the development of prajnaparamita

8/13/2019 The Development of Prajnaparamita

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THE DEVELOPMENT OFPRAJNAPARAMITA THOUGHTM any people in th e W est, and among them th e auth or of th isarticle, first heard of the Prajnapdramita through thewritings of D. T. Suzuki, especially his Manual of ZenBudd-hism, (1935) and his Essays in Zen Buddhism, vol. Ill , 1934,pp . 187-288. In my own case the good news wrought quite arevolution in my thinking, and has induced me to devote thelast twenty-five years to the study of these Scriptures. It istherefore only natural that I should be delighted to be askedto contribute to the volume issued in commemoration of myhonoured teacher 's ninetieth bir thd ay.This essay adopts the historical approach which comesnatural to scholars reared in the West. One must admit, ofcourse, that it tends to subject spiritual truth to historicalrelativity, and its application to Christian documents has donelittle to strengthen the faith of earnest believers* At the samet ime, while we may well agree that the Spirit itself has nohistory, there may be no great harm in tracing the historicaldevelopment of th e actu al docum ents w ith which we are con-fronted.The conclusions here briefly presented can be no more thanprovisional suggestions. Knowing almost no Chinese, I couldmake no use of the early Chinese documents (T 221-227), buthad to confine myself to the Sanskrit and Tibetan sources.Others will, I hope, be stimulated to do better than I havedone. Another difficulty which has for long deterred me fromwriting on this subject lay in th e uncertainties ab ou i the da tingof the various docum ents. B u t since I hav e found th a tProf.R .Hika ta 1 and myself have independently come to practicallyth e sam e conclusions, this is no longer a serious obstacle. W ha tpe rturb s m e m ore is th a t a t present we have no clear idea of th ecircum stances under w hich these Su tras were composed. W ho

1An Introduc tory Essay on Pra jfiaparam itt Literatu re, in his editionof th eSuvikrantavikramipafiprccha,1958.


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124 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesw rote them , or why, how, or for whom the y were written allth a t is lost in the fog of the pa st.One m us t, I think , distinguish nine steps in th e developm entof Pmjndpammitd tho ug ht, an d for th e convenience of th ereader I list them here at the very outset:I. Th e initial formulation represented by th e first two chap -ters of jRgs.1 II. Chapters 3-28 of Rgs. III. Incorporation ofm at te r from the Ab hidha rm a. IV . Concessions to the Bud dhismof Faith. V, The last third of the Large Pmjndpdramitd. V I.The short Sutras. VII. Yogacarin commentaries. VIII , IX.The Tantra and Ch'an.I. The first formulation of Pmjndpdramitd doctrine is con-tained in th e first tw o cha pters of th e Ratnaguâsamcayagdthd,which may well go back to 100 B.C. These Chapters (A) definefour new key term s, (B) develop certain ideas of the H lna ya natrad ition , an d (C) ind icate th e source of the new teach ing.

I. A. The new key-terms are, first bodhisattva(I v , 16) an dmahdsattva (I vv. 17-20), by which the incipient Mahayanaproclaimed its allegiance to a new ty pe of sain t, different fromthe "Arhats 1 1 of the preceding period, and then bodhiydna(I vv. 21 -23), by which a new goal was proclaimed, n oth ing lessthan the full enlightenment of a Buddha; sarvajnatdm caparigrhndti iiksamdno, as it is said in II 8.Th e fourth is theprajnavarapdramitdyacaryd,which is m en-tioned eleven tim es in th e forty-one verses of these two ch ap ters.Though remarkably inconspicuous in the ancient formula ofthe Eightfold Path, prajna had in orthodox post-AiokanBu ddhism become th e foremost v irtue. This tex t now promisesus the culmination of thatprajna. Here already, at this early1A note on my quotations from the tex ts:As=Afasaha$riM,ed. R . M itra, 1888, b u t as printed in W ogihara(1932-5).

A AseAbhisamay&latikara, ed. Th. Stcnetbatsky and E. Oberm iler,: 1929, and trs l, E , Conze, 1954.AdÂjadaasahasrika t quoted b y th e folios of the Gilgit MS. nowin New DelM and Rom e.'P^PaHcaviffâtisdhasfikd, ed. N . D ut t, 1934, an


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The DevelopmentofPrajMpdramUd Thought 125stage, thePmjnapdmmitd isdesignatedin I v. 15 as Jindnamaid,"themo therof theJinas11. If theBud dha died about480 B.C.,itwould hav e tak en abo ut four hun dred y ears un tilhewas provided with a spi r i tua l "mother" in theshapeof thePmjndpdramitd. T h a t isapproxim ately the same time whichelapsed before theCouncilofEphesusin 431proclaimedtheVirgin Mary, thesedes sapientiae,as the "Mother of God",The Christian dogmawasformu latedin thecityinwhichthetradit ions about the Great Mother, whichhadsimmeredformilleniainAsia M inor,had anim po rtan t organizational centre.Prof.E. O.J ameshasrecently remindedust ha t "unde rtheshadowof thegreat temp le ded icatedto theM agna M ater since330 B.C.,thetitle*God-bearer* h ardly could failto beupheld."1If, as Ibelieve,thePrajndparam itd originated in theSouthofIndia2 , it would represent ailirruption into Budd hismof thedevotionto theM other-Goddess curren tin themore m atr iar-chal D rav idian society in whichitorig inated . Th is oldest religionof man kindwasevolvedin thecavesof thePalaeolithicand byallying itself with it Buddhism becamea truly Catholic reli-gion, capable of spreading throughout Asia, far beyond theconfinesofIndia . f

