separately, provided that this is done with a detached mind; better yet, the noble practice is the absence of any practice, for to acquire the ʰñ is to acquire nothing.
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This brief summary far from exhausts the doctrinal and religious wealth contained in this second volume, but that would go beyond the framework of this introduction which merely summarizes it. It is sufficient to draw the reader’s attention to several particularly interesting passages: the attempts to define the ʰñ (p. 650�656F), a well-conducted refutation of the realist doctrine (p. 724�733F) and of the personalist doctrine (p. 734�750F), a comparison of the different ñs of the ś屹첹, the pratyekabuddha, the bodhisattva and the heretics (p. 1066�1074F), a very thorough analysis of the threefold teaching of the Buddhadharma (p. 1074�1095F), a detailed description of the transmigratory world and, in particular, the Buddhist hells (p. 952�968F).
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Although the Treatise comes under the literature of the Greater Vehicle, the reader will see all the major individuals of early Buddhism pass in front of him. In unedited detail, the Treatise tells the twofold assault against ŚⲹܲԾ by and his daughters (p. 880�884F; 986�987F), the return of the Buddha to Kapilavastu and the efforts of ۲śǻ to win him back (p. 1001�1008F), the ٱ屹 and the culmination at ṃkś (p. 634�636F), the schism of ś峾ī (p. 896�898F) and the various attempts perpetrated by Devadatta to supplant the Buddha and to take his life (p. 868�878F). The Treatise dedicates a whole chapter to the story of Śٰܳ and Ѳܻ岵ⲹԲ (p. 621�633F); it tells the slander of which these two great disciples were the victims on the part of Kokālikā (p. 806�813F); it gives the reasons that determined Śٰܳ to renounce the Greater Vehicle (p. 701F). It narrates several episodes marking the life of the disciples and contemporaries of ŚⲹܲԾ; the temptation of Aniruddha by the goddesses of charming body (p. 651�653F), the involuntary dance of śⲹ貹 (p. 654F, 1046�1047F), the ostentatious charity of ձ峾 (p. 677�688F), the punishment of Devadatta and Udraka (p. 693-694F), Rahula’s lies (p. 813-815F), the trickery of the nun ٱ貹ṇ�, the strange propaganda she carried out for the order of ṣuṇīs and her cruel death (p. 634F, 844�846F, 875F; the inquisitive and futile questions of Mālunkyāputra (p. 913-915F0, the fabulous wealth of ѱṇḍ첹 and of king Māndhātar (p. 930�931F), the misadventures of the arhat Dz첹-پṣy (p. 931�932F), the laziness and frivolousness of the ṣu ś첹 and Punarvasuka (p. 937F), the visit of king to the courtesan Āī (p. 990�992F), the cruelty of king Udayana towards the five hundred ṛṣis (p. 993F), the punishment incurred by Udraka Ramāputra, immoderately attached to his absorption (p. 1050�1052F), the anxieties of the Śⲹ Ѳ峾 (p. 1082�1083F), the humiliating defeat of the վ岹 reduced to silence by the Buddha (p. 1084�1090F), the entry into the religious life of the ṛgś (p. 1085�1088). By contrast, the present volume is strangely reticent on the lofty individuals of the ѲԲ: it mentions only in passing the name of the bodhisattvas ٳٱⲹ岹śԲ (p. 751F), Ѳñśī (p. 754, 903F), ղṇi (p. 882F), վīپ (p. 902, 1044F), Dharmasthiti (p. 902F) and Maitreya (p. 930F); it is to the latter and to Ѳñśī that it attributes, without firmly believing it, the compilation of the ѲԲūٰ (p. 940F).
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The Treatise cites, at length or in extracts, about a hundred ūٰ of the Lesser Vehicle; the majority are borrowed from the Ā collections; when the Sanskrit version departs from the version, it is always the former that is adopted; furthermore, the Treatise often refers to unknown ūٰ, such as the Ի徱첹ūٰ (p. 792�793F, 798F, 803F, 815�816F, 817�818F) and the ūٰ on Cosmogony (p. 835�837F). Several ūٰ are cited in the elaborated form which they have received in the post-canonical scriptures: this is notably the case for the ձ峾ūٰ (p. 677�688F) taken from a certain AvaԲūٰ, for the Āsīviṣopamaūٰ (p. 702�707F) taken from the Ta pan nie p’an king (see note, p. 705F), and for the Kośambaka (p. 896�898F), probably borrowed from the versified account in the Ta tchouang yen louen king.
