I finally worked up the nerve to write an introduction to the Heart Sutra -- a very brief, beginner-level introduction. I recall that I had committed the sutra to memory before anyone explained any part of it to me. I hate to think how long it took for me to figure out who that guy "Shariputra" was.
The Heart Sutra is part of the much larger Prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom) Sutra, which is a collection of about 40 sutras. Various legends claim these sutras were spoken by the historical Buddha and lost to mankind for centuries. According to one story I've heard, the sutras were guarded by nagas in an undersea cave and then entrusted to the sage Nagarjuna.
However, historians say the prajna sutras were composed by several authors between 100 BCE and 500 CE, as were most of the Mahayana sutras. Reference books don't all agree, but generally historians seem to think the Lotus and Vimalakirti sutras were composed around 200 CE, and the Diamond Sutra about 400 CE. The vast Flower Garland (Avatamsaka) probably took at least a couple of centuries to write, beginning no earlier than the 1st century CE. And so on.
The Sutta-pitaka and Vinaya-pitaka of the Pali Canon have some plausible connection to the historical Buddha, although even that connection has to be taken on faith. But the early provenances of the Mahayana sutras are lost. In many cases the original Sanskrit texts are lost as well, and the earliest versions we have are Chinese translations.
In some schools of Mahayana it remains important to believe in a connection between the historical Buddha and the sutras. In others -- such as Zen -- it is not important at all.
According to the translator Red Pine, the earliest record of the Heart Sutra is a Chinese translation from Sanskrit by the monk Chih-ch'ien made between 200 and 250 CE. So here is the single most important text in Zen, chanted every day in Zen monasteries, and no one has any idea who wrote it. And we're OK with that.
This turns the idea of scripture somewhat on its head. Generally a scripture takes its authority from its source. We understand the scripture is true because some Transcendent Spiritual Being (God, an angel, a prophet, a Buddha) said it. But to me the great Mahayana sutra are validated anew with each generation who perceives the truth of them.
Further, I question the notion that a "scripture" is valid only if it can be connected to the historical Buddha, particularly in a Mahayana tradition. What is Buddha? If we assume "Buddha" is confined to the body of one individual, isn't that denying the basic principles of Mahayana?
“… to me the great Mahayana sutra are validated anew with each generation who perceives the truth of them.”
That’s a nice way to put it. I think so too.
That’s a nice introductory piece, Barbara. It would probably be worth noting that the prevailing opinion among scholars today is that the Heart Sutra was composed in China, not India, and at a substantially later date than the traditional “translation.” It was common for new sutras to be written in China and then attributed to a famous “translator” (often from an earlier era) so that they had the prestige of supposedly coming from India–many of the most important sutras in East Asia were apparently part of this phenomenon, including the Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra, the Meditation on Amitayus Buddha Sutra, the Blood-Pool Hell Sutra, the Saving the Burning-Mouth Ghosts Dharani Sutra, and the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra for Humane Kings Who Wish to Protect Their State. Sometimes then the Chinese sutra would be translated “back” into Sanskrit or Tibetan and it might become popular in Indo-Tibetan regions. Buddhist history is so complex and interesting!
Jeff: In his book on the Heart Sutra, Red Pine discusses the possibility that the Heart Sutra originally was composed in Chinese and then translated into Sanskrit. But he is skeptical that’s what happened, and explains why at some length. In any event, I understand there is no record of the Heart Sutra anywhere before the 3rd century.
Yes, I’ve read Red Pine (Bill Porter)’s comments on this matter. He’s a great translator whose work I enjoy, but I think I won’t be making a controversial statement when I say most experts working in this area would defer to the opinions of the respected pro-Chinese-origin scholars such as Jan Nattier. At any rate, it’s been several years since Bill’s discussion of the matter and in that time the academic consensus has grown that Nattier, McRae, etc are correct.
Of course, the only way to settle this once and for all is to build a time machine. . . Until then, the scholar-practitioners will have the luxury of ambiguity to ensure a steady stream of pro- and con- arguments that help everyone get tenure:)
“It was common for new sutras to be written in China and then attributed to a famous “translator” (often from an earlier era) so that they had the prestige of supposedly coming from India. . .”
This historical tendency pointed out by Jeff, if indeed true, has an interesting parallel in biblical history. Sacred Hebrew texts were at times attributed to great figures of the past to give them legitimacy. The “wisdom literature” Book of Proverbs and Book of Ecclesiastes were attributed to King Solomon, but are clearly of a much later (and Greek influenced) date. Famously, the Psalms are credited to King David, but no doubt were composed by many poets long after David’s time. Unlike today’s authors, ancient authors were often not eager to take credit for their work, instead finding a way to project them backward into sacred, mythic time. Jeff is right when he says we would need a time machine to find out the truth, but the sutras composed in China theory makes a lot of sense. In any case, it hardly takes away from the beauty and meaning of something like the Heart Sutra, whether or not it was originally composed in Chinese, in China.
Thanks for the input, Jeff. It certainly explains what happened to all that “missing” Sanskrit.
Went out with a girls named ‘Willow’ for a while. Haven’t been able to trust anyone named after a tree since(her sisters were named after trees too). Really, I didn’t like the Red Pine version and took it back (nice store) and got HHDLs version. Red Pines version was just too ’smiley face’ for me where HHDL has a more scholarly, critical feel to it.
As far as the Heart Sutra being written in China, the Tibetans say that it was a lost text that they retrieved in Chinese and re-translated. Nobody claims to be sure of any of this. I find though that texts of Chinese origins have Tao and Confucian elements and terminology. Also, the Chinese used a lot of geographic terms (Pure Land is one) when the Sanskrit was too subtle. Good enough but this has caused problems in interpretation.
Here’s an example of Red Pines text that Barbara uses in her ‘Introduction’
“There is no point at which the eyes begin or end, either in time or in space or conceptually. The eye bone is connected to the face bone, and the face bone is connected to the head bone, and the head bone is connected to the neck bone, and so it goes down to the toe bone, the floor bone, the earth bone, the worm bone, the dreaming butterfly bone. Thus, what we call our eyes are so many bubbles in a sea of foam.”
Take just that last sentence. All I can say is WTF? It’s pretty, I suppose (which means I don’t really think so, doesn’t it?), but what does it add to understanding?”…so many bubbles in a sea of foam.” Sounds like someone trying to explain quantum physics and getting nowhere.
TFitz — To me the quote was very illuminating; a nice expression of shunyata, and not nearly as hard to follow as most koans. I loved the part about all distinctions being arbitrary.
Really? You liked the “dreaming butterfly bone” part too?
What was it about it that you found illuminating?
I’m smiling, BTW. Don’t let the lack of emoticon mislead.
I’m neither here nor there with the dreaming butterfly. Overall, however, the passage shows that all distinctions are arbitrary. “Eye” functions only as part of a larger nexus of phenomena and has no self-existence.
I thought both books were good, btw, but the difference for me was that the Dalai Lama’s book showed me very little I hadn’t seen already, whereas the Red Pine book shook loose a number of blocks.
I don’t think it adds anything that wasn’t plain in the text, “no eyes, no ear, no mouth, etc.” Just a piece of poetry that I didn’t care for. But if it worked for you, that’s fine. Only 83,998 more to go. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who lacks patience with hippies is my point, I think.
I should clarify the Tib angle. It went like this. Sanskrit to Tibetan, to Chinese and then back to either Tibetan or Sanskrit. Sanskrit I think was the story. It seems to me to be a later Indian text. Funny, the Tibetans have the Lotus Sutra too with a very similar story but never seem to refer to it. Here’s a link to the Wiki article on that, below. It goes through lots more language permutations than we have discussed here. Weirdly, the Wiki article on the Heart Sutra cites Kel sa ng Gy a tso, the famous sh u g de n ite. Take that Googling necromancers!
