“Transcendent State of Wisdom” (prajñāpāramitā)
For the Sanskrit prajñāpāramitā, the English rendering “perfection of wisdom” is no doubt familiar to many readers, and indeed is the one used in translations of the other Prajñāpāramitā sūtras published by 84000. An explanation of why a different rendering of this key term has been adopted here is therefore warranted. First, although the Sanskrit prajñā might be more helpfully understood as “discernment” or “critical intelligence,” an editorial decision was made to use the familiar “wisdom” in this translation for the sake of alignment with other translations. For the Sanskrit pāramita, however, our translator’s close reading of the commentaries—summarized in extensive notes and a prominent feature of this publication—led him to a conviction that the rendering “perfection” fails to capture important aspects of this key term. The translation “perfection of wisdom,” which Conze suggests is equivalent to “perfect wisdom” is influenced by Haribhadra’s commentary and favors his interpretation. But as a rendering of pāramita serviceable to both traditional interpretations of this text, not just Haribhadra’s, “transcendent state” has been adopted here despite editorial misgivings concerning conformity across the corpus. It is, of course, used not only for the transcendent state of wisdom but also for the transcendent states of generosity, ethical discipline, tolerant acceptance, heroic perseverance, and meditative concentration. Readers exploring translations of the Prajñāpāramitā literature in general should be aware that in the source languages the terms underlying these different English renderings are the same, and that there is nothing intrinsic to the present scripture, compared to the other “mother” sūtras, that might differentiate their interpretation.
A sense of how the commentators interpret the term prajñāpāramitā to fit their respective religious frameworks may be useful, for an understanding not just of the relative benefits of different renderings in English, but also of the essence of these commentators’ soteriological and philosophical debate. In this regard, it may help to sketch out their heuristic analysis (nirvacana) and grammatical unpacking (vyākaraṇa) of the term.46
Haribhadra’s philosophical position is that a buddha’s knowing is a relatively real phenomenon perceiving the ultimate reality of emptiness from which it is not separate. He therefore uses grammatical rules to explain a heuristic understanding of the term as something that might be translated “the state of one who reaches the other shore, i.e., the ultimate point, of wisdom (i.e., discernment or critical intelligence) that has thoroughly (i.e., ontologically) distinguished all phenomena” (prajñāyāḥ pāram+iḥ+tā).47 According to Haribhadra, the term’s main referent is a buddha’s nondual knowing (advayajñāna), but the term is often figuratively applied to the different paths leading to that nondual knowledge in a way that resembles how the name of the fruit is applied to its seed.48 Conze’s synonymous translations, “perfection of wisdom” and “perfect wisdom,” thus bolster the idea that this term most naturally refers to a buddha’s wisdom, the ultimate goal of the path to awakening.49 But it lacks the sense of a buddha having not just perfected wisdom, but also gone to its other shore, i.e., transcended dualistic thinking about things.
Since Ratnākaraśānti’s position is that a buddha’s knowing is realized only when consciousness is transformed in the moment after finally seeing the emptiness of all imagined phenomena, he explains the central term to mean something that might be translated “that going to the other shore that is the wisdom that sees emptiness” (prajñāpāram+itā).50 According to Ratnākaraśānti, the term’s main referent is a noble bodhisattva’s nonconceptual knowing (nirvikalpajñāna) that begins at the first moment of the path of seeing emptiness (darśanamārga) and ends in the final moment of the path of cultivating it (bhāvanāmārga). For Ratnākaraśānti, the term is applied only figuratively to the two other referents—the knowing belonging to ordinary beings, and that of buddhas—based upon two different principles. First, the word is sometimes used, like applying the name of the fruit to its seed, to refer to the causes leading to a bodhisattva’s nonconceptual knowing.51 Second, the word is sometimes used, like applying the name of the result to its cause, to refer to what results from a bodhisattva’s nonconceptual knowing. To best approximate Ratnākaraśānti’s understanding of the term, we might translate it “the wisdom that completely transcends” itself, and in so doing transcends cyclic existence.
Thus it is that “transcendent state” of wisdom has been adopted here to capture, in a single translation of the term, both Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s explanations applied to different usages throughout their comments on the scripture. The word “transcendent” can be interpreted either as that state that results from having transcended (i.e., a buddha’s knowing) or that state that is in the process of transcending (i.e., a bodhisattva’s knowing). Here, even though later traditions emphasized the immanence of this “transcendent state of wisdom”—which might seem like a contradiction in terms for a transcendent state—their rhetoric was likely aimed at pointing out, through paradox, that this very transcendent wisdom sought outside oneself along the path turns out to have been one’s own most fundamental and immediate wisdom that from the beginning has been available, yet has remained unrecognized.