Diamond Sutra
A copy of the Tang dynasty–Chinese version of the Diamond Sūtra was found among the Dunhuang manuscripts in 1900 by Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu and sold to Aurel Stein in 1907.
[9] Birchbark manuscript fragments of several Mahāyāna sūtras have been discovered at the site, including the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (MS 2385), and these are now part of the Schøyen Collection.
By the end of the Tang dynasty (907) in China there were over 80 commentaries written on it (only 32 survive), such as those by prominent Chinese Buddhists like Sengzhao, Xie Lingyun, Zhiyi, Jizang, Kuiji and Zongmi.
[10][1] Copying and recitation of the Diamond Sutra was a widespread devotional practice, and stories attributing miraculous powers to these acts are recorded in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Mongolian sources.
[12] Its major themes are anatman (not-self), the emptiness of all phenomena (though the term 'śūnyatā' itself does not appear in the text),[13] the liberation of all beings without attachment and the importance of spreading and teaching the Diamond Sūtra itself.
[14] According to Shigenori Nagatomo, the major goal of the Diamond Sūtra is: "an existential project aiming at achieving and embodying a non-discriminatory basis for knowledge" or "the emancipation from the fundamental ignorance of not knowing how to experience reality as it is".
[15] Further examples of the Diamond Sūtra's via negativa include statements such as:[16] The Buddha is generally thought to be trying to help Subhūti unlearn his preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality.
According to David Kalupahana the goal of the Diamond Sūtra is "one colossal attempt to avoid the extremist use of language, that is, to eliminate any ontological commitment to concepts while at the same time retaining their pragmatic value, so as not to render them totally empty of meaning".
Kalupahana explains this final reconstruction as meaning: "that each concept, instead of either representing a unique entity or being an empty term, is a substitute for a human experience which is conditioned by a variety of factors.
"[13] According to Paul Harrison, the Diamond Sūtra's central argument here is that "all dharmas lack a self or essence, or to put it in other words, they have no core ontologically, they only appear to exist separately and independently by the power of conventional language, even though they are in fact dependently originated".
[16]Throughout the teaching, the Buddha repeats that successful memorization and elucidation of even a four-line extract of it is of incalculable merit, better than giving an entire world system filled with gifts and can bring about enlightenment.
[19]Paul Harrison's translation of the Sanskrit version states:[16] A shooting star, a clouding of the sight, a lamp, An illusion, a drop of dew, a bubble, A dream, a lightning's flash, a thunder cloud—
This is the way one should see the conditioned.Red Pine's translation about life showed that the text read:[20] So you should view this fleeting world— A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 15th day of the 4th month of the 9th year of Xiantong [11 May 868].
