endowed with manuscripts of the navadharma,which
includes the following sutras: Saddharmapundarlka
(Lotus Sutra), Astasahasrika-prajñaparamita,LAN ̇KA-
VATARA-SUTRA, Das ́abhumis ́vara, Gandavyuha, Sam-
adhiraja,and SUVARNAPRABHASOTTAMA-SUTRA; plus
the LALITAVISTARA, a ́rasvakayana biography of the
Buddha that is built around guides to the main pil-
grimage sites of the Buddha’s life (Foucher), and the
Guhyasamaja-tantra,a Vajrayana work. These texts
and others express a range of doctrinal views and a
number of them were among those considered au-
thoritative and thus expounded by Mahayana doctri-
nal traditions, such as the MADHYAMAKA SCHOOLand
the YOGACARA SCHOOL.
Vajrayana.From the middle of the first millennium
C.E. until the demise of institutional Buddhism in In-
dia in the twelfth century, there began to appear Bud-
dhist tantric works, written in Sanskrit, employing
instrumental magic and ritual to achieve specific goals.
Retrospectively these have been assigned to four
classes: kriyaor “action” TANTRAS; caryaor “conduct”
tantras, dominated by the Mahavairocanabhisambodhi
Tantra(Tantra on the Perfect Awakening of Maha-
Vairocana); yogaor “meditation” tantras, dominated
by the Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha(Compendium on
the Essence of all the Tathagatas); and the anuttarayoga
or “supreme meditation” tantras, among which is in-
cluded the Guhyasamaja Tantra(Tantra on the Secret
Assembly). The last tantra composed in India before
the final demise of institutional Buddhism there was
the eleventh-century Kalacakra Tantra,a major work
seeking not just soteriological goals but also offering a
defense against contemporary Muslim domination.
Texts in the higher classes of tantra tend toward assert-
ing feminine representations of the ideal, employing an-
tinomian practices (e.g., consumption of forbidden
substances, sexual transgression of monastic rules and
caste boundaries), and, although written in relatively
normal Sanskrit, employ a secret or allusive vocabu-
lary called sandhyabhasa,in which actual referents are
disguised by euphemisms and elaborate symbolism. A
minor example of this appears in the opening phrase
of the Guhyasamaja Tantra,which forgoes the famil-
iar formula and asserts instead that the Buddha deliv-
ered the tantra while residing in the “vagina of the
Vajra Lady,” which is understood to mean “while re-
siding in the wisdom of enlightenment.”
Commentaries.This entire body of canonical mater-
ial inspired COMMENTARIAL LITERATUREusually com-
posed by known historical individuals, although this
too has fared badly and relatively little survives in its
original language. There is no definitive catalogue of
Sanskrit commentaries, but it has been estimated in re-
lation to the Tibetan canon that, of 120 commentaries
translated into Tibetan, only ninety remain current; al-
lowing for duplications, these offer comment on only
thirty-four, or 10 percent, of the sutras extant in the
same canon (Schoening). Commentaries vary widely
in length, from single folios to several volumes, and
some sutras have attracted much more attention than
others—the HEARTSUTRA, a short Perfection of Wis-
dom text, having seven commentaries. There are also
subcommentaries on primary commentaries, the
Abhisamayalamkaraapparently inspiring something in
excess of twenty.Noncanonical literature
Canonical materials alone do not exhaust Buddhist lit-
erature in Sanskrit. In fact, the larger part of the field
is made up of noncanonical materials, which are even
more diverse than their canonical counterparts. In the
following survey, the subcategories employed are by no
means exclusive, merging in some cases with each
other and with canonical materials.Narrative.Narrative is a, if not the, dominant genre
of Buddhist literature, and happily many examples
have survived into the present day. The canonical lit-
erature already reviewed is replete with narrative ma-
terials that were redacted to form new compilations of
pure narrative, such as the AVADANAS ́ATAKA(One Hun-
dred Stories of Edifying Deeds) and the DIVYAVADANA
(Divine Stories of Edifying Deeds), the latter probably
redacted from the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya. The
Avadanas ́atakasubsequently inspired further cycles of
verse renderings of sets of its stories, which were com-
posed probably in the second half of the first millen-
nium C.E. These texts, clearly the result of a concerted
attempt to revise the entire Avadanas ́atakaby what was
probably a tradition of specialists in this kind of nar-
rative literature, were termed mala(garlands), and typ-
ically employ a frame story involving a dialogue between
the emperor AS ́OKAand a monk named UPAGUPTA
(Strong).Ritual texts.The Nepalese community has preserved
a host of ritual texts of a variety of kinds. Many of these
are transmitted from Indian originals and include com-
pendia of meditation texts giving guidance on the vi-
sualization and worship of buddhas, bodhisattvas, and
various tantric figures, such as the Sadhanamalaand
Nispannayogavall.There are also more miscellaneousSANSKRIT, BUDDHISTLITERATURE IN