Heart Sutra

Introduction

The Heart Sūtra, belonging to the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) category of Mahāyāna Buddhism literature, is along with the Diamond Sutra, the most prominent representative of the genre. The text exists in two versions, a longer and a shorter. The shorter appears to be the original, while the longer has been extended by the addition of stereotypical passages typically associated with Buddhist sutras composed in India. The Chinese Buddhist canon includes both long and short versions, and both versions exist in Sanskrit. In the Tibetan canon only the longer version is preserved, although Tibetan translations without the framing text have been found at Dunhuang.

The Chinese version of the short text attributed to Xuanzang (T251) has 260 Chinese characters. This makes it one of the shortest texts in the Perfection of Wisdom genre, which contains scriptures in lengths up to 100,000 lines. The Heart Sūtra is often said to contain the entire meaning of the longer Sutras."

This sutra is classified by Edward Conze as belonging to the third of four periods in the development of the Prajnaparamita canon, although because it contains a mantra (sometimes called a dhāraṇī), it does overlap with the final, tantric phase of development according to this scheme, and is included in the tantra section of at least some editions of the Kangyur. Conze estimates the sutra's date of origin to be 350 CE; some others consider it to be two centuries older than that. Recent scholarship is unable to verify its existence before any date earlier than the 7th century CE.

The Chinese version attribute to Xuanzang (T251) is frequently chanted (in Sino-Xenic pronunciations) by the Chan, Zen, Seon, and Thiền schools during ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is also significant to Shingon Buddhism, whose founder Kūkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively. The text has been translated into many languages, and dozens of English translations and commentaries have been published, along with an unknown number of informal version on the internet.

Origin and early translations

The text is largely a quotation from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 25000 lines) and it appears to have been composed in Chinese from a translation by Kumārajiva, and then later translated into Sanskrit. (See Nattier Hypothesis, below). The text was probably intended as a dhāraṇī rather than a sutra. According to Huili's biography, Xuanzang learned the sutra from an inhabitant of Sichuan, and subsequently chanted it during times of danger on his journey to the West (i.e. India).

The earliest extant text of the Heart Sūtra is a stone stele dated to 672 CE. It contains the Chinese text also preserved in the Chinese Tripiṭaka (T251), attributed to Xuanzang that is popularly dated 649 CE. The stele was originally erected at Hongfu monastery, in Changan (modern day Xian) by Emperor Gao. A palm-leaf manuscript found at the Horyuji Temple (See image top right) is popularly dated to 609 CE, however a comparison of the script with India manuscripts and inscriptions argues for a date in the 8th century for the Horyuji manuscript. Müller's Sanskrit edition of 1881, based on the Horyuji manuscript

Apocryphal stories exist of earlier Chinese versions. Zhi Qian's version, supposedly composed in 200-250 CE, was lost before the time of Xuanzang. Edward Conze acknowledges that T250, the text attributed to Kumarajīva (fl. 4th Century), is the work of his student. It is not mentioned in a biography compiled in 519 CE. John McRae and Jan Nattier have argued that this translation was created by someone else, much later, based on Kumarajiva's Large Sūtra (T233). T251 in the Chinese Tripiṭaka is the first to use the title "Heart Sūtra" (心經 xīnjīng). Fukui Fumimasa has argued that 心經 actually means dhāraṇī scripture.

The Heart Sutra has been translated into modern languages very often. The first English translation was presented to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1863 by Samuel Beal. He used a Chinese text corresponding to T251 and a 9th Century commentary by "Tai Teen" [ca. 815 CE], "republished in 1850 by a scholar (Tau jin), named Woo Tsing Tseu". In 1881 Max Müller published a Sanskrit text based on the Hōryū-ji manuscript along an English translation.

Critical editions

There have been several critical editions of the Sanskrit text of the Heart Sūtra, including Müller (1881) and Vaidya (1961). To date the definitive Sanskrit edition is Conze's, originally published in 1948, reprinted in 1967 and revised in 1973. Conze had access to 12 Nepalese manuscripts; seven manuscripts and inscriptions from China; two manuscripts from Japan; as well as several translations from the Chinese Canon and one from the Tibetan. There is a great deal of variation across the manuscripts in the title, the maṅgala verses, and within the text itself. Many of the manuscripts are corrupt or simply carelessly copied. In 2014, Attwood described a previously unknown manuscript of the long version of the Heart Sutra,. In 2015 Attwood published a proposed correction to Conze's Sanskrit edition.

Jonathan Silk (1994) produced a critical edition of the Tibetan Kanjur version. The Kanjur only contains the long text, in two recensions, however a number of short texts in Tibetan were found at Dunhuang. One has been published, but there has been no study of these texts to date.

