반야바라밀(Prajñāpāramitā)은 멸진정(Nirodhasamāpatti)인가?

Abstract

The prajñāpāramitā is often translated as the perfection of wisdom, meaning ‘the highest wisdom.’ There has been an active debate in academic circles as to whether this perfection of wisdom is a kind of wisdom with conceptual understanding or a concentration beyond such understanding. This paper moves away from Prajñāpāramitā texts, which have been the main focus of such studies, and examines the perfection of wisdom in the Daśabhūmikasūtra. This is because there are narratives in the scripture that imply that the perfection of wisdom is the same as the absorption of extinction(nirodhasamāpatti) or the cessation of ideation and feeling(saṃjñāvedayitanirodha).
 In Chapter II, this paper finds traces of the absorption of extinction in the seventh stage of the Daśabhūmikasūtra, which states that bodhisattvas from the sixth stage (i.e., abhimukhī bhūmiḥ) can “enter into extinction (nirodhaṃ samāpadyate) but do not realize it.” It singles out the ‘dwelling of/in prajñāpāramitā (prajñāpāramitāvihāra) of the sixth stage as a candidate for the absorption of extinction.
 Chapter III clarifies that, in the context of successive dwellings (anupūrvavihāra), the dwelling of/in prajñāpāramitā equates to the absorption of extinction (nirodhasamāpatti), given the narrative of the third stage (i.e., prabhākārī bhūmiḥ) describes eight dwellings successively except for the nirodhasamāpatti, the culminating point of this succession.
 In Chapter IV, this paper shows that the ‘realization of extinction (nirodhasākṣātkriyā),’ both in the context of the investigation of the four noble truths and the context of nirodhasamāpatti, results in becoming an arhat who will be free from saṃsara after this life. It, therefore, infers that the statement “he/she does not realize extinction (na nirodhaṃ sākṣātkaroti)” relates to bodhisattvas’ means (upāya) postponing final nirvāṇa until he will have attained all the attributes of the [perfectly enlighted] Buddha(s).
 Chapter V points out that bodhisattvas’s resolve to “not give up on the sentient beings by not realizing the reality limit” based on great compassion gives rise to the intuitive experience of “dwelling of/in prajñāpāramitā” instead of nirodhasamāpatti. This intuitive experience in the mode of shining light, which can be compared to the experience of the path of vision in mainstream Buddhism, is not the same as the absorption of extinction.
 Through these steps, this paper suggests that in the Daśabhūmikasūtra, the perfection of wisdom presents itself as concentration and that the author(s) or editor(s) of the Sūtra, keeping in mind the altruism of bodhisattvas, have transformed the nirodhasamāpatti into prajñāpāramitāvihāra, expecting the result of ‘postponing final nirvāṇa’ for the sake of all other beings.