Although it abundantly cites the ūٰ of the Lesser Vehicle, the Treatise occasionally calls upon the Mahāyanaūٰ of which it is the interpreter. We will note only a loan from the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka (p. 752F), two quotations from the վīپnirdeśaūٰ (p. 902, 1044F) and a few vague references to the ʲñṃśaپ (p. 1060F, 1091F, 1112F). However, the Treatise reproduces fully (p. 1060�1065F) the well-known ʰñstotra of ܱ, teacher or disciple of 岵ܲԲ. As P. Demiéville has noted, the original Sanskrit of this stotra is reproduced at the head of many manuscripts of the ʰñ. Otherwise, the author of the Treatise is by no means sectarian: he understands that many fragments of truth may be found outside works properly Buddhist; free of contradicting them, he does not hesitate to cite the Upaniṣads (p. 744F, 1073F) and other ūٰ of the heretics (p. 1073F).
In the course of Volume I (see, for example, p. 104F, n. 1), we have noted that the Treatise uses the Sarvāstivādin and Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinayas in preference over all the others. The present volume has frequent recourse to the second; it borrows from it the essence of the teachings on Śٰܳ (p. 621�633F), Devadatta (p. 868�878F) and ۲śǻ (p. 1001�1012F). On the other hand, the author of the Treatise undoubtedly has never had the Vinaya in his own hands.
This volume also contains a good sixty ٲ첹, avaԲs, fables and apologues. The author has drawn heavily from collections such as the Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā, the AśokāvaԲ, the Vibhāṣ�, the Tsa p’i yu king, the Tchong king, etc. Although most of these stories are already familiar to us from the works of Chavannes, the version of the Treatise claims the reader’s attention by means of important variants. Among the tales which, under various titles, are most interesting, we may mention the story of the painter of ʳṣk屹ī (p. 672�675F), the VelāmāvaԲ (p. 678�688F), the Tittiryita� ⲹ� (p. 718�721F), the successive lives of Ѳٲ岵 (p. 755�762F), the ٱ貹ṇāٲ� (p. 844�846F), the ٲ첹 of the flayed 岵 (p. 853-855F), the ruse of the Kaśmir arhat (p. 879F) and the story of the impostor brahmcārin confounded by the bodhisattva (p. 980�981F).
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To facilitate references, the pagination of Volume I has been continued here. The division into chapters adopted by ܳī in his Chinese translation has been retained despite their arbitrary nature. To keep track of the content of the chapters, the reader is advised to refer to the table of contents.
The present volume has been greatly benefited by help and support which, as a result of circumstances, was cruelly missing from the previous volume. New tools of research have been used; the list may be found in the supplement to the abbreviations. P. Demiéville has been kind enough to review several passages that gave me difficulty and has given me precious references; my colleagues, Professor A. Monin and J. Mogenet, have corrected the proofs; the Fondation Universitaire of Belgium has generously continued its financial support. To all my devoted friends I give my deepest thanks.
Louvain, 25 January, 1949. Ét. Lamotte.
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Tatra khalu Bhagavān āyuṣmanta� Śٰܳm āmantrayām āsa: Sarvākāra� Śٰܳ sarvādharmān abhisaṃboddhukāmena bodhisattvena mahāsattvena ñyā� yoga� karaṇīya�. Evam ukta āyuṣmān Śāriputro Bhagavantam etad avocat: Katha� Bhagavan bodhisattvena mahāsattvena sarvākāra� sarvadharmān abhisaṃboddhukāmena ñyā� yoga� karaṇīya�. Evam ukte Bhagavān āyuṣmanta� Śٰܳm etad avocat: Iha Śāripuitra bodhisattvena mahāsattvena ñyā� sthitvāsthānayogena Բ parpūrayitavyāparityāgayogena deyadāyakapratigrāhakānupalabdhitām ܱⲹ, śī paripūrayitavyāpattyanāpattyanadhyāpattitām ܱⲹ, kṣaṇti paripūrayitavyākṣobhaṇatām ܱⲹ, īⲹ paripūrayitvayā kāyikacaitasikavīryāsraṃsasnatām ܱⲹ, Բ paripūrayitavyānāsvādanatām ܱⲹ, ñ paripūrayitavya ñdauṣñnupalabdhitām (variant: sarvadharmānԾśm) ܱⲹ.