Lotus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Sutra
Heart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_sutra
The title of your post, “Being Lamps Unto Ourselves” appears to be inspired by a line from the Pali Canon (so karohi dipam attano), often translated as: Be a lamp unto yourself. Anyone with an elementary education in Pali grammar is probably familiar with the ambiguity of dipa, which may mean either “island” or “lamp” — depending on the context. If we look at the broader context of the suttas (such as this one or this one), it becomes increasingly evident that dipa should have been translated as “island” rather than “lamp” in the line that serves as the apparent inspiration of your title. This issue of the integrity of translation dovetails with the thrust of your post. So I ask you: is this potential mistranslation — apparently meaningful to you — equally as valid as the meaning that a contextual translation suggests was intended by the Tathagata?
arunlikhati — I don’t know Pali grammar from spinach (I am Mahayana and more exposed to Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese), and I never heard the translation “island.” The Atta Dipa in English Zen liturgy begins, “You are the light; do not doubt.” (See, for example, a dharma talk on the atta dipa). Another Zen translation is here. The liturgy I know is:
Leader: Atta dipa
Viraratha
Atta-sarana
Annana-sarana
Dhamma-dipa
Dhamma-sarana
Ananna sarana
All: You are the light
Dwell here; do not doubt
You are the refuge
There is no other refuge
Light of the Dharma
Refuge of the Dharma
There is no other refuge
This is one of our prettier chants and one of the few not in Japanese.
I looked up “dipa” in an online Pali-English dictionary, and it gives “light” as the first meaning and “island” as the second one. The broader meaning either way is that we are our own refuge. But in Mahayana the English translation “be islands unto yourself” is really awful; “island” has the connotation of being isolated and cut off from other people (as in “no man is an island.”) So while it may be that “island” is more accurate in a really rigidly anal sense, the word “island” has connotations in English that make it a dreadfully unskillful translation even so, IMO.
And since many generations of Zen teachers, including Asian ones, have taken the atta dipa to refer to “light,” I will follow their guidance on what the Tathagata meant, thank you.
Barbara O’Brien—You have most probably heard dīpa translated as “island” before–but probably in the context of other words. I agree with you wholeheartedly that it sounds absurd to translate so karohi dīpaṃ attano as “be an island unto yourself” (changed to fit the grammatical number)! (Although Ven. Buddharakkhita does so.) The particular context that I refer to is one where dīpa appears along with attan and saraṇa, and especially ogha (the flood). The notion of an island in a flood is a transparent physical metaphor to a refuge in the flood of samsara.
The very verse you cite is one repeated throughout the suttas, such as the line below, which I have provided witha translation by Ṭhanissaro Bhikkhu.
Tasmātihānanda attadīpā viharatha attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā / dhammadīpā dhammasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā.
“Therefore, Ananda, each of you should remain with your self as an island, your self as your refuge, without anything else as a refuge. Remain with the Dhamma as an island, the Dhamma as your refuge, without anything else as a refuge.”
Like countless Pali translators before, he has decided that “island” is the more appropriate translation. But what do they know!
You make the claim that many generations of Zen teachers have taken this verse to refer to “light”—and I highly doubt you can find proof to that (although that may depend on divergent views of what “many generations” may constitute).
You’re welcome.
I’m a Balinese, and for a Balinese scholar, dipa=fire. Bali Dwipa=Island of Bali. We have mantram to light the incense, “Om dupa dipastra ya namah swaha.” Dupa=incence, dipa=light. Balinese doesn’t celebrate Dipa Pali, if the Dipa=island, we’re living in Dipa Pali (island of Bali). Pali=Bali. Can we translate Dipa Pali=Island celebration? I do like this translation since we live on an island
Dipa=light&island. All we need is dipa-dipa (island of light). Thanks Barbara, thanks Arun.
