title: Anattalakkhana Sutta

alt_title: The Discourse on the Not-Self Characteristic

tradition: theravada

vehicle: early

language_original: pali

format: html

notes: The founding text — the Buddha's second discourse. Applies anatta to each of the five aggregates in turn. The template all later emptiness arguments inherit.

translator: Bhikkhu Sujato

acquired: openly available web text


title: Milindapanha — Chariot Argument

alt_title: The Questions of King Milinda, Book II ch.1

author: Nagasena (attributed)

notes: The chariot analogy. Nagasena demonstrates there is no Nagasena findable in body, feelings, or their combination — first systematic use of dependent-designation to undermine personal identity. Bridges Pali anatta to Madhyamaka.

translator: T.W. Rhys Davids


title: Heart Sutra

alt_title: Prajnaparamitahrdaya Sutra

tradition: mahayana

vehicle: prajnaparamita

language_original: sanskrit

format: pdf

notes: The most compressed Prajnaparamita text. Operates by negating every Abhidharma category systematically. 'Form is emptiness' is not identity but mutual dependence. The mantra at the end points beyond conceptual emptiness.

translator: Nyingma Monlam / multiple


title: Diamond Sutra

alt_title: Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra

notes: Uses a distinctive self-negating rhetoric: 'X is not X, therefore it is called X.' This is not paradox but anti-reification. 32 sections each perform one negation of a concept the reader might grasp. The raft metaphor is the key: even the dharma must be relinquished.

translator: Public domain translation


title: Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita

alt_title: Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines

notes: The oldest and most expansive Prajnaparamita text. Introduces 'emptiness of emptiness' — emptiness is not a thing to grasp. The bodhisattva trains in prajnaparamita without apprehending it as a dharma. Foundational for all later Mahayana.

translator: 84000 Translation Project


title: Vimalakirti Sutra

alt_title: Vimalakirtinirdesa

emptiness_type: nonduality

notes: The layman Vimalakirti's thunderous silence on nonduality is the most famous gesture in Mahayana literature. Chapter 9 (Entry into Nonduality) has thirty-two bodhisattvas each give an account of nondual entry — Vimalakirti's silence surpasses them all. Emptiness here is enacted not stated.

translator: Robert Thurman


title: Lotus Sutra — Chapter 2: Expedient Means

alt_title: Saddharmapundarika Sutra Chapter 2

notes: Chapter 2 introduces 'the mark of all dharmas as they really are' — the ten suchnesses. Emptiness here is not negation but the inconceivable thusness of things. Bridges to tathagatagarbha strand.

acquired: planned — not yet ingested


title: Lankavatara Sutra — Selected Sections

alt_title: Lankavatara Sutra

notes: The sutra behind Chan/Zen. Introduces alayavijnana (storehouse consciousness) and argues external objects are mind-only projections. Emptiness of external objects follows from this. Also uses tathagatagarbha language that tensions with strict Madhyamaka.


title: Samdhinirmocana Sutra — Selected Sections

alt_title: Sutra Unravelling the Thought

notes: The sutra where the three turnings of the wheel are made explicit. Yogacara answer to Madhyamaka: the paratantra (dependent) nature is not completely empty — only the parikalpita (imagined) is empty. This is the rangtong/shentong fault line.


title: Mulamadhyamakakarika

alt_title: Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way

tradition: madhyamaka

vehicle: shastra

author: Nagarjuna

notes: The systematic treatise. 27 chapters each deconstruct a fundamental category — causation, motion, fire-and-fuel, time, contact, nirvana. Each uses prasanga (consequence) method: assumes the position and derives absurdity. Chapter 24 (the Four Noble Truths chapter) is the philosophical heart — without emptiness, the path itself is impossible.

translator: Geshe Kelsang Wangmo (2018) — selected chapters

acquired: openly available PDF


title: Vigrahavyavartani

alt_title: The Dispeller of Disputes

format: text

notes: Nagarjuna defends against the objection: 'If all things are empty, your words refuting svabhava are also empty — self-defeating.' His answer: exactly, words have no svabhava either, and that is why they can function conventionally. The most important text for understanding that emptiness is not nihilism and not a thesis.


title: Sunyatasaptati

alt_title: Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness

notes: More focused than MMK, more accessible. Lindtner translation available as plain text. Stanza 3 is the key: things are empty because they lack substance in causes, conditions, totality, or separately. Stanza 2 introduces the emptiness of designations themselves.

translator: Christian Lindtner


title: Ratnavali

alt_title: Precious Garland

notes: Bridges emptiness to ethics and the bodhisattva path — what Shantideva will later develop. Emptiness does not undermine compassion; it enables it by dissolving the self/other boundary. Key text for the Nagarjuna-to-Shantideva arc.


title: Bodhicharyavatara — Chapter 9: Wisdom

alt_title: Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Chapter 9

author: Shantideva

notes: The most dialectically rich presentation of emptiness in any text. Shantideva argues as Madhyamika against Abhidharmikas, Cittamatrins, Samkhya. The diamond splinter argument on causation parallels MMK ch.1. Crucially, Ch.9 ends with emptiness as the basis of compassion — the two truths held together in practice.

translator: Padmakara Translation Group


title: Ratnaguna-samcaya-gatha

alt_title: Verses Summing Up the Perfection of Wisdom

notes: The verse summary of Prajnaparamita. Conze translation available. Shorter than Ashtasahasrika, more tractable for the corpus. Contains the key move: the bodhisattva liberates beings while knowing there are no beings — the ethical paradox of emptiness resolved.


title: Madhyamakavatara — Chapter 6 (Perfection of Wisdom)

alt_title: Introduction to the Middle Way, Chapter 6

author: Chandrakirti

notes: Chandrakirti's systematic development of Nagarjuna — establishes the Prasangika school. Chapter 6 extends the chariot argument sixfold. Explicitly refutes Yogacara's alayavijnana. The text that defines the Tibetan standard for emptiness — all four schools are measured against it.