Toh 3608Untitled

Exposition of the Prajnaparamita Collection (Toh 3608)

Mahayana Tradition — Northern Tibetan Transmission

Context

This scripture belongs to the Prajnaparamita Collection (Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra), one of the most central scriptural canons of Mahayana Buddhism. The Prajnaparamita Collection was translated into the Northern Transmission (China, Tibet) through the efforts of great translation masters such as Xuanzang, Yijing, and Facheng during the period from the fifth to the seventh century.

Prajnaparamita means “transcendent wisdom” or “wisdom that goes beyond” (prajñā = wisdom; pāramitā = gone to the other shore, gone beyond). The scriptures belonging to this collection are not ordinary instructions on practice, but revelations of the deepest nature of reality, Emptiness (śūnyatā) and the universal nature of all dharmas. The Prajnaparamita scriptures are regarded as the theoretical foundation for the Yogācāra and Madhyamaka schools, the two most important philosophical schools of Mahayana.

Main Content

Although the title of the scripture has not been clearly recorded, the scriptures in the Prajnaparamita Collection usually focus on the teachings of “lack of self-nature” (anātman) and comprehensive “Emptiness.” In the context of the Northern Tibetan Transmission, these scriptures are often presented in the form of dialogues between Buddha Shakyamuni and the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara or the chief disciples.

The essential content revolves around the idea that the five skandhas (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness) have no independent nature; material as well as mental dharmas are originally empty; even the concepts of “Buddha” or “bodhisattva” should not be fastened onto as fixed entities. This is the teaching of no-mind (acitta) and no-dharma (adharma), not non-existence, but lack of self-nature, absence of conditioned cycles, and absence of birth and death.

The scripture also emphasizes that the practice of Prajnaparamita is not for attaining anything outside, but for realizing that this very “outside” and “attainment” are both illusions.