[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Religion and philosophy](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion) › [Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923) › c19.s2.7 # Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.7 Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.7 - **Language:** English ### [c19.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2.7) Of the Mahāyāna or Vaipulya Sūtras proper, vasts texts of which some were probably first written in Prakrit but later turned into Sanskrit, while others from the first were composed in the language which had become dominant for all literary purposes, the most important for the doctrine of negativism or the void (çūnyatā) is the series of Prajñāpāramitās,² extolling the perfection of intuition, the highest perfection which a Buddha can have. The texts are of various size; tradition asserts on the one hand that the original was in 125,000 çlokas or lines of thirty-two syllables; then was reduced to 100,000, 25,000, 10,000 and 8,000, while another version makes the 8,000 line text the original of which the others are mere amplifications; a large variety extending from 100,000 lines to 700 lines is indeed known to us. The length in fact is unimportant; the substance is given in the short Vajracchedikā, the intuition ‘which cuts like a diamond’, which translated into Chinese in A. D. 401 forms with the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, in which the metaphysics is neatly packed into a magic formula, the leading text of the Shin-gon sect in Japan. It is impossible to extricate the real facts of the composition of the text; some form in 10,000 lines existed in Chinese by A. D. 179. The doctrine of the void is here taught without argument merely in the form of the dogmatic negation of every concept both in its positive and in its negative form on the authority of the Buddha. - [Previous: c19.s2.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2.6) - [Next: c19.s2.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2.8) - [Up: c19.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2) ## Linked texts (2) - [Prajñāpāramitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.prajnaparamita) — Sanskrit - [Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.prajnaparamita.hrdaya) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.religion.keith-1923.c19.s2.7) · Pramāṇa