Vyākaraṇa

vyākaraṇa (P. veyyākaraṇa; T. lung bstan pa'i sde / lung bstan pa; C. shouji/piqieluo 授/毘伽羅). Literally, “prophecy,” “prediction,” etc. A statement made by a buddha that a particular individual (or occasionally a group) will attain awakening as a named tathāgata, often in a named world system during a named future eon.

Vyākaraṇa is also a traditional genre of Buddhist literature in which such prophetic statements are made; as such, it is categorized as:

• one of the nine categories of teachings within the Pali tradition, and
• one of the twelve categories of teachings in the Sanskrit tradition.

A famous example of such prophetic teachings among the Mahayana sutras is the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra), where the Buddha makes predictions that certain great arhats will eventually attain buddhahood.

In the Pali tradition, Buddhaghosa "defines veyyākaraṇa as something of a default category, which comprises the entire Abhidhamma Pitaka, all suttas that do not contain verses, and any teaching of the Buddha that does not fall into any of the other eight categories."

Vyākaraṇa in Hinduism

In Hinduism, the term vyākaraṇa has the following connotations: (a) analysis or explanation by analysis; (b) rules of explanation; (c) specific rules explaining the formation of words; d) explanation of the formation of rules; (e) a treatise in which such an explanation is given; (f) a collection of such treatises and (g) a systematic explanation of the formation of words in a language.

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 

External links

• ལུང་བསྟན་པའི་སྡེ་, Christian-Steinert Dictionary