Perfection of Wisdom
ཤེར་ཕྱིན།
Prajñāpāramitā
The collection of discourses on the Perfection of Wisdom.
The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines is the longest of all the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras and fills no fewer than twelve volumes of the Degé Kangyur. Like the other two long sūtras, it is a detailed record of the teaching on the perfection of wisdom that the Buddha Śākyamuni gave on Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha, setting out all aspects of the path to enlightenment that bodhisattvas must know and put into practice, yet without taking them as having even the slightest true existence.
在佛法思想與修持中,無論「廣行派」還是「深見派」都將本經視為最重要的經典之一。在三部長篇般若經中,本經是中等長度的一部,佔《甘珠爾》中三卷的篇幅。與另外兩部長篇經典類似,本經記敘了釋迦牟尼佛在靈鷲山所傳的有關般若智慧的重大教法,完整地詳述了覺悟之道,同時強調菩薩必須實修法道,但卻不將法道乃至證悟的任何方面執為實有。
The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines is one version of the Long Perfection of Wisdom sūtras that developed in South and South-Central Asia in tandem with the Eight Thousand version, probably during the first five hundred years of the Common Era. It contains many of the passages in the oldest extant Long Perfection of Wisdom text (the Gilgit manuscript in Sanskrit), and is similar in structure to the other versions of the Long Perfection of Wisdom sūtras (the One Hundred Thousand and Twenty-Five Thousand) in Tibetan in the Kangyur. While setting forth the sacred fundamental doctrines of Buddhist practice with veneration, it simultaneously exhorts the reader to reject them as an object of attachment, its recurring message being that all dharmas without exception lack any intrinsic nature.
The sūtra can be divided loosely into three parts: an introductory section that sets the scene, a long central section, and three concluding chapters that consist of two important summaries of the long central section. The first of these (chapter 84) is in verse and also circulates as a separate work called The Verse Summary of the Jewel Qualities (Toh 13). The second summary is in the form of the story of Sadāprarudita and his guru Dharmodgata (chapters 85 and 86), after which the text concludes with the Buddha entrusting the work to his close companion Ānanda.
While dwelling at Vulture Peak near Rājagṛha, the Buddha sets in motion the sūtras that are the most extensive of all—the sūtras on the Prajñāpāramitā, or “Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.” Committed to writing around the start of the first millennium, these sūtras were expanded and contracted in the centuries that followed, eventually amounting to twenty-three volumes in the Tibetan Kangyur. Among them, The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom in Ten Thousand Lines is a compact and coherent restatement of the longer versions, uniquely extant in Tibetan translation, without specific commentaries, and rarely studied. While the structure generally follows that of the longer versions, chapters 1–2 conveniently summarize all three hundred and sixty-seven categories of phenomena, causal and fruitional attributes which the sūtra examines in the light of wisdom or discriminative awareness. Chapter 31 and the final chapter 33 conclude with an appraisal of irreversible bodhisattvas, the pitfalls of rejecting this teaching, and the blessings that accrue from committing it to writing.
This sūtra takes the form of a series of dialogues between the Buddha Śākyamuni, Subhūti, Śāriputra, and others such as Indra, the king of gods, and a Goddess of the Ganges, and as well as setting out the teachings on emptiness as such it describes the path and practices that a bodhisattva should take to integrate this understanding of phenomena and finally realize it. A special feature of this particular sūtra are the inspirational narratives of Sadāprarudita and his quest for the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom from the Bodhisattva Dharmodgata, contained in the final three chapters.
在此經中,佛陀概括了般若智慧的種種含義,尤其指出一切法、五蘊、五大種、十波羅蜜的特性如何,般若波羅蜜的特性亦與之相同,由此著重闡明了世間諸法與空性無二。
In this famous scripture, known popularly as The Heart Sūtra, the Buddha Śākyamuni inspires his senior monk Śāriputra to request instructions from the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara on the way to practice the perfection of wisdom. Avalokiteśvara then describes how an aspiring practitioner of the perfection of wisdom must first understand how all phenomena lack an intrinsic nature, which amounts to the realization of emptiness. Next, Avalokiteśvara reveals a brief mantra that the practitioner can recite as a method for engendering this understanding experientially. Following Avalokiteśvara’s teaching, the Buddha offers his endorsement and confirms that this is the foremost way to practice the perfection of wisdom.
《聖般若波羅蜜多日藏大乘經》是一部短篇般若經典,講述世尊與日光明菩薩之間的對話。在此經中,日光明菩薩如是問世尊:具足方便善巧的菩薩,應如何修習般若波羅蜜多?世尊答曰:菩薩應修習「方便善巧日三昧」,並以日輪為喻宣說「方便善巧日三昧」的七種功德。世尊進而講述:菩薩修習般若波羅蜜多,應當修學諸法了義理趣。最後,世尊以一偈頌宣說般若波羅蜜多法門修行者之特質。
《聖般若波羅蜜多月藏大乘經》是一部短篇般若經典,講述世尊與月藏菩薩之間的對話。在此經中,月藏菩薩如是問世尊:菩薩應如何修習般若波羅蜜多?為答此問,世尊以月輪為譬喻,宣說:一切法離實有,即般若波羅蜜多。月藏菩薩進而問世尊:菩薩之般若波羅蜜多有幾何?世尊答曰:菩薩之般若波羅蜜多有二,謂:有漏、無漏。進而,世尊以一切法的了義理趣來解釋般若波羅蜜。最後,世尊以般若波羅蜜多咒和偈頌總結般若波羅蜜多法門。
在摩揭陀國阿蘭若法菩提道場,釋迦牟尼佛與普賢菩薩及諸菩薩眾示現三昧神通。普賢菩薩問世尊,相似般若與實相般若有何區別,世尊即講述這兩種般若的定義。此經為一部短篇般若經典,與五位菩薩(日光明菩薩、月藏菩薩、普賢菩薩、金剛手菩薩、金剛幢菩薩)相關。