The Wisdom Alphabet meditation practice

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The Wisdom Alphabet (aka the Arapacana Alphabet) is the foundation of a Buddhist meditation practice on the nature of experience. It is expounded in a number of sūtras but the locus classicus is the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (PPS)- translated into English by Edward Conze [ 1 ]. Page references below are to Conze's translation. It's now well established that the Wisdom Alphabet is in fact the alphabet of the Gandhārī Prakrit language, see below for further information and resources on this subject.

The Wisdom Alphabet occurs in a chapter of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā which begins by spelling out the thirty-seven bodhipakṣyā dharmā (wings to awakening) in a slightly expanded form. The two lists often appear together though it is not clear what the relationship is.It begins:

"And again, Subhuti, the dhāraṇī-doors are the great vehicle of the Bodhisattva, the great being. Which are they? The sameness of all letters and syllables, the sameness of all spoken words, the syllable-doors, the syllables-entrances. What then are the syllable-doors, the syllable-entrances?" (PPS I 9,15, p.160)

I'll list the letters of the Wisdom Alphabet at the end, but in the text they appear here. Having listed the letters the texts says:

"No letters or syllables are in conventional use except the foregoing. And why? For no word that is not composed of them is used when anything is conventionally expressed, talked about pointed out, written about, made manifest or recited. Simply like space whould one pursue all dharmas. This, Subhuti, is called te entrance into the door of the dhāraṇīs, the entrance into the exposition of the letters A, etc, 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." (PPS I 9,15, p.162)

In other words all of these reflections are aimed at realising the same thing about experience, it is śunya or empty. The text then spells out a large number of benefits of doing the meditation - al of the usual things you'd expect of a Mahāyana Buddhist practise taking in personal protection, acquisition of a number of skills both mundane and magical, and of course Awakening.

Curiously the rest of the commentary on the practice is at the end of the sūtra. This may be because the two bits were composed at separate times, or that they were split up for some reason - inept editing, or to obscure the practice from the uniniated. We don't know. But we have to jump ahead 400 pages in Conze's translation where we find, immediately after a list of the 32 major, and 80 minor marks of the Buddha:

"Moreover, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva, who courses in perfect wisdom, admonishes the Bodhisattvas as follow: 'Sons of good family, may you become skilled in the consumation of the letters! May you become skilled in one letter, in two letters, etc. to: in forty-two letters! May you through these forty-two letters come to a state which has moved away from everything. May you meditate on the 42 letters as contained in one letter, and may you meditate on one single letter as contained in 42 letters!" (PPS VIII 5.3; p.587) [ 2 ]

This is what tells us that the Widsom Alphabet is a meditation practice, and gives us an idea of how one might have meditated on the letters. I have attempted a reconstruction of the meditation which you can read about on my blog. It's not always clear from the text what is intended, but with a background in Buddhist ideas and practices it is possible to make some sense of it. One uses the alphabet as a mnemonic to remember the list of keywords. The keywords tell you what you are reflecting on, but they are all some aspect of the śunya nature of experience. Having memorised the list, and learned the meditation in linear fashion, the practice culminates in reflecting on the sameness of each of the reflections. Everything is pointing towards śunyata, and by reflecting that all of the keywords mean the same thing in this sense, one gets a glimpse of the way things are. It may be related to the levels of śunayata, but I'd need to follow this up to confirm it. In this way the practictioner, the Bodhisattva, masters the practice.

"Just as the Tathāgata, skilled in dharmas, skilled in letters demonstrates Dharma, and demonstrates with letters a Dharma which is without them. And yet that Dharma is not quite free from the mode(?) of letters." (PPS VIII 5.3; p.587).

Which is to say that we use the concepts represented by the letters to get to the gnosis which is beyond concepts. The experience of Awakening is beyond words. However the experience of having had that experience is communicable, as are the various methods for having that experience oneself.