I . B. W hat then are the actual teachings of thisPrajnd-pdramita when it first appearedon thescene? If we exceptverses 16-23, the remainder of the two chapters, wfth thedoubtful exceptionoftathatd(II v. 2),containno newte rms.Relying moreon selection thanon open innovation they giveessentiallya simple re-statement ofwha tfor thesakeof con-venience we may call "archaic B ud dh ism ". Three topicsdominatethe argument :

1. Theall-im portant problemof theself. Quiteat thebegin-ningwehaveareferenceto the "W anderer Sren ika."3Srenika1TheCultofthe Mother Goddess, 1959,p. 207.2E. Lamotte (Sur la formation du Mahayiina, inA slattern,1954) has

argued for a North-Western origin, but I regard his case as unproved,and must refer to my The Prajndpdramitd Literature (i960) for mycounter-arguments.

3 v. 7. atha Sre^ihasya abhutl parivrdjakasya jndnopalam bhm na hiskandhavibhdvand ca.Thisiss l ight ly m ore intell igiblein theT i b e t a n :JI-ITARkun-tu rgyu-baphren-cari ses-pa-yis dm igs tned phun-po rnam-par 'jig-pa 'byun-baUar.


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126 Thirty YearsofBuddhist StudiesVatsagotrawas a non-Buddhist ascetic whose conversationswiththeB ud dh a form a sectionof the Samyuktigama of theSarvastivadins.On oneoccasion1heraisedthequestionof the" t r u e self", which he identified with the Tathagata . TheBuddha toldhimt h a t the Tathagata cannotbefoundin theskandhas,noroutside them ,nor intheir absence.In asuprem eactoffaith S renikawasw illingtoaccepttheTathagatainspiteofhisinabilitytorelateHim toanything th atisknown empir-ically. Srenika'sjndna was,however,as theprose te xtof A I 9puts it, only a prddeUka-jndna, a knowledge with a limitedscope, i.e.asH aribh adra explains,itstopped shortat theunder-standing of pudgalanairdtmya, whereas the Bodhisat tva canextendhisinsightto alldharmas.And so theRatnaguna drawsthe Mthayanistic conclusion: "Just so theB odhisattva, whenhe comprehendsthedharmasas heshould, Doesnotretire in toBlessed Rest.InWisdom th enhedw ells.1'2

"Blessed Rest / ' nirvrtiis the Nirvana which excludestheworldof suffering. The Bodhisattva shouldnot get absorbedinit,because th enhewould sepa ratehimself, or his self, fromthe skandhas whichare thebasisof suffering, and act againsthis insight which showedhim, in thewordsof A 19,tha t Budd-hahoo i ,or thecognitionof theall-knowing,is not insidetheskandhas,noroutside them ,nor both insideandoutside,norother tha ntheskandhas.And qu iteat the end, at II12, theultim ate u nrealityof theselfisassertedin themem orable w ords:

"If foraeons countlessas thesandsof theGangesTh e Leader himself would continuetopronouncetheword'be ing ' ,Still, pure from the very start , nobeing could ever resultfromhisspeaking.*

2. Furthermorethe text describes three aspectsof theat t i -tude whichthewisemanshould ad op t tow ardsall thepheno-menahe mayencounter:A) Heshouldbeaniketacdri,I vv. 6,10, II3.This term which

foralong tim ehaddesignatedthem onk's non-at tachm ent to1Samyuktagamano. 105,Tpp.31C-32.%yo bodhisaUvo parijanati eva dharmdn na ca nirvrtini spfiatiso vihardti pmjnmfm.


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The DevelopmentofPrajndpdramitd Thought 127possessionsandsocial t ies ,nowacquiresanontological m ean-ing. Nowherein thefive skand hasdo thewise findaplacetorest on (sthdnu), and with regard to all dharmas they areasthita, asthitaka(II1 sq.) andaparigrMta.To"course w ithou ta home" means"not tocoursein" any of theskandhas,"histhoughts directed to non -product ion" (anupddadht).1To ridhimself of all a t tachm ents , th a t is indeed the essence of aBodhisattva's life, and to be rid of them tha t of a Buddha 'senlightenment. 2

