Prajñāpāramitā and the Development of Emptiness — How Did the Early Teaching of Non-Self Expand into the Claim That All Phenomena Are Empty of Intrinsic Essence?

What Does Prajñāpāramitā Mean?

In Sanskrit: prajñā — wisdom or discriminating insight, pāramitā — perfection, completion. Thus Perfection of Wisdom. But wisdom here does not mean possessing a great deal of information, having read many books, or being able to win a philosophical debate. It means insight that does not reify phenomena. The bodhisattva must not cling to self, others, the path, attainment, Buddhahood, or even wisdom itself as some solid thing. This is one of the most radical elements of Prajñāpāramitā literature.

Prajñāpāramitā is not one sutra. Prajñāpāramitā is not the title of a single book but a large family of Mahāyāna texts. It includes various long and short compositions: the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, larger versions in 18,000, 25,000, and 100,000 lines, the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā — Diamond Sutra, the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya — Heart Sutra, and many other texts. There was therefore no single moment when someone wrote “the Prajñāpāramitā.” The corpus grew, expanded, contracted, was translated, and was editorially reshaped over centuries.

How Early Is It?

Here we have exceptionally important manuscript evidence. A Gāndhārī manuscript on birch bark contains a Prajñāpāramitā text very close to a predecessor of the later Aṣṭasāhasrikā. Radiocarbon analysis places it with high probability between 47 and 147 CE. On the basis of the text, Falk and Karashima conclude that a Prajñāpāramitā tradition related to Lokakṣema’s later Chinese version already existed in the second half of the first century CE. The manuscript itself may even be a copy of an older predecessor. This is extremely important. Prajñāpāramitā is therefore one of the earliest materially attested Mahāyāna textual currents.

But the Aṣṭasāhasrikā is not a frozen original book. Here too we must be careful. The Sanskrit Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā as we know it today is the result of a long textual history. Earlier philological research already showed that the text received additions and changes over time. The Gāndhārī manuscript is therefore better understood as an early relative or predecessor of the textual family, not as an identical copy of the present Sanskrit Aṣṭasāhasrikā.

What Came Before Mahāyāna Emptiness?

First, anattā — non-self. In early Buddhism we have already seen that form is not self, feeling is not self, perception is not self, formations are not self, and consciousness is not self. Why? Because they are impermanent, conditioned, subject to change, and not completely under our control. This is one of the foundational early analyses.

Anattā is not merely the statement “a person has no soul.” That would be too narrow. Early Buddhism does not remove one self only to discover a true hidden self behind it. It analyzes the person as processes, aggregates, sense fields, and conditioned events. The problem is identification: This is mine. This I am. This is my self. Anattā dismantles precisely that.

The second great foundation is dependent arising. Paṭiccasamuppāda. Phenomena arise because of conditions: when certain conditions are present, certain phenomena arise; when conditions cease, their result can also cease. Buddhist analysis therefore understands the world very early as a conditioned and relational process. This will later become extremely important for understanding emptiness.

But we must not make the equation too quickly. Later Madhyamaka will connect dependent arising and emptiness very explicitly. But if we simply projected that fully developed equation back into the earliest Nikāyas or the earliest Prajñāpāramitā, we would flatten the history too much. It is more accurate to say that the early teaching on conditionality provides an important conceptual background. Prajñāpāramitā expands emptiness. Madhyamaka will later systematize the relationship philosophically.

Suññatā already exists in the early suttas. Yes. As we have already seen, MN 121 Cūḷasuññata Sutta and MN 122 Mahāsuññata Sutta use the concept suññatā. The claim “Mahāyāna invented emptiness” is therefore incorrect. But the early use of emptiness is not simply identical with later Prajñāpāramitā.

MN 121 — empty of what? In MN 121, emptiness is very concrete. A field can be empty of a certain presence. For example: there is no village, no people, no particular disturbance. But something else is still present. Meditative practice then gradually lets go of more and more contents. Emptiness here is closely connected with the absence of a particular phenomenon and the progressive refinement of meditative experience. This is not yet the same textual function as in Prajñāpāramitā.

