So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
Nalanda
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:15 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:33 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:57 pm

Everything you really need to know about Mahāyāna is in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras and their commentaries. This is the class of sutras, according to Sakya Paṇḍita, the Buddha spent the most time teaching (ten years), out of his 45 year long career. These are the most important sūtras of Mahāyāna, the most extensive class of sūtras (20 volumes in their Tibetan translation), and the sūtras most commented upon in surviving Indian sources.
I like that. Thanks. And I might actually do just that, put all my eggs in Prajanaparamita.

Could you please tell me though why people like Alex Duncan would study all Mahayana sutras like this?
https://palisuttas.wordpress.com/2013/0 ... -buddhism/

If this is not necessary, then why do it? Personal accomplishments? Job?
I have no idea who this guy is, so I clicked on his "About" section. Holy bloat. Talk about wanting to write as much as possible about oneself as you can. Anyways, I sifted through a couple of his articles, and given what he says, who he regards as important scholars today anno 2022 (Herbert Guenther), and so on, how he writes about Buddhadharma and so on, has led me to close the tab. I'll leave it at that.


You might like this instead

https://palisuttas.wordpress.com/2016/0 ... t-schools/


What do you think?
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Malcolm »

Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:50 pm
What do you think?
I think this guy is a perennialist. I have no patience with that sort of inclination.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:06 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:50 pm
What do you think?
I think this guy is a perennialist. I have no patience with that sort of inclination.
Oh...I thought he's strong defense of Mahayana and Tantra against fundamentalist sravakayana make him the opposite of Perennialist. I don't know tho.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Malcolm »

Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:16 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:06 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:50 pm
What do you think?
I think this guy is a perennialist. I have no patience with that sort of inclination.
Oh...I thought he's strong defense of Mahayana and Tantra against fundamentalist sravakayana make him the opposite of Perennialist. I don't know tho.
He equates rainbow body with Christian stuff. He also writes stuff on Aleister Crowley, Taoism, etc.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

:rolleye: Oh ok then. I just like his take on Early Buddhist Schools. That's all
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Malcolm »

Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:07 pm :rolleye: Oh ok then. I just like his take on Early Buddhist Schools. That's all
There is no reason to criticize early Buddhist schools.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Astus »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:18 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:07 pm :rolleye: Oh ok then. I just like his take on Early Buddhist Schools. That's all
There is no reason to criticize early Buddhist schools.
'There will be twenty schools that will keep the Dharma in existence for my future disciples. Members of all those twenty schools will attain the four realizations, and their tripiṭakas will be equal, without being inferior, intermediate, or superior. It is like the water of the ocean that is undifferentiated in taste. It is as if a man had twenty sons. This is truly what the Tathāgata has preached! Mañjuśrī, the two original schools derive from the Mahayana and from the perfection of wisdom. Mañjuśrī, just as earth, water, fire, wind, and space are that upon which all sentient beings reside, so is the perfection of wisdom. The Mahayana is the place from which all the śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and buddhas derive.'
(The Sutra of Mañjuśrī’s Questions, ch 15, BDK ed, p 97)
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
Nalanda
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:18 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:07 pm :rolleye: Oh ok then. I just like his take on Early Buddhist Schools. That's all
There is no reason to criticize early Buddhist schools.

I think he defended Mahayana using Early Buddhist schools and criticised Sravakayana fundamentalists today.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Svalaksana »

Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:15 pmI have no idea who this guy is, so I clicked on his "About" section. Holy bloat. Talk about wanting to write as much as possible about oneself as you can. Anyways, I sifted through a couple of his articles, and given what he says, who he regards as important scholars today anno 2022 (Herbert Guenther), and so on, how he writes about Buddhadharma and so on, has led me to close the tab. I'll leave it at that.
Could you please ellaborate on the matter concerning Herbert Guenther, for those unaware, such as me? I came across his name in the past, although I am not familiar with his writings. Is there any problematic issues pertaining to his scholarly work? Is it because there are as of today other knowledgeable figures who are better references in regards to Buddhadharma? Or is it something else? Thanks in advance.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Svalaksana wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:46 pm
Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:15 pmI have no idea who this guy is, so I clicked on his "About" section. Holy bloat. Talk about wanting to write as much as possible about oneself as you can. Anyways, I sifted through a couple of his articles, and given what he says, who he regards as important scholars today anno 2022 (Herbert Guenther), and so on, how he writes about Buddhadharma and so on, has led me to close the tab. I'll leave it at that.
Could you please ellaborate on the matter concerning Herbert Guenther, for those unaware, such as me? I came across his name in the past, although I am not familiar with his writings. Is there any problematic issues pertaining to his scholarly work? Is it because there are as of today other knowledgeable figures who are better references in regards to Buddhadharma? Or is it something else? Thanks in advance.

I think the poster is saying that if your top Buddhologist is one from the 20th century, when there are many great ones, even alive today, there must be something terribly off with your calculations.

I think that's reasonable.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Norwegian »

Svalaksana wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:46 pm
Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:15 pmI have no idea who this guy is, so I clicked on his "About" section. Holy bloat. Talk about wanting to write as much as possible about oneself as you can. Anyways, I sifted through a couple of his articles, and given what he says, who he regards as important scholars today anno 2022 (Herbert Guenther), and so on, how he writes about Buddhadharma and so on, has led me to close the tab. I'll leave it at that.
Could you please ellaborate on the matter concerning Herbert Guenther, for those unaware, such as me? I came across his name in the past, although I am not familiar with his writings. Is there any problematic issues pertaining to his scholarly work? Is it because there are as of today other knowledgeable figures who are better references in regards to Buddhadharma? Or is it something else? Thanks in advance.
He is way out of date. His translations are also very strange at times, with a seeming desire to make things a lot more complicated than necessary.

For example, in the blog, the person refers to Guenther as more or less the primary authority/translator of Guru Padmasambhava in the English language. To me, this is exceptionally strange when as an example, we have translations today related to Guru Padmasambhava, by Erik Pema Kunsang, Padmakara group, and others, actual translators who are practitioners in authentic lineages.
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:48 pm I think the poster is saying that if your top Buddhologist is one from the 20th century, when there are many great ones, even alive today, there must be something terribly off with your calculations.

I think that's reasonable.
Yes.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

I'm glad I got 2nd opinion from you guys coz I was going to devote the next 7-9 years of my life into following his Mahayana studies curiculum. :crying:
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Zhen Li »

Nalanda wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:18 am I'm glad I got 2nd opinion from you guys coz I was going to devote the next 7-9 years of my life into following his Mahayana studies curiculum. :crying:
One of his teachers, Suwanda Sugunasiri, attempted to run a cult out of a University of Toronto college. His articles are full of creative fabrications.

I am not saying Alex Duncan is tarred with the same brush, but that you should regard his posts as essentially the opinion of one person who is as fallible as you or me. The difference is that if we post on Dharma Wheel, we will quickly have someone point out if we have slipped up or missed something, or even contribute further, but relying on someone's blog, which does not have any critical comments or feedback, is quite shaky.

However, if you are sincerely interested in studying the Mahāyāna, his reading list is not a bad place to start.

Just a few suggestions:
To read the entire Pali Canon is a bit excessive if your goal is to study the Mahāyāna. There are good summaries like "In the Buddha's Words" which do a good job of distilling the essentials. Also, there are now many translations from the Āgamas out there, which sometimes earlier recensions than what we have in Pali, so it is worth looking into those.

As for the Mahāyāna list, rather than ignoring everything else and reading only Prajñāpāramitā, you might want to look at what Duncan suggested and compare it with what people suggested here. There are a lot of commonalities, especially the Navagrantha that I listed at first. Just note that for the Tathāgataguhya, he links to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra, which is completely different. The Tathāgataguhya can be found in English here.

