Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā
The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, like other sūtras on the Perfection of Wisdom, deal with the topic of emptiness and the understanding of the ultimate truth or the way things are. Modern scholars date the sūtra roughly to 2nd and 1st century BC and consider it to be the earliest sūtra on which other sūtras on the Perfection of Wisdom are based while its adherents claim the sūtra to be a part of the words of the Buddha. It is believed taken to the subterranean world and brought back to the human world by Nāgārjuna. It is sometimes known as the Condensed Mother (ཡུམ་བསྡུས་པ་), the term mother referring to the Perfection of Wisdom, which give rise to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It is said to be the condensed version of the long version in hundred thousand lines and the middle version in twenty-five thousand lines. Having spread across Asia and beyond and translated into many languages, it is one of the most common books to be found in the Buddhist Himalayas. The sūtras takes the form of a series of dialogues between the Buddha Śākyamuni, Subhūti, Śāriputra, and others such as Indra, the king of gods, and a Goddess of the Ganges. In the final chapters, the sūtra contains the inspirational narratives of Sadāprarudita and his quest for the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom from the Bodhisattva Dharmodgata. The sūtra is also one of the earliest Mahāyāna sources proclaiming the luminous nature of the mind.
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Text Metadata
| Other Titles | ~ brgyad stong pa ~ sher phyin brgyad stong pa ~ ārya-aṣṭasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā |
|---|---|
| Text exists in | ~ Tibetan |
| Canonical Genre | ~ Kangyur · Sūtra · sher phyin · Prajñāpāramitā |
