Diamond Sūtra

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Diamond Sūtra. A short Buddhist text from the corpus of the ‘Perfection of Wisdom’ (prajñāpāramitā) literature which compresses the essential teachings into a few short stanzas. Composed around 300 CE, it was translated into Tibetan and Chinese and has remained immensely popular as a summary of the doctrine of ‘emptiness’ (śūnyatā) or ‘voidness’ which lies at the heart of the Perfection of Wisdom writings. The full title of the text is ‘The Diamond-Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sutra’ (Vajracchedika-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra), and, as its name suggests, it is thought to have the power to cut through ignorance like a diamond for those who study and reflect upon its profound meaning.

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