B)Heshould prac tisenon-apprehension {anupalabdhi).As itis saidat I 5:"No wisdomcan we getholdof, nohighest perfection.No Bod hisattva,nothough tofenlightenment either.W hen toldofthis ,if notbew ilderedand in no wayanxiousA B odh isattva coursesin theW eE-Gone's w isdom ."Fictitious things, likethe"self" or a "person ," had oftenbeen characterizedby thephrase tha t they " can no tbeappre-hended" , "canno tbe got at",nopalabhyante,3but here thischaracterizationisextendedto thevery m achineryofsalvation.c)Allpheno m ena should be t reated as illusory, astndyd.T h a ttheskandhas(I v. 14) andbeings(I v. 19) areillusoryhadoften been saidin thepas t .Thenove lty lay in now (II v. 5)extend ing this conceptto thetransce nd ental world,andsayingt h a tthefruitsof theholy life, w heth erwon byA rhats, Pra ty-ekabuddhasor fully enlightened Buddhas,andtha t Nirvanaitself" arem ere illusions, m ere d re am s" .InRgsthisisregardedassos tar tl ing th atit isbackedup by theassertion," so has theTathaga ta t aughtus"4and theprose tex tofAII 40,whenit

describes theastonishmen tof thedevaputrdat this message,doesnotconceal th a t we hav e heretodeal witharath er shockingdeparture from accepted ideas.1This "non-production1* is initself,of course, not a new idea, sincetheanutpddajndnais well known to form a regular part of the stock ofHInayana teaching.2sarvatm $angakaya icchati sangmcfwdl bodhitfi spfii$yati Jinana

asaugabbutdm tasmdddhindma labhateayubodhisattvo.I 16; cf. I 20.3SoalsoatRgsI 22-3.4nirvdpu yo adhigato vidupa^ditehi sarvetamdyaja nirdifu Tatha-gatena.


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R M B N


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Nirvana


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130 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studieshimself1'. That was not the opinion of the Buddhists of thisperiod, who were convinced that only the words of an omnis-cient, superhuman being could introduce some truth into thisworld of ignorance and delusion. If there are four possiblesources of knowledgeperception, reason, spiritual intuitionand revelationthen the Sutra assumes that all worth-whileknowledge is due t o revelation, sarvo ayam purusakdruTathd-gatasya (I v. 3), with the spiritual intuition of the saints as asubsidiary and subordinate source (I v. 4).

There was, of course, the difficulty that the historicalBuddha had not actually preached these texts. In our twochapters this is ignored, but later on it became necessary tothink out a new Buddhology and introduce some kind of"direct transmission from mind to mind> f. It would lead toofar to show how this design was effected by th e doctrine of thedharmakdya which figures in A IV 94, 99, XVII 338 andX X X I 5 1 3 ,b u t it m ay be w orth pointing out th a t none of thesepassages is paralleled in th e earlier verse version of Rgs.I I . The second stage of Prajndpdramitd thought is repre-sented by chapters 3-28 of Rgs.f and those parts of A whichcorrespond to them. They are either (A) further developmentsof th e tho ug hts o utlined above, or (B) a series of m ono graphs.I I . A. The further developm ents are represented by chaps.7-10, chap. 12 pp . 253-6, chap. 13 -15 ,18 -19 ,22-2 8. They add,little to th e ideas of chaps. 1-2, an d it would be tedious to goover the m in de tail.IL B . The M onographs concern th e following top ics :1. A description of Suchness (chap. 16) and 2. of the Tatha-gata's om niscience (chap. 12, pp. 256-276). 3. The question ofmerit, chaps. 3-5. 4. Dedication and jubilation (chap. 6). 5.M ara's deeds (chaps. 11,21). 6. The att rib u tes of an irreversibleBodMsattva (chaps. 17; 20, pp. 380 sq). 7. Skill in means,chap.20, pp . 370-9.Only the first two deal with the theoretical side of the doc-tr ine. 1. Chapter 16 is an eloquent exposition of the meaningof "Suchness", which is one of the accepted synonyms ofEmptiness. 2. The description of the Tathagata's omniscienceis a realtour deforce, an d con stitu tes one of th e m ost difficultparts of the Sutra. It is not easy to get to the bottom of it. Itsabsence in Rgs. suggests that it may have been added later,


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134 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesanoth er five similes (xx 11-20) no t found in A. Th is was only afirst att em pt a t coming to grips with " skill in m ea n s" , and wem ust agree w ith H ika ta 1 t h a t m ost of the late r elaborations ofthePmjndpdramitd which we have assigned to the Fifth phasedeal essentially with the various aspects of updyakauialya.These are the chief additions made in the second phase ofPmj^ipiramitd thou gh t, arranged in w ha t I conceive to betheir logical order.I I I . Our third stage is represented by those parts of theLarge PrajndparamUdwhether in 18,000, in 25,000 or in100,000 slokas, which correspond to th e first tw enty-e ightchap ters of A Th e tex t w as now trem endously enlarged b y th eincorporation of matter from the Abhidharma, This took twoforms,A* Abhidharm a lists were incessantly repea ted, an d didm uch to swell the bulk of th e S ut ra; an d B . some of the itemsin these lists were defined,

I I I . A, Thelistsserve as a basis for m ed itationa l drill. Th ebook which is devoted to th e splendour of th e " M other of th eB u d d h as" now incorporates into itself th e con tents of an olderform of literature, themdtrkM, which w ere likewise p reoccu-pied with both "wisdom" and the concept of motherhood.For mdtrkd means, among other things, "m o th er " , andPrayiuski translates the Chinese equivalent in the A-yu-wang-king a^s "sagesse-mere.11 It was probably towards the end ofAgoka's reign2 th a t th e adh erents of a com paratively late con-cern withprajnd composed a litera ture of num erical sum m aries,or mMfkds, Later on the rationalists in the Buddhist com-munity developed them into wolrks on Abhidharma, whereasth e m ystics absorbed them in to thePrajndpdramitd. Both theVinaya of the Mulasarvastivadins and the Aiokdvaddna givethe following definition of the mdtrkdpitaka;* It clarifiesthe distinguishing points of that which ought to be known(jneyd)*I t comprises th e four ap plications of mindfulness, th efour right efforts, the four roads to psychic power, the fivedom inants, th e five powers, th e seven lim bs of enlightenm ent,the eight limbs of the pa th , the four ana lytical knowledges, th e

1 1 . c. xxx i.* A. M igot, Un grand disciple du Buddha, Sariputra,BEFEO X LVI,1954.PP-538-41*^ Ibid. p . 524.


