Artha
Artha (P. attha/aṭṭha; T. don དོན་; C. yi; J. gi; K. ŭi 義) is polysemous Sanskrit term with mulitple usages.
Contemporary scholar Jan Willis writes:
- Artha...is a complex word in Sanskrit, having many connotations and covering a whole range of referrents. It may be rendered by "aim," "goal," "purpose," "thing," "object," "meaning," "nature," and other translations, though some are more typically used in certain contexts than others."[1]
In her translation of the Tattvārtha chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhūmi, Willis translates artha as "knowing" and "knowledge", based on the context of this text.[1] In her analysis of this term, Willis makes a distinction between the perception of ordinary beings and the perception of realized beings. In the context of the perception of ordinary beings, artha can have the sense of "object" or "concrete referent" of a name. In the context of the perception of realized beings, artha can have the sense of "knowledge" or "knowing."[1]
Some of the other translations identified in the Rangjung Yeshe Wiki include:
- 1) real; purpose/ essentially/ real, true/ a vital organ; points, topics/ meaning/ nature/ true; value. 2) object, thing, sense object, perceptible thing. 3) fact, identity. 4) true, real, ultimate, absolute, truth, actuality, reality. 5) topic, subject, aspect, category, classification. 6) purpose, benefit, reason, objective.[2]
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