While the Prajñāpāramitā is core to the Mahāyāna, if you are ignorant of the rest of the tradition, you will simply not be well informed. You should at least read through the other sūtras, even if you don't make a close study of them. And by a close study, I mean going through chapter by chapter and discussing them with a teacher (ideally who knows Sanskrit, and/or Tibetan, and/or Chinese) or with someone who has more experience studying Mahāyāna. Commentaries are useful for knowing how the tradition conceived of itself and its doctrines, but you will notice that they have limitations in comparison with studying the sūtras directly.

As for his Buddhist studies and western philosophy section, just forget it. It's completely out of date anyway. Buddhist studies as a field and Buddhist practice are different. There are too many ideas that have been posited in the books he has suggested that have by now been refuted, and those refutations, in turn, have been refuted, that if you are hoping to keep up with the scholarship you need to do it full time and that time is far better spent reading the sūtras directly.
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:55 pm Also I love that you called out before that some Chinese Sutras are not Sutras. lol
Platform Sutra for example.
The problem is the translation of the word 經. This is just used to mean a classic work or book, like the Daodejing (道德經). It does not actually mean "sūtra." Because the early translators were attempting to translate by engaging in "categorising concepts" (格義 geyi), which involves matching non-Chinese concepts with native Chinese ones, like from Daoism and Ruism, later translators remedied this, so, there's a distinct difference between many (but not all) early translations and later translations. The actual transliteration of sūtra in Chinese is 修多羅 or 素呾纜, but since 經 became so established, it was not adjusted. So the Platform "Classic," is not a sūtra for that reason.
Can we rely on some notable sutras of East Asian Tradition / Pureland Tradition as sutras?
The Pure Land sūtras are among the earliest Indian manuscripts. They are in the same historical Indian strata as the Prajñāpāramitā, and are also essential to a thorough education in the Mahāyāna, so one ought not to neglect them.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Thank you. Thank you.

:good:
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Svalaksana »

Norwegian wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:59 pm He is way out of date. His translations are also very strange at times, with a seeming desire to make things a lot more complicated than necessary.

For example, in the blog, the person refers to Guenther as more or less the primary authority/translator of Guru Padmasambhava in the English language. To me, this is exceptionally strange when as an example, we have translations today related to Guru Padmasambhava, by Erik Pema Kunsang, Padmakara group, and others, actual translators who are practitioners in authentic lineages.
For someone who is still undergoing study of Buddhism, especially by oneself for the most part, there are many scholars, authors and translators to sieve, so thank you very much for your response, this forum sure has a very positive and pedagogical character to it, thanks to people like you, and many others.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Zhen Li wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 4:33 am
Nalanda wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:18 am I'm glad I got 2nd opinion from you guys coz I was going to devote the next 7-9 years of my life into following his Mahayana studies curiculum. :crying:
One of his teachers, Suwanda Sugunasiri, attempted to run a cult out of a University of Toronto college. His articles are full of creative fabrications.

I am not saying Alex Duncan is tarred with the same brush, but that you should regard his posts as essentially the opinion of one person who is as fallible as you or me. The difference is that if we post on Dharma Wheel, we will quickly have someone point out if we have slipped up or missed something, or even contribute further, but relying on someone's blog, which does not have any critical comments or feedback, is quite shaky.

However, if you are sincerely interested in studying the Mahāyāna, his reading list is not a bad place to start.

Just a few suggestions:
To read the entire Pali Canon is a bit excessive if your goal is to study the Mahāyāna. There are good summaries like "In the Buddha's Words" which do a good job of distilling the essentials. Also, there are now many translations from the Āgamas out there, which sometimes earlier recensions than what we have in Pali, so it is worth looking into those.