Twenty advantages will come to the Bodhisattva who masters this teaching, including: being mindful, clever, intelligent, steadfast, not being assailed by doubts etc. This teaching is called, like the other teachings in the sutra, a great vehicle (i.e. Mahāyāna) of the Bodhisattva. Sameness in this context is a synonym for Sunyata or emptiness, i.e. all things are the same because they are empty of any essential nature. The sutra, then, seems to be saying that the way to realise the sameness of all sounds, is to contemplate the sounds of the letters as being linked to aspects of the Dharma

Comments

The Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā appears to me to consider this meditation one of many which one can employ to experience Awakening. It is found appended to discussions of the thirty-seven (or more) bodhipakṣyā dharmā and the list of major and minor marks (related to the buddhanusmṛti, a meditation practice involving recollection of the Buddha). However two things make me think it might not have originated in this text. Firstly the instructions which are tacked onto the beginning of section VIII.5.3. The previous section is a repeat of the expanded bodhipakṣyā dharmā list, and it although it would have made some sense at the end of that section is it at the beginning of a section where it does not fit the context. After the paragraph quoted above the text goes off in an entirely different direction and does not mention the letters again. However we need to take into account that the published editions are based on a redaction of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā which has been rearranged to fit the catergories of the Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā (Dutt 1934: 5) and this may have broken up the bits we are interested in order to make the text fit. However if this process did break up our practice, then it suggests that the redactor was unaware of the significance of the passages, that is they were unaware of the meditation practice.

Secondly, as I have discussed in several places now (summarising the research of Richard Salomon) is that although the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā is written in Sanskrit, the alphabet is that of the Gandhārī Prakrit. It is also called the Arapacana Alphabet after the first five letters (a ra pa ca na). Conze remarks on the various surviving manuscripts and translations (spanding 200 CE - 90 CE) and mentions shifts in the associations (ie the keywords) with the letters, but apart from some minor variations easily explained by absorption into a Sanskrit milieu the letters themselves are stable. Other texts which have an Arapacana alphabet also have different associations. The letters themselves retained the Gandhārī alphabet despite being used in a Sanskrit text, and clearly at some point before the composition of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā the knowledge that this was the Gandhārī alphabet was lost by Buddhists along with the significance on this fact. One version of the Lalitavisatara, and the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra both use a Sanskrit alphabet, although in the latter text in one at least one case it retains the use of only the 'a' vowel. The people of Gandhāra tended to use Gandhārī for Buddhist texts in the first few centuries common era. A number of caches of these texts have been found and some have been published by Salomon and others (see my bibliography of published material).

The Wisdom alphabet devloped along several lines, most of which were dead ends. For instance there is a Wisdom alphabet in the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra but the keywords have become (phonetically) disconnected from the letters of the alphabet. The line develops positively in the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra (MAT) an early esoteric scripture (mid 7th century CE). In the PPS the letters are abstract symbols of abstract and abstruse concepts. In the MAT there is another level of abstraction. As well as a meditation similar to the PPS, the MAT takes the letters and places them around the body while visualising oneself as a Buddha - the object being to literally transform yourself. The letters on the their own are transformative. The practices associated with the letters in the MAT are mainly associated with the master conducting the abhiṣeka as he prepares to give the intiation. A full discussion of the way the Wisdom Alphabet is used in the MAT is beyond both the scope of this webpage. However we can say hat the fact of the loss of the knowledge that this was simply the Gandhārī alphabet most likely contributed, along with the adoption of ideas from Brahminical linguistic philosophy (both Mīmāṃaā and Grammarian), to treating the alphabet as having an intrinsic significance - hence Dr Conze could refer to it as a "mystical alphabet" - because it continued to be used in mediation practices as a mnemonic, but its mundane origins were already obscure.

Wisdom Alphabet in the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā sūtra

The syllable A is a door to the insight that all dharmas are unproduced from the very beginning (ādy-anutpannatvād).

