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prajñā-pāramitā

A Dictionary of Buddhism | 2004 | 700+ words | Copyright

prajñā-pāramitā (Skt.). The Perfection of Insight, the last of the Six Perfections (ṣaḍ-pāramitā) that make up the central element of the Mahāyāna path. The cultivation of insight results in the direct realization of emptiness (śūnyatā) and is regarded by many Mahāyāna texts, such as the Prajñā-pāramita Sūtra corpus, as the culmination of the Bodhisattva's practice, although it is only the sixth (known as abhimukhī-bhūmi) of the ten Bodhisattva Levels (daśa-bhūmi). In older literature the term is translated somewhat inaccurately as the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’.

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