Heart Sutra

Categories: Mahayana Sutras | Perfection of Wisdom

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Chinese :  般若波罗蜜多心经
• Sanskrit :  प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदयसूत्र prajñā pāramitrā hrdaya sūtra

The Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra or Heart Sutra is a well-known Mahayana sutra that is extremely popular both for its brevity and indepth meaning.

The Heart Sutra is a member of the Perfection of Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñāpāramitā) class of literature, and along with the Diamond Sutra, is considered to be the primary representative of the genre. It consists of just 14 slokas or verses in Sanskrit and 260 Chinese characters in the most prevalent Chinese version, Taisho Tripitaka Vol. T08 No. 251, translated by Xuan Zang. This makes it the most highly abbreviated version of the Perfection of Wisdom texts, texts which exist in various lengths up to and including 100,000 slokas. This sutra is classified by Edward Conze as belonging to the third of four periods in the development of the Perfection of Wisdom canon, although because it contains a mantra (sometimes erroneously called a dharani), it does overlap with the final tantric phase of development according to this scheme.

The study of the Heart Sutra is particularly emphasized in the practice of East Asian Buddhism. Its Chinese version is frequently chanted (in the local pronunciation) by the Chan, Zen, Seon and Thiền sects during ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is also significant to the Shingon Buddhist school in Japan, whose founder Kukai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively.

A Brief Comment

The title of The Heart Sutra appears to refer to the use of perfect wisdom (prajnaparamita) to cleanse error from the heart (hridaya). There are numerous variations of the sutra in Sanskrit and many other classical, Asian languages. Edward Conze did extensive work in this field, although his methods are now challenged by contemporary scientific philologists. The search for an ur-text is probably always going to be inconclusive, although some evidence points to the existence of a single, original version. This is of no consequence for people whose interest in the Sanskrit text is based on a desire to inspect the Sanskrit vocabulary of the concepts in The Heart Sutra or to draw spiritual nourishment from the elegantly poetic repetitions of the Sanskrit text that follows. A spiritual friend provided me with the materials I have used to prepare this version of the text in Buddhist Sanskrit.

This text is modified from:

Hurtz, Leon. Hsuan-tsang (602-664) and the Heart Scripture in Prajnaparamita and Related Systems: Studies in Honor of Edward Conze (University of California at Berkeley Press). 103-113.

Hurtz describes this text as "brahmanical" and reports that Hsuan-tsang transcribed it in Chinese characters from a wall of a cave at Ta hsing-shan-ssu in Lo-yang, China, apparently on the Silk Road, during the 7th century A.D. The context in which the Chinese scholar presented the Hridaya Sutra makes it clear that he considered it a magical text. Although this text is not precisely identical with existing English translations of "The Heart Sutra," it is obviously consistent with the Hridaya textual tradition. The Sanskrit scans metrically and by sense into mostly four line verses, a classical verse form that suggests a strong literary value in the text. Repetitions and thematic emphasis on the pervasiveness of emptiness (sunyata) characterize the text. I found that in order to preserve the sense of the verses it was necessary to shorten one verse to three lines, to lengthen another verse to five lines.

I modified the Hurtz text by eliminating all Sanskrit diacritical marks, regularizing the spacing of the Sanskrit words and their spelling, and adjusting the lines of the text according to sense and (in some cases) meter. I used Hurtz's interlinear vocabulary as a base and added to it. The difficulties in this text are partly due to the obscurities of Buddhist Sanskrit, partly to the awkardness of the transcription into Roman letters from Chinese phonological equivalents by Hurtz, and mostly to my radically imperfect knowledge of Sanskrit. I accept full responsibility for the errors experts in the Sanskrit language will find here.

May the merit of this effort benefit all sentient beings.

Heart Sutra in Sanskrit

Various commentators divide this text in different numbers of sections. Briefly the sutra introduces the bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteśvara who in this case is representing the faculty of prajna (wisdom). His analysis of phenomena is that there is nothing which lies outside the five aggregates of human existence (skandhas) — form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), volitions (samskārā), perceptions (sa.mjñā), and consciousness (vijñāna).

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva then addresses Shariputra, who in this text - as with many other Mahāyāna texts - is a representative of the Early Buddhist schools, described in many other sutras as being the Buddha's foremost disciple in wisdom. Avalokiteśvara bodhisattva famously states that, "form is emptiness (Śūnyatā) and emptiness is form" and declares the other skandhas to be equally empty — that is, without an independent essence. 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 labels apply. This is traditionally interpretted as saying that Buddhist teachings, while accurate descriptions of conventional truth, are mere statements about reality - they are not reality itself - and that they are therefore not applicable in the ultimate truth that is by definition beyond dualistic description. Thus the bodhisattva, as the archetypal Mahāyāna Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the larger Perfection of Wisdom sutras to be the wisdom that perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment. This perfection of wisdom is condensed in the Heart Sutra mantra.

The mantra, chanted pervasively throughout the Mahayanist world, appears in transliterated Sanskrit and in the Chinese version, as pronunciation of mantras is held to be important if they are to function properly. The mantra goes:

• Sanskrit :
  • गते गते पारगते पारसंगते बोधि स्वाहा
  • gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā
• IPA :
  • gəteː gəteː pɑːɾə gəteː pɑːɾəsəm gəteː boːdɦɪ sʋɑːhɑː
• English :
  • Gone! gone! gone beyond! bodhi! svaha!

The text itself describes the mantra as "Mahāmantro, mahā-vidyā mantro, ‘nuttara mantro samasama-mantrah", which Conze translates as "The great mantra, the mantra of great knowledge, the utmost mantra, the unequalled mantra, the allayer of all suffering." These words are also used of the Buddha, and so the text seems to be equating the mantra with the Buddha. Although the translation is acceptable, the case ending in Sanskrit mantra is the feminine vocative, so gate is addressed to a feminine person/figure. A more accurate translation is "Oh she who is gone!" In this respect, the mantra appears to be keeping with the common tantric practice (a practice supported by the texts themselves) of anthropromorphizing the Perfection of Wisdom as the "Mother of Buddhas."

A striking feature of the sutra is the fact that the teaching is not actually delivered by the Buddha, which places it in a relatively small class of sutras not directly spoken by the Buddha. In some Chinese versions of the text, the Buddha confirms and praises the words of Avalokiteśvara, although this is not included in either the extant Sanskrit version nor the preeminent Chinese version translated by Xuan Zang.

Reference

• Perfection of Wisdom
• Gehlek Rinpoche, Perfection of Wisdom Mantra Transcript
• Hakuin Ekaku, Commentary on the Heart Sutra
• Edward Conze, translator, Perfect Wisdom, Short Prajnaparamita Sutras