Notes to the translated text

[1] We should also note that though the main part of the text is from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Conze has been rather free with his use of alternative passages from related sutras to fill in unreadable passages in what he refers to as “often unbelievably careless and corrupt late Nepalese manuscripts”. In the case of the dhāraṇī chapter I am quoting above he has used a parallel chapter from a Gilgit manuscript of the Sanskrit Aṣṭādaśasahāsrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (the 18000 line version) with reference to Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā to reconstruct the original. (Conze p.160 n.6).
Return to text

[2] The text does apparently say 42 syllables, even though 43 syllables are given in the earlier section. Is this an artifact of using different versions of the text at different places?
Return to text

Verses in Sanskrit

1	akāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ādyanutpannavāt	अकारो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां आद्यनुत्पनत्वात्
2	repho mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ rajo'pagatavāt	रेफो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां रजो'पगतत्वात्
3	pakāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ paramārthanirdeśāt	पकारो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां परमार्थनिर्देशात्
4	cakāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ cyavanopapattyanupalabdhivāt	चकारो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां च्यवनोपपत्त्यनुलब्धित्वात्
5	nakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ nāmāpagatatvāt	नकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां नामापगतत्वात्
6	lakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ lokotīrṇtvāt tṇṣṇālatāhetuptatyayasamud ghahātitvāt	लकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां लोकोतीर्ण्त्वात् तृष्णालताहेतुप्तत्ययसमुद् घहातित्वात्
7	dakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ dāntadabhaparicchinnatvāt	दकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां दान्तदभपरिच्छिन्नत्वात्
8	bakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ bandhanavimuktatvāt	बकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां बन्धनविमुक्तत्वात्
9	ḍakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ḍamarāpagatatvāt	डकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां डमरापगतत्वात्
10	sakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ saḍgāṇupalabdhitvāt	सकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः सड्गानुपलब्धितः
11	vakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ bāk pathagheṣaṣamuchchhiṇṇatvāt	वकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां बाक् पथघेषसमुच्छिन्नत्वात्
12	takaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ tathatā calitatvāt	तकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां तथता चलितत्वात्
13	yakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ yathāvadaṇut pādatvāt	यकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां यथावदनुत् पादत्वात्
14	stakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ stammāṇupalabdhitvāt *	स्तकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां स्तम्मानुपलब्धित्वात्
15	kakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ kārokāṇupalabdhitvāt	ककरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां कारोकानुपलब्धित्वात्
16	ṣakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ṣamatāṇupalabdhitvāt	सकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां समतानुपलब्धित्वात्
17	makaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ mamakārāṇupaladhitvāt	मकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां ममकारानुपलधित्वात्
18	gakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ gagaṇāṇupalabdhitvāt	गकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां गगनानुपलब्धितः
19	sthakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ sthāṇāṇupalabdhitvaḥ	स्थकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां स्थानानुपलब्धितः
20	jakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ jātyaāṇupalabdhitvaḥ	जकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां जात्यआनुपलब्धितः
21	śvakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ śvāṣāṇupalabdhitvaḥ	श्वकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां श्वासानुपलब्धितः
22	dhakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ dharmadhātvaṇupalabdhitaḥ	धकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां धर्मधात्वनुपलब्धितः
23	śakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ śamathāṇupalabdhitaḥ	शकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां शमथानुपलब्धितः
24	khakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ khaṣamapāṇupalabdhitaḥ	खकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां खसमपानुपलब्धितः
25	kṣakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇāṃ kṣyāṇupalabdhitaḥ	क्षकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माणां क्ष्यानुपलब्धितः
26	takaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ tacchāṇupalabdhitaḥ **	तकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः तच्चानुपलब्धितः
27	jñakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ ṣarvajñāṇāṇupalabdhitaḥ	ज्ञकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः सर्वज्ञानानुपलब्धितः
28	hakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ hetoraṇupalabdhitaḥ	हकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः हेतोरनुपलब्धितः
29	cchhakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ chaverapyaṇupalabdhitaḥ	च्छकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः छवेरप्यनुपलब्धितः
30	smakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ smaraṇāṇupalabdhitaḥ	स्मकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः स्मरणानुपलब्धितः
31	ddhakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ āddhāṇāgatatvāt	द्धकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः आद्धानागतत्वात्
32	sakaro mukhaḥ ṣarvadharmāṃ utsāhāṇupalabdhitaḥ	सकरो मुखः सर्वधर्मां उत्साहानुपलब्धितः
33	ghakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ ghaṇāṇupalabdhitaḥ	घकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः घनानुपलब्धितः
34	ṭhakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ viṭhapaṇāṇupalabdhitaḥ	ठकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः विठपनानुपलब्धितः
35	ṇakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ raṇavigatatvāt	णकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः रणविगतत्वात्
36	phakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ phalāṇupalabdhitaḥ	फकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः फलानुपलब्धितः
37	skakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ skaṇdhāṇupalabdhitaḥ	स्ककरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः स्कन्धानुपलब्धितः
38	jakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ jarāṇupalabdhitaḥ	जकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः जरानुपलब्धितः
39	cakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ caraṇāṇupalabdhitaḥ	चकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः चरणानुपलब्धितः
40	ṭakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ ṭaṃkārāṇupalabdhitaḥ	टकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः टंकारानुपलब्धितः
41	ḍhakaro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāḥ ḍhṃrārāṇupalabdhitaḥ	ढकरो मुखः सर्वधर्माः ढंरारानुपलब्धितः

