| Key Term |
Prajñāpāramitā |
| Hover Popup Choices |
Perfection of Wisdom; Prajnaparamita |
| In Tibetan Script |
ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་; ཤེར་ཕྱིན་ |
| Wylie Tibetan Transliteration |
shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa; sher phyin |
| Devanagari Sanskrit Script |
प्रज्ञापारमिता |
| Romanized Sanskrit |
prajñāpāramitā |
| Chinese Script |
般若波羅蜜多 |
| Chinese Pinyin |
bōrě bōluómìduō |
| Japanese Transliteration |
hannya haramitta |
| Korean Script |
반야바라밀다 |
| Korean Transliteration |
Banyabaramilda |
| English Standard |
Perfection of Wisdom |
| Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term |
Perfection of Wisdom |
| Sarah Harding's English Term |
Perfection of Wisdom |
| Gyurme Dorje's English Term |
transcendent perfection of discriminative awareness |
| Ives Waldo's English Term |
transcendent wisdom |
| Term Type |
Noun |
| Source Language |
Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning |
A class of Mahāyāna sūtras which represents some of the earliest known literature of this genre of Buddhism. There are around forty texts associated with this category, though the most widespread is the exceedingly brief Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, popularly known as the Heart Sūtra. This class of literature is typically associated with the second turning of the dharma wheel and especially with the teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā). As such, these texts were the primary scriptural source for the philosophy of the Madhyamaka school. |
| Has the Sense of |
The term itself references a type of intelligence, discernment, or knowledge that embodies the insight which transcends the notions of the three spheres of agent, object, and action. |
| Did you know? |
This can also refer to a female deity who is known in the Tibetan tradition as the Great Mother (yum chen mo). |
| Definitions |
| Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism |
See page 656: In Sanskrit, “perfection of wisdom” or “perfect wisdom”; a polysemous term, which appears in Päli accounts of the Buddha’s prior training as a bodhisattva (P. bodhisatta), but is widely used in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Prajñāpāramitā refers to a level of understanding beyond that of ordinary wisdom, especially referring to the the wisdom associated with, or required to achieve, buddhahood. The term receives a variety of interpretations, but it is often said to be the wisdom that does not conceive of an agent, an object, or an action as being ultimately real. The perfection of wisdom is also sometimes defined as the knowledge of emptiness (śūnyatā). As the wisdom associated with buddhahood, prajñāpāramitā is the sixth of the six perfections (pāramitā) that are practiced on the bodhisattva path. |
| Rangjung Yeshe's English Term |
Transcendent Knowledge, prajnaparamita. Intelligence that transcends conceptual thinking. 'Transcendent' literally means 'gone to the other shore' in the sense of having departed from 'this shore' of dualistic concepts. The Mahayana teachings on insight into emptiness, transcending the fixation of subject, object and action. Associated with the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Insight. perfection of wisdom; transcendent wisdom, transcendent knowledge, "the intelligence of reaching the other share", transcending intelligence, knowledge, the perfection of wisdom, def. {'khor gsum mi rtog pas chos kyi rang bzhin ba rtogs pa ni} ultimate transcendent knowledge |
| Wikipedia |
wikipedia:Prajnaparamita. |
| RigpaWiki |
rigpa:Prajnaparamita. |