The tenth and culminating paramita of the Mahayana bodhisattva path: full and direct knowledge of things as they are, completing the wisdom already begun in Prajna, the sixth paramita already held on this axis, and understood in the ten-stage scheme as belonging to a bodhisattva's final stage before buddhahood.
Facts
Origins
Place of Origin Origin of the NameSanskrit jnana, knowledge, from a root shared with English know and cognate with Latin gnosco. 1 Attributed Author / CompilerSystematized as the tenth and final paramita of the Dasabhumika Sutra's bodhisattva-stage scheme, marking the tenth and last stage before buddhahood. 1 Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1 Doctrinal Status DetailThe fourth and final perfection the ten-paramita scheme adds beyond the six already held on this axis; distinguished from Prajna, wisdom, already on this axis, as that wisdom's full and direct completion at the bodhisattva path's final stage rather than wisdom still being cultivated. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceFull and direct knowledge of things as they are, completing the wisdom of Prajna at the bodhisattva path's final stage. 1 Disputed
Origin PeriodThe same Mahayana sutra dating difficulty as the scheme's other three later additions applies here; no single original composition or date is agreed for the ten-stage scheme as a whole, with proposals for the Dasabhumika material ranging across several centuries of the early Common Era depending on how much later redaction is assumed. 1 Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
In Language
Opposes
Full and direct knowledge of things as they are stands directly against delusion; Moha, already catalogued among the Dharmic vices under the three poisons, is the atlas's existing entry for that disposition, the same term this axis already uses for ignorance and confusion.
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Originates in Language
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Related To
Consecutive perfections in the Dasabhumika Sutra's ten-bhumi scheme.
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Prajna (Wisdom), Virtues Jnana completes the wisdom already begun in Prajna, the sixth paramita already held on this axis.
Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
Sources
1. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014Originates in Language: Sanskrit, Stored language property on this entity, cited to this source: sanskritView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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