As for the Mahāyāna list, rather than ignoring everything else and reading only Prajñāpāramitā, you might want to look at what Duncan suggested and compare it with what people suggested here. There are a lot of commonalities, especially the Navagrantha that I listed at first. Just note that for the Tathāgataguhya, he links to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra, which is completely different. The Tathāgataguhya can be found in English here.

While the Prajñāpāramitā is core to the Mahāyāna, if you are ignorant of the rest of the tradition, you will simply not be well informed. You should at least read through the other sūtras, even if you don't make a close study of them. And by a close study, I mean going through chapter by chapter and discussing them with a teacher (ideally who knows Sanskrit, and/or Tibetan, and/or Chinese) or with someone who has more experience studying Mahāyāna. Commentaries are useful for knowing how the tradition conceived of itself and its doctrines, but you will notice that they have limitations in comparison with studying the sūtras directly.

As for his Buddhist studies and western philosophy section, just forget it. It's completely out of date anyway. Buddhist studies as a field and Buddhist practice are different. There are too many ideas that have been posited in the books he has suggested that have by now been refuted, and those refutations, in turn, have been refuted, that if you are hoping to keep up with the scholarship you need to do it full time and that time is far better spent reading the sūtras directly.
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:55 pm Also I love that you called out before that some Chinese Sutras are not Sutras. lol
Platform Sutra for example.
The problem is the translation of the word 經. This is just used to mean a classic work or book, like the Daodejing (道德經). It does not actually mean "sūtra." Because the early translators were attempting to translate by engaging in "categorising concepts" (格義 geyi), which involves matching non-Chinese concepts with native Chinese ones, like from Daoism and Ruism, later translators remedied this, so, there's a distinct difference between many (but not all) early translations and later translations. The actual transliteration of sūtra in Chinese is 修多羅 or 素呾纜, but since 經 became so established, it was not adjusted. So the Platform "Classic," is not a sūtra for that reason.
Can we rely on some notable sutras of East Asian Tradition / Pureland Tradition as sutras?
The Pure Land sūtras are among the earliest Indian manuscripts. They are in the same historical Indian strata as the Prajñāpāramitā, and are also essential to a thorough education in the Mahāyāna, so one ought not to neglect them.

Months now and I still appreciate the work you do. I started reading your translation and just by reading the intros, I am already greatly indebted to your 'labor of love' work. Thanks for doing this. Your translations are a gift. The 9 list where you ordered them from easy to difficult is much much appreciated. That suggestion will not be ignored. I am working on that list. 3 months in and I just made it to your preface of the T312, perhaps in 5-10 years, I'll be finished reading the entire list. Looking forward for more of your translations.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Nalanda »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:57 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:50 pm
Yeah it looks like it hasn't been translated yet by 84000.co
Everything you really need to know about Mahāyāna is in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras and their commentaries. This is the class of sutras, according to Sakya Paṇḍita, the Buddha spent the most time teaching (ten years), out of his 45 year long career. These are the most important sūtras of Mahāyāna, the most extensive class of sūtras (20 volumes in their Tibetan translation), and the sūtras most commented upon in surviving Indian sources.
Is there a list of these 20 volumes? I assume they are not all in English and are currently only being translated by 84000 and FPMT.

So as per our tradition, I would turn to commentaries that are in English. Which ones are commonly read or studied?
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by FiveSkandhas »

Astus wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:56 am ...the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment...

... the Vimalakirti Sutra....
Oh man oh man you hit some very important nails bang-on on the head with these two underrated masterpieces imho...

I'm most truly and humbly impressed. They are both very close and important to me personally. Of course I respect the big high-profile names too, but your inclusion of these two on particular...wow.

Are you me?

I will also add some non-Sutra titles that strike personal chords: the four works attributed to Bodhidharma, the Contemplation of Suchness (Shinnyo kan) attributed to Genshin, and The essentials of the Vinaya tradition by Gyōnen, and Kukai's analysis of the Sutra of Golden Light.

