{"id": "anattalakkhana_sutta", "title": "Anattalakkhana Sutta", "alt_title": "The Discourse on the Not-Self Characteristic", "ref": "SN 22.59", "tradition": "theravada", "vehicle": "early", "author": null, "century": "-5c", "language_original": "pali", "emptiness_type": "anatta_of_person", "emptiness_moves": ["five_aggregates_not_self", "impermanence_implies_nonself", "not_mine_not_I_not_myself"], "source_url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.than.html", "license": "public_domain", "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", "ingested": true}
{"id": "milindapanha_chariot", "title": "Milindapanha — Chariot Argument", "alt_title": "The Questions of King Milinda, Book II ch.1", "ref": "Mil 25-28", "tradition": "theravada", "vehicle": "early", "author": "Nagasena (attributed)", "century": "-1c", "language_original": "pali", "emptiness_type": "anatta_of_person", "emptiness_moves": ["chariot_argument", "conventional_vs_ultimate_designation", "no_self_in_parts_or_whole"], "source_url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/davids/milinda.html", "license": "public_domain", "format": "html", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "heart_sutra", "title": "Heart Sutra", "alt_title": "Prajnaparamitahrdaya Sutra", "ref": "T 251", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "prajnaparamita", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation", "emptiness_moves": ["form_is_emptiness", "five_aggregates_empty_of_svabhava", "negation_of_all_abhidharma_categories", "no_path_no_attainment_in_ultimate", "gate_gate_mantra"], "source_url": "https://www.lotsawahouse.org/words-of-the-buddha/heart-sutra", "license": "public_domain", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "diamond_sutra", "title": "Diamond Sutra", "alt_title": "Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra", "ref": "T 235", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "prajnaparamita", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation", "emptiness_moves": ["x_is_not_x_therefore_called_x", "no_marks_of_buddha", "no_fixed_dharma", "raft_metaphor", "no_self_no_beings_no_soul_no_person"], "source_url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/olds/diamondsutra.html", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "ashtasahasrika_prajnaparamita", "title": "Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita", "alt_title": "Perfection of Wisdom in 8000 Lines", "ref": null, "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "prajnaparamita", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation", "emptiness_moves": ["all_dharmas_empty", "bodhisattva_not_apprehending_emptiness", "emptiness_of_emptiness", "skill_in_means"], "source_url": "https://www.84000.co/translation/toh10", "license": "CC_BY_NC_ND_4.0", "format": "pdf", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "vimalakirti_sutra", "title": "Vimalakirti Sutra", "alt_title": "Vimalakirtinirdesa", "ref": "T 475", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "mahayana_sutra", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "nonduality", "emptiness_moves": ["thunderous_silence", "nondual_entry", "sickness_and_emptiness", "liberation_without_renunciation", "thirty_two_bodhisattvas_on_nonduality"], "source_url": "https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "lotus_sutra_ch2", "title": "Lotus Sutra — Chapter 2: Expedient Means", "alt_title": "Saddharmapundarika Sutra Chapter 2", "ref": "T 262 ch.2", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "mahayana_sutra", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "buddha_wisdom_emptiness", "emptiness_moves": ["three_vehicles_as_one_vehicle", "tathagata_wisdom_unfathomable", "reality_mark_of_all_dharmas", "skilful_means_and_truth"], "source_url": "https://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/lotus-sutra.pdf", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}
{"id": "lankavatara_sutra", "title": "Lankavatara Sutra — Selected Sections", "alt_title": "Lankavatara Sutra", "ref": "T 671", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "yogacara_mahayana", "author": null, "century": "4c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "mind_only_emptiness", "emptiness_moves": ["alayavijnana_as_ground", "three_svabhavas", "buddha_nature_as_skillful_sunyata", "no_external_objects", "discrimination_as_false_imagining"], "source_url": "https://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/lanka-sutra.pdf", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}
