Da zhidu lun

The Dà zhìdù lùn (abbreviated DZDL), (Chinese: 大智度論, Wade-Giles: Ta-chih-tu lun; Japanese: Daichido-ron (as in Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 1509); The Treatise on the Great Prajñāpāramitā) is a massive Mahāyāna Buddhist treatise and commentary on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (The Sūtra of Transcendental Wisdom in Twenty-five Thousand Lines). The title has been reconstructed into Sanskrit as Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa. and Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra. It is an encyclopedic compendium or summa of Mahayana Buddhist doctrine. The Dà zhìdù lùn was translated into Chinese by the Kuchean monk Kumārajīva (344–413 CE) and his Chinese team. The colophon to this work claims it is written by the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 2nd century), but various scholars such as Étienne Lamotte have questioned this attribution. According to Hans-Rudolf Kantor, this work was "fundamental for the development of the Chinese Sanlun, Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan schools." The DZDL survives only in the Chinese translation of 100 scrolls made by the Kuchean monk Kumārajīva from 402 to 406 CE. According to the primary sources, the Indic text consisted of 100,000 gāthās (lines), or 3,200,000 Sanskrit syllables, which was condensed by Kumārajīva by two-thirds to obtain the 100 scrolls of the Chinese translation. Kumārajīva translated the first 34 scrolls in full, and abridged the rest of the material. It was translated by Kumārajīva, working together with his student Sengrui, who "stopped writing, argued for the right translation," and "checked his translation against the original for the entire day" as well as with the Qin emperor Yao Xing (366–416 CE). The DZDL became a central text for the East Asian Sanlun ( J. Sanron) or Madhyamaka school and also influenced all the major schools of Chinese Buddhism. The DZDL acted as a kind of Mahāyāna encyclopedia for East Asian Buddhist thought, similar to the status of the Abhisamayalamkara in Tibetan Buddhism. Traditionally, it is held that the text is by the Indian Madhyamaka philosopher Nagarjuna.