This seminar explores the key literary, doctrinal and ritual innovations of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition as it unfolded in the first few centuries of the Common Era. The semester will begin with a consideration of the origins of the Mahāyāna in early India, and end in medieval Mahāyāna communities of East Asia and Tibet. Along the way we will conduct close readings of several important Mahāyāna works (sūtras, commentaries, ritual manuals) in order to explore key elements in the development of the Great Vehicle as it was transmitted and transformed across Buddhist Asia.