Buddha (Sāṅkhya)
Buddha, “the awakened”
Buddha has other meanings too: see all meanings of Buddha.
Grammar: past participle of the root budh (to wake, to know), used as an adjective and as a noun: “awakened”, “known”. The text also uses prabuddha and pratibuddha (fully awakened), and the opposites aprabuddha and apratibuddha (not awakened).
Meaning: in the Sāṅkhya teaching, the awakened: the paramārtha tattva, the highest principle, whose very nature is awakening and knowledge.
In the scriptures: the word belongs to the mokshadharma teaching that Vasishṭha Maharshi gives King Karāla Janaka in the last chapters of the Brahma Purāṇa.
The avyakta and the kshara. Vasishṭha says that the avyakta, the unmanifest, is prabuddha (awakened) and budhyamāna (awakening), while the manifest kshara tattva is aprabuddha, not awakened; and the avyakta is the twenty-fifth tattva, beyond the twenty-four tattvas of prakṛti made by māyā. Janaka answers that he has not understood the illustration of prabuddha, budhyamāna and aprabuddha, and asks among other things for the discernment of the buddha and abuddha states (Chapter 243).
From apratibuddha to pratibuddha. Vasishṭha teaches that the passage from the kshara state to the akshara state, from the mixed state to the state of purity, is called going from apratibuddhatva, the state of not being awake, to pratibuddhatva, the state of being awake. The jīva who has seen the faults of saṃsāra resolves to give up ahaṅkāra and mamakāra; so, becoming pratibuddha, he leaves kshara-tva, vyakta-tva and saguṇa-tva and reaches akshara-tva, avyakta-tva and nirguṇa-tva (Chapter 244).
The three tattvas. Three tattvas are discerned in the Sāṅkhya darśana: buddha and apratibuddha, akshara and kshara, and between the two the budhyamāna. Vasishṭha defines them:
- Buddha: the paramārtha tattva whose nature is awakening and knowledge (bodhātmaka).
- Apratibuddha: the māyā tattva, the root of aparā prakṛti.
- Budhyamāna: the stage of inquiry of the mumukshu, with śravaṇa, manana and the rest, and of the practice of yoga in the wish for ātma-darśana.
In the Yoga darśana, he adds, only the stages of budhyamāna-tva and buddha-tva are set out, as stages of experience (Chapter 244).
The twenty-sixth tattva. The jīva who comes to know the twenty-fifth tattva, the avyakta, as nirguṇa is called pratibuddha. Beyond all the tattvas is the twenty-sixth: stainless (vimala), buddha, of the nature of knowledge, immeasurable, not to be known as “it is such”, eternal and everlasting. When the jīva can recognise it, he goes beyond the twenty-fifth tattva, which carries the dharma of creation and pralaya, and reaches the highest state. Vasishṭha closes: “O sinless King Janaka, I have thus told you, by the method of Sāṅkhya, the marks of the buddha, the budhyamāna and the apratibuddha” (Chapter 245).
Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 243–245
Related terms: Budhyamāna · Apratibuddha · Akshara · Kshara · Avyakta · Sāṅkhya
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 243–245