So Anattā and Śūnyatā Are Not Synonyms

They are related. But they are not interchangeable. In early Buddhism, anattā primarily dismantles identification with a self. Prajñāpāramitā begins to use emptiness much more broadly with respect to aggregates, dharmas, the bodhisattva, Buddhahood, attainment, the path, and wisdom. This is where an important development becomes visible.

Early Prajñāpāramitā and the five aggregates. Lokakṣema’s early Chinese version of Prajñāpāramitā already contains a way of seeing the five aggregates from the perspective of emptiness. Modern research on its language shows that the rhetoric of emptiness is already an important element of this early textual layer. The question is therefore no longer only “Is any aggregate the self?” A broader question appears: How are we to understand the status of the aggregates themselves?

But here we must be careful with svabhāva. In later Indian Buddhist philosophy, a central term will be svabhāva — roughly, intrinsic nature, existence from itself, independent essence. Madhyamaka will explain emptiness very clearly as the absence of svabhāva. But we should not automatically attribute this precisely formulated later philosophical model to every earliest Prajñāpāramitā passage.

So what will we say? That early Prajñāpāramitā radicalizes non-reification, describes phenomena and aggregates as empty, undermines their fixation, and rejects taking them as solid foundations. Later Madhyamaka will express this logic much more systematically in the language of svabhāva. In this way we preserve continuity without projecting a later system back into an earlier layer.

Why Are Dharmas a Problem Too?

Imagine the early analysis: the person is not a permanent self. A person is composed of aggregates, sense processes, mental factors. But here a new form of clinging can arise. Perhaps there is no permanent person. But what if we say: the basic elements of analysis themselves exist with complete solidity? Prajñāpāramitā attacks this possibility too.

Not only the person, but the analytical parts are not the final metaphysical foundation either. This is one of the most important shifts. Buddhist categories are useful. Aggregates help dismantle the self. Sense fields help analyze experience. But Prajñāpāramitā warns: do not turn these tools of analysis into new substances. This is a very radical move.

A tool can become a new object of clinging. First we say: there is no permanent self. Then we may begin clinging to the idea that “only the five aggregates truly exist.” Prajñāpāramitā cuts through that step too. Not because the aggregates never function, but because they must not become a new metaphysical absolute.

The chariot helps again. Recall the chariot. It is not merely the wheel, axle, or yoke. Nor is it some mysterious substance in addition to its parts. We use the name chariot for a certain arrangement, function, and relation of parts. This is a good introduction to thinking that we designate things dependently and conventionally. But later Mahāyāna analysis goes further still. Even the parts do not possess a completely independent status.

Does That Mean Nothing Exists?

No. That would be nihilism. Phenomena have effects: pain hurts, fire burns, food nourishes, words wound, and actions have consequences. Buddhist emptiness is therefore not the claim that nothing exists. The issue is how things exist, not whether they appear at all.

Emptiness is not some hidden absolute substance. This is equally important. Emptiness is not ether, energy, cosmic consciousness, Brahman, a space behind phenomena, or an absolute substance. If we turned emptiness into the most real thing in the universe, we would once again do exactly what the critique was directed against: reification.

Why Does This Matter for the Bodhisattva?

Because the bodhisattva can create a very subtle new self. I am saving beings. I am accumulating merit. I am developing the pāramitās. I will become a Buddha. Spiritual practice can thus turn into an identity project. Prajñāpāramitā tries to remove this too.

Generosity without the triangle of clinging. The bodhisattva gives. But must not cling solidly to donor, recipient, or gift. This does not mean nobody gives anything. It means the act is carried out without constructing a metaphysical and ego-centered triangle: I – you – my merit.

Here wisdom joins compassion. The bodhisattva does not use emptiness to withdraw from others. It is used for non-egoistic action. If one does not solidify oneself as savior, the other as a fixed victim, and the act as one’s eternal merit, help can become less possessive. This is one reason Prajñāpāramitā so strongly connects wisdom with the bodhisattva path.

The Diamond Sutra will sharpen this. Later we will encounter the famous paradox: the bodhisattva should lead innumerable beings toward liberation, yet should not cling to the concept being. This sounds contradictory. But the point is precisely to dismantle reification without dismantling compassionate action.