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dH R N s

pR nidH N S M dHi


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138 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesof th ePrajUdparamitd,th e thorough em otional and intellectualannihilation of the world is an im po rtan t ste p on th e way to-wards winning the gnosis of Perfect Wisdom. In the ontologyof the Prajndpdmmitd th e entire world, all entities, w hateverthe y are, are completely smashed an d done away w ith, no t onlyground to powder, but reduced to nothingness.1Th is is a grea ttriumph of universal hate. If one's own self is included in thegeneral ann ihilation, it is at the sam e tim e also a trium ph of th espirit.

T h a t is one side of the introd uc tion of Ak sobhya. T he secondlies in that the Prajndpdramitd deliberately supplements itsabstractions with the personifications of mythology. LikewiseNagarjuna was not only a great logician and philosopher, butone of the "Patr iarchs 1 ' of the "Pure Land 11 school as well.These m en realized th a t a religion is bou nd to become em aciatedif defined in terms acceptable only to highbrows and intellec-tuals . As Mahayanists they aimed at universality, and there-fore sough t ways an d m eans of m aking th eir philosophy to someextent meaningful also to the masses of the people. Whilesociety was still primarily agricultural, it could be assumedthat the virtue of the masses lay in faith, and that a wisdomdoctrine meant for the 61ite had to be supplemented by oneoffering objects of faith to th e ordinary people. Th is m eth od nolonger works well with the urbanized masses and no one hasyet found a way of making the traditional religions attractiveto the industrial worker or the clerk in his office. But before1850 no religion could establish itself firmly in society withoutre-stating its doctrines in terms o l Fa ith also. Ab out A.D. 150that faith was directed to Aksobhya, and two centuries laterlinks were forged with Avalokite^vara, as in the Hfdaya andSvalpdksam.B . The story of Sadaprarudita is concerned with the pro-blem of how one should search {paryestavyd)for th e perfectionof wisdom. What are the moral and spiritual qualificationswhich a person must have in order to grasp and realize thesesublime teachings? The answer, as exemplified by the conduct

1As M. Eck ha rt h as i t: Das ist ein offenbares Zeichen dass ein Menschden Geist der Weisheit hat, wenn er alle Dinge achtet als ein lauteresNichtsnicht als einen Pfuhl, nicht als ein Sandkomals ein lauteresNichts.


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The Development of PrajMpdramitd Thought 139of Sadaprarudita, is that complete self-sacrifice must precedeany deeper understanding of this doctrine. Later on, in theSuvikrdntavikrdmipariprcchd the same problem is discussedslightly more systematically, and in two beautiful passages 1we are told what kind of people are fit and worthy to learnaboutPrajndpdramitd. Not m an y such people can obviously befound among us, and in this phase PrajUdpdramitd thoughtwas clearly ra ther pessimistic on this subject. I n th e late r p a rtsof th eAsiath e only persons who are nam ed a s actually dwellingin perfect wisdom are the Bodhisattvas Ratnaketu, Sikhinand Gandhahastin who all reside in the Buddhafield ofAksobhy a. Likewise it is said of Sad ap raru dita , t h e " Ev er-Weeping", that "at present he leads the holy life with theTathagata Bhlsmagarjitanirghosasvara", i .e. wherever hemay beperhaps, according to the Saddharmapupdanka(p.318) in th e world-systemM ahdsambhava he is in an y casenot on this earth.V. Finally a sub stantial section was added to the Large Su trawhich deals almost exclusively with one of the facets of "Skillin means.11W hy , if everythin g is one va st em ptiness, if there isno person, no object, no tho ug ht, no goal, no anyth ing , shouldanyone strive for perfect enlightenment through a practice ofvirtue and a knowledge of dharmas? Hundreds of timesSu bh uti is m ade to ask th e self-same question, an d hun dreds oftimes the B ud dh a answers it. The problem was obviously felt tobe a most intractable one, and in theSatasdhasrikd413 leavesare devoted to it. The apparent conflict between the ontologyof the Prajndpdramitd and the practical needs of the strugglefor enlightenment presented a serious difficulty because exper-ience shows that the Prajndpdramitd teachings are liable todegenerate in to a com plete nihilism as far as th e prac tical sideof th e sp iritu al life is concerned. Three exam ples will suffice:The first comes from India, and consists in the well-knownquotation from the Sarvadharmavaipulyasamgrahasutra inSiksdsamuccaya:2 "As to the complete accomplishment(samuddgama)of th e six perfections w hich the B od hisattv as

1 1 4b~6a, II i9b~24a. Translated in mySelected Sayings from thePerfection of Wisdom, 1955,p p .2731.2P . 97. Bendall-Rouse's translation pp . 98-9 is, I think, misleading,and so I have re-translated th e passage.


