Introduction

i.1In The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika,” the Buddha Śākyamuni offers a teaching to Śakra, chief of the gods, whom in this sūtra he addresses by the epithet Kauśika. The Buddha summarizes the various meanings of the perfection of wisdom and equates the characteristics of the perfection of wisdom with the characteristics of all phenomena, the five aggregates, the five elements, and the ten perfections. The sūtra places particular emphasis on the nonduality of conventional phenomena and emptiness, and culminates in a list of the eighteen kinds of emptiness.

i.2The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika” is a brief text barely four Tibetan folios in length and, just as in the case of The Heart Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, Toh 21), this prajñāpāramitā scripture also incorporates elements of both sūtra and tantra (in the form of mantra). It has therefore been variously classified in the Tibetan Kangyur, where it is included in both the Perfection of Wisdom section and the Tantra section.

i.3The figure of Kauśika/Śakra also features as an important interlocutor in the larger prajñāpāramitā sūtras, and The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika” presents a short summary of some of the elements found in those larger sūtras. Nevertheless, there does not appear to be a direct relationship between The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika” and the dialogues with Kauśika that appear elsewhere in the prajñāpāramitā sūtras.

i.4Notably, the last part of the teaching contains a concluding verse that also appears verbatim in The Vajra Cutter Sūtra (Vajracchedikā, Toh 16) and two further verses that match the opening homage in Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way (Mūla­madhyamaka­kārikā, Toh 3824).

i.5Since there is no colophon to the Tibetan translation of this sūtra, we cannot say who translated The Perfection of Wisdom “Kauśika” into Tibetan. The title, however, is found in both the Denkarma and Phangthangma imperial catalogs, so we do know that the sūtra was translated into Tibetan at least by the early ninth century.

i.6In addition to the Tibetan translation, the sūtra also exists in Sanskrit and Chinese. The extant Sanskrit text is a Central Asian manuscript that was edited by Conze (1956) and later reprinted by Vaidya (1961). The dating of the Sanskrit text is uncertain, but, as noted by Conze, it largely patterns with the Chinese translation that can be dated to the late tenth or early eleventh century ᴄᴇ. This suggests a relatively late date for the extant Sanskrit manuscript, perhaps even later than the Tibetan translation. Unlike the Tibetan translation, which only contains a single mantra at the conclusion of the teaching, the Sanskrit text (and the Chinese translation) ends with several additional mantras that likely represent later accretions. For the reader’s convenience, we have in the appendices included a diplomatic edition of the Sanskrit text and a complete English translation from the Sanskrit.

i.7The colophon to the Chinese translation (Taishō 249) notes that the sūtra was translated on imperial command by Dānapāla (Shihu 施護, ?–1017 ᴄᴇ), an Indian scholar-monk from Uḍḍiyāna who translated over one hundred works into Chinese. Just like the Sanskrit text, the Chinese translation has a slightly different textual structure and content than the Tibetan, and in the endnotes we have noted major differences between the Tibetan and Chinese versions.

i.8As well as Conze’s edition of the Sanskrit manuscript and Vaidya’s reprint of that edition, an English translation by Conze with a brief introduction was published in 1973, and a French translation by Driessens in 1996.

i.9The present translation is based on the Tibetan version in the Degé Kangyur, in consultation with the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace manuscript. The Tibetan text was also compared to the Sanskrit as well as the Chinese translation.