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Pāramitā

Mahāyāna sūtras, especially those of the Prajñāpāramitā genre, teach the practice of the six transcendent virtues or perfections (pāramitā) as part of the path to Buddhahood. Special attention is given to transcendent knowledge (prajñāpāramitā), which is seen as a primary virtue. According to Donald S. Lopez Jr., the term pāramitā can mean "excellence" or " perfection " as well as "that which has gone beyond" or " transcendence ".

The Prajñapāramitā sūtras, and a large number of other Mahāyāna texts list six perfections:

This list is also mentioned by the Theravāda commentator Dhammapala, who describes it as a categorization of the same ten perfections of Theravada Buddhism. According to Dhammapala, Sacca is classified as both Śīla and Prajñā, Mettā and Upekkhā are classified as Dhyāna, and Adhiṭṭhāna falls under all six. Bhikkhu Bodhi states that the correlations between the two sets show there was a shared core before the Theravada and Mahayana schools split.

In the Ten Stages Sutra and the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, four more pāramitās are listed: