The Diamond S?tra (Sanskrit:Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra) is one of the Prajñ?p?ramit? sutras which means a genre of "the Perfection of Wisdom" in Mah?y?na Buddhism. The Diamond S?tra is a very rare scripture, because most Mah?y?na sutras did not preach the process intentionally reaching to Vajrayana or ?r?vakay?na; each means "Mount Vajra-?ekhara (Diamond-head)" and "Mount Bhumi (the first stage of bhumis)". However, the Diamond Sutra ends with the wording that it is good not to take phases in leading to the place (where may be severed by thunderbolts unless being impregnable like a diamond).
A copy of the Tang-dynasty Chinese version of the Diamond S?tra was found among the Dunhuang manuscripts in 1907 by Aurel Stein and dated back to 11 May 868. It is, in the words of the British Library, "the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book."
It is also the first creative work with an explicit public domain dedication, as its colophon at the end claims it was created "for universal free distribution."
Video Diamond Sutra
Title
The Sanskrit title for the s?tra is the Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra, which may be translated roughly as the "Vajra Cutter Perfection of Wisdom S?tra." In English, shortened forms such as Diamond S?tra and Vajra S?tra are common. The title relies on the power of the vajra (diamond or thunderbolt) to cut things as a metaphor for the type of wisdom that cuts and shatters illusions to get to ultimate reality. The sutra is also called by the name Tri?atik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra (300 lines Perfection of Insight sutra).
The Diamond S?tra is highly regarded in a number of Asian countries with traditions of Mah?y?na Buddhism. Translations of this title into the languages of some of these countries include:
- Sanskrit: ???????????????????????????????, Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra
- Chinese: ???????????, Jingang Borepoluomiduo Jing (Chin-kang Po-Je p'o-lo-mi-to Ching); shortened to ?????, Jingang Jing (Chin-kang Ching)
- Japanese: ?????????, Kong? hannya haramita ky?, shortened to ???, Kong?-ky?
- Korean: ????????, geumgang banyabaramil gyeong, shortened to ???, geumgang gyeong
- Mongolian: Yeke kölgen sudur
- Vietnamese Kim c??ng bát-nhã-ba-la-m?t-?a kinh, shortened to Kim c??ng kinh
- Tibetan ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????, Wylie: 'phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa rdo rje gcod pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo
Maps Diamond Sutra
History
Around the 3rd century AD, the Diamond S?tra was preached and was compiled as a part of the Prajnaparamita s?tras. It was probably preached as a countermeasure against Hinayana buddhism which idealized the Gautama's vajrasana-y?na under Bodhi Tree and did not understand Buddhism cosmology; Vajrayana (vajrasana-y?na) is still a midway's entrance and is one of the terribly dangerous places, linking to Yama-deva.
The Vajracchedika sutra was an influential work in the North Indian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Buddhist philosophers such as Asanga and Vasubandhu wrote commentaries on the sutra.
The first translation of the Diamond S?tra into Chinese is thought to have been made in 401 by the venerated and prolific translator Kum?raj?va. Kum?raj?va's translation style is distinctive, possessing a flowing smoothness that reflects his prioritization on conveying the meaning as opposed to precise literal rendering. The Kum?raj?va translation has been particularly highly regarded over the centuries, and it is this version that appears on the 868 Dunhuang scroll. It is the most widely used and chanted Chinese version.
In addition to the Kum?raj?va translation, a number of later translations exist. The Diamond S?tra was again translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Bodhiruci in 509, Param?rtha in 558, Dharmagupta (twice, in 590 and in 605~616), Xuanzang (twice, in 648 and in 660~663), and Yijing in 703.
The Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Mah?s??ghika-Lokottarav?da monastery at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in the 7th century. Using Xuanzang's travel accounts, modern archaeologists have identified the site of this monastery. Birchbark manuscript fragments of several Mah?y?na s?tras have been discovered at the site, including the Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra (MS 2385), and these are now part of the Schøyen Collection. This manuscript was written in the Sanskrit language, and written in an ornate form of the Gupta script. This same Sanskrit manuscript also contains the Medicine Buddha S?tra (Bhai?ajyaguruvai??ryaprabh?r?ja S?tra).
The Diamond S?tra gave rise to a culture of artwork, s?tra veneration, and commentaries in East Asian Buddhism. By the end of the Tang Dynasty (907) in China there were over 800 commentaries written on it (only 32 survive), such as those by prominent Chinese Buddhists like Sengzhao, Xie Lingyun, Zhiyi, Jizang, Kuiji and Zongmi. One of the best known commentaries is the Exegesis on the Diamond Sutra by Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School.
Contents
The Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? Sutra contains the discourse of the Buddha to a senior monk, Subhuti. Its major themes are anatman (not-self), the emptiness of all phenomena (though the term '??nyat?' itself does not appear in the text), the liberation of all beings without attachment and the importance of spreading and teaching the Diamond sutra itself. In his commentary on the Diamond S?tra, Hsing Yun describes the four main points from the s?tra as giving without attachment to self, liberating beings without notions of self and other, living without attachment, and cultivating without attainment. According to Shigenori Nagamoto the major goal of the Diamond sutra is: "an existential project aiming at achieving and embodying a non-discriminatory basis for knowledge" or "the emancipation from the fundamental ignorance of not knowing how to experience reality as it is."
In the s?tra, the Buddha has finished his daily walk to Sravasti with the monks to gather offerings of food, and he sits down to rest. Elder Subh?ti comes forth and asks the Buddha a question: "How, Lord, should one who has set out on the bodhisattva path take his stand, how should he proceed, how should he control the mind?" What follows is a dialogue regarding the nature of the 'perfection of insight' (Prajñ?p?ramit?) and the nature of ultimate reality (which is illusory and empty). The Buddha begins by answering Subhuti by stating that he will bring all living beings to final nirvana - but that after this "no living being whatsoever has been brought to extinction". This is because a bodhisattva does not see beings through reified concepts such as 'person', 'soul' or 'self', but sees them through the lens of perfect understanding, as empty of inherent, unchanging self.
