This is puzzling. Equally puzzling, and hence the
enormous number of commentaries written on it, is
what the text means. But the second thing the origi-
nal title might suggest is that any search for meaning
in this text may be fundamentally misdirected. Ac-
cording to its original title, the “wisdom” it refers to
does not explain or describe. It cuts or shatters. This
in turn might suggest that a religious text of this sort
was not meant to convey ideas or doctrine, but was
rather designed to affect, rearrange, or shatter estab-
lished ways of seeing oneself, the world, and conven-
tional religious practices. At one point in the text the
monk Subhuti is described as bursting into tears of
amazement and wonder at what the Buddha was re-
ported to have said. This response, a rather unmonk-
ish reaction, is apparently the anticipated response to
the “message” of the text, and it is virtually certain that
large numbers of those who have tried to more sys-
tematically analyze it have also been reduced to tears.
See also:Chan School; PrajñaparamitaLiterature
Bibliography
Conze, Edward, trans. Buddhist Wisdom Books.London: Allen
and Unwin, 1958.
Müller, F. Max, ed. The Sacred Books of the East,Vol. 49: Bud-
dhist Mahayana Texts, Part 2: xii–xix; 110–144. London: Ox-
ford University Press, 1894.
Schopen, Gregory. “The Manuscript of the Vajracchedika
Found at Gilgit: An Annotated Transcription and Transla-
tion.” In Studies in the Literature of the Great Vehicle,ed. Luis
O. Gómez and Jonathan A. Silk. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1989.GREGORYSCHOPENDIETThe correct obtaining, preparation, and consumption
of food have been always been important to the
SAN ̇GHA. The Buddha’s own religious career prior to
his enlightenment, when at one point he subsisted on
a single grain of rice per day, showed that liberation is
not possible through extreme fasting. But equally to be
avoided is attachment to the sensual pleasure of eat-
ing. Thus, food should be seen as necessary to sustain
the body but as fundamentally repulsive, somewhat
like unpleasant-tasting medicine. There are medita-
tions that focus on the repulsiveness of food, and foodDIET
A scroll printed in 868 C.E., found at Dunhuang, containing the Chinese text of the Diamond Sutra.The Granger Collection, New York.
Reproduced by permission.