Perfection of Wisdom

Overview

The collection of discourses on the Perfection of Wisdom (Toh 8-30).

The works in this important subset of the sūtras in the Kangyur are considered in Mahāyāna tradition to represent the teachings that the Buddha gave in his second turning of the wheel of Dharma, predominantly on Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha. These are his teachings on the empty nature of phenomena, or more precisely their absence of any true essence or characteristics.

The sūtras in this section range from the longest of all Kangyur texts, The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines (a massive work filling twelve volumes), down to The Perfection of Wisdom Mother in One Syllable (a little longer than its title might suggest but filling less than a single folio).

In them, the Buddha converses with a number of different interlocutors to ensure that they have a full understanding of the paths leading to the several different levels of awakening, especially the progressive stages of the path of bodhisattvas that culminates in the fullest awakening of a perfect buddha, while at the same time dispelling all tendencies they might have to attribute any true existence to any phenomena whatsoever.

The longer sūtras in this group, known as the “six mothers,” all cover the same ground and are presented as records of the same teaching given by the Buddha on a single occasion. As the main interlocutors they feature the Buddha’s disciples Subhūti and Śāriputra, the god Śakra (Indra), and the bodhisattva Maitreya. Taking as the basis of the discussions the many sets of dharmas (phenomena, qualities, or practices) that form the structural foundation of all the Buddha’s basic teachings, the dialogues emphasize over and over again that, while using these notions to analyze saṃsāra, practice their different paths, and experience their resulting qualities, a bodhisattva must never take any of them as having the slightest true existence. This is what is meant by practicing the perfection of wisdom.

A number of much shorter works complete the body of Perfection of Wisdom literature, providing summarized content or different perspectives for a variety of purposes but drawing on the same themes. Some introduce interlocutors not present in the longer works, while others emphasize particular facets of the teaching.

From a historical perspective, there is evidence that these scriptures first began to appear in writing in the first centuries ʙᴄᴇ and ᴄᴇ. Translations into Chinese began to be made in the late second century ᴄᴇ. Several hypotheses have been put forward concerning how the sūtras of varying lengths became differentiated, and it seems likely that the earliest versions were of medium length, with both expanded and abridged versions appearing later.

By the time these works were translated into Tibetan, mostly in the early imperial translation period of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, their impact had been felt throughout Asia. They had not only given rise to the views of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka (Middle Way) system and to the East Asian traditions of Chan and Zen, but had also been a primary influence on the Yogācāra school of Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, and their followers. They had also contributed to the early development of some systems of tantra.

In Tibet, the commentarial tradition inherited from late Indian Buddhism flourished and gave rise to a vast literature and tradition of scholastic study, while veneration of the texts and their application to numerous systems of practice has maintained their importance down to the present day.

Themes, Narratives, Style, and Significance

The Perfection of Wisdom scriptures together form a set of works whose titles readily identify them as belonging to this distinctive and influential body of literature.¹ In terms of the Mahāyāna classification of the Buddha Śākyamuni’s discourses (sūtra, mdo) into the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma, promulgated at different places and times in the course of his life,² these sūtras of the Perfection of Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) are firmly placed by their own assertion³ within the second turning, taught at Vulture Peak near Rājagṛha. That is also how the present section is classified in the catalogs (dkar chag) of the Degé and most other Kangyurs..

It is in these sūtras that the role of the compassionate bodhisattva with a mind set upon enlightenment achieves pre-eminence over the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas of lesser attainment, even if the less far-reaching paths of the latter are still considered valid. The central message subtly integrates relative truth and ultimate truth, reiterating that bodhisattvas should strive to attain perfect buddhahood in order to eliminate the sufferings of all sentient beings rather than merely terminate cyclic existence for their own sake, even though, from an ultimate perspective, there are no phenomena, no sentient beings and no attainment of manifestly perfect buddhahood.

The longer sūtras in this group, although differing considerably in length, resemble each other closely, unfold in the same order, and indeed are presented as records of the same teaching given by the Buddha on a single occasion.⁴ This assertion is made on the basis of two points: first that the Buddha’s interlocutors are the same, and second that a prophecy made by the Buddha included in all of them could only have been made once.

Detailed narrative elements as such are not prominent in these texts, with the exception—in the longest versions, but absent in the Eight Thousand—of an elaborate introductory setting of the scene in which the Buddha produces supernatural displays and invokes the attention of buddhas and bodhisattvas in other worlds. Otherwise, what narrative there is in the main text of the sūtras mainly consists in the successive participation of different interlocutors, though at times visitors are received, offerings are made, and sections of the audience are said to attain realization. One chapter speaks of a woman named Gaṅgadevī present in the attendance; her future awakening is the prophecy mentioned above. The final chapters of the long sūtras, however, with the exception of the Hundred Thousand and Ten Thousand, do incorporate a long narrative passage that recounts the exemplary search undertaken by a bodhisattva named Sadāprarudita for the Perfection of Wisdom teachings of an accomplished teacher, Dharmodgata.

The main interlocutors featured in the long sūtras are the Buddha’s disciples Subhūti and Śāriputra, the god Śakra (Indra), and the bodhisattva Maitreya. Other disciples, most notably Ānanda, have minor roles or are mentioned as being present. Each interlocutor brings a particular perspective to the discussions. Intriguingly, it is Subhūti who, despite not being a bodhisattva, becomes the mouthpiece for many of the most subtle and uncompromising points made about the perfection of wisdom. Although this is partly because his statements are explicitly inspired through the Buddha’s power, his own character and leanings come out clearly in the dialogue.⁵

The shorter sūtras feature the same interlocutors in many cases, but some introduce bodhisattvas who do not figure in the long sūtras. The most notable example is perhaps the Heart Sūtra, in which the most prominent role is played by Avalokiteśvara, who is not even mentioned in the long sūtras.

The setting of all the long sūtras and a majority of the short ones is Vulture Peak in Rājagṛha. Among the few exceptions, the stated setting of The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin (Toh 14) is the Kalandakanivāpa in Rajagṛha, and for both The Diamond Cutter (Vajracchedikā, Toh 16) and The Perfection of Wisdom in Seven Hundred Lines (Toh 24) it is the Jetavana, Anāthapiṇḍada’s park, in Śrāvastī. The two Perfection of Wisdom works that are also considered Yogatantra texts, The Principles of the Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred and Fifty Lines (Toh 18) and The Twenty-Five Entrances to the Perfection of Wisdom (Toh 20) are both set in different god realms.

The main theme of the extant texts forming this cycle of sūtras is a profound exploration of the nature of phenomena and, in particular, the lack of any truly existing characteristics in anything at all, even the qualities of a buddha’s awakening. Nevertheless, contrary to what one might expect from such a description, they are far from being systematic textbooks of philosophy or reference works. As a genre of literature they have their own unique and easily recognizable style. The long sūtras in particular, as well as being formulated around sophisticated word play, are also replete with repetitive modulations, abbreviations, and other mnemonic features, indicative of an early oral transmission, and they are clearly intended to be read aloud, so that their relentless, repetitive, almost hypnotic waves of language may gradually bring about an impact of their own on the mind of the reader. At the same time, many of the sūtras explicitly extol the merits of reciting the sūtras, of writing them out, and of reproducing them in the form of books, as an act of veneration—practices that have continued down the centuries.

If reading the sūtras with faith and devotion is an explicitly recommended approach to the gradual attainment of the goals they describe, for scholars and practitioners to study and analyze them in detail has also been an important way for them to be used. Early Indian commentaries distinguished, in the long sūtras, three approaches (sgo gsum), brief, intermediate, and detailed, along with eleven formulations (rnam grangs bcu gcig) associated with the succession of different interlocutors.

The underlying structure of the scriptures nevertheless remained difficult to discern, and according to traditional history that difficulty led the young Asaṅga in the fourth century to propitiate Maitreya in a series of long retreats, culminating after much difficulty and frustration in his receiving from Maitreya a set of five teachings of which one, The Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṃkāra, Toh 3786), provided a key to understanding the eight successive main topics and their seventy subdivisions that can be distinguished in the unfolding of the long sūtras. These longer sūtras eventually became known as the “six mothers,”⁶ since they all cover the same complete range of topics identified in Maitreya-Asaṅga’s treatise. The message of these sūtras thus came to be seen not simply as the relentless deconstruction of all conceptual elaborations with respect to phenomena that is explicitly emphasized throughout them, but also—implied in the ordering of their statements—a structured path by which bodhisattvas should understand and put the perfection of wisdom into practice. A large number of further commentaries based on The Ornament of Clear Realization were composed and studied in the great monastic universities of late Indian Buddhism.

In brief, as elaborated below, the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras have served as a major influence underlying all of Mahāyāna thought and practice, contributing to both of the two great traditions, the profound and the vast. The earlier reception of these works in India inspired Nāgārjuna’s “profound” writings on Madhyamaka dialectics and led, particularly in East Asia, to the non-analytical meditative pursuits of the Chan (Zen) tradition. Later, following the appearance of The Ornament of Clear Realization, they became the foundation on which the treatises of Asaṅga and his successors grew into the “vast” Yogācāra school.

