Sandhinirmocana Sutra
Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra of the Yogācāra school, containing explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (ālayavijñāna), the doctrine of appearance-only (vijñaptimātra) and the three own natures (trisvabhāva)
The Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra (Sanskrit) or Noble Sūtra of the Explanation of the Profound Secrets is a Mahāyāna Buddhist text and the most important sutra of the Yogācāra school. It contains explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (ālayavijñāna), the doctrine of appearance-only (vijñaptimātra) and the "three own natures" (trisvabhāva). Étienne Lamotte considered this sutra "the link between the Prajñāpāramitā literature and the Yogācāra Vijñānavāda school".
This sūtra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese four times, the most complete and reliable of which is typically considered to be that of Xuanzang. It also was translated into Tibetan. The original Sanskrit text has not survived to the present day.
Nomenclature and etymology
The Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra (traditional Chinese: 解深密經; ; pinyin: Jiě Shēnmì Jīng; Tibetan: དགོངས་པ་ངེས་འགྲེལ༏, Wylie: dgongs pa nges 'grel Gongpa Ngédrel) is variously romanized as Sandhinirmocana Sutra and Samdhinirmocana Sutra. The full Sanskrit title includes "Ārya" which means noble or excellent.
The title has been variously translated as:
Unlocking the Mysteries (Cleary)
Explanation of the Profound Secrets (Keenan)
Elucidation of the Intention Sutra or Unravelling the Thought (Powers)
The Explication of Mysteries, L'explication des mystères (Lamotte)
Sutra which Decisively Reveals the Intention
History
Like many early Mahāyāna sūtras, precise dating for the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra is difficult to achieve. Étienne Lamotte believed that the text was assembled from earlier, independent fragments.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sandhinirmocana Sutra” as mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra of the Yogācāra school, containing explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (ālayavijñāna), the doctrine of appearance-only (vijñaptimātra) and the three own natures (trisvabhāva). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra of the Yogācāra school, containing explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (ālayavijñāna), the doctrine of appearance-only (vijñaptimātra) and the three own natures (trisvabhāva). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1041774. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Sandhinirmocana Sutra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.