The Heart Sutra: A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Author:Kazuaki Tanahashi [Tanahashi, Kazuaki]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Published: 2015-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

There have been two major explanations of the etymology of the Pali and Sanskrit feminine noun pāramitā, according to the Japanese Buddhist scholar Hajime Nakamura.11 Here are the two explanations, to which I have added some semantic and grammatical definitions:

1. A compound of pāram (to the other shore) and ita (having arrived). Pāram means “to the other shore” as the accusative case of the neuter noun pāra — “the opposite,” “the other side,” or “the opposite shore.” The i is a verb meaning “go,” “get to,” or “arrive.” And the ta makes it a state that has happened, which is turned into tā to make the word a feminine noun. Thus, pāramitā can be interpreted as “(the condition of) having arrived at the other shore,” “complete attainment,” or “perfection.”

2. A compound of pārami, meaning “having arrived,” plus tā, which makes a state of “having completely arrived.”

In the common Buddhist analogy, “the other shore” means “awakening.” “Arriving at awakening” is no other than enlightenment. This arriving makes a person a buddha. There is also another interpretation. Yuichi Kajiyama suggests:

3. A compound of pārami, which derived from parami meaning “the highest,” plus tā, which shows a state or condition. It is an abstract noun meaning “extreme state” or “completion.”12

As a compound, prajñāpāramitā is a feminine form. Its personified form, Prajnaparamita, is regarded as a goddess, Mother of All Buddhas, in the Maha yana pantheon.

The six paramitas are regarded as the means by which bodhisattvas lead beings to the shore of nirvana. They are: giving, keeping precepts, patience, vigorous effort, meditation, and prajna. And for Dogen, prajna is multifold.13

In English the six paramitas are often called the “six perfections.” In a similar manner, prajñāpāramitā has often been translated as “perfection of wisdom.” You might imagine that when wisdom is perfected, there is nothing more to do; when you have arrived at the shore of enlightenment, there is nowhere else to go.

I invite you to consider paramita as a dynamic state of arriving rather than a static state of having already arrived. The six paramitas may thus be interpreted as the six aspects of practice being actualized.

According to Dogen, as I suggested earlier, our practice should be a dynamic process of actualizing enlightenment and nirvana at each moment in a “circle of the way.” This point of view suggests that at each moment in which we make an effort to practice, we are not necessarily perfecting something. Thus, pāramitā can be translated as “realizing,” which can be seen as understanding and actualizing things that are not pre-fixed and not waiting to be perfected.

In the α version, pāramitā is transliterated as boluomi (波羅蜜).

In the Xuanzang version, it is boluomiduo (波羅蜜多). In Japanese these four ideographs are independently pronounced ha ra mitsu ta, but it is actually pronounced ha-ra-mit-ta as a compound by a phonetic change. A phonetic or euphonious change often means that two particular sounds pronounced one after the other create a single shorter sound, or the final sound of a word changes when followed by a certain sound.

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