The Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra

[Gary]

Hello All:

First time posting on Dharma Wheel. After some time studying and practicing Buddhism in a general sense, I have decided to focus my attention on the 'Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 8,000 lines'. My reason for sharing this with you is in the hope that some of you out there might be able to share any suggestions to for study. I have begun, obviously, with the Edward Conze material, but there seems to be too few sources for its history and alternative renderings.

With Metta-

Gary

[Will]

In case you have not looked at the Wiki and the notes, bibliography etc. - it will get you started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajnapara ... amit.C4.81

This one is listed in the bibliography - looks interesting, but I have not read it:

http://www.southasiabooks.com/studies-i ... 75663.html

[Huifeng]

Hello All:

First time posting on Dharma Wheel. After some time studying and practicing Buddhism in a general sense, I have decided to focus my attention on the 'Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 8,000 lines'. My reason for sharing this with you is in the hope that some of you out there might be able to share any suggestions to for study. I have begun, obviously, with the Edward Conze material, but there seems to be too few sources for its history and alternative renderings.

With Metta-

Gary

Hi,

Nice to hear of your interest in the Prajñāpāramitā. Apart from Conze there is still a fair amount of material around, just have to know where to look. You could check out:


CONZE, E (1967): Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies, Munshiram Manoharlal: New Delhi.
CONZE, E (1973): The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines & Its Verse Summary, Satguru: Delhi.
CONZE, E (1975): The Large Sūtra on Perfect Wisdom, University of California Press: Berkeley.
CONZE, E (1978): The Prajñāpāramitā Literature, Munshiram Manoharlal: New Dehli.
DELEANU, F (2000): “A Preliminary Study of Meditation and the Beginnings of Mahāyāna Buddhism”, pp. 65-114, in the Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 1999, Tokyo.
FRONSDAL, E (1998): The Dawn of the Bodhisattva Path: Studies in a Religious Ideal of Ancient Indian Buddhists with Particular Emphasis on the Earliest Extant Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, Doctoral Dissertation, Stanford University, UMI.
LANCASTER, L (1968): An Analysis of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, University of Wisconsin, unpublished dissertation.
LANCASTER, L R (1974): “An Early Mahāyāna Sermon about the Body of the Buddha and the Making of Images”, in Artibus Asiae, Vol. 36, No. 4. (1974), pp. 287-291.
LANCASTER, L ed. (1977): Prajñāpāramitā and Related Systems, Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series: Berkeley.
LETHCOE, N J (1971): The Bodhisattva Structure in Kumārajīva’s Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñā-pāramitā Sūtra, PhD Dissertation, University of Wisconsin.
RAWLINSON, A (1977): “The Position of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā in the Develop¬mentn of Early Mahāyāna”, in LANCASTER, L ed. (1977).
MÄLL, L (2005): Studies in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā and Other Essays, Motilal Banarsidass: Delhi.
NATTIER, J (2010): “Who Wrote the Dà míngdù Jīng 大明度經 (T225)? A Reassess-ment of the Evidence”, pp. 295-337, in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1-2, 2008 (2010).
SCHMITHAUSEN, L (1977): “Textgeschichtliche Beobachtungen zum 1. Kapitel der Aṣṭa-sāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā”, pp. 35-82, in LANCASTER, L, ed, (1977).
TSAI, Yao-ming 蔡耀明 (1987): Searching for the Origins of Mahāyāna and Moving Toward a Better Understanding of Early Mahāyāna, University of California, Berkeley, PhD Dissertation, UMI: Ann Arbor.
YUYAMA, Akira 湯山明 (1976): Prajñāpāramitā¬ratna¬guṇa¬saṃcaya-gāthā (Sanskrit Recension A), Edited, With an Introduction, Bibliographical Notes and a Tibetan Version from tunhuang, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
YUYAMA, Akira 湯山明 (1977): “The First Two Chapters of the Prajñāpāramitā¬ratna¬guṇa-saṃcaya¬gāthā”, pp. 203-220, in Lancaster, L ed, (1977).
YUYAMA, Akira 湯山明 (2001): “Prajñāpāramitā¬ratna¬guṇa¬saṃcaya¬gāthā-Vyākhyā of Hari-bhadra – Preliminary Remarks”, pp. 27-42, in the Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddho¬logy at Soka University for the Academic Year 2001, Tokyo.

There is a lot of stuff in Japanese and Chinese, if you can read these languages, let me know and I'll provide a basic bibliography.

I have written an essay on the various Chinese texts,

ORSBORN, M B (=SHÌ Hùifēng 釋慧峰) (2008b): A Survey of Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra Trans¬lations in Chinese.
Which can be found here: http://prajnacara.blogspot.tw/2008/10/s ... sutra.html

Other related material on my Blog: http://prajnacara.blogspot.tw/search/la ... naparamita

My PhD dissertation provides an interesting take on the whole text (even Lancaster and Fronsdal agree), through the notion of chiasmus:
ORSBORN, M B (= SHÌ Hùifēng 釋慧峰) (2012): Chiasmus in the Early Prajñāpāramitā: Literary Parallelism Connecting Criticism & Hermeneutics in an Early Mahāyāna Sūtra, PhD dissertation, University of Hong Kong.
It will appear here at the HKU Scholar Hub soon.
I'm presently working on it for publication as a monograph, but that will be a year or two at least.

Don't forget to do all the basics in Indian Buddhism and early Mahayana, as these are critical for really understanding this text.

All the best for your Prajñāpāramitā studies and practice!

~~ Huifeng

[Gary]

Thanks to you both. Like you said Huifeng, the material is embedded out there, one just needs to know where to look. I appreciate you taking the time. The beginning of Mahayana history intrigues me quite a bit. I just picked up 'Indian Buddhism' by Warder, for an overview of early Buddhism up to that time. Thanks again-As I move along, I hope to be able to discuss any issues that might arise.

With Metta-

Gary