Pañcacakṣus

From Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Jump to navigation Jump to search

pañcacakṣus (P. pañcacakkhu; T. spyan lnga; C. wuyan 五眼). Literally “five eyes," "five types of eye," etc. The term refers to five different types of "vision" (darśana) possessed by a buddha.[1]

The five types of "eye" are:[2][3]

  1. the physical eye (māmsacaksus)
  2. the divine eye (divyacakṣus)
  3. the wisdom eye (prajñācaksus)
  4. the dharma eye (dharmacakṣus)
  5. the buddha eye (buddhacaksus)

The Princeton Dictionary also presents the following alternate list:[4]

  1. fleshly eye (māmsacaksus)
  2. divine eye (divyacakṣus)
  3. wisdom eye (prajñācaksus)
  4. all-seeing eye (samantacakṣus)
  5. the buddha-eye (buddhacaksus)

The Tibetan English Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology presents another version of this list:[1]

  1. fleshy eye (carma cakṣu; ཤའི་སྤྱན།)
  2. divine eye (divya cakṣu; ལྷའི་སྤྱན།)
  3. wisdom eye (prajñā cakṣu; ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་སྤྱན།)
  4. dharma eye (dharma cakṣu; ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྤྱན།)
  5. primordial wisdom eye (jñāna cakṣu; ཡེ་ཤེས་ཀྱི་སྤྱན།)

The five "eyes" are similar to the five (or six) “superknowledges” (abhijñā).[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 སྤྱན་ལྔ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary
  2. ↑ Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. darśana.
  3. ↑ Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. pañcacakṣus.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. buddhacakṣus.

Sources

External links