The path itself can also be empty. This is the next radical move. A person can cling to the Buddha, Dhamma, nirvāṇa, the path, pāramitās, or emptiness. Prajñāpāramitā also dismantles spiritual objects of clinging. In this it comes very close to the logic we already encountered in the raft simile of MN 22. The Dhamma is necessary. But you do not carry the raft on your head once it has served its function.

Continuity without Identity

This is a good formula for its relationship to early Buddhism. Prajñāpāramitā is not MN 22 with a new title, nor MN 121 in Sanskrit. But it uses and radicalizes motifs that have older parallels: non-clinging, non-self, conditionality, emptiness, and the instrumental function of the teaching. It is continuity and transformation at the same time.

What about nirvāṇa? Nirvāṇa should not be reified either. A practitioner can begin to think: “there is an absolute eternal thing called nirvāṇa out there, which I will one day possess.” Mahāyāna emptiness will problematize that idea too. Not because liberation becomes meaningless, but because liberation itself must not be turned into a new object of metaphysical possession.

This prepares the ground for Madhyamaka. Later Nāgārjuna will systematically analyze arising, causation, motion, time, self, nirvāṇa, and Buddhist categories themselves. He will show that contradictions arise if we attribute independent intrinsic nature to them. There the connection between dependent arising and emptiness will become philosophically explicit. But we will not automatically read that back into every Prajñāpāramitā passage.

Prajñāpāramitā Is Not Madhyamaka in Sutra Form

This is an important safeguard. Prajñāpāramitā is sutra literature. Poetic. Paradoxical. Religious. Meditative. Ritual. Polemic and praise. Madhyamaka, by contrast, is a later philosophical systematization. There is a strong historical and conceptual connection between them. But they are not the same text in two forms.

Early Prajñāpāramitā also develops from within. More recent research on early Chinese and Gāndhārī versions shows that even within the earliest corpus there was not necessarily one fully developed theory of emptiness from the first sentence onward. Conceptual emphases also develop within the textual tradition itself. This is an important lesson. Mahāyāna is not only development after early Buddhism. Individual Mahāyāna traditions also have their own internal histories of development.

Subhūti. An important speaker in Prajñāpāramitā literature is Subhūti. This is interesting. He is not a newly invented Mahāyāna bodhisattva. He is a disciple from the older Buddhist world. The new literature therefore takes old figures, old settings, and the old sutra formula, and gives them a new doctrinal role.

This is a characteristic way Mahāyāna develops. The old is not necessarily discarded but reinterpreted. Subhūti becomes the great voice of Prajñāpāramitā. In the Heart Sutra, Śāriputra will listen to Avalokiteśvara. The Buddhist world of the Nikāyas and Āgamas is still present. But its internal hierarchy changes.

Paradoxical language. Prajñāpāramitā often speaks in a way that deliberately destabilizes a concept. Something is called X, but it must not be grasped as a truly independent X, and precisely for that reason it is conventionally called X. Such language is not bad writing. It is a method. The aim is: use a concept, but do not freeze it.

This will be crucial for the Diamond Sutra. The Diamond Sutra will almost systematically cut through concepts. Bodhisattva. Being. Merit. Dharma. Buddha. Perfection. This is precisely why it is called Vajracchedikā — something that cuts like a diamond.

The Heart Sutra will do something different. The Heart Sutra will compress the enormous Prajñāpāramitā tradition. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. There is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, Four Noble Truths, or attainment. If we read those statements without the whole background, they sound nihilistic. That is why the Heart Sutra must come after this article, not before it.

“There are no Four Noble Truths” does not mean “the Buddha was wrong.” It means that even Buddhist analytical categories must not become independent metaphysical things. Dukkha. Origin. Cessation. Path. They are crucial practical frameworks. But they are not absolute substances.

This is an extraordinarily radical relationship to one’s own teaching. Buddhism says something unusual here: use the teaching. Use it very seriously. But do not turn it into an object of clinging. This is one of the most interesting bridges between the early raft of the Dhamma and Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā.

Does emptiness destroy karma? No. If emptiness meant that nothing has consequences, it would conflict with basic Buddhist practice. But conditionality means precisely that things affect one another. An action changes conditions. A habit changes the mind. Meditation changes perception. Ethics changes consequences. If things were completely fixed and independent, change would not be possible at all.

