Śūnyatā

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Key Term	śūnyatā
Topic Variation	emptiness
In Tibetan Script	སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration	stong pa nyid
Devanagari Sanskrit Script	शून्यता
Romanized Sanskrit	śūnyatā
Tibetan Phonetic Rendering	tong pa nyi
Sanskrit Phonetic Rendering	shunyata
Chinese Script	空
Chinese Pinyin	kōng
Japanese Script	空
Japanese Transliteration	kū
English Standard	emptiness
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term	emptiness
Richard Barron's English Term	emptiness
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term	emptiness
Ives Waldo's English Term	emptiness
Term Type	Noun
Source Language	Sanskrit
Basic Meaning	The state of being empty of an innate nature, due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.
Has the Sense of	Though emptiness it is generally predicated on the dependent origination of relative phenomena, it is a dialectic method of explaining the ultimate truth through a negative assertion and thereby highlighting what true reality lacks, rather than making a positive assertion of what that reality actually is.
Related Terms	rangtong;zhentong
Definitions
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism	In Sanskrit, “emptiness”; the term has a number of denotations, but is most commonly associated with the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) sūtras and the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy. See page 871.
Tshig mdzod Chen mo	rang bzhin med pa'i gnas lugs sam de kho na nyid
sutra/śastra quote:	Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than emptiness.
sutra/śastra quote source:	Heart Sūtra
Usage Example	Sanskrit: rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Tibetan: གཟུགས་སྟོང་པའོ། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཟུགས་སོ། གཟུགས་ལས་སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཞན་མ་ཡིན། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ལས་ཀྱང་གཟུགས་གཞན་མ་ཡིན་ནོ།། ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་