(Dutt 1934:212-213)

Notes to the Sanskrit text

There are a number of differences between the list that Dutt has settled on after examining four manuscripts of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā, and Conze's edition which relies more on the Gilgit manuscript of the Aṣṭādaśasahāsrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (see note 1 of the translated text above). There is another Sanskrit edition of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā by Takayasu KIMURA however is it coming out in installments and the required section is not yet published.

There are only 41 letters here compared with 43 in Conze. There are also duplications of ta (12 ans 26) and sa (10 and 32). Conze has made a much better effort to reconstruct the text, but his sanskrit text is not available to me.

* Dutt has "sta" where Conze has "ṣṭa".

** Dutt notes that manuscript has "sta" with the keyword "tacca". Conze follows mss.

Bibliography

Conze, Edward.(trans.) 1975. The large sutra on perfect wisdom : with the divisions of the Abhisamayālaṅkāra. Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass, 1990.
Dutt, N. Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra : edited with critical notes and introduction. London, Luzac & Co, 1934.
Salomon, R. 1990. "New evidence for a Gāndhārī origin of the arapacana syllabary", Journal of the American Oriental Society. Apr-Jun, vol.110 (2), p.255-273.

Fragment five of the Bajaur Collection of birch bark manuscripts contains a series of verses in the order of the wisdom alphabet. This manuscript is still under study by Dr Ingo Strauch of the Free University of Berlin. A tantalising glimpse at the contents of this manuscript, probably dating from the first or second century, can be read in Dr Strauch's report: "The Bajaur collection: A new collection of Kharoṣṭhī manuscripts. A preliminary catalogue and survey (in progress)" - available on the Bajaur Collection Website

Other Resources Related to the Wisdom Alphabet

Elsewhere on visiblemantra.org

Mañjuśrī and the Arapacana - calligraphy of the Arapacana mantra.
The mantra akāro mukhaṃ sarvadharmāṇāṃ ādyanutpannavāt - ie the first line of the Buddhist Wisdom Alphabet verse.

Theory

The Buddhist Wisdom Alphabet - includes a bibliography of English language sources on the Wisdom Alphabet.
The Mystical ARAPACANA Alphabet introduction to the Arapacana mantra, plus some speculation about the influence on Indian linguistic thought on the mantra tradition

Meditation Resources

Meditating on Arapacana - a written description of the led meditation
Talk on the Arapacana Alphabet, Nov 2007. - mp3 via the Cambridge Buddhist Centre website
A led meditation on the first five letters of the Arapacana Alphabet, Nov 2007. - mp3 via the Cambridge Buddhist Centre website

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