The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom: Relating Early Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā to Āgama Literature
Bhikkhu Analayo, Wisdom, 2025
Bhikku Analayo is a prodigious scholar, having written hundreds of articles and published several books focusing primarily on what is commonly referred to now as “Mainstream Buddhism.” The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom is the latest book in his oeuvre and in many respects, his most ambitious to date.
The book takes its cue from the Lokaṣema translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā into Chinese during the second century CE. Analayo divides the text into manageable sections, and explores the themes he finds in each section, engaging in extensive cross-referencing with the Pali Canon and the Āgamas to find similar themes. He adds to this mix the fragments of the Ghandhari version of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā.
While Analayo takes pains to try and convince the reader he is not making an argument for a reconstructed Early Buddhism, in fact that is just what he admits to in the closing chapter:
There is indeed a difference between the Buddha depicted in Āgama literature and in Early-Aṣṭa-Mahāyāna, and I believe the present study confirms that it is meaningful to consider the former depiction to be on the whole earlier than the latter. At the same time, however, there is also a remarkable degree of continuity that can easily be missed.1
The readers of this text will certainly be treated to a great deal of information about the Āgamas, all interesting, and a version of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā translated into Chinese. What the reader will not learn here, however, is the teaching of Prajñāpāramitā. Bhikkhu Analayo’s goal here is not really explicate the Prajñāpāramitā, as he admits:
Since in the present study I attempt as much as possible to approach the Perfection of Wisdom from the viewpoint of Āgama literature, the distinction between two truths is not part of my proposed readings.2
Some of Analayo’s points are a little stretched. Consider his perspective on nonarising and nonceasing:
Whereas the doctrine of momentariness no longer acknowledges a more or less prolonged period of gradual change between arising and ceasing, the apparent response to such notions in the Perfection of Wisdom can at first sight seem to abrogate arising and ceasing with its proclamation of the nonarising and nonceasing of all dharmas. Closer inspection shows that such statements are best read as intending the nonarising from somewhere and nonceasing toward somewhere of dharmas—that is, they would serve to clarify that there are no entities that come from elsewhere, instead of which any dharma is merely the product of conditions interacting in the present.3
This interpretation is entirely realist in its sentiment. If a dharma cannot be found and is empty of inherent existence, how is it meaningful to suggest that dharmas are “merely the product of conditions interacting in the present?” No dharma can be found in such an instance, which leads Nāgārjuna and Buddhapalita to point out that “production from conditions” is merely a convention and does not refer to anything real.
In the end, the book is an extended intellectual exercise in Buddhist comparative literature, providing very little insight into the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. While those who are interested in textual criticism will certainly enjoy this book—especially those who are likely to give credit to the text critical approach to Buddhist texts and history—those who are seeking to learn more about the meaning of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā will come away disappointed. That said, there is very little yet available on Āgamic literature—preserved primarily in Chinese—and it is in this area that the reader will find this text the most edifying.
Analayo, Bhikkhu. The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom: Relating Early Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita to Agama Literature (p. 381). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Analayo, Bhikkhu. The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom: Relating Early Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita to Agama Literature (p. 79). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Analayo, Bhikkhu. The Perfection of Wisdom in First Bloom: Relating Early Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita to Agama Literature (p. 178). (Function). Kindle Edition.
There was a comment I sent to Bhikkhu Analayo when I was reading through the manuscript version of this book. I'm not sure whether it influenced the final product. I don't know what page it would pertain to in the published book, but you wouldn't have to pin down the page in the book to determine whether my comment is valid. It seems to be in agreement with the point you make, with regard to non-arising and non-ceasing. It seems Ven. Analayo blurs important differences in order to establish continuities.
Here is the comment I sent him (using abbreviations):
I see a significant difference between the idea of “not conceiving” in the Pali suttas and the idea of not “taking a stand upon” or “not apprehending” in the Prajñāpāramitā literature. SN IV 202, for instance, says that “not conceiving” and “not proliferating,” etc., means not conceiving by way of such notions as “I am” or “this I am,” etc. (see the text for details): ‘‘‘Asmī’ti, bhikkhave, maññitametaṃ, ‘ayamahamasmī’ti maññitametaṃ.” The Pali commentaries elaborate by explaining that not conceiving (or not proliferating) means “not conceiving by way of craving, conceit, and views.”
But the disciple in training still has to observe “This is form, this is the origin of form, this is the vanishing of form,” etc. and he still has to contemplate “This is anicca, dukkha, anattā.” Such contemplations involve a certain type of objectification of dharmas, an “apprehension” (upalabdhi) of dharmas: not as constituting a self or having a substantial identity, but as in some way being objectively existent. The Prajñāparamita bodhisattva, in contrast, does not objectify anything. It seems the emphasis in the PP Sutras on all dharmas as being empty, as being signless, as being unapproachable, and ungraspable, etc., is not intended to eliminate craving, conceit, and views in the same way as is intended in Early Buddhism. These practices may hold the defilements at bay, but they are not aimed at eradicating them, at destroying them at the root level.
There seems to be a strategic reason for this shift in emphasis, for this new language about the modes of contemplation. Observing the five aggregates as such, and discerning them as anicca, dukkha, and anatta, leads to nibbidā, virāga, vimutti (disengagement, dispassion, liberation). That is precisely what the bodhisattva aspirant has to avoid; for if he climbs the ladder of insight leading to vimutti, he will wind up a śrāvaka and terminate his bodhisattva career. Thus the challenge for the bodhisattva is to practice the meditative contemplations that promote the growth of prajñā, while avoiding the practices that engender the prajñā of a śrāvaka, which arises by focusing on the phenomenal characteristics of five aggregates.
I am not sure that I’m making myself clear, but it seems that your attempt to connect the principles of Early Buddhism with the PP Sutra blurs this important distinction, this major shift in emphasis and orientation.