śūnyatā
śūnyatā
Basic Meaning
The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.
Read It in the Scriptures
Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.
Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than emptiness.~ Heart Sūtra
Term Variations | |
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Key Term | śūnyatā |
Topic Variation | emptiness |
Tibetan | སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ ( tong pa nyi) |
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | stong pa nyid ( tong pa nyi) |
Devanagari Sanskrit | शून्यता ( shunyata) |
Romanized Sanskrit | śūnyatā ( shunyata) |
Chinese | 空 |
Chinese Pinyin | kōng |
Japanese Transliteration | kū |
Buddha-nature Site Standard English | emptiness |
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term | emptiness |
Richard Barron's English Term | emptiness |
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | emptiness |
Gyurme Dorje's English Term | emptiness |
Ives Waldo's English Term | emptiness |
Term Information | |
Usage Example | Sanskrit:
Tibetan:
|
Source Language | Sanskrit |
Basic Meaning | The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. |
Related Terms | rangtong |
Term Type | Noun |
Definitions | |
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 871: 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. |
Tshig mdzod Chen mo | rang bzhin med pa'i gnas lugs sam de kho na nyid |
Books about this term
In addition, she refutes the accusations that the idea of Buddha nature introduces a crypto-Atman into Buddhist thought, and that it represents a form of monism akin to the Brahmanism of the Upanisads. In doing this, King defends Buddha nature in terms of purely Buddhist philosophical principles. Finally, the author engages the Buddha nature concept in dialogue with Western philosophy by asking what it teaches us about what a human being, or person, is. (Source: back cover)
Volume 56
This work is a commentary on the Śrīmālā-sūtra (Taisho No.16), and is considered to be the earliest of the "Commentaries on Three Sūtras" (Jp. San-gyō-gi-sho) composed by Prince Shōtoku. The Nihon-shoki ("Chronicles of Japan") records that Prince Shōtoku gave a discourse on the Śrīmālā-sūtra for Empress Suiko. It is considered that Prince Shōtoku chose this particular sūtra as the subject of his discourse to the Empress probably because the protagonist of the Śrīmālā-sūtra is a woman, Śrīmālā, and Empress Suiko was the first Empress in Japanese history. The present work was then put together in book-form in Chinese at a later date. Be that as it may, there is no changing the fact that this was the first written work composed by a Japanese.
Source
Frauwallner's way of translating was straightforward: to remain as close as possible to the original text while presenting it in a clear and readable way in order to convey an accurate impression of its meaning. For technical terms in the source materials he maintained a single translation even when various meanings were suggested. For clarity regarding such variations of meaning he relied on the context and his explanation.
The same approach was taken by the translator of the present book. Although his translation attempts to be faithful to the 1994 edition of Die Philosophie des Buddhismus, he inserted helpful additional headlines into the text and considerably enlarged the index. All other additions by the translator are given within square brackets. Besides this, he created an Appendix, which contains one of Frauwallner's more important articles "Amalavijnana and Alayavijnana" (1951) to complement the long Yogacara section of the book, a bibliography of selective publications after 1969. The URLs for many of the source materials were also conveniently provided. (Source: Motilal Banarsidass)