Tradition

Prajnaparamita

Overview

Prajñāpāramitā means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Transcendental Knowledge" in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Prajñāpāramitā refers to a perfected way of seeing the nature of reality, as well as to a particular body of Mahāyāna scriptures (sūtras), known as the Prajñāpāramitā sutras, which includes such texts as the Heart Sutra and Diamond Sutra.

The word Prajñāpāramitā combines the Sanskrit words prajñā "wisdom" (or "knowledge") with pāramitā, "excellence," "perfection," "noble character quality," or "that which has gone beyond," "gone to the other side," "transcending." Prajñāpāramitā is a central concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism and is generally associated with ideas such as emptiness (śūnyatā), 'lack of svabhāva' (essence), the illusory (māyā) nature of things, how all phenomena are characterized by "non-arising" (anutpāda, i.e. unborn) and the Madhyamaka thought of Nāgārjuna. Its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva path.

According to Edward Conze, the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras are "a collection of about forty texts ... composed somewhere on the Indian subcontinent between approximately 100 BC and AD 600." Some Prajnāpāramitā sūtras are thought to be among the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Life is one of these hallucinations and death is its counterpart. Joy is one part of these hallucinations, and misery the other part, and so on. What have you to do with life or death? These are all creations of the mind. This is called giving up desires of enjoyment either in this life or another.
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Prajnaparamita is.
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The objects of opinion are many things, and the ternary number denotes a multitude, as "Thrice happy Grecians"; for which reason Pythagoras admits the ternary. This sect of philosophers is called the Italic, by reason Pythagoras started his school in Italy; his hatred of the tyranny of Polycrates enforced him to abandon his native country Samos.
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
States what Prajnaparamita is.
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For we also are called Thy righteousness; for so saith a certain servant of Thine, That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Therefore since a certain created wisdom was created before all things, the rational and intellectual mind of that chaste city of Thine, our mother which is above, and is free and eternal in the heavens (in what heavens, if not in those that praise Thee, the Heaven of heavens?…
of Hippo Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
States what Prajnaparamita is.
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Prajnaparamita

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