Kāśyapaparivarta.
One of the oldest surviving Mahāyāna sūtras — quoted in Nāgārjuna's own circle, preserved in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and four separate Chinese translations, teaching a "middle way of true observation" that treats emptiness itself as something never to be seized as one more fixed view. The Buddha teaches it directly to his disciple Mahākāśyapa, moving from catalogues of bodhisattva conduct through a great chain of similes to the sūtra's philosophical core, then closes with a parable of five hundred confused monks awakened by a monk the Buddha conjures for the purpose. This collection translates the whole text across nine pages.
How to read this collection
This is a mid-length sūtra by the standards of this site — roughly 11,090 characters, close in scale to the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra — but it has no chapter divisions of its own the way that sūtra does. Instead it moves through long, unbroken runs of parallel "four dharmas" lists, an extended chain of similes, a dense philosophical core on the middle way, and a closing narrative parable, so this collection splits it at natural topic boundaries rather than at even intervals, grouping the long catalogues together and giving the philosophically dense middle section and the closing parable more room of their own.
No commentary on this sūtra by any premodern figure survives in any tradition. The modern scholar-monk Yin Shun (印順, 1906–2005) lectured on this very text, but as a living author's work it remains under Taiwan copyright until 2055 per this site's commentator-vetting rule, and is not used here. This collection's reading notes are Ru-Yi Meditation Center's own, offered honestly as such.
What each page includes
- The Chinese source text beside our English translation, verified against the base text for full coverage.
- Reading notes — Ru-Yi Meditation Center's own, since no ancient commentary on this sūtra survives.
- Cross-references to this site's Madhyamaka corpus — the Middle Treatise, Twelve Gate Treatise, and Hundred Treatise — wherever this sūtra's own middle-way teaching anticipates their later, more systematic argument.
The Sūtra's Own Structure
The Buddha's teaching to Mahākāśyapa moves through five distinct registers in turn: catalogues of bodhisattva conduct in matched "four dharmas" lists (Parts 1–3), a great chain of similes for bodhisattva virtue (Part 4), the sūtra's philosophical core on the middle way of true observation (Parts 5–6), a warning against monastic hypocrisy built around the true nature of the mind and the fourfold typology of śramaṇa (Parts 7–8), and a closing narrative parable of confusion resolved through paradox (Part 9).
Read by Part
All nine parts are translated. Each links to the full bilingual text with reading notes.
Translation Notes
Recurring terms, kept consistent across all nine parts. See the full translation notes for the complete glossary, and also this site's note on translation method.