空 : Part One (Indian śūnya 1)

Even though I want to write a kind of philosophical blogs, I think, at first, I should explain about basic Buddhist thoughts to write them. I will explain about 空 serially.



空 sounds くう(Kuu) in Japanese, śūnya in sanskrit. According to a "Oxford Sanskrit-English dictionary", 空 originally means empty, void, hollow, barren, desolate and deserted. Example of śūnya are "a riderless horse." and "a kingless kingdom.". Thus, śūnya expresses situations lacking something expected. My hands feel itchy now because the dictionary is old. śūnya also means the famous "Zero" too.



Buddhist monks, especially Māhayāna Buddhist monks, regarded śūnya as the word express the nucleus of buddhism. Māhayāna Buddhism consist of Chinese one, Tibetan one, Japanese one and so on.



In Buddhism, Initially śūnya was used as a part of one word express vacant house. The word also means empty and quiet and afield place, for instance, mountains, forests, cave and all that. It is said the experience of meditation at "vacant house" became a basic concept of after śūnya. (It might be that the explanation is a bit strained interpretation, I think.) It is said the concept of śūnya　was established as a concept of a state of perfect self-effacement from the experience of meditation. Buddhists explain centrality that component parts of us are śūnya and the world is also śūnya. Buddha said "Jettison an idea adhering self, regard the world as śūnya, and you will overcome death."　And, latter-day sutra preached especially to regard self and properties as śūnya. This was defined as śūnya's samadhi. From this samadhi, Buddhist preached "no-phasis" and "nothing to make a wish for".



There is a big sutra, 般若-経(Hannya-kyou in Japanese) (般若 means wisdom, 経 means sutra.) explains śūnya as stance which never obsess everything. This sutra regards the Buddha's essence as wisdom completed, and call disciplinants who seek this wisdom as bodhisattva, and preaches Buddha regards everything has no inherency, and Buddha preached "no-obsession".



The reason Hannya-kyou insist śūnya　is that there was a sect preached dharma has inherency. The concept of śūnya was fostered through argument.And there was a great monk in India. His name was 龍樹(Ryuujyu in Japanese, Nāgārjuna in sanskrit). He is regarded as ancestry of all buddhist sects by Chinese buddhism and Japanese buddhism.



That's enough for today.



I have a plan to write blogs about śūnya.



1, Indian śūnya　1

2, Indian śūnya　2

3, Chinese śūnya

4, Japanese śūnya

5, Random thoughts about śūnya of our own time.



I took the photo at Kitain-temple in Kawagoe city. Buddha is preaching.