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140 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studtesm us t have so as to win full enligh tenm ent, the se deluded peoplewill s a y ' a B od hisa ttva should train in theperf ection of wisdom,an d not th e other pe rfectio ns'; so the y will disparage (dmayi-iavya) the other perfections. Was the king of Kaii actingunwisely(dusprajna)when he gav e his own flesh to th e haw k tosave th e dove? H av e I in any w ay been injured (apakrta)by theroots of merit bound up with the six perfections which I haveheaped up during my long practice (carya)as a B odh isattva?. . . B u t the se deluded people will say, ' enlighten m ent comesfrom one m etho d (naya)only, i .e. th a t of Em ptine ss

1. How canthey be quite pure in their practices (caryasu) " The secondexample comes from the debates which accompanied theCouncil of Lhasa , or Bsam -yas, of ca. 790. A t th a t tim e K am a-laMla and the Indianpandits believed, rightly or wrongly, th a tthe Ch'an interpretation of PrajnaparamUd excluded thenecessity for making any special effort. At present we witness

a similar phenomenon in Europe and North America in thosecircles which have been stirred by Suzu ki's pres en tation of Zen.W hile in the U.S.A. th e B eatn iks seems to regard it a s advo cat-ing a life of undisciplined w himsy, in Europe m an y Zen followersrejoice at this teaching because it seems to create a vacuum inwhich their own egotism can op erate witho ut let or hindranc e.I t has thus often been thought that in attempting to safe-guard the spiritual intent of all religious striving, the Pmjnd-pdramitd takes away the motive for doing any striving at all.A pp arently i t was no t easy to prove these nihilistic conclusionsto be unjustified. If th e parado x could ha ve been resolved by afew cogent argu m ents, th ey would have been given. B y lavish-ing so many words on it, the authors of the Prajnapdramitdshowed b y im plication th a t no verbal answer is possible Th eliving rh y th m of the spiritua l life, lived from da y to d ay , alonecan teach w ha t words fail to convey.We have now roughly defined the main theme of the lastth ird of the LargePrajnapdramitd. In connec tion w ith it we aregiven a number of lengthy treatises which discuss all the sixperfections and their possible combinations in great detail.The discussion throughout this part proceeds on a very ad-vanced level, and frequently employs terms which we under-stand only imperfectly. This last flowering of Prajnapdramitdthought also gives a number of useful definitions, e.g. of the


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The Development of Prajndpdram itd Thought 141thre e kinds of omniscience, of th e Bu dd ha , of enligh tenm ent, ofPerfect Wisdom, ofpmpanea, of the major and minor marksof a Buddha's body, and so on.

V I. This concludes our discussion of the LargePrajndpdrahMITA. The really creative period, which we surmised to havebeg un in 100 B.C., ceased, on th e ev idence of th e Chinese tra n s-lations, two hu nd red a nd fifty yea rs later. I t now remained toproduce what we may call "po rtable editions11 of this vastdocum ent, which was too extensive to be m emorized, and tooobscure to be copied out correctly for long.1 Short Sutras in25, 300, 500, 700 and 1250 ilokas aimed at providing handysummaries of its contents, and we must now ask ourselveswhether they are mere abbreviations of the Large Sutra, orprop ou nd original ideas of their ow n.Generally speaking, these documents of the fourth toseventh centuries follow the doctrines outlined in the LargeSutra, The differences mainly concern such external points asth e kind of Abh idharm ic teaching which is subjected to the newanalysis. T he version in 500Mokasalludes to m any Ab hidharmacategories unnoticed in the LargePrajnapdramiid and th e listsad op ted in the version in 1250Mokasare somew hat a t variancew ith those of the La rge Sutra . There are, as far as I can see, onlythree differences worth commenting upon:

1. During the third phase already the Prajndpdramitd h adresorted to the enunciation of plain contradictions 2as a m eansof expressing the inexpressible. Fo r if noth ing can be s a d , onew ay of saying it is to m ake tw o contradictory pronou ncem entsat the same time. Now, in the fifth phase, self-contradictorystatements become more frequent, bolder and more dramatic,In theSaptaiatikd we are assured3 th a t th e self is th e B ud dh a,that "an undisciplined monk11 means "an Arhat whole out -flows hav e dried u p " , and t h a t " t h e five deadly sins11 are asynonym for " enlightenment " . I n th e Vajracchedikdth e form-ula which identifies a term with its contradictory oppositeis re-s tated in vary ing forms no fewer th an thirty-five1Already the G ilgit MSS of thePancavit&iaiisahasrikaandAtadaSa~sdhasrikaare full of m istakes, as is shown in m y Rome edition ofchap ters 55-69 of Ad.2E.g.$ iii 495-502, andP 136-38.3221, 228-9, 231-2.


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142 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiest imes.1An d th e bulk of theHrdayais occupied with piling onecontradiction on top of the other.2. The la ter Su tra s show a few distinct Yogacarin influences,which were absen t in th e older docum ents. These accretions arenot really surprising, because the Prajnap&ramitdcould liveonly as long as it absorbed everything that was really alive inBuddhism.

