Buddhist Sūtra Literature represents the diverse, discursive genre of scripture held to be canonical by various Buddhist traditions because it was considered to be buddhavacana (words spoken by the Buddha). This project explores the dynamics of Buddhist Sūtra Literature in its many facets spanning its origins as an oral tradition in the centuries before and into the Common Era to its move to textuality as it developed in South Asia and was transmitted throughout the ancient world. This open, holistic approach involves both the study of the textual and thematic development of Mahāyāna and Mainstream transmissions as well as the physical production of these works as manuscripts transmitted in both languages of early composition and translations into other languages. Attention will be paid to various methodological avenues including close readings of sūtras compared against multiple witnesses of a work along with textual parallels from ancient to contemporary, continuing transmissions.