Heart Sutra Anomaly

Kuījī

It was apparent, even to the late 7th Century commentators Woncheuk and Kuījī, that the Heart Sutra contained quotations from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (PPS) (Nattier 1992: 206-7, no. 33). In this essay, I will compare and contrast the various source texts for part of one of the quotations. We will see that a substantial change was introduced in translation of the PPS produced by Kumārajīva's translation team in 404 CE, though we don't know if this was evident in their source text or was an innovation at that time. Jan Nattier (1992: 205, n.26) already noted this in her watershed article on the Chinese origins of the Heart Sutra, but it has received scant attention since. And it raises interesting issues regarding authenticity and the role of modern philologers.

Nattier compared various versions of the quoted passage from PPS with the versions found in the various Heart Sutras. The Chinese Heart Sutra text is nearly identical to the Chinese PPS created by Kumārajīva's translation team ca. 404 CE (i.e., Taishō Sūtra No. 223). The Sanskrit Heart Sutra is, however, different in many ways from the extant Sanskrit PPS manuscripts (one cache from Gilgit, ca 6th Century and another from Nepal, ca. 19th Century). The versions differ in syntax at some points and differ in lexicon at others, but they mostly do not differ in semantics. Where sentence structures and word choices are different, the Heart Sutra still conveys the same message -- except in one case, which I will call "Section 3" in this essay (I've broken the quoted passage into a sequence of sections for my own purposes).

The obvious conclusion is that the Sanskrit Heart Sutra is a paraphrase of the Sanskrit PPS, while the Chinese Heart Sutra is a direct quote from T223. The paraphrasing occurred because the extract went from Buddhist Sanskrit (composed ca. 1st Century CE) through the filter of Middle Chinese (sometime between 404 and 664 CE) and back to something like Classical Sanskrit (before the death of Xuanzang in 664). The meaning was preserved, but many particulars of how that was communicated were changed.

We can see how this might work using Google translator to go between English to Mandarin and back:

1. Original: Form is only emptiness. Form is not different from emptiness.
2. Eng→Man: 形式只是空虛。 形式與空虛沒有區別。
3. Man→Eng: The form is just empty. There is no difference between form and emptiness.

The words mean the same, but they are paraphrased. The effect on a highly inflected language like Sanskrit could be rather more dramatic, because a good deal of grammatical information is lost in converting to Middle Chinese. And if the translator from Chinese into Sanskrit was not familiar with the Prajñāpāramitā idiom in Sanskrit, then this would also amplify the effect.

We have five versions of the quoted passage from different times and places:

• 《放光般若經》 by Mokṣala (291 CE). T221 8.6a06-6a13.
• 《摩訶般若波羅蜜經》 by Kumārajīva (404 CE). T223 8.223a13-a24
• Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra. Gilgit Ms. ca 6th C. Facsimile by Karashima et al (2016). 21v-22r.
• 《大般若波羅蜜多經》 by Xuánzàng. (659-663 CE). T220-ii; Fasc. 401-478 7.13a12ff.
• Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra Nepal Ms. ca 19th C. Edition by Kimura (2012) 1-1: 64

In this essay I will examine two extracts: section 1 and section 3. Section 1 is useful to review since it is the centre piece of Jan Nattier's argument that the Heart Sutra was composed in China and in the Chinese Language. It demonstrates her notion of "back-translation" but, given the alternative reading, also demonstrates the complexities involved.

Section 1

Mok.	色與空等無異 所以者何？色則是空 空則是色
Kj.	舍利弗 色不異空 空不異色* 色即是空 空即是色
Xz.	舍利子 色不異空 空不異色 色即是空 空即是色
Gil.	na hi śāradvatīputrānyad rūpam anyā śunyatā nānyā śunyatānyad rūpam rūpam eva śunyatā śunyataiva rūpam evaṃ nānyā vedanānyā śunyatā |
Nep.	tathā hi śāriputra nānyad rūpam anyā śūnyatā nānyā śūnyatā anyad rūpaṃ rūpam eva śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpam

*The notes in the Taishō Tripiṭaka say that some editions have 非色異空 非空異色 here. This is important because the two main versions of the Heart Sutra have different versions of this. T251 has the form above, while T250 has this alternate form.