A) Th ere is first th e adoption of the exegetical m etho d knownas satpdhabhasya.In th e Scriptures of th e The ravadinssand-hay a (bhasitam, or vuitam) means "in reference to*'. Somescholars ha ve claimed th a t this is th e mean ing also in Vajrac-chedikachap . 6, b ut th a t is m ore th an unlikely.l tWith referencet o " demands something to which it refers, and in the Palisandhayais always preceded by a word in the accu sative, suchas etatp, tarn,yAM,vacanam, rupakdyadassanam, etc .2 This isno t th e case in theVajracchedikdpassage. The co ntex t likewiseis perfectly unam bigu ous. The re is no thing esoteric or profoundin this para ble of the raft as such, which is quite easy to un der-sta nd an d almost self-evident as told inMajjhimanikaya I p .135. But the Vajracchedikdgives a tw ist to it, lays ba re itshidden intention, as the Yogacarins were wo nt to d o . " On theface of it , the word 'dhanjias ' in this saying of the Buddhameans 'virtues ' , and so have Buddhaghosa, Woodward andI. B. Horner (BT no. 77) understood i t . By taking 'dharmas'not as a moral, b u t as a metaphysical term, m ea ni ng ' en ti t ies ' ,our Sutra here discloses the 'hidden meaning* of the simile."3After its isolated use in t h e Vajracchedikd,the termsamdhayabecomes a fairly regular feature in the Sapta&atikd*andSuvikrdntavikramipariprcchd,5 which can be da ted abo ut A.D.450 and 500.B) There is further the term cittavaranain th eHrdaya. Thedistinction betweenkarmdvara^a, kleidvaranaandjneydvaranais common to all M ahay anists. B u t to sp ea k ofcittavaranagivessense only within the context of the Yogacarin system, as an

1For the references see my edition ofTheVajracchedika,1957,P I 2 -*MNI p . 503,Udana cyp . 26, 243,Jataka I 203,Udana cyp p . 238,318,311. A tSamyutta Cy{to 1224) andJataka C yII 38 6 th e m eaning ofsandhdya isfairly definitely given aspaficca.3E. Conze,Buddhist W isdom Books,1958, p. 35 . 214, 225-6, 229, 240.s 110 a, 13b, 14a, 19a, iv 55a.-AlsoP ancaiatika(undated)172b- 73a.


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The Development of PrajMpdramttd Though t 143over-aU term for all coverings which obscure the pure subject.Th e term is atte ste d elsewhere in A sanga's verse-comm entaryto Vajmcchedikd, v. 42, and in the title of the Tantric Arya-deva fs Ciitdvara^aviiuddhiprakarapa. I ts Yoglcarin connota-tion is further underlined by th e va riant readings of this Hfdayapassage. Three Chinese transcripts have cittdlambanam andsix N epalese m anu scripts cittdrambapamdtmtvdlc) Two specific Yogacarin doctrines were worked into therevised Paficavimiatisdhasrikd, which may well belong to thefifth centu ry. T hey are 1. Th e doc trine of th e four bodies of th eBuddha.1 2. The three kinds of own-being.2 We have also oneshort Sutra (T 247) which, claiming to give the "direct mean-ing11 of the Pmjndpdramitd, includes an enum eration of th etenvikalpas of Yogacarin tradition.3. Th e late r Su tras show a greater awareness of the pressureof the social environment which Buddhists felt to be increas-ingly adverse to their ideals. In the very brief span of theVajmcchedikd we hear four times3 of "the last t ime, the lastepoch, the last five hundred years, the time of the collapse ofthe good doctrine11. Since we do not know which date is hereassumed for th e Nirvana, we can unfo rtuna tely no t use this fordating the Sutra. It is, however, noteworthy that there is nosuch preoccupation with prophecies of gloom in the earlierparts of theAsia. The "la st d a y s " are, i t is true, mentioned a tx 225, where it is said th a t w hen the y come round th ePrajMd-pdramitdwill be studied in the N orth , bu t th is is a late addition,and absent from Rgs.The B uddh ists reacted to the ir sense of social oppression bysoliciting the blessings of heaven and mobilizing, by means ofmantras,etc ., th e forces of the invisible world for their succour.The Hrdaya already contains a mantra which is connectedwith the Prajndpdramitd4 and which is claimed to besarva-duhkhapraiamanait*After A.D. 500 a number of short Sutras

3Chap. 6, 14b, 16b, 21b. The readingprajndparamUayam ukto is difficult because, as alsoSuzuki (EZB I I I 199) has observed, no suchmantraexists anywhere intheP rajnapammitm.M atters might be mended b y reading with some ofof the documents prajMpdram ita^a) yukto. The Tibetan has theGenetive and no t the Locative case.


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144 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studieswere composed1 which multiply the mantras and dhdrann a tth e disposal of the follower of Perfect W isdom , an d V ajrapan i,once mentioned in A (xvii 333) now acquires a greater impor-tance tha n he ha d before.N ex t, s tage V II is m arked b y the production of systematizingcommentaries.Th ere ha d , of course, been co m m entaries beforeth a t time , especially theMahdprajndpdramitopadeia, But theyhad b een the work of M adhyam ikas who ha d been content w ithbringing out th e ac tua l m eaning of the S utra , did little violenceto the existing text and confined themselves to explaining justwhat it said. Now the influence of the Yogacarins produced anew type of commentary which tried to superimpose on theSu tra some scheme alien to it . These Yogacarin com m entariesha ve been p reserved to us in some profusion, because th ey m etthe needs of the great Buddhist monasteries of Bihar andOrissa at th e t im e when Bu ddhism came to T ibet.

