A in Buddhism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A is the first vowel of the Sanskrit alphabet. Mahayana Buddhism invested the phoneme with mystical significance, associated with the doctrine of emptiness.[1][3] In Sanskrit, when a is used as a prefix, it negates the meaning of a word. Thus, for example, svabhāva, “with essence,” can be changed to asvabhāva, “without essence.”[3]
The letter also came to signify the Mahayana teaching of Prajñāpāramitā (the Perfection of Wisdom). One of the Prajñāpāramitā sutras is the short The Perfection of Wisdom Mother in One Syllable (ekākṣarīmātāprajñāpāramitā). The sutra opens and closes like a regular Prajñāpāramitā sutra (with a typical introductory nidana), but the actual teaching of the sutra is one syllable: A. According to this sutra, all Prajñāpāramitā teachings are contained in "A".[1]
The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramita Sutra (The Perfection of Wisdom in 25,000 lines) contains a method for meditating on the letters of the Arapacana alphabet (an alphabet associated with Karosthi) as part of a practice which is termed "entrance into the door of the dhāraṇīs, the entrance into the exposition of the letters".[4][5][6] Beginning with the letter A, the sutra states that this letter signifies "anutpāda", "non-arising" or "not-born."[4] Specifically, the sutra states that A "is a door to the insight that all dharmas are unproduced from the very beginning (akāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ādyanutpannavāt)."[6]
This statement later became its own mantra, which is found in the Hevajra Tantra (10th century).[7] Anutpāda is an important term in Mahayana Buddhism which is associated with the ultimate truth and with emptiness.[8] The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramita goes on to state that "any Bodhisattva who cognizes this skill in letters A, etc, will not be tied down by any sounds, he will accomplish everything through the sameness of all dharmas, and he will acquire the skill in the cognition of sounds."[9] The sameness of dharmas refers to how all phenomena are equally empty and without essence (svabhava).[10]
According to Edward Conze this idea may be related to Mahasamghika school doctrine which held that the Buddha taught by emitting just one single sound which is heard in many different ways by different hearers (according to their needs).[3]
अ also appears in the Tathāgataguhyaka Sūtra, in which it appears as a dhāraṇī called “the Dhāraṇī Door of the Entry into the Characteristics of Dharmas.”[11]
In East Asian Buddhist traditions of Chan/Zen, the letter A is also sometimes seen as symbolizing Buddha nature.[1] In the Rinzai school, A is sometimes used as part of certain meditative techniques.[12]
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