translation.[711] The title is not used rigorously, but the works
bearing it are relatively obscure and it is not always clear to what
Sanskrit texts they correspond. It will be seen from the above that
the Chinese Tripitaka is a literary and bibliographical collection
rather than an ecclesiastical canon. It does not provide an authorized
version for the edification of the faithful, but it presents for the
use of the learned all translations of Indian works belonging to a
particular class which possess a certain age and authority.

The same characteristic marks the much richer collection of Mahayana
Sutras, which contains the works most esteemed by Chinese Buddhists.
It is divided into seven classes:

1. [Chinese: ] Pan-jo (Po-jo) or Prajnaparamita.[712]

2. [Chinese: ] Pao-chi or Ratnakuta.

3. [Chinese: ] Ta-chi or Mahasannipata.

4. [Chinese: ] Hua-yen or Avatamsaka.

5. [Chinese: ] Nieh-pan or Parinirvana.

6. [Chinese: ] Sutras in more than one translation
but not falling into any of the above five
classes.

7. [Chinese: ] Other sutras existing in only one translation.

Each of the first five classes probably represents a collection of sutras
analogous to a Nikaya and in one sense a single work but translated into
Chinese several times, both in a complete form and in extracts. Thus the
first class opens with the majestic Mahaprajnaparamita in 600 fasciculi
and equivalent to 200,000 stanzas in Sanskrit. This is followed by
several translations of shorter versions including two of the little
sutras called the Heart of the Prajnaparamita, which fills only one leaf.
There are also six translations of the celebrated work known as the
Diamond-cutter,[713] which is the ninth sutra in the Mahaprajnaparamita
and all the works classed under the heading Pan-jo seem to be alternative
versions of parts of this great Corpus.

The second and third classes are collections of sutras which no longer
exist as collections in Sanskrit, though the Sanskrit text of some
individual sutras is extant. That called Pao-chi or Ratnakuta opens
with a collection of forty-nine sutras which includes the longer
version of the Sukhavativyuha. This collection is reckoned as one
work, but the other items in the same class are all or nearly all of
them duplicate translations of separate sutras contained in it. This
is probably true of the third class also. At least seven of the works
included in it are du