The difficulty lay, I think, in this: For a long time someBuddhists had sought emancipation more through prajnd,others more throug hdhydna.2Th is dicho tom y is at th e basis alsoof the division between Madhyamikas and Yogacarins. TheMadhyamika approach was perfectly adjusted to that of thePrajndpdramitd, and no commentatorial juggling was neededto effect reconciliation. The Mddhyamikakdrikd and thePrajndpdramitd expo und exac tly the same doctrine, the one tottrthikas and Hinayanists , the other to Mahayana believers.B oth use th e sharp sword of wisdom to c ut thro ug h all phen o-m ena an d show them all to be equ ally d evoid of own-being, ju stone emptiness. The standpoint of the Yogacarins is not somuch in conflict as incongruous with this. Following to itslogical conclusion t h e trad itiona ldhydnicmetho d of w ithdrawalfrom all external objects, they attempt to realize the ultimatesubject which can never be an object. This is not at all themethod of the PrajUdpdramitdwhich b y co ntrast drives to itslogical conclusion the traditional method of dharmapravicaya,or dharmic analysis.It was now the fate of the Prajndpdramitd te x ts to fall intoth e ha nd s of the Yog acarins, to whom the y presented as much1 For the details see myTantricPmjnaparamM Texts,Sino-IndianStudies, V 2, 1956, pp . 100-122.3See E. Conze,Buddhism, 1951, pp . 161-2.


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The Development of PrajMdpdramitd Thought 145an embarrassment as an inspiration. The Sutras had beencomposed on the principle that "the Spirit bloweth where itlisteth". Wide open to any suggestion, they meander fromsubject to subject , and whatever connection there may bebetween them , it is rarely a logical one. T he Y ogacarins^ work-ing in th e fourth centu ry an d late r, tried to find a hiddensysT^Mbehind all these m eanderings. Asanga an d V asubandhu demon-strated that the Vajmcchedikd is no t as incoherent as it looks,revealed the links between the apparently disconnected argu-m en ts, an d distributed i ts subject m at te r un der seven topics.1N ex t we hav e Dignaga's Prajndpdramitdpi^dfiha2' whichclaims (in w . 6, 22, 58) a special conn ection with th eAstasd-hasrikd,altho ug h th e bulk of i t (vv. 5-54) is based on passagesof the Large Prajndpdramitd which do not occur in it. Herethe teaching is arranged under thirty-two subjects . But themost systematic treatment is the first and most influential ofthese, th e Abhisamaydlankdm, attributed to Maitreya, whichreveals the deeper, hidden and indirect meaning as distinctfrom th e plain an d obvious sense, an d which tur n s th ePaMca-vitmiatisdhasrikd into a very elaborate system , w ith fixedcategories, a consecutive argument and manifold divisionsand subdivisions. Valuable for the study of the letter of thePrajndpdramiid, it nevertheless seems to some ex ten t t oconflict with its spirit.It had been the exasperating and rather self-contradictorytask of the Prajndpdramitd Sutras to say something abo ut thespiritual world without saying anything definite. As Subhutionce put it to the puzzled Gods, (fTh ere is nothing to under-stan d, nothing at al l to und erstand Fo r nothing in particularha s been indicated, no thing in particular explained

11 (A I I3 8 ) .The Prajndpdramitd had offered an elusive series of subtleallusions, which a t tim es are no t unlike wha t is know n as " freeassociation1* in m odern psychology, an d its presen tation of th esub] ect is th e sign of a m ind inw ardly free, not u nd uly concernedwith definite facts or achievements, not unduly pre-oqcupiedwith self-justification or self-protection. The Yogacarin com-

m en ta to rs once m ore confined th e celestial pho enix w ithina golden cage. Just as five hundred years ago the mindful1The m aterial in G. Tucci,MBT I, 1956.2 Ed. G. Tucci,JRAS 1947, pp . 56-9.


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146 Thirty Years of Buddhist Studiesmeditations of the monks who watched the rise and fall ofdha rm as ha d harden ed into a fixed Abhidharmic system whichprovoked th e reaction of thePrajndpdramitd, so now again theprison walls of a fixed scholastic system enclosed the fleetingintuitions of the Pmjndpdramitd. The freedom of th e spiritwas once again in danger.After A.D. 500 it re-asserted itself in the third creative out-burst of the Buddhist spirit, which is represented by theTantea and b y C h'an. Th ey are bo th p ar ts of th e same processand their similarities become more and more apparent. Theirviolent reaction against the deadening effects of a successfuland flourishing ecclesiastical system equally affected the threedepartments of Buddhist endeavour, i.e. Morality, Meditationan d Wisdom. The antinom ianism of the Ta nt ra seems directedchiefly against the third and fifth precept, although the otherswere not entirely neglected. The same antinomianism isperhaps more subdued in Chinese Ch'an, but in Japanese Zenit openly defies the first precept. As for meditation, the tradi-tional methods were almost entirely discarded, and replacedby new ones, quite unheard of so far. The presentation ofWisdom likewise took entirely new forms.VII I . The Adhyardhaiatikd, the one truly Tantric exposi-tion of the PrajHaparamitd,represents an entirely new depar-ture . It employs a literary form which it calls prajilapara-mitdnaya,foreshadowed to some extent in the " litanies " of thelate r pa rts ofA (chap. 29 sq.). Th e best I can do here is to q uo teone of these nayas (no. XII) in a rather faltering translationwhich reveals not-only m y own igtoran ce , bu t also th e irrationalna ture of these utteran ces :