{"id": "samdhinirmocana_sutra", "title": "Samdhinirmocana Sutra — Selected Sections", "alt_title": "Sutra Unravelling the Thought", "ref": "T 676", "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "yogacara_mahayana", "author": null, "century": "3c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "three_natures_emptiness", "emptiness_moves": ["three_turnings_explicit", "three_natures_parikalpita_paratantra_parinishpanna", "characteristic_emptiness", "emptiness_of_the_two", "dependent_nature_not_completely_nonexistent"], "source_url": "https://www.84000.co/translation/toh106", "license": "CC_BY_NC_ND_4.0", "format": "pdf", "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.", "translator": "84000 Translation Project", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "mmk_nagarjuna", "title": "Mulamadhyamakakarika", "alt_title": "Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Nagarjuna", "century": "2c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation_systematic", "emptiness_moves": ["no_causation_from_self_other_both_neither", "no_motion", "no_time", "no_self_of_persons_or_dharmas", "nirvana_not_different_from_samsara", "emptiness_of_emptiness", "two_truths_doctrine"], "source_url": "https://www.academia.edu/", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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", "chapters_included": ["1", "18", "22", "23", "24", "26"], "ingested": true}
{"id": "vigrahavyavartani_nagarjuna", "title": "Vigrahavyavartani", "alt_title": "The Dispeller of Disputes", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Nagarjuna", "century": "2c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation_reflexive", "emptiness_moves": ["emptiness_not_a_thesis", "prasanga_method_explained", "no_intrinsic_validity_of_cognition", "self_application_of_emptiness", "no_svabhava_in_words_either"], "source_url": "http://www.landofenlightenedwisdom.org/", "license": "public_domain", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}
{"id": "sunyatasaptati_nagarjuna", "title": "Sunyatasaptati", "alt_title": "Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Nagarjuna", "century": "2c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation", "emptiness_moves": ["conventional_truth_without_svabhava", "being_and_nonbeing_both_rejected", "dependent_origination_as_emptiness", "expressions_empty_of_own_nature"], "source_url": "http://www.landofenlightenedwisdom.org/text/CL.pdf", "license": "public_domain", "format": "pdf", "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", "acquired": "openly available web text", "ingested": true}
{"id": "ratnavali_nagarjuna", "title": "Ratnavali", "alt_title": "Precious Garland", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Nagarjuna", "century": "2c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation_ethical", "emptiness_moves": ["emptiness_and_compassion_connected", "person_as_designation_on_aggregates", "bodhisattva_and_emptiness", "form_body_of_buddha_via_merit"], "source_url": "https://www.tibetanclassics.org/", "license": "public_domain", "format": "text", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}
{"id": "bodhicharyavatara_ch9", "title": "Bodhicharyavatara — Chapter 9: Wisdom", "alt_title": "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, Chapter 9", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Shantideva", "century": "8c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation_dialectical", "emptiness_moves": ["two_truths_as_framework", "refutation_of_Cittamatra", "refutation_of_Samkhya_self", "no_self_of_persons_analytical", "no_self_of_dharmas_analytical", "diamond_splinter_argument", "fourfold_logical_analysis", "emptiness_enables_compassion", "meditation_on_emptiness_as_path"], "source_url": "https://www.lotsawahouse.org/indian-masters/shantideva/bodhicharyavatara", "license": "public_domain", "format": "html", "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", "acquired": "openly available PDF", "chapters_included": ["9"], "ingested": true}
{"id": "prajnaparamita_ratnaguna", "title": "Ratnaguna-samcaya-gatha", "alt_title": "Verses Summing Up the Perfection of Wisdom", "ref": null, "tradition": "mahayana", "vehicle": "prajnaparamita", "author": null, "century": "1c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "svabhava_negation", "emptiness_moves": ["bodhisattva_not_apprehending_beings", "prajnaparamita_not_grasped", "skill_in_means_and_emptiness", "emptiness_not_making_beings_vanish"], "source_url": "https://www.accesstoinsight.org/", "license": "public_domain", "format": "html", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}
{"id": "chandrakirti_madhyamakavatara", "title": "Madhyamakavatara — Chapter 6 (Perfection of Wisdom)", "alt_title": "Introduction to the Middle Way, Chapter 6", "ref": null, "tradition": "madhyamaka_prasangika", "vehicle": "shastra", "author": "Chandrakirti", "century": "7c", "language_original": "sanskrit", "emptiness_type": "prasangika_emptiness", "emptiness_moves": ["refutation_of_alayavijnana", "six_fold_chariot_analysis_extended", "emptiness_of_all_eight_collections_of_consciousness", "conventional_self_as_mere_imputation", "two_truths_as_two_levels_of_analysis"], "source_url": "https://www.lotsawahouse.org/", "license": "CC_BY_NC", "format": "html", "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.", "ingested": false, "acquired": "planned — not yet ingested"}