Divyacakṣus

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divyacakṣus (P. dibbacakkhu; T. lha'i mig ལྷའི་མིག; C. tianyan 天眼) is translated as "divine eye," "clairvoyance," etc.

Divyacakṣus is identified as:[1][2]

  • one of five types of mundane supernatural powers (abhijñā)
  • one of the three types of knowledge (trividyā)

The Princeton Dictionary states:

The divine eye refers to the ability to observe things from afar, as well as to see the “mind-made bodies” (manomayakāya) that are the products of meditation or enlightenment. It also provides the ability to observe where beings will be reborn after they die (S. cyutyupapādānusmṛti), the second of the trividyā. One who possesses this power sees the disappearance and arising of beings as low or noble, beautiful or ugly, etc., according to their wholesome and unwholesome deeds (karman) in body, speech, and mind.[1]

The Buddhist Dictionary provides the following quote from the Pali suttas:

With the divine eye (dibba-cakkhu = yathākammūpaga-ñāṇa or cutūpapāta-ñāṇa) the pure one, he sees beings vanishing and reappearing, low and noble ones, beautiful and ugly ones, sees how beings are reappearing according to their deeds (see karma): ‘These beings, indeed, followed evil ways in bodily actions, words and thoughts, insulted the noble ones, held evil views, and according to their evil views they acted. At the dissolution of their body, after death, they have appeared in lower worlds, in painful states of existence, in the world of suffering, in hell. Those other beings, however, are endowed with good action… have appeared in happy state of existence, in a heavenly world.’[3]

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 Buswell & Lopez 2014, s.v. divyacakṣus.
  2. Nyanatiloka Thera 2019, s.v. dibba-cakkhu.
  3. Nyanatiloka Thera 2019, s.v. abhiññā.

Sources