The syntax here is one of the key differences that Nattier noted in 1992 as evidence for her Chinese origins hypothesis. PPS has na anya X anya Y, whereas Heart Sutra has X na pṛthak Y. Note that anya "other" is a pronoun which takes the gender, case, and number of the noun it qualifies. These both mean the same thing; i.e., that X and Y are not different or, in plain English, "X is the same as Y".

There are also two different syntaxes in Chinese: X 不異 Y and 非 X 異 Y (which, in some ways, mirrors the Sanskrit paraphrasing). The Chinese texts all follow very similar conventions:

Chinese	English	Saṃsṛktam	notes
色	form	rūpa
空	emptiness	śūnyatā
不	not	na	Generic pre-verbal negative
無	without, un-, -less	a-
非	is not	na (asti)	Generic negative for sentences, especially identities
異	different	anya/pṛthak
則/即	only	eva
是	is	asti

Comparing the versions, we can see here that Xuanzang largely followed Kumārajīva. All that he changed was the spelling of the name Śāriputra. Kumārajīva uses a phonetic transcription which in Middle Chinese would have been something like sharibut. The final /t/ was pronounced strongly in Old Chinese and may have sounded very like the Central Asian pronunciation of the name in Prakrit (cf. Gāndhārī: Śariputra; Pāli: Sāriputta). Note that final -a is also dropped in modern Hindi with similar effect (compare also Nattier 1992: 216, n.91). Xuanzang kept the shari, but replaced the last syllable with the Chinese character for son, 子, to translate Sanskrit putra.

An oddity is that Gil. has Śāradvatīputra for Śāriputra. This is actually common, but not reflected in the Chinese translations, which all have the latter.

Mokṣala phrases his first sentence differently: 色與空等無異 means "form and emptiness, etc 等, are not different"; while 所以者何？is "And why?". What follows is the same except that Sanskrit eva is conveyed with 則 where Kumārajīva and Xuanzang both use 即. Section 1 was the entrée, now we move onto the main course.

Section 3

Mok.	亦不見生 亦不見滅 亦不見著 亦不見斷 亦不見增 亦不見減 亦不過去當來今現在
Kum.	舍利弗 是諸法空相 不生不滅 不垢不淨 不增不減 是空法非過去 非未來 非現在
Xz	舍利子 是諸法空相 不生不滅 不染不淨 不增不減 非過去非未來非現在
Gil.	yā śāradvatīputra śunyatā na sā utpadyate na nirudhyate | na saṃkliśyate na vyavadāyate | na hīyate na vardhate | nātītā nānāgatā na pratyutpannā
Nep.	śūnyatā śāriputra notpadyate na nirudhyate na saṃkliśyate na vyavadāyate na hīyate na vardhate nātītā nānāgatā na pratyutpannā yā ca īdṛśī

These are all saying something similar. Here, something does not arise (不見生, 不生, na sā utpadyate, notpadyate) it does not cease; it's not defiled and not pure; it is not deficient* and does not grow; it is not part, future, or present. The big difference involves what that something is.

* hīyate (passive form of √hā) is the verb from which the adjective hīna derives. It means "deficient, wanting; excluded; abandoned; etc."

In both the Gilgit and Nepalese PPS texts, it is śūnyatā that is the subject of these sentences; i.e., it is śūnyatā, itself, which does not arise or cease, etc. However, in the Chinese text of Kumārajīva a whole new phrase is inserted which says: "all dharmas are marked with emptiness" (是諸法空相). Xuanzang also has this phrase; he may simply have followed Kumārajīva. As Nattier points out, "In this context, without an explicit subject in the Chinese text, the reader would most naturally conclude that the subject is 'all dharmas'." (1992: 205, n.26). And this is, indeed, how the translator of the Heart Sutra seems to have read the text, translating sarvadharmāḥ śūnyatālakṣaṇā...

This discrepancy is not one of paraphrasing or selecting different synonