The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1850 page)

see
PERFECTION OF WISDOM LITERATURE
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(Skt.,
prajñapti
, ‘designation’, +
v
da
, ‘way’). An early school of Buddhism. Having originated in the late 3rd cent. BCE as an offshoot of the
Mah
sa
ghikas
, the Prajñaptiv
da claims a line of descent from one of the Buddha's disciples, Mah
k
ty
yana. No texts of the school are extant but both Param
rtha and Vasumitra claim that the Prajñaptiv
da had a special
Abhidharmic
text which differentiated between two levels of statement in the
Buddha's
teachings; those acceptable for non-initiates and therefore requiring further elaboration, and those aimed at adepts. Such a distinction closely corresponds to the
Mah
y
nist
doctrine concerning conventional (
sa
v
ti
) and ultimate (
param
rtha