The three Tibetan commentaries in this volume explain the perfection of wisdom, the prajñāpāramitā. Prajñā is defined as “investigation of dharmas” (dharmapravicaya). Here the dharmas (as distinct from “the Dharma,” the Buddha’s doctrine) are mental and physical elements, of which there are broadly two types. The first are those that describe a person undergoing the different types of existences that comprise saṃsāra, the cycle of suffering rebirths. The second are those that describe a person traversing the stages of purification leading to nirvāṇa, the end of the cycle. Investigation of dharmas leads to knowledge of the four noble truths (the truths of suffering, its origination, its cessation, and the path to that cessation). In other words, it reveals both the entry into suffering existence and deliverance from it.
In its final state, prajñā is knowledge that liberates. When it has “gone to the other side” (pāramitā), it becomes prajñāpāramitā, the “perfection of wisdom,” the liberating knowledge underpinned by the four noble truths. It is a knowledge of all phenomena, and its attainment is informed by an altru-istic aspiration to liberate all beings.
The three texts translated here all cite a verse by the Buddhist writer Dignāga (fl. ca. 500 CE) that says the perfection of wisdom is a name for reality, paths, and books.
The perfection of wisdom is nondual knowledge. It is the tathāgata, and it is what must be accomplished.
Books and paths with that as the goal have that name.
The true perfection of wisdom is nondual knowledge of all phenomena, the tathāgata. This is the result aspect of the perfection of wisdom. It is reality, the way things are (tathatā) that has been understood, gone to ( gata), or come from (āgata)—the natural state of things.
Two of the authors in the present volume, Ngok Lotsāwa and Kunkhyen Pema Karpo, say the result, the nondual perfection of wisdom, is knowledge beyond all ordinary mental episodes, knowledge in which the ultimate object and the knowing subject are not bifurcated. Gyaltsab, our third author, says that the result perfection of wisdom knows reality in a nondual way but that only the object, the emptiness of all phenomena, is the ultimate. For Gyaltsab, the knowing subject is not an ultimate reality in the same way emptiness is.
When used as a name for paths, the perfection of wisdom is the series of mental events comprising the purification of obscuration and the accumulation of the prerequisites that finally lead to the result perfection of wisdom.
When used as the name of a book, it refers, for example, to the Heart Sūtra, the Diamond Sūtra, and so on; a book or text is titled the Perfection of Wisdom because it takes the result perfection of wisdom as its subject mat-ter. In this volume, when the authors cite the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras, they cite the long sūtras in TwentyFive Thousand, Eighteen Thousand, or Hundred Thousand Lines and the shorter in Eight Thousand Lines. But most frequently, they cite Haribhadra’s Eight Chapters, which is a version of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra in TwentyFive Thousand Lines that appears in the Tengyur collection.
Origins of the Perfection of Wisdom Scriptures
An Eight Thousand–type scripture known from Chinese translations dates to as early as the second century CE and is among the very earliest Buddhist texts ever translated from an Indian language. Edward Conze, in his abbre-viated English version, asserts that the Eight Thousand, already confirmed in its basic structure by the time of the earliest Chinese translations, played a central role in the textual history of Perfection of Wisdom and in the dissem-ination of its basic practice and philosophy. More recently it has been shown that the earliest scriptures, among which are included fragments in Gāndhāri datable to the late first century CE, are not exactly early versions of an Eight Thousand but rather are early scriptures that can be grouped together in an Eight Thousand–type family. There is a second set of early scriptures that are part of a second longer Perfection of Wisdom–type family that develop into the TwentyFive Thousand and so on.
The revised and translated Eight Thousand included in the Tibetan Kan-gyur is a single volume of about seven hundred pages. Though much longer than the earliest Chinese versions, it is still of a manageable size, and its special status, both in the Tibetan intellectual tradition and among ordinary folk, can be gauged from the place it has in the homes of ordinary Tibetans, who often keep it in an ornately wrapped blockprint in a place of honor on the family altar.
The Tibetan Perfection of Wisdom tradition explains the origin of the scriptures from the words of Śākyamuni as recollected by his followers. This is the origin story presented in the opening part of the third text translated here, Kunkhyen Pema Karpo’s Sacred Words of Lord Maitreya, and accepted without comment by our other two authors. Of particular importance in this Tibetan tradition is the well- known characterization, based on the scheme set forth in the Unraveling the Intent Sūtra (Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra), that says the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures are Śākyamuni’s second turning of the wheel of the Dharma. According to this origin story, the first turning, in the earlier period of the Buddha’s life, includes the foundational scriptures of Buddhism that say the dharmas—the basic categories of Buddhism such as the aggregates, the noble eightfold path, and so on—exist. In the second turning, later in his life, the Buddha in the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures says the dharmas have no inherent existence. And a third turning—including the Unraveling the Intent Sūtra itself—is said to strike a balance between the two.
Ornament for the Clear Realizations
The Perfection of Wisdom sūtras are privileged sources in all three works translated here, but they do not provide the structure. For that we must look to the influence of the Indian commentarial tradition based on the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra, or Ornament for the Clear Realizations. This seminal text, written in Sanskrit perhaps as early as the fourth century, is a short verse explanation of the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures associated with the name of Maitreya. It and Haribhadra’s Clear Exposition of the Abhisamayā laṃ kāra (the Vivṛti), a short explanation of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra written in Sanskrit in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent in the last part of the eighth century, serve as the primary root texts and provide the structure of eight chapters with seventy subtopics adopted by each of the three commentaries. This is why an English translation of the Abhi samayālaṃ kāra has been embedded within Kunkhyen’s Sacred Words of Lord Maitreya—to make it more accessible to an English- speaking reader—and why an English translation of Haribhadra’s Clear Exposition has been embedded within Ngok’s Topical Summary. Even so, because the intended Indian readers of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra and Haribhadra’s Clear Exposition were already expected to know the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras well, and because this expectation carries over into the Tibetan commentaries based on the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra and Haribhadra’s Clear Exposition, all three of the works translated here may prove challenging for the English- speaking reader.
"Tibetan writers differ slightly in explaining who exactly Maitreya, the author of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra, is."
As to the origin of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra, Haribhadra is the first to say explicitly that the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra is by Maitreya. In his long Illumination Commentary (the Ālokā), of which the Clear Exposition is a later digest, Haribhadra says, “Hence, with him [Asaṅga] in view, the Lord Maitreya composed the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra in which the Prajñāpāramitāsūtra has been explained.” Asaṅga lived in about the middle of the fourth century. The dating of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra to the fourth century is based on a view that the author of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra is the author of all the Five Texts of Maitreya, as they are called by Tibetans, at least one of which, the Ornament for the Mahāyāna Sūtras (Mahā yāna sūtrā laṃ kāra), can definitively be connected with Maitreya and Asaṅga.
Tibetan writers differ slightly in explaining who exactly Maitreya, the author of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra, is. It will be remembered that the Buddha Śākyamuni is said to be the fourth in a line of one thousand bud-dhas, and the fifth in the line is Maitreya Buddha. Besides that Maitreya, there is also a bodhisattva called Maitreya in the immediate retinue of Śākyamuni—the Maitreya who is an occasional interlocutor in the Perfec-tion of Wisdom sūtras. And then there is the author of the Abhi samayālaṃ kāra and the rest of the Five Texts. Kunkhyen’s view is representative of the way Tibetan scholars have dealt with this problem. He says (p. 391), “Relative to a bodhisattva’s trainees . . . the Maitreya and Kāśyapa [in the assembly of the great bodhisattvas] who make a request [to Buddha Śākya-muni], the Maitreya who trains trainees with the dead body of Kāśyapa, and the Maitreya who is [a Buddha] appointed the regent of the Teacher [Śākyamuni] are the same Maitreya. I do not divide them.” Kunkhyen is saying that the Maitreya who is the author of the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra is both the Buddha to be and the bodhisattva Maitreya who appears in the sūtras. There is no contradiction.
Tibetan tradition says that Asaṅga entered solitary retreat to have a vision of Maitreya, but after meditating for three years without success, he gave up. On leaving his cave, he came upon a person using a soft cloth to polish a piece of iron into a needle. Thinking that if a person had patience even for that, then he could achieve his aim, he returned to his retreat for another three years, but again, he had no success. Again, he left his retreat, and this time he saw how small drops of water had left an impression in a rock near his retreat. Through this, he regained his confidence and returned to his meditation for another three years, again without success. When he came out of his retreat cave a third time, he saw how a mother bird’s wing as it flew in and out of its nesting place on the rock face slightly smoothed the rock. This again restored his confidence, and he meditated for another three years, still without success. Thoroughly discouraged, he gave up and went into a nearby town. There, he was deeply moved on seeing a dog with a prolapsed womb covered in maggots. Wanting to help the dog by removing the maggots, but worried about hurting even the maggots if he took them out with his hands, he closed his eyes to avoid feeling repulsion as he bent down to remove them with his tongue. It was at that point, we are told, that Maitreya finally appeared before him. Irritated, Asaṅga asked Maitreya where he had been for the last twelve years when he had been meditating furiously, to which Maitreya replied he had been trying to make himself known but he could not get through. Then, carrying Maitreya on his shoulders, Asaṅga walked down the main street of the town. Nobody took any notice of them except one old lady, who saw a scruffy beggar carrying a mangy dog. It is said she was immediately reborn in a pure land. Maitreya then told Asaṅga to hold on to the hem of his robe and whisked him off to the Tuṣita heaven (the traditional abode of Maitreya, the Buddha to be), where he quickly taught him the Five Texts.
The merit of this didactic yet moving story is that it alerts the reader to the importance of “the production of the thought of enlightenment” (bodhicittotpāda), the special Mahāyāna altruism that the author of the Abhisamayā laṃ kāra identifies as the first topic propounded in the Perfection of Wisdom scriptures.
In the long Perfection of Wisdom, after the introduction, the first thing the Buddha says is “Śāradvatiputra, bodhisattva great beings who want to fully awaken to all dharmas in all their aspects should persevere in the per-fection of wisdom.” Here “the perfection of wisdom” means the nondual insight into the dharmas as, ultimately, empty of their own intrinsic nature. In explaining this, the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra, after Maitreya’s introductory verses, first says,
To produce the thought is to want perfect,
complete enlightenment for others’ sake.
That is to say, the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra does not comment on the explicit meaning of the passage in the sūtra but focuses instead on what later comes to be called the hidden meaning—in this case, the special Mahāyāna altru-ism that marks the start of Mahāyāna practice. It finds this altruism in the word “want” (kāma), the desire to become enlightened for the sake of others. Throughout all three commentaries translated here, readers will encoun-ter this type of interpretation again and again, where passages in the sūtra explicitly say one thing, but the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra interprets them to be saying something that is not immediately obvious. This is why the commen-taries may seem to be distant from the sūtras, and why readers may mistak-enly think they are not learning what the sūtras say but only what a later commentarial tradition says about them.
The perfection of wisdom as it is set forth in the Abhi samayā laṃ kāra is a composite of three knowledges. These three knowledges are varieties of omniscience, or all- knowledge, and have the technical names knowledge of bases, knowledge of paths, and knowledge of all aspects, which are, respectively, the knowledge of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, the knowledge of bodhi-sattvas, and the knowledge of buddhas. The three knowledges are again a composite of eight knowledges. These eight are the so- called clear realiza-tions that give the Ornament for the Clear Realizations its name and that, in turn, provide the structure for Ngok and Kunkhyen’s commentaries in this book. Presentation of the eight clear realizations (abhisamaya) or “full awak-enings” (abhisaṃbodha) begins with the buddhas’ knowledge:
1. The knowledge of all aspects
2. The knowledge of paths
3. The knowledge of bases
4. Full awakening to all aspects
5. Peak clear realization
6. Serial clear realization
7. Full awakening in one instant
8. The Dharma body
According to Gyaltsab, following Tsongkhapa’s early Perfection of Wisdom commentary Golden Garland of Eloquence (Legs bshad gser phreng), the fourth to seventh describe the different stages in the practice of the first three knowledges, and the eighth, the Dharma body, describes the result of the preceding seven.
The three knowledges, as a description of the minds of enlightened beings, are the source of three sets of Buddhist teachings—those for śrāvakas, the foundational teachings; those for bodhisattvas, the explanations of the Mahā-yāna path; and those for buddhas, all the teachings without differentiation relativized as the main source of benefit for persons with different interests and capacities in the world. The source of all three knowledges, and by exten-sion of all three sets of teachings, is the Mahāyāna altruism taught in the open-ing statement of the TwentyFive Thousand cited above that says bodhisattvas who “want” full awakening should practice the perfection of wisdom.
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The perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) is a key element of the path in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Wisdom here is the transcendent wisdom of a bodhisattva who has penetrated the nature of reality, the emptiness (śūnyatā) of all things. Sutras that take the Perfection of Wisdom as their name emerged in the centuries before and after the start of the Common Era and became foundational for the nascent Mahāyāna. These include the well-known Heart Sūtra and Diamond Cutter Sūtra as well as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras in eight thousand and a hundred thousand lines. The great Drukpa Kagyü scholar Kunkhyen Pema Karpo’s (1527–92) Sacred Words of Lord Maitreya is the most detailed and systematic of the three works, supplementing explanations of the Perfection of Wisdom based on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra with verses from the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra (Ornament for the Mahāyāna Sūtras) and the Uttaratantra (Sublime Continuum). This work as presented here includes within it a complete translation of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra’s eight chapters.
