The Prajnaparamita Manuscript from Gandhara - New Light on the Genesis of Mahayana Buddhism

Mr. Harry Falk will present the oldest known manuscript of a fundamental text of Mahayana Buddhism, the Prajnaparamita. He is editing it. Two booklets have already been published. There is no need to stress the importance for the history of Buddhism of this discovery. It is a text older than the Sanskrit versions, which is more Middle-Indian, with a high probability that the text was composed in what is now called the "great Gandhara". The story of the genesis of the mahayana begins, thanks to this discovery, to rest on something other than hypotheses.