Selected Features of the Sūtra
One set of terms particular to the Prajñāpāramitā texts, and essential to a complete understanding of them, is the three kinds of knowledge. They are (1) all-aspect omniscience (sarvākārajñatā, rnam pa thams cad mkhyen pa nyid), synonymous in most respects with buddhahood, the complete and perfect awakening specific to a tathāgata, and including the realization of the true nature of phenomena, their being unborn, and their full extent; (2) knowledge of the aspects of the path (mārgajñatā, lam gyi rnam pa shes pa nyid), the knowledge that evolves in bodhisattvas as they train on their own path with all its different phases, but also including knowledge of the paths of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas as well as knowing that all paths are unborn and without essential nature of their own; and (3) knowledge of all the dharmas (sarvajñatā, thams cad shes pa nyid), the knowledge realized by śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas that the dharmas such as the aggregates, elements, and sense fields are devoid of the self of an individual. This third kind of knowledge can easily be confused, as one reads parts of the text, with what in other works is called “omniscience” (sarvajñatā, thams cad mkhen pa nyid), in the sense of a buddha’s complete awakening. These three are defined in the text in chapter 53 (beginning at 53.537). They feature as the first three of the eight main topics of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (see above) and are explained in extensive detail in that text and its sub-commentaries.
As already mentioned, the sūtra, like the other Prajñāpāramitā works, contains extensive lists of the dharmas of both affliction and purification, mostly drawn from the same classifications of phenomena so characteristic of the Buddha’s teachings that are found compiled in the Abhidharma or other treatises. Unique to the Hundred Thousand, and perhaps its central distinguishing feature, is that unlike the other long sūtras, these lists of the dharmas are given in full, without abbreviation. This is the primary reason for the length of the Hundred Thousand vis-à-vis the other long Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. These lists are indeed expounded, in part, to make sure that not a single dharma is taken to exist essentially or be otherwise misconstrued. But the dharmas themselves are not meant to be erased entirely from view, as their constant repetition in full in the Hundred Thousand attests, and the importance of understanding or practicing them, as appropriate, is at the very least implicitly upheld, and might even be seen as obvious from the very fact of the repetitions in full themselves. Being so detailed, the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras thus represent a significant reference for a wide variety of fundamental sets of Mahāyāna Buddhist knowledge, and this text in particular has served as a repository of such knowledge—not only in China, where the vast commentary based on it and attributed to Nāgārjuna, the Dazhidu lun, became a standard encyclopedia of Mahāyāna thought, but less obviously in India and Tibet, too.
Probably the best-known Prajñāpāramitā text of all is the so-called “Heart Sūtra,” more formally known as The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother (Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, Toh 21).74 Although its origins are difficult to establish with certainty, it may well have started as an extract of the longer sūtras,75 and it is interesting in that light to see passages in this text reminiscent of it. Notably, in the second chapter of this text at 2.191, the passage starting “Physical forms are indeed emptiness. Emptiness is indeed physical forms” is strikingly similar to the most memorable statement in the Heart Sūtra, and continues for some paragraphs to run parallel to that statement. However striking the parallel, there are interesting differences, and the context provided by the much longer preceding and subsequent discussion is different, too.