AVADĀNA, Sanskrit term for a category of Buddhist narrative literature. Three such popular Buddhist stories are known through fragments of…

AVALOKITEŚVARA-DHĀRAṆĪ, name given by H. W. Bailey to a Buddhist text written in archaizing Late Khotanese (q.v.). The text was…

ĀQSŪ, town in eastern Turkestan, modern Chinese Sin-kiang, about six km to the north of the river Āqsū. It lies…

APARIMITĀYUḤ-SŪTRA, the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahāyāna tradition. It is concerned with the merit obtained by…

AṄGULIMĀLĪYA-SŪTRA, a Buddhist text concerning the conversion to Buddhism of a robber called Aṅgulimāla. The work is known from Pali…

ANANTAMUKHANIRHĀRADHĀRĀṆĪ, the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahayanist Tantric tradition. The only surviving fragment of the original…

AMṚTAPRABHADHĀRAṆĪ, name given by H. W. Bailey to a fifty-line text in Late Khotanese (transcribed in Bailey, Khotanese Texts V,…

AMOGHAPĀŚAHṚDAYA, “the heart or essence (Sanskrit hṛdaya) of the Amoghapāśa ritual,” the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the…

AMITĀYUS, Sanskrit name of one of the transcendental Buddhas, the so-called Dhyāni-Buddhas, of later Buddhism. He became associated with Sukhāvatī,…

ADHYARDHAŚATIKĀ PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ (“The perfection of wisdom in 150 lines”), title of a Praǰñāpāramitā text in Tantric style. It contains fifteen…

ACHMA (a Turkish word meaning “opening”), a town in the Domoko (Dumaqu) oasis near Khotan, so named with reference to…