Previous scholars have shown that *bodhisattvacitta in the Chinese versions of the Prajñāpāramitā is the pre-terminological form of bodhicitta, and that it is not a resolve but only “the mind/attitude characteristic of a bodhisattva” who practices in emptiness.
Based on an illustrative story and on the first and second chapters of all versions of the Prajñāpāramitā, I try to prove in this article that other than bodhisattvacitta, there is another term, sarvajñatācitta, which carries the meaning of “the mind in accordance with sarvajñatā” and the sarvajñatā in this compound refers to a yet-to-be perfected insight. This shows that sarvajñatācitta is a quasi-synonym of bodhisattvacitta.
Then I investigate a relevant passage in chapter one, where the adhimukti in sarvajñatā is expounded. This adhimukti comprises two facets: the confidence in sarvajñatā and the practice of emptiness in accordance with sarvajñatā, and both of them consist of different cultivating stages. So long as the practice of emptiness has to be perfected before the attainment of Buddhahood, the confidence in sarvajñatā is the belief in the efficacy of the practice of emptiness to attain Buddhahood, and the bodhisattva’s practice of emptiness is to bring it to perfection in accordance with sarvajñatā. This means that the practice of emptiness has the Buddha’s omniscience as its object as well as its final aim. In this way I show that the mind of the bodhisattva is a resolve to Buddhahood.
Then, to justify that the aspiration to the awakening of the Buddha can be the uncommon factor that made up the mind of the bodhisattva before the usage of the term bodhicitta, I attempt to prove that the awakening of the Buddha is held in the early times of the Mahāyāna to be uncommon with and more superior than that of the other two vehicles by the observation of the usage of the unmodified terms bodha and bodhi in the early Prajñāpāramitā. Finally, the seeming contradiction of this resolve of the bodhisattva with the term bodhisattva is dealt with.
Key words:
Prajñāpāramitā; sarvajñatācitta; adhimukti; bodhicitta; cittotpāda