And a contemporary masterpiece: Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism by Jacqueline I. Stone

And for those of you who have a taste for Pure Land thought (I know its not everyone's cup of tea): the Kyōgyōshinshō of Shinran Shonin, everything by Master Ippen you can get your hands on and all the scholarly work on him you can find; the Jodoron, attributed to Bodhisattva Vasubandhu, and the anonymous Anjin ketsujō shō
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Zhen Li »

Nalanda wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 9:07 am Months now and I still appreciate the work you do. I started reading your translation and just by reading the intros, I am already greatly indebted to your 'labor of love' work. Thanks for doing this. Your translations are a gift. The 9 list where you ordered them from easy to difficult is much much appreciated. That suggestion will not be ignored. I am working on that list. 3 months in and I just made it to your preface of the T312, perhaps in 5-10 years, I'll be finished reading the entire list. Looking forward for more of your translations.
Thank you, your words mean a lot to me. To know that someone has benefited is all the encouragement someone needs to continue. I'll admit that my introduction for the Ajātaśatru sūtras was quite short, but to hear that you found the Tathāgataguhya introduction helpful is encouraging, and I'll make them a priority in future.

There's a lot in the pipeline...

I feel like there's not a satisfactory Diamond Sutra translation, despite it being overdone, and I am thinking of doing a version that takes into account all the Chinese versions and the Sanskrit. Maybe the first half with parallel translations, and then the second half with them critically assembled into a readable text. Or just publish the latter and make the former available online. I'd like to do something similar with the Pure Land sūtras—none of the translations is super reliable, and to my knowledge, none of them note variants between versions.

But at the moment my focus has been on the Mahāsaṃnipāta. It is a big collection but little work has been done on it. I have one person helping now who is new to translation but is doing a great job; an extra hand is extremely helpful. So, if anyone here who reads/translates Chinese would be interested in chipping in, it would go so much faster as a team—this is how they were done historically. I will edit the final product to make sure the style is consistent and prepare a thorough introduction. The hard copy will probably be two volumes.

Some other little things: an English Jōdo Shinshū liturgy book in English verse and some more general works on Pure Land Buddhism—not translations.
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Re: So Many Mahayana Sutras - Do They All Agree - Why So Many?

Post by Zhen Li »

Nalanda wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 9:31 am
Malcolm wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:57 pm
Nalanda wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:50 pm
Yeah it looks like it hasn't been translated yet by 84000.co
Everything you really need to know about Mahāyāna is in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras and their commentaries. This is the class of sutras, according to Sakya Paṇḍita, the Buddha spent the most time teaching (ten years), out of his 45 year long career. These are the most important sūtras of Mahāyāna, the most extensive class of sūtras (20 volumes in their Tibetan translation), and the sūtras most commented upon in surviving Indian sources.
Is there a list of these 20 volumes? I assume they are not all in English and are currently only being translated by 84000 and FPMT.

So as per our tradition, I would turn to commentaries that are in English. Which ones are commonly read or studied?
I think there have been a few threads on Prajñāpāramitā translations and commentaries. Didn't you start one of them?

Commonly studied: Haribhadra's Āloka, if at all.

Actually, I don't know if any of this is "commonly studied." There's a passage in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā which says that in the future there will be very very few people who will study and uphold this sūtra. I remember when we went through this with my reading group, we all looked at each other and smiled.

I can't answer about the Tibetan, but in Chinese, Xuanzang's Mahāprajñāpāramitā translation is 600 fascicles alone. It is actually made up of 16 different "assemblies." The sūtras which are most commonly studied from within the collection are those already available in English (although they're mostly translated from Sanskrit). I am not sure about the Sanskrit Śatasahasrikā (100,000 line version) and whether it is a collection of assemblies like the Chinese, but I think it is. There's an edition by Pratapacandra Ghosa in four volumes, but I don't think it's complete... Not sure.
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