There is no critical edition of the Chinese versions.

Nattier hypothesis

Based on textual patterns in the extant Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Heart Sūtra and the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra, Professor Jan Nattier has suggested that the earliest version of the Heart Sūtra was probably first composed in China in the Chinese language from a mixture of material derived from Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (cf. vol. 1-1, pg 64 of Takaysu 2007) and new composition, and that this assemblage was later translated into Sanskrit (or back-translated, in the case of most of the sutra). The Chinese version of the core (i.e. the short version) of the Heart Sūtra matches a passage from the Large Sutra almost exactly, character by character; but the corresponding Sanskrit texts, while agreeing in meaning, differ in virtually every word.

Nattier argues that there is no evidence (such as a commentary) of a Sanskrit version before the 8th century, and she dates the first evidence (in the form of commentaries by Xuanzang's disciples Kuiji and Woncheuk, and Dunhuang manuscripts) of Chinese versions to the 7th century. She considers attributions to earlier dates "extremely problematic". The corroborating evidence supports a Chinese version at least a century before a Sanskrit version. The earliest written version of the text is an Chinese stele dated to 678 CE.

This hypothesis, however, is rejected by some Japanese scholars and practitioners. Red Pine, a practicing American Buddhist, for example, favours the idea of a lost manuscript of the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra with the alternate Sanskrit wording, allowing for an original Indian composition.

Title

The title of the Heart Sutra varies widely depending on place and time.

The Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts used by Conze for his 1948 edition refer to the text as āryaprajñāpāramitāhṛdayaṃ or ārya-pañcaviṃśatikā-prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya nāma dhāraṇī or some variation on these. Note that they do not refer to the text as a sutra, and some include the word dhāraṇī in the title. The Japanese Sanskrit manuscripts prefer prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtraṃ. The Chinese titles also vary, T250 摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪經 = *Mahāprajñāpārami[tā]-mahāvidyā-sūtra and T251 般若波羅蜜多心經 = Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra. T251 seems to have been the first to use 心 xīn ("Heart") in the title.

In the Tibetan text the title is given first in Sanskrit and then in Tibetan: Sanskrit: भगवतीप्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय (Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya), Tibetan: བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: bcom ldan 'das ma shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying po

In other languages, the title is often a local pronunciation of the Chinese, e.g. Korean: Banya Shimgyeong (반야심경 / 般若心經); Japanese: Hannya Shingyō (はんにゃしんぎょう / 般若心経); Vietnamese:Bát-nhã tâm kinh (chữ Nho: 般若心經).

Content

Various commentators divide this text into different numbers of sections. Briefly, the sutra describes the experience of liberation of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, as a result of vipassanā gained while engaged in deep meditation to awaken the faculty of prajña (wisdom). The insight refers to apprehension of the fundamental emptiness (śūnyatā) of all phenomena, known through and as the five aggregates of human existence (skandhas): form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), volitions (saṅkhāra), perceptions (saṃjñā), and consciousness (vijñāna).

The specific sequence of concepts listed in lines 12-20 ("...in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, ... no attainment and no non-attainment") is the same sequence used in the Sarvastivadin Samyukta Agama; this sequence differs in comparable texts of other sects. On this basis, Red Pine has argued that the Heart Sūtra is specifically a response to Sarvastivada teachings that, in the sense "phenomena" or its constituents, are real. Lines 12-13 enumerate the five skandhas. Lines 14-15 list the twelve ayatanas or abodes. Line 16 makes a reference to the eighteen dhatus or elements of consciousness, using a conventional shorthand of naming only the first (eye) and last (conceptual consciousness) of the elements. Lines 17-18 assert the emptiness of the Twelve Nidānas, the traditional twelve links of dependent origination. Line 19 refers to the Four Noble Truths.

Avalokiteśvara addresses Śariputra, who was the promulgator of abhidharma according to the scriptures and texts of the Sarvastivada and other early Buddhist schools, having been singled out by the Buddha to receive those teachings. Avalokiteśvara famously states, "Form is empty (śūnyatā). Emptiness is form", and declares the other skandhas to be equally empty – that is, dependently originated. Avalokiteśvara then goes through some of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and explains that in emptiness none of these notions apply. This is interpreted according to the two truths doctrine as saying that teachings, while accurate descriptions of conventional truth, are mere statements about reality – they are not reality itself – and that they are therefore not applicable to the ultimate truth that is by definition beyond mental understanding. Thus the bodhisattva, as the archetypal Mahayana Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra to be the wisdom that perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment. This perfection of wisdom is condensed in the mantra with which the sutra concludes.

