Chapter 7 · Prajñā Knows Nothing — What Makes Wisdom Wisdom

Part Two · Doctrine

Is wisdom not simply knowing more? Why, then, insist that prajñā is 「without knowing」?

The Treatise on Prajñā without Knowing is the work that Sengzhao presented to Kumārajīva and that received his affirmation, 「My understanding is no less than yours」. It treats the question most easily passed over in Prajñā learning: if prajñā is 「wisdom」, what kind of 「knowing」 does it have? This chapter follows the sequence of the treatise: first the scriptural basis on which it establishes its thesis; then its central argument; then its most crucial distinction; and finally how the account withstands questions from Mount Lu.

1 · Establishing the Thesis through Scripture

「Without knowing」 is not Sengzhao's invention. At the opening of the treatise, he places the scriptural basis on the table:

「Thus the wisdom of the sages is obscure and subtle, deeply hidden and difficult to fathom. Without marks and without name, it is not something words and images can attain.」 〔僧肇〈般若無知論〉·T45 0153a 段〕

「Let me attempt to discuss it. The Fangguang says: 「Prajñā has no existent mark and no mark of arising or ceasing.」 The Daoxing says: 「Prajñā has nothing it knows and nothing it sees.」 These statements distinguish the illuminating function of wisdom, yet call it markless and without knowing. Why? Clearly, there truly is a signless knowing, an illumination that does not know.」 〔同篇〕

The sūtras themselves say that prajñā 「has nothing it knows and nothing it sees」. Yet prajñā plainly performs the 「illuminating function of wisdom」—is that not a contradiction? Sengzhao turns the problem into the conclusion: because the sūtras speak of wisdom's illumination and still call it without knowing, there truly must be a signless knowing, an illumination that does not know. The whole treatise brings the reader to assent to this 「there truly is」.

2 · Because It Is Without Knowing, There Is Nothing It Does Not Know

The central argument takes only one step, but that step removes the ground beneath the problem:

「Why? Whatever has something it knows also has something it does not know. Because the sage's mind is without knowing, there is nothing it does not know. A knowing that is not knowing—this is called all-knowing. Thus the sūtra says: 「The sage's mind is without knowing, yet there is nothing it does not know.」 How true!」 〔同篇〕

「Whatever has something it knows also has something it does not know」—any cognition fixed upon a known object necessarily has somewhere its light does not reach. A cognition that grasps marks takes the mark as a boundary: inside the boundary, light; outside it, blindness. The sage's knowing grasps no mark and has no fixed object, and therefore has no such boundary—「it is without knowing, and so there is nothing it does not know」. This does not mean that the sage's mind is blank. It means that the illumination of sagely wisdom is not established by fastening upon an object:

「Therefore the sage, with prajñā that is without knowing, illuminates signless ultimate truth. Ultimate truth leaves no depth beyond the rabbit or horse, and prajñā has no illumination that fails to reach the bottom. Thus there is encounter without error, correspondence without fixing a ‘this.’ Still and without knowing, yet there is nothing unknown.」 〔同篇·T45 0153c 段〕

The illuminating prajñā is without knowing; the ultimate truth illuminated is without marks. Only when both the knowing and the known are signless can illumination leave nothing out. 「It knows of itself without knowing and acts of itself without contrivance」〔同篇〕—the operation of wisdom never required an act of grasping.

3 · Distinguishing Sagely Wisdom from Deluded Wisdom

Here lies the most important distinction of the chapter. Someone asks: sagely wisdom's 「absence」 and deluded wisdom's 「absence」 are both absence—what separates them? Sengzhao replies:

「The absence in sagely wisdom is being without knowing; the absence in deluded wisdom is knowing emptiness. Though the absence is the same, what makes it absent differs. Why? The sage's mind is empty and still; there is no knowing there to be negated, and so it may be called without knowing. This does not mean knowing emptiness.」 〔同篇·T45 0154b–c 跨段〕

Eight words form the watershed: being without knowing is not knowing emptiness. Sagely wisdom has no mark-grasping cognition to begin with (being without knowing); deluded wisdom already has a cognition that knows an object to be 「empty」 and then seizes 「emptiness」 itself (knowing emptiness). The former is wisdom's own nature; the latter is clinging in altered form. To seize emptiness as an object is precisely the illness prajñā cures. Nor is 「being without knowing」 insensibility. Sengzhao's reply to Liu Yimin says this plainly:

「What the world calls unknowing is said of wood and stone, empty space, and the insentient. But numinous reflection shines into the hidden and takes form before the first sign; no subtle movement of the Way escapes it. How could this be called unknowing?」 〔〈答劉遺民書〉·T45 0156b 段〕

The unknowing of wood and stone is dullness; the sage's being without knowing is 「numinous reflection shining into the hidden」—it illuminates more clearly than anything else, without relying on grasping marks.

4 · Questions from Mount Lu

Does this account withstand questioning? In his letter, Liu Yimin presses the question to its finest point:

「Seeking what distinguishes the sage's mind: does it exhaust numinous capacity and reach the limit of mental functions, wondrously ending in dark accord? Or is the substance of mind naturally numinous and still, responding alone?」 〔劉遺民〈書問〉·T45 0155a–b 跨段〕

Does the sage's mind first exhaust everything and then merge darkly with principle? Or does the substance of mind naturally, of itself, respond alone? Liu is asking Sengzhao to choose between two 『models of the sage's mind』. Sengzhao's reply refuses the choice itself:

「If this is what one keeps in mind, one may naturally forget words and gain it within, finding certainty in the square inch of one's heart. Why seek what distinguishes the sage's mind through the distinctions made by ordinary human feeling?」 〔〈答劉遺民書〉·T45 0156a 段〕

If one uses the discriminations of ordinary human feeling to seek the distinction of the sage's mind, the question has already been asked in the wrong place. Sengzhao still closes with scriptural proof: 「Thus the sūtra says: 「Sagely wisdom is without knowing, yet there is nothing it does not know; it is without contrivance, yet there is nothing it does not do.」」〔同書·T45 0156b〕 The Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra's distinction among the three wisdoms bears witness in the same direction: śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas have 「only the name ‘all-knowledge’」〔T25n1509 卷二十七 0258c27·待譯〕. All-knowing in name is not all-knowing. The blade of 「only a name」 from the preceding chapter is used once again here.

Return to the opening question: is wisdom a matter of knowing more? Prajñā answers that any knowing built by accumulating 「more」 has a boundary; only a knowing that is not knowing has nothing it does not know. Then—when wisdom reaches its furthest point, what of speaking and not speaking? Vimalakīrti's silence is waiting in chapter eight.

Author · Shi Huijing CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · 二〇二六 · 夏