The Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra (Sanskrit); simplified Chinese: 佛说观无量寿佛经; traditional Chinese: 佛說觀無量壽佛經; pinyin: Fóshuōguānwúliàngshòufójīng; Vietnamese: Phật Thuyết Kinh Quán Vô Lượng Thọ Phật; English: Sutra on the Visualization of [the Buddha] Immeasurable Life) is a Mahayana sutra in Pure Land Buddhism, a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Tibetan painting of Amitābha in his pure land of Sukhāvatī
A fragment of a copy of the Amitayurdhyana Sutra at Wenzhou Museum.
The Mahāyāna sūtras are a broad genre of Buddhist scripture (sūtra) that are accepted as canonical and as buddhavacana in Mahāyāna Buddhism. They are largely preserved in Sanskrit manuscripts, and translations in the Tibetan Buddhist canon and Chinese Buddhist canon. Several hundred Mahāyāna sūtras survive in Sanskrit, or in Chinese and Tibetan translations. They are also sometimes called Vaipulya ("extensive") sūtras by earlier sources. The Buddhist scholar Asaṅga classified the Mahāyāna sūtras as part of the Bodhisattva Piṭaka, a collection of texts meant for bodhisattvas.
Nepalese Thangka with Prajñāpāramitā, the personification of transcendent wisdom (prajñā), holding a Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra
A Tibetan depiction of Nagarjuna receiving Mahāyāna sūtras from the Nāgas (on the right)
A painting by Nicholas Roerich (1925) depicting Nāgārjuna in the realm of the Nagas, where the Prajñāpāramitā was said to have been hidden
Folio from a manuscript of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra depicting Shadakshari Lokesvara, early 12th century, opaque watercolor on palm leaf
