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Prajñā (, 734), was a 9th century Buddhist monk born in Kapisa, near modern
Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Ac ...
, Afghanistan. He visited
Tang China The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingd ...
and contributed several important retranslations of Sanskrit
sutra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an a ...
s into Chinese. Some of his main works are: * The ''
Avatamsaka Sutra The ' ( IAST, sa, 𑀅𑀯𑀢𑀁𑀲𑀓 𑀲𑀽𑀢𑁆𑀭) or ''Buddhāvataṃsaka-nāma-mahā­vaipulya-sūtra (The Mahāvaipulya Sūtra named “Buddhāvataṃsaka”)'' is one of the most influential Mahāyāna sutras of East Asian B ...
'' () * The Heart Sutra () * The ''Mahayana Sutra of Mind Meditation from the
Jataka tales The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...
'' () Prajñā reportedly befriended the Japanese monk
Kūkai Kūkai (; 27 July 774 – 22 April 835Kūkai was born in 774, the 5th year of the Hōki era; his exact date of birth was designated as the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the Japanese lunar calendar, some 400 years later, by the Shingon s ...
, future founder of
Shingon Buddhism Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. ...
, during his pilgrimage to China. He is said to have helped Kūkai learn and understand Sanskrit source texts. According to the '' Zhenyuan Catalogue'', Prajñā translated a work known as the ''Satparamita Sutra'' into Chinese with the help of the Christian monk Jingjing. This work does not survive.David Scott (1985), "Christian Responses To Buddhism in Pre-Medieval Times", ''Numen'' 32(1): 88–100.


See also

*
Silk Road transmission of Buddhism Buddhism entered Han China via the Silk Road, beginning in the 1st or 2nd century CE. The first documented translation efforts by Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE via the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory bordering th ...


References


Further reading

*Keown, Damian (2003). Dictionary of Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Prajna Medieval India Indian Buddhist monks 9th-century Indian monks 9th-century Buddhist monks Afghan monks Afghan Buddhists Indian Buddhists