PRAINA PARAHITi. (literally, the wisdom which has gone to the other shore, viz., of its object; i.e., absolute or transcendental wisdom, front the Sanskrit prajnel, wisdom, /gram, to the other shore. and ita, gone) is the title of the principal Satra (q.v.) of the Mahayana school of the Buddhists (see Bunnutsm). Its main object is metaphysical; but the commencement of the work is merely a eulogy of Buddha, and of the Bodhisat twas, who form his retinue. Other parts of it contain incidental narratives of wonderful phenomena connected with the apparition of Buddhist saints, or a description of the benefits arising front an observance of the Buddhistic doctrine, or verses in which the Buddha is praised by his disciples, and similar irrelevant matter. It is probably on account of the extent which could easily be imparted to such episodical topics, but also by amplifying the real substance of the work, that several recensions of the Prajna Para mita are in existence, both with the Buddhists and Thibetaus (see LAMAISM); some of these do not contain more than 7,000 or 8,000 or 10,000 slokas, or paragraphs; but others amount to 18,000, 25,000, or 100,000 slokas. The following may serve as a specimen of the abstruse ideas treated of in this great work of the Buddhistic doctrine: No object has existence or non-existence; nothing belongs to eternity or non-eternity, to pain or pleasure, to vacuity or non-vacuity. All objects are without attributes and with attri butes, with and without characteristic marks. Bodhisattwa (the mane for a deified saint) and Prajna (wisdom) are synonymous terms; such a term neither arises nor perishes; it exists neither inwardly nor outwardly, because it cannot be seized; but the Bodhisattwa must accomplish his career under this fallacious name; it is his duty, however, to look neither upon form nor anything else as an eternal or non-eternal, as a pure or impure matter, etc. Then only when he is in a condition of complete indifference regarding
everything, is he capable of encompaSsing the whole wisdom. . . . The absence of nature is the nature of everything; all objects are separated from their characteristics. All objects neither appear nor are born, nor disappear, nor cease to be, nor are they pure nor impure, nor are they acquirable nor non-acquirable. Want of understanding is the not understanding that objects arc nonentities. From the want of understanding pro ceed all subjective notions; and through the latter one becomes incapacitated from ful filling the behests of the sacred doctrine, and from entering the path which leads to wis dom. . . . Everything is like the echo, or a shadow, or anything else without sub stance. In short, the doctrine of the Prajna Paramita is the entire negation okthe sub ject as well as the object; and whatever be the difference in detail between the points of view from which it looks upon subject or object, or between its comparisons and circum locutions, the result is always the same: that the object of ascertainment, or the highest wisdom, has no more real existence thamthe subject striving to attain to it. or the Bodhi sattwa.—See E. Burnout*, introduction d l'Ilietoire de Baddhisme Ihdien (Paris, 1844); W. Wassiljcw, Der Baddhismus, seine Dogmen,Geeehiehte mad Litertaur (St. Petersburg, 1860).