A Mani Jewel () or "maṇi-ratna" refers to any of various jewels or
crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...
mentioned in
Buddhist
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
literature as either metaphors for several concepts in
Buddhist philosophy
Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-episte ...
or as mythical
relic
In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...
s. The word ''mani'' is simply
Tamil,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
and
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
for "jewel", so the phrase "Mani Jewel" is in one sense redundant. However, the Mani Jewel metaphors were significantly expanded in Chinese language texts in which it was also called by essentially the same redundant name ''móní zhū'', where the first two characters ( zh, c=摩尼, p=móní, labels=no) are the
transcription of ''mani'' and the third character () is its Chinese translation, "jewel". The English phrase "Mani Jewel" is thus in essence a translation of the Chinese term. The use of the Mani Jewel in Buddhist literature includes various magical relics such as the wish-fulfilling
cintamani as well as metaphorical devices to illustrate several ideas such as
Buddha-nature
In Buddhist philosophy and soteriology, Buddha-nature ( Chinese: , Japanese: , , Sanskrit: ) is the innate potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all sentient beings already have a pure Buddha-essence within ...
(''
Om mani padme hum
' (, ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It first appeared in the Mahayana ''Kāraṇḍavyūha sūtra'', where it is also referr ...
'') and ''
Śūnyatā
''Śūnyatā'' ( ; ; ), translated most often as "emptiness", "Emptiness, vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", or "nothingness" is an Indian philosophical concept. In Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Indian philosophy, other Indian philosophi ...
''.
Early literary references
The Mani Jewel makes its first appearance in the
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
Nikāya
''Nikāya'' () is a Pāli word meaning "volume". It is often used like the Sanskrit word '' āgama'' () to mean "collection", "assemblage", "class" or "group" in both Pāḷi and Sanskrit. It is most commonly used in reference to the Pali Buddhis ...
s where it is mentioned as one of the seven treasures owned by a "wheel-turning king". The Mahasudhassana Sutta in the ''
Digha Nikaya
Digha (), is a seaside resort town in the state of West Bengal, India. It lies in Purba Medinipur district and at the northern end of the Bay of Bengal. The town has a low gradient with a shallow sand beach. It is a popular sea resort in India. ...
'' describes the Mani Jewel (maṇi-ratna) as follows:
"It was a beryl, pure, excellent, well-cut
into eight facets, clear, bright, unflawed,
perfect in every respect. The luster of this
Jewel-Treasure radiated for an entire yojana
round about."
The Mani Jewel in this text serves as the source of virtue and good governance for the king. Without it he would lose his throne.
[
Later texts describe the Mani Jewel differently. One version is the Cintamani or wish-fulfilling jewel. It was said to be originally owned by the God ]Indra
Indra (; ) is the Hindu god of weather, considered the king of the Deva (Hinduism), Devas and Svarga in Hinduism. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war. volumes
Indra is the m ...
, but it fell to the earth during a war with the Asura
Asuras () are a class of beings in Indian religions, and later Persian and Turkic mythology. They are described as power-seeking beings related to the more benevolent Devas (also known as Suras) in Hinduism. In its Buddhist context, the wor ...
s, allowing whoever possess it to have their wishes granted. Depictions of the Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...
s Ksitigarbha and Avalokiteshvara sometimes show them holding this Cintamani, indicating their ability to fulfill the wishes of sentient beings.[
The Mani Jewel also appears as a water purifying jewel () where it could be placed in muddy water by traveling monks, causing any cloudiness to settle out leaving the water clear and pure. This version of the jewel is mentioned in the '' Abhidharma-kosa'' where it is used as a metaphor for faith as an agent capable of dispelling uncertainty.][
Yet another depiction of the jewel is in the metaphor of Indra's net which appears in the '' Avatamsaka Sutra''. It describes a net of infinite size with infinite knots, with each knot containing a Mani Jewel with infinite facets. Each individual Mani Jewel reflects every other Mani Jewel in the same way that any individual being or ]phenomenon
A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be ...
is indistinguishable from the whole or noumenon
In philosophy, a noumenon (, ; from ; : noumena) is knowledge posited as an Object (philosophy), object that exists independently of human sense. The term ''noumenon'' is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term ''Phenomena ...
due to their fundamental interconnectedness.[
]
In Buddha Nature Sutras
The '' Lankavatara Sutra'', the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and the '' Surangama Sutra'' all used the Mani Jewel as metaphors for Buddha-nature
In Buddhist philosophy and soteriology, Buddha-nature ( Chinese: , Japanese: , , Sanskrit: ) is the innate potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all sentient beings already have a pure Buddha-essence within ...
. In these sutras, a transparent Mani Jewel within us changes colors depending on the conditions around us, representing the five skandhas. The Mani Jewel itself represents each being's Buddha-nature, but because of the three poisons
The three poisons (Sanskrit: ''triviṣa''; Tibetan: ''dug gsum'') in the Mahayana tradition or the three unwholesome roots (Sanskrit: ''akuśala-mūla''; Pāli: ''akusala-mūla'') in the Theravada tradition are a Buddhist term that refers to th ...
of ignorance, attachment, and aversion, a being sees only the various colors emitted by the jewel. These are mistakenly perceived as the defilements rather than the purity of the jewel itself, which is merely reflecting conditions around it. Thus Buddha-nature is not perceived and only the five skandhas are seen, which are then conflated with a sense of self in opposition to the Buddhist idea of anātman or no-self.[
]
In Zen
Later, the Mani Jewel began to appear in texts produced by Zen Buddhists. An early example is found in Guifeng Zongmi's work ''Chart of the Master-Disciple Succession of the Chan Gate That Transmits the Mind Ground in China'' in which he compares the four contemporary Zen schools: the Northern School, the Ox Head School, the Hongzhou school and the Heze school. He accomplishes this by comparing how each school would interpret the Mani Jewel metaphor used in the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment discussed above. According to Guifeng, the Northern School would believe in a fundamentally pure Mani Jewel that must be cleaned to reveal its purity; the Ox Head school would perceive both the color reflections and the Mani Jewel itself as empty; the Hongzhou school would say that the blackness covering the Mani Jewel is the Jewel itself, and that its purity can never be seen; the Heze School (to which Guifeng belonged) would interpret the black color covering the jewel as an illusion that is in fact just a manifestation of its brightness such that the surface defilements and the purity of the Jewel interpenetrate one another.
Eihei Dōgen, a 13th-century Zen monk and founder of the Sōtō school
Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai school, Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Caodong school, Cáodòng school, which was founded during the ...
of Zen Buddhism in Japan, wrote extensively on the Mani Jewel in an essay of his large work the Shōbōgenzō entitled '' Ikka myōju'', or ''One Bright Jewel''. The essay primarily comments on the phrase of the Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
Chinese monk Xuansha Shibei, who wrote that "the ten-direction world is one bright jewel". His phrase is in turn an adaptation of the earlier writings of Guifeng Zongmi mentioned above.[
]
See also
* Luminous gemstones
References
{{Buddhism topics
Buddhist philosophical concepts