Emptiness is precisely what makes change possible. This will later become a very important argument. If a person had an unchanging essence — an angry person existing by their own fixed nature — they could never cease to be angry. If ignorance were an unchanging substance, awakening would be impossible. The absence of fixed independent nature is therefore not a threat to liberation. It can be a condition of its possibility.

But caution: this is already a more systematic philosophical explanation. Such a formulation is especially clear in Madhyamaka. In Prajñāpāramitā we primarily have a textual practice of non-reification, emptiness, and non-grasping. We will therefore always distinguish sutra language from later philosophical interpretation of the sutra.

Emptiness and the two truths. Later Madhyamaka will systematize a distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth. Conventionally we speak of person, cup, karma, path, Buddha. Ultimate analysis does not find an independent essence in these phenomena. But we will not simply attribute this fully developed two-truths model to the earliest Prajñāpāramitā. This too is a later systematization.

So what happened? The safest historical map is this: early Buddhism develops non-self, conditionality, non-clinging, and several ways of speaking about emptiness. Different Buddhist analytical traditions then systematize dharmas. Early Prajñāpāramitā begins to use emptiness more radically with respect to these analytical elements, the bodhisattva path, and spiritual attainment itself. Later Madhyamaka philosophically systematizes this through the problem of intrinsic nature. This is not one straight line, but a historically related network of development.

Why is Prajñāpāramitā so important? Because it almost systematically removes every safe place for clinging. Do not cling to self. Do not cling to aggregates. Do not cling to the path. Do not cling to Buddhahood. Do not cling to merit. Do not cling to emptiness. Do not even cling to the wisdom that understands non-clinging. That is its great radicality.

Why “perfection of wisdom”? Because wisdom is not merely knowing the correct teaching. Perfect wisdom is not turning even the correct teaching into a new object of identity. “I understand emptiness.” “My view is final.” “I am more advanced.” That too can be clinging. Prajñāpāramitā turns its knife even against its own user.

Therefore emptiness itself must not become a view. This idea will later be formulated very clearly by Nāgārjuna. But the logic of Prajñāpāramitā already implies that if you turn emptiness into an absolute thing, you have missed its function. Emptiness is not a new metaphysical destination but a critique of reification.

Conclusion

Prajñāpāramitā does not begin from nothing. Before it we have anattā, impermanence, dependent arising, early suññatā practices, and non-clinging to the teaching. But its development cannot be reduced to the simple formula anattā became śūnyatā. More precisely, Prajñāpāramitā takes the broader Buddhist problem of clinging and radicalizes it. The question is no longer only “Where is the permanent self?” but increasingly “What are we still grasping as independently solid?” Persons? Aggregates? Dharmas? The path? Nirvāṇa? Buddhahood? Emptiness itself? Prajñāpāramitā’s answer is: do not make anything the final object of clinging. Later Madhyamaka will express this in more precise philosophical language: phenomena are empty of independent intrinsic nature. But Prajñāpāramitā is the great textual laboratory in which this mode of thought becomes the central wisdom of the bodhisattva. From it will emerge two of the most famous short forms:

the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra. Before turning to them, however, we now know the world from which they arise. With this, our transition into the Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā environment is complete. The next discussion therefore turns to one of the most recognizable short forms of this tradition: the Heart Sutra.

Sources and Literature

Primary Texts and Reference Editions

• 84000: The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Toh 12).
• SuttaCentral: MN 121, MN 122, and MN 22.

Research and Verification Literature

• Falk, Harry, and Seishi Karashima. “A First-Century Prajñāpāramitā Manuscript from Gandhāra – parivarta 1.” Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 15 (2012): 19–61.
• Conze, Edward. “The Composition of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 14.2 (1952): 251–262. DOI 10.1017/S0041977X00083865.
• Karashima, Seishi. A Critical Edition of Lokakṣema’s Translation of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2011.
• Anālayo, Bhikkhu. “Orality and Writing in Early Prajñāpāramitā.” Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology 27 (2024): 77–93.

Note: verification sources are part of the editorial apparatus. Where the original edition used during reconstruction was not preserved, a standard reference edition is not presented as the article’s presumed original source.