Vajrakkhedika (Diamond Cutter) · 9 of 19 · tr. E.B. Cowell, F. Max Müller, and J. Kakakusu
Section 1i
Therefore it is called the Pra gñ â-pâramitâ.
'Then, what do you think, O Subhûti, is there anything (dharma) that was preached by the Tathâgata?' Subhûti said: 'Not indeed, O Bhagvat, there is not anything that was preached by the Tathâgata.' Bhagavat said.
'What do you think then, O Subhûti,--the dust of the earth which is found in this sphere of a million millions of worlds, is that much?' Subhûti said: 'Yes, O Bhagavat, yes, O Sugata, that dust of the earth would be much.
And why?
Because, O Bhagavat, what was preached by the Tathâgata as the dust of the earth, that was preached by the Tathâgata as no-dust.
Therefore it is called the dust of the earth.
And what was preached by the Tathâgata as the sphere of worlds, that was preached by the Tathâgata as no-sphere.
Therefore it is called the sphere of worlds.' Bhagavat said: 'What do you think, O Subhûti, is a holy and fully enlightened Tathâgata to be seen (known) by the thirty-two signs of a hero?' Subhûti said: 'No indeed, O Bhagavat; a holy and fully enlightened Tathâgata is not to be seen (known) by the thirty-two signs of a hero.
And why?
Because what was preached by the Tathâgata as the thirty-two signs of a hero, that was preached by the Tathâgata as no-signs.
Therefore they are called the thirty-two signs of a hero.' Bhagavat said: 'If, O Subhûti, a woman or man should day by day sacrifice his life (selfhood) as [1.
Âtmabhâva seems to refer here to the living body, not to the spiritual Âtman, which, according to Buddha, can be got rid of by knowledge only.
Buddha himself sacrificed his life again and again, and a willingness to die would probably be accepted for the deed.] many times as there are grains of sand in the river Gangâ, and if he should thus sacrifice his life for as many kalpas as there are grains of sand in the river Gangâ, and if another man, after taking from this treatise of the Law one Gâthâ of four lines only, should fully teach others and explain it, he indeed would on the strength of this produce a larger stock of merit, immeasurable and innumerable.' (13) XIV.
At that time, the venerable Subhûti was moved by the power of the Law, shed tears, and having wiped his tears, he thus spoke to Bhagavat: 'It is wonderful, O Bhagavat, it is exceedingly wonderful, O Sugata, how fully this teaching of the Law has been preached by the Tathâgata for the benefit of those beings who entered on the foremost path (the path that leads to Nirvâ n a), and who entered on the best path, from whence, O Bhagavat, knowledge has been produced in me.
Never indeed, O Bhagavat, has such a teaching of the Law been heard by me before.
Those Bodhisattvas, O Bhagavat, will be endowed with the highest wonder, who when this Sûtra is being preached hear it and will frame to themselves a true idea.
And why?
Because what is a true idea is not a true idea.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The text emphasizes sacrificing selfhood and not clinging to signs or names, aligning with the definition's mention of Buddhist non-grasping.
The cosmic law that manifests as each being's own duty — right order known not as abstract truth but as the specific obligation of one's nature and station (svadharma), so that maintaining the cosmos and performing one's proper work are one act; the Gita's 'one's own duty, though defective, is better than another's well performed.' Sits beside asha_cosmic_order and maat_cosmic_order as a right-order concept but is distinct in individuating the order into personal vocation; distinct from good_thought_word_deed (ethical triad) in binding duty to cosmic station.
Dharma is the central subject being deconstructed — the Tathāgata preached dharma yet nothing was preached, and the merit of the teaching is measured against the emptiness of all dharmas.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The Tathāgata is beyond all thirty-two signs, beyond all dharmas, and beyond even the teaching itself, rendering the ultimate radically concealed beyond any positive category or perception.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The passage references a 'sphere of a million millions of worlds' and grains of sand in the Ganga to illustrate boundless scale.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
[auto] The text relies on the rhetorical device of stating that what is preached as X is actually preached as no-X to destabilize ordinary understanding.
The doctrine that reality has two registers — an Absolute truth as the divine or ultimate mind knows it, and a Relative truth as finite human reason perceives and must act on — with both held as legitimate on their own plane rather than the second being simply an error to correct. Distinct from apophatic_theology (a claim about how the divine may be described, by negation) and unity_of_being (a claim that being is ultimately one) in being a claim about two coexisting registers of truth-claim itself.
The passage holds both the conventional register (dust, signs, worlds, the teaching) and the ultimate register (no-dust, no-signs, no-worlds, nothing preached) as coexisting planes of legitimate reference.
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
[auto] The passage centrally defines phenomena like Dharma, dust, and signs as 'no-Dharma,' 'no-dust,' and 'no-signs,' illustrating the lack of inherent self-nature.