"Thereupon the Lord Vairocana, the Tathagata, againdemonstrated this method of the perfection of wisdom, calledth e power which sustain s all beings(sarvasattvddhisthdnam ):"AE beings are embryonic Tathagatas{iathdgatagarbhdh),because they all have the self-nature (dtmatd) of Samantab-hadra, the great Bodhisattva; thunderbolts in embryo

(vajmgarbhdh) are all beings, because th ey are consecratedwith the Thunderbolt-womb (vajmgarbhdbhisiktatayd);Dharma in embryo are all beings, because all speech comes topass (?sarvavdkpmvartanatayd; nagthams-cadrab-tu 'byun-bas);


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The Development of Prajndpdmmitd Thought 147Karma is potentially present (karmagarbhdh)in all beings,because all beings exert themselves in doing deeds/*

11Th ereupon th e outside a da m an tine families raised aclamour, and (to them) this quintessence (snin-po) was offeredan d th e m eaning of this Dharm ahoo d w as explained in g reaterde tail. Th ereup on th e gre at adam an tine Ruler of his own offeredthis very same quintessence. Tn. Thereupon all th e heavenlyM others pa id hom age to th e Lord , and of their own offered th isve ry sam e quintessence (of th e doctrine) called ' th e religiousobservance of the accom plishment of the gathering , taking u pand examining all harmonious sayings*. Bhyoh* Thereupon,beginning with the Bees (?sbran-rtsir byed-pa la sogs-pa) th ethree Brothers(min-po)paid homage to the L ord, and , speakingharmoniously (tshigfthun-par), of their own offered this verysam e quintessence.Svd.T hereupo n th e four Sisters paid ho m ageto the Lord, and of their own offered this very same quint-essence. Ha."Whatever this may mean, it is clear that it is replete withterms which have no rational standing or meaning at al l , butwhich give sense only within a ritual system which aimed atachieving harm ony w ith the cosmic rhy thm . ThePrajMapdra-mild thus has been absorbed, but transmuted out of allrecognition.

IX. And so it was in Ch'an. The influence of thePrajUd-pdramitd on Ch'an thinking, and the interpretation of Prajfta-pdramitd texts by the Ch'an masters would deserve a moredetailed investigation. The space allotted to me is now ex-ha usted , an d it would in any case no t be seemly for me to m akeself-confident remarks about Zen in an article dedicated toD .T . Suzuki. All th a t I could do here was to sketch ou t brieflyth e changes which Prajndpdramitd thinking underwent in thecourse of seven or eight centuries, and to suggest some of thereasons which m ay ha ve prom pted this developm ent. A be tterknowledge of the v ast an d still largely unexplored m ater ial willenable future scholars to fill in the details, and to correct myperspective wherever necessaty.


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T H E PRAJNAPARAMITA-HRDAYASUTRAp Prajnapdramitd-hrdaya sMra is a religious document

X of the first importance. It carried Yuan-tsang through theGobi desert,lwas reproduced, in writing, on stones, in recitationthroughout Asia from Kabul to Nara,2and formed one of themain inspirations of the Zen school, occupying in Buddhistmysticism about the same place that the "Mystical Theology %ofPseudo-Dionysms AreopagUaoccupied in Christian. Unlikeother very shortPmjndpdramitd-sutms, theHrdayais of greatphilosophical interest. TheSvalpdksard,4 and other abbrevia-tions,were designed to bring the benefits of Prajndpdramitdwithin the reach of those unable to either study or understandit.5 TheHrdayaalone can be said to have gone really to theheart of the doctrine. The historical analysis of its sources cancontribute to the understanding of thissMra,by restoring itscomponent parts to their context within the larger Prajftd-pdramitd sutras.

The text of theHrdayaevenin extensois short. The editions ofMax Mutter, D. T. Suzuki, and Shaku Hannya obscure theprogress of the argument, and the manuscripts and theChinesetranslations throw light on the history and meaning of thisswTrA.TheHrdaya,as is well known, is transmitted in a longerform (about twenty-five ilokas), and a shorter form (aboutfourteen Mokas). The introduction and end of the longer formare here left unnumbered, while, to facilitate reference, I have

*Hwui Li,The Life ofH iuen-tsiangtirsl.Beal 1914, pp. 21-2.Cf. e.g. M. W. de Visser,Ancient Buddhism in Japan,1928, 1935.3MysticalTheology,iii, chaps 4 and 5, in particular, afford a strikingparallelto Section IV of theHrdaya.*Ed. E. Conze, Sino-Indian Studies V 3(1956),pp.113-5.

the development of prajnaparamita

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