Hi, Sugi. Yes, language is infinitely rich and messy. In English literature an island often represents a place where one is stranded or abandoned, not a place of refuge. I think most native English speakers would interpret “be an island” to mean being cut off from others.
As to when the sutras were first put down in written form (and in what language that was and whether they were copies of other versions that have been lost) doesn’t tell us when the sutras were composed. I’ve composed many songs and poems that I’ve never written down. If illiterate people learn those songs and pass them down for thousands of years, and some guy in the year 4972 decides to finally put them down in written form in some language I don’t understand now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t compose them or they weren’t composed in the 21st century.
Most of the sutras were the original teachings of the Historical Buddha Shakamuni (Siddhartha/Gautama) as remembered by Shariputra (as he was known amongst the Buddhas disciples to have the best memory). And since he didn’t have a written language, nor did the Buddha, he had the entire sangha (Ananda, Mahakashypa, and the many other disciples of Shakamuni) repeat them over and over everyday until they were in an easy meter and verse form so they could be taught the same way for many millennial.
Because we have a written language now, it is hard for us to understand how much information could be memorized verbatim by people. However, as a singer who has to memorize the lyrics to many songs, I have learned that the human mind can keep volumes of information that no computer could possibly store as well.
Tien-tai (chi-i) (many variations in spelling) was a Chinese scholar who spent much of his life categorizing all the sutras in the order they were taught by the historical Buddha (based on clues in each sutra to what was taught before and what would be taught next. Yes even though we have no “historical evidence,” and yes we have to go on faith, the logical argument Tien-tai used to explain why each one was taught in which order seems convincing to those who can read all of his writings (as I can’t read Chinese I have not done that and I’m still waiting for all of his writings to be translated into English, which is in the working) Also, “actual proof,” in the form of benefit to our lives is the best way to demonstrate the validity of the sutras.
The two books, “Buddhism, the First Millennium,” and “The Flower of Chinese Buddhism” detail the first thousand years after the historical Buddha passed away and the 2nd thousand years, respectively, as his teaching were spreading through China.
It’s been many years since I read those two books, but I remember at the time that I read them they helped me clear up much of my confusion about how they could have passed them down for centuries with out a written language.
If my memory doesn’t fail me, in Buddhism the First Millennium, it talks about why the councils of the Buddhist disciple and their successors created a written language for the express purpose of making sure that the orally transmitted teaching of the Buddha (that were memorized at the time) would never be forgotten or misinterpreted.
Timothy — Keep in mind that in the several traditions there are several different stories about the sutras. It’s generally accepted that the Pali Canon records the sutras of the historical Buddha in the Sutta-pitaka, which were kept preserved by a practice of oral recitation until they were written down in the 1st century BCE. I believe there is some other documentary evidence that the Sutta-pitaka could be as old as the historical Buddha. Buddhist history says the disciple Ananda (not Shariputra) recited these sutras at the First Buddhist Council.
However, the many Mahayana Sutras are entirely different texts that don’t have the same provenance. You can find many legends and stories — most with elaborate supernatural elements — about them that tie them back to the historical Buddha, but there is no documentation of their existence until much later. I think you’re mixing up the history of the Pali literature with the Mahayana literature.
It’s a good first article, but you should approach these things with the attitude that you are a capable interpretor. Your relational being is just as valid in regards to the sutra as anyone elses. In saying that, I think the sutra should stand on its own; granting whatever meaning it should to those who choose to study it. The history of the sutra is facinating but without regarding the sutra on its own merits we will miss the value of it. Some of what the sutra says is similar to the ideas that the Matrix re-introduced into the popular imagination. The idea that the senses are the basis for existence. Avalokitesvara expounds the mental objects required to understand sense consciousness and then takes them away from us. Why is that? Well, I’ll let those curious minds investigate for themselves.