The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a prominent Mahayana Buddhist sūtra. It is also titled Laṅkāvatāraratnasūtram and Saddharmalaṅkāvatārasūtra. A subtitle to the sutra found in some sources is "the heart of the words of all the Buddhas".
Copy of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra written in Chinese from Dunhuang in the British Library
Mount Malaya (also known as Sri Pada), Sri lanka, the main setting of the sutra.
View of the sea from Mount Malaya showing the shadow of the mountain. The simile of the ocean and the waves is used in the sutra to illustrate the relationship between the pure consciousness and the defiled mind.
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