The Buddha continues his exposition with similar statements which use negation to point out the emptiness of phenomena, merit, the Dharma (Buddha's teaching), the stages of enlightenment and the Buddha himself. Japanese Buddhologist, Hajime Nakamura, calls this negation the 'logic of not' (Sanskrit: na prthak). Further examples of the Diamond sutra's via negativa include statements such as:
- As far as 'all dharmas' are concerned, Subhuti, all of them are dharma-less. That is why they are called 'all dharmas.'
- Those so-called 'streams of thought,' Subhuti, have been preached by the Tathagata as streamless. That is why they are called 'streams of thought.'
- 'All beings,' Subhuti, have been preached by the Tathagata as beingless. That is why they are called 'all beings.'
The Buddha is generally thought to be trying to help Subh?ti unlearn his preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality. Emphasizing that all phenomena are ultimately illusory, he teaches that true enlightenment cannot be grasped until one has set aside attachment to them in any form.
Another reason why the Buddha makes use of negation is because language reifies concepts and this can lead to attachment to those concepts, but true wisdom is seeing that nothing is fixed or stable, hence according to the Diamond sutra thoughts such as "I have obtained the state of an Arhat" or "I will bring living beings to nirvana" does not even occur in an enlightened one's mind because this would be "seizing upon a self...seizing upon a living being, seizing upon a soul, seizing upon a person." Indeed, the sutra goes on to state that anyone who says such things should not be called a bodhisattva. According to David Kalupahana the goal of the Diamond sutra is "one colossal attempt to avoid the extremist use of language, that is, to eliminate any ontological commitment to concepts while at the same time retaining their pragmatic value, so as not to render them totally empty of meaning." Kalupahana explains the negation of the Diamond sutra by seeing an initial statement as an erroneous affirmation of substance or selfhood, which is then critiqued ("'all dharmas' are dharmaless"), and then finally reconstructed ("that is why they are called 'all dharmas'") as being conventional and dependently originated. Kalupahana explains this final reconstruction as meaning: "that each concept, instead of either representing a unique entity or being an empty term, is a substitute for a human experience which is conditioned by a variety of factors. As such, it has pragmatic meaning and communicative power without being absolute in any way." According to Paul Harrison the Diamond sutra's central argument here is that "all dharmas lack a self or essence, or to put it in other words, they have no core ontologically, they only appear to exist separately and independently by the power of conventional language, even though they are in fact dependently originated."
The mind of someone who practices the Prajñ?p?ramit? or 'perfection of insight' is then a mind free from fixed substantialist or 'self' concepts:
"However, Lord, the idea of a self will not occur to them, nor will the idea of a living being, the idea of a soul, or the idea of a person occur. Why is that? Any such idea of a self is indeed idealess, any idea of a living being, idea of a soul, or idea of a person is indeed idealess. Why is that? Because the Buddhas and Lords are free of all ideas."
Throughout the teaching, the Buddha repeats that successful memorization and elucidation of even a four-line extract of it is of incalculable merit, better than giving an entire world system filled with gifts and can bring about enlightenment. Section 26 also ends with a four-line gatha:
All conditioned phenomena
Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow,
Like dew or a flash of lightning;
Thus we shall perceive them."
Paul Harrison's translation states:
"A shooting star, a clouding of the sight, a lamp, An illusion, a drop of dew, a bubble, A dream, a lightning's flash, a thunder cloud-- This is the way one should see the conditioned."
Dunhuang block print
There is a wood block printed copy in the British Library which, although not the earliest example of block printing, is the earliest example which bears an actual date.
The extant copy is in the form of a scroll about 5 meters (16 ft) long. The archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein purchased it in 1907 in the walled-up Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in northwest China from a monk guarding the caves - known as the "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas".
The colophon, at the inner end, reads:
Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [11 May 868].
In 2010 UK writer and historian Frances Wood, head of the Chinese section at the British Library, Mark Barnard, conservator at the British Library, and Ken Seddon, professor of chemistry at Queen's University, Belfast, were involved in the restoration of its copy of the book. The British Library website allows readers to view the Diamond Sutra in its entirety.
Selected English translations
See also
- Science and technology of the Tang Dynasty
References
Further reading
- Cole, Alan (2005). For a close reading of the text's rhetoric, see chapter 4 of Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature (Berkeley: U Cal Press, 2005), pp. 160-196, entitled "Be All You Can't Be, and Other Gainful Losses in the Diamond Sutra."
- William Gemmell (transl.): The Diamond Sutra, Trübner, London 1912.
- Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters: Journeys on the Silk Road: a desert explorer, Buddha's secret library, and the unearthing of the world's oldest printed book, Picador Australia, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4050-4041-9.
- Agócs, Tamás (2000). The Diamondness of the Diamond Sutra. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53, (1/2), 65-77
External links
- Vajracchedik? Prajñ?p?ramit? S?tra: English Translation, Lapis Lazuli Texts
- Diamond Sutra: English Translation, by A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam
- The Diamond of Perfect Wisdom Sutra: English Translation, by Chung Tai Translation Committee
- Romanized Sanskrit and Devanagari of the Diamond Sutra in the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon.
- Multilingual edition of Vajracchedik? in the Bibliotheca Polyglotta
- Conserving the Diamond Sutra, IDPUKvideo (2013)
Source of article : Wikipedia
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