śūnyatā

From Buddha-Nature
Sanskrit Noun

śūnyatā

emptiness
शून्यता
སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
空,空門

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
On this topic
Term Variations
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, 空門
Chinese Pinyin kōng, kōng mén
Japanese Transliteration kū, kūmon
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:
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་
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, zhentong
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