An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism c7.67

c7.67

The fourth stage, *viz.*, Sarva-śūnya (all-void or perfect void) is free from all the three-fold impurities and is self-illuminant. It is called perfect-void because of its absolute purity obtained by transcending these principles of defilement. It is the purified knowledge—the ultimate truth—it is the supreme omniscience. It is without change—without appearance, without duality—it is the supreme good. Whether it is any state of existence or non-existence cannot be known ; it is beyond the scope of verbal expression. From this self-luminous purity, which results from the three preceding stages, proceeds the Omniscient (Buddha) endowed with all possible merits, all the thirty-two signs of greatness and also the eighty consonants.¹ In the *Abhisambodhi-krama* of *Pañca-krama* it has been said, ‘Perfect void may be said to be without beginning or with beginning, without middle or with middle,—without end or with end: this is what the wise say.”² Here there is neither going nor not-going, neither decrease nor increase, neither existence nor non-existence. It is free from the categories of either being or non-being,—it is neither of the nature of merit nor of the nature of demerit,—nor is it a combination of both.³