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History

The six most complete works of this set of scriptures, which include the five longest and are known as the “six mothers” (as mentioned above, and listed below) are all held to be records of the same single discourse condensed to different degrees to render them suitable for different audiences. Traditional accounts speak of further, even longer versions that, following their promulgation by Śākyamuni, were concealed in non-human realms—the longest Sūtra in One Billion Lines among the gandharvas, the Sūtra in Ten Million Lines among the devas, and the Sūtra in One Hundred Thousand Lines among the nāgas—the last of these being retrieved and revealed by Nāgārjuna from the ocean depths and initially propagated in South India.

From a historian’s perspective, much remains unknown about the earliest history of these works and what little can be surmized about their oral transmission. Scholars have disagreed about which of the geographically dispersed Buddhist communities may have first given rise to the Perfection of Wisdom literature, some favoring its origin among the Mahāsāṅghikas of Andhra in the south of India, while others point to evidence of its early flourishing in the northwest regions such as Gandhāra. While the Tibetan and Chinese traditions consider the Hundred Thousand to be the source of the other twenty-two, because it contains the most detailed exposition, traditional scholars in Nepal see the Eight Thousand as the original scripture from which the longer and shorter versions were derived by elaboration or condensation. The available philological evidence tends to supports this latter view, and most modern scholars have concluded that texts resembling the Eight Thousand probably represent the earliest form of the multiplicity of these scriptures.

The earliest known manuscript is the fragment of a birch-bark scroll from the northwest, found in Bajaur (in present-day Pakistan near the Afghan border), dated to the first century ᴄᴇ. Like most of the earliest birch-bark scrolls from the region it is in the Gāndhārī language, written in Kharoṣṭhī script. The two short portions of the sūtra it contains cannot be matched to any recension among the known versions of the sūtras, but perhaps belongs to the subfamily we identify today with The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines. Somewhat later manuscript fragments found near Bamiyan (in Afghanistan) and dated to the second half of the third century are more closely comparable to the Eight Thousand, and these early manuscripts may therefore represent an intermediate stage during the evolution of these works from even earlier Prakrit versions into the differentiated sūtras we know today, in their Chinese and Tibetan translations, and in the later Sanskrit texts preserved mainly in Nepal.

The history of translations into Chinese also points to the Eight Thousand being the earliest form of the scripture that was widely propagated; four successively longer versions of it were translated in the late second, early third, late fourth, and early fifth centuries, respectively. Turning to the longer versions, the earliest evidence of a scripture identifiable as close to the Twenty-Five Thousand comes from Chinese records, which relate how two versions of a Sanskrit manuscript were brought to China from Khotan to be translated in the second half of the third century. The oldest known materially surviving manuscripts of the longer sūtra subfamily are considerably later fragments in Sanskrit or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit from Khotan, from Gilgit, and from unknown Central Asian locations, dating from the fifth or sixth century. A full set of the sūtras of different lengths was brought to China from India by Xuanzang and translated into Chinese in the seventh century.

Of the different hypotheses regarding the steps and order in which the differentiation and evolution of the different versions took place have been proposed, the most likely overall notion is therefore that the Eight Thousand represents an early version that first led to further long “mother” versions by a process of expansion, probably during the first three centuries ᴄᴇ, and subsequently to the many short versions‍—notably the “Heart” and “Diamond Cutter” sūtras (Hṛdaya and Vajracchedikā)—by an opposite process of contraction, from the fourth to the sixth century, after which even more compressed and sometimes “tantric” versions appeared, as well as texts in which the Prajñā­pāramitā is worshiped as a female “mother” deity. The neatness of this schema, however, may overlook some of the evidence. For instance, there are reasons for suspecting that the Vajracchedikā may date to as early as the second century ᴄᴇ.

It is important to bear in mind that the naming of the different versions by the number of lines they contain is likely to have been a later development, applied as a means of classifying the profusion of circulating texts of different lengths. It was already in use by the time these texts were first translated into Tibetan in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, but it is not a feature of the earlier Chinese translations. The earliest evidence of this nomenclature appears to be in the Chinese literature, in the record of a lecture by the early sixth century translator Bodhiruci, and its widespread adoption in the centuries that followed may have served to limit further profusion and even reduce the variety of different texts by fixing their number. Nevertheless, its retrospective application to earlier texts may obscure rather than clarify their recensional affinities.