It is unusual for Avalokiteśvara to be in the central role in a Prajñāpāramitā text. Early Prajñāpāramitā texts involve Subhuti, who is absent from both versions of the Heart Sūtra, and the Buddha who is only present in the longer version. This could be considered evidence that the text is Chinese in origin.

Mantra

Jan Nattier points out in her article on the origins of the Heart Sūtra that this mantra in several variations is present in the Chinese Tripiṭaka associated with several different Prajñāpāramitā texts. The version in the Heart Sūtra runs:

This was transliterated by other Mahayana Buddhist traditions in China and Tibet, and then spread to other regions such as Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Classical transliterations of the mantra include:

Exegesis

Alex Wayman has noted that commentaries on the text lack coherence: "The [commentators] seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in exposition, as though they were not writing through having inherited a tradition about the scripture going back to its original composition".

Two commentaries of the Heart Sutra were composed by pupils of 玄奘 Xuánzàng, 원측 [Woncheuk] and 窺基 [Kuījī], in the late 7th or early 8th century. These appear to be the earliest extant commentaries on the text. Both been translated into English (Hyun Choo 2006; Shih & Lusthaus 2006). They approach the text as a Yogācāra document.

Eight Indian commentaries survive in Tibetan translation and have been the subject of two books by Donald Lopez. These typically treat the text either from a Madhyamaka point of view, or as a tantra.

Other notable traditional commentaries include those by Kūkai (9th Century, Japan) who treats the text as a tantra., and Hakuin

The text has become increasingly popular amongst exegetes as a growing number of translations and commentaries attest. The Heart Sutra was already popular in Chan and Zen Buddhism, but has become a staple for Tibetan Lamas as well.

Selected English translations

There are more than 40 published English translations of the Heart Sutra from Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, beginning with Beal (1865). Almost every year new translations and commentaries are published. The following is a representative sample.

Recordings

The Heart Sūtra has been set to music a number of times. Many singers solo this sutra. The Buddhist Audio Visual Production Centre (佛教視聽製作中心) produced a Cantonese album of recordings of the Heart Sūtra in 1995 featuring a number of Hong Kong pop singers, including Alan Tam, Anita Mui and Faye Wong and composer by Andrew Lam Man Chung (林敏聰) to raise money to rebuild the Chi Lin Nunnery. Other Hong Kong pop singers, such as the Four Heavenly Kings sang the Heart Sūtra to raise money for relief efforts related to the 921 earthquake. An alternative Mandarin version was performed by Faye Wong in 2009 at the Famen Temple and its recording subsequently used as a theme song in the blockbusters Aftershock (2010) and Xuanzang (2016). Shaolin Monk Shifu Shi Yan Ming also recites the Sutra at the end of the song "Life Changes" by the Wu-Tang Clan, in remembrance of the deceased member ODB. The outro of the b-side song Ghetto Defendant by the British first wave punk band The Clash also features the Heart Sūtra, recited by American beat poet Allen Ginsberg. A slightly edited version is used as the lyrics for Yoshimitsu's theme in the PlayStation 2 game Tekken Tag Tournament. An Indian styled version was also created by Bombay Jayashri title named - Ji Project. It was also recorded and arranged by Malaysian singer/composer Imee Ooi. An Esperanto translation of portions of the text furnished the libretto of the cantata La Koro Sutro by American composer Lou Harrison.

Popular culture

In the centuries following the historical Xuanzang, an extended tradition of literature fictionalizing the life of Xuanzang and glorifying his special relationship with the Heart Sūtra arose, of particular note being the Journey to the West (16th century/Ming dynasty). In chapter nineteen of Journey to the West, the fictitious Xuanzang learns by heart the Heart Sūtra after hearing it recited one time by the Crow's Nest Zen Master, who flies down from his tree perch with a scroll containing it, and offers to impart it. A full text of the Heart Sūtra is quoted in this fictional account. The mantra of the Heart Sūtra was used as the lyrics for the opening theme song of the 2011 Chinese television series Journey to the West. In episode 4 of Haganai Next, Yukimura chants this while on a roller coaster.

Western philosophy

Schopenhauer, in the final words of his main work, compared his doctrine to the Śūnyatā of the Heart Sūtra. In Volume 1, § 71 of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer wrote: "…to those in whom the will [to continue living] has turned and has denied itself, this very real world of ours, with all its suns and Milky Ways, is — nothing." To this, he appended the following note: "This is also the Prajna–Paramita of the Buddhists, the 'beyond all knowledge,' in other words, the point where subject and object no longer exist."