The great cultural transfer of Buddhist literature, practice, and scholarship that began in the Tibetan imperial period of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, particularly during the reigns of Tri Songdetsen and Ralpachen, naturally included translating the Perfection of Wisdom texts available in India at the time. The accounts of Tibetan historians concerning the early translation period focus principally on the various translators, translations, and manuscripts of The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines, but by the time the two surviving inventories of the early ninth century, the Denkarma and Phangthangma, had been compiled, all the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras had been translated, along with a few of the treatises and commentaries.

It was nevertheless only in the later period of translation, under the successive influences of Rinchen Sangpo, Atiśa Dipaṃkaraśrījñāna, and particularly Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab, that the full panoply of treatises based on the perfection of Wisdom Sūtras themselves and on the Ornament of Clear Realization appear to have been extensively studied. Ngok and his circle replaced or revised many of the older translations (often with reference to the commentaries) and supplemented them with translations of works by later Indian scholars, including Smṛtijñānakīrti, Dharmaśrī, Ratnākaraśānti, Abhayākaragupta, and Atiśa himself, which had not even been composed at the time of the early translation period.

Several major exegetical lineages and systems of Prajñā­pāramitā study were founded in both eastern and central Tibet, particularly to begin with at Sangphu but also at Sakya, Tsurphu, Jonang, Mindröling, and the three great Gelukpa monasteries around Lhasa. Study of the Prajñā­pāramitā sūtras in the light of The Ornament of Clear Realization, although often in parallel with study of the Madhyamaka, became a distinct, specialist topic pursued by innumerable great scholars down to the present day. The sūtras, the extensive Indian commentaries, and Tibetan indigenous works together constitute the Parchin (phar phyin) literature—one of the principal subjects of the monastic college curriculum.

A brief bibliographic appraisal of all the extant texts, in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, can be found in Conze 1978. Some of the earliest manuscripts mentioned were only found subsequent to Conze’s work, and Zacchetti’s 2015 survey of the texts and their development sets out the picture as seen by more recent studies.

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Texts in This Section

In Tibetan translation, the sūtras of the Perfection of Wisdom are contained in twenty-three volumes of the Degé and Narthang Kangyurs—comprising approximately one fifth of the entire collection. This division of the Kangyur precedes all the other sūtras that follow in the Buddhāvataṃsaka (phal chen), Ratnakūṭa (dkon brtsegs) and General Sūtra (mdo sde) divisions of the Kangyur, reflecting the high prestige of the Perfection of Wisdom within Mahāyāna Buddhism as a whole.

There are twenty-three distinct texts in the Perfection of Wisdom section.¹ The seventeen foremost works are classified into the “six mothers” (yum drug) and the “eleven children” (bu bcu gcig), while six additional texts are comprised by one work of the “hundred and eight names” genre, and five “bodhisattva Perfection of Wisdom” sūtras.

The Six Mothers

The six mothers are the “longer” and “medium” length sūtras, which are said to be distinguished by their structural presentation of all eight aspects of the bodhisattvas’ path, as elucidated in The Ornament of Clear Realization, whereas the shorter texts do not fully elaborate this structure.⁶ There are different ways of categorizing the six into “long” and “medium,” some of them reflecting categories within subgroups, but essentially the first four are more similar to each other than the fifth and sixth.

The four longest sūtras all follow the same order and are closely related to each other:

• The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines (Śatasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 8) comprises twelve volumes, three hundred and one fascicles and seventy-two chapters. It is the longest of all, with the most extensive repetitions. In most Kangyurs it includes neither the “Maitreya chapter,” nor the concluding narrative of Sadāprarudita and Dharmodgata, but is otherwise very similar in structure, language, and content (apart from the degree of repetitions) to the Twenty-Five Thousand.
• The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines (Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 9) comprises three volumes, seventy-eight fascicles, and seventy-six chapters. Sometimes called the “medium” length sūtra—but only relative to the longest one. The language of this sūtra and its chapter structure is very closely matched to that of the Hundred Thousand, the only substantial differences lying in the extent of the repetitions. There is another version in the Tengyur (Toh 3790) that, though attributed to Haribhadra and placed with the commentaries, is actually the text of the sūtra presumed to have been somewhat reordered at an unknown date to correspond more closely to the order of The Ornament of Clear Realization (see above) with the insertion of some topic headings.
• The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines (Aṣṭādaśasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 10) comprises two and a half volumes, sixty fascicles, and eighty-seven chapters. Although the sequence of teachings, interlocutors, etc. is the same as in the two longer sūtras, the Tibetan shows extensive signs of later revision and editorial changes, and there are many more chapter divisions.
• The Perfection of Wisdom in Ten Thousand Lines (Daśasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 11) comprises one and a half volumes, thirty-four fascicles, and thirty-three chapters. It is the one version of the longer sūtra that seems to have left no traces in the Indian literature. As well as being abridged relative to the three longer ones, it contains a synopsis of all the dharmas of saṃsāra, the path, and awakening, gathered into its two preliminary chapters.

The fifth, the Eight Thousand, is still broadly similar in order and content but is different enough to be seen as belonging to a separate branch of this textual “family.” It is considered by some to be closest to the earliest versions of the written Perfection of Wisdom scripture:

• The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 12) comprises one volume, twenty-four fascicles, and thirty-two chapters. Its order and topics remain closely paralleled in the longer sūtras but its beginning, and the ending of its doctrinal chapters, are substantially different, as well as considerably shorter. It nevertheless concludes with the same narrative of Sadāprarudita and Dharmodgata as the longer sūtras.

The sixth is an outlier in terms of length, being a brief synopsis of the longer texts:

• The Verse Summation of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitāratnaguṇasañcayagāthā, Toh 13) comprises only nineteen folios. Unlike the others, it is entirely in verse. As well as being represented in the Kangyur as a standalone text, its 300 stanzas are also found as the 84th chapter of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines (Toh 10, see above).

The Eleven Children

These shorter texts, all contained in a final “miscellaneous Prajñāpāramitā” (sher phyin sna tshogs) volume of the section and ordered (except for the last in this list) in terms of their decreasing length,  are distinguished not only by their relative brevity but also by the fact that they do not fully elaborate all eight of the topics set out in The Ornament of Clear Realization.

• The Questions of Suvikrāntavikrāmin (Suvikrāntavikrāmiparipṛcchā­prajñāpāramitānirdeśa, Toh 14), in 2,500 lines
• The Perfection of Wisdom in Five Hundred Lines (Pañcaśatikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 15)
• The Diamond Cutter (Vajracchedikā, Toh 16) in three hundred lines, commonly known as the Diamond Sūtra
• The Principles of the Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred and Fifty Lines (Prajñāpāramitānayaśatapañcaśatikā, Toh 17), a work that is tantric in style and content, and is duplicated in the Yoga Tantra section of the Kangyur
• The Illustrious Perfection of Wisdom in Fifty Lines (Bhagavatī­prajñāpāramitāpañcāśatikā, Toh 18)
• The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika” (Kauśika­prajñā­pāramitā, Toh 19)
• The Twenty-Five Entrances to the Perfection of Wisdom (Pañcaviṃśatikāprajñāpāramitāmukha, Toh 20), closely related to Toh 17 (above) and also duplicated in the Yoga Tantra section of the Kangyur
• The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother (Bhagavatī­prajñā­pāramitā­hṛdaya, Toh 21), justifiably famous as the Heart Sūtra
• The Perfection of Wisdom in a Few Syllables (Svalpākṣaraprajñāpāramitā, Toh 22)
• The Perfection of Wisdom Mother in One Syllable (Ekākṣarīmātāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 23)
• The Perfection of Wisdom in Seven Hundred Lines (Saptaśatikāprajñāpāramitā, Toh 24), also found as a duplicate (Toh 90) in the Heap of Jewels section of the Kangyur

Other Short Perfection of Wisdom Texts

One work that belongs to the “one hundred and eight names” genre:

• The Hundred and Eight Names of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitānāmāṣṭaśataka, Toh 25)

The five “bodhisattva” Perfection of Wisdom sūtras:

• The Sūryagarbha Perfection of Wisdom (Sūryagarbha­prajñā­pāramitā, Toh 26)
• The Candragarbha Perfection of Wisdom (Candragarbha­prajñā­pāramitā, Toh 27)
• The Samantabhadra Perfection of Wisdom (Samantabhadra­prajñā­pāramitā, Toh 28)
• The Vajrapāṇi Perfection of Wisdom (Vajrapāṇiprajñā­pāramitā, Toh 29)
• The Vajraketu Perfection of Wisdom (Vajraketu­prajñā­pāramitā, Toh 30)

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Bibliography and Further Reading

Conze, Edward. The Prajñāpāramitā Literature (Second Edition). Tokyo: The Reiyukai, 1978.

Zacchetti, Stefano. “Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras.” In Brill’s Encylopedia of Buddhism. vol. 1, pp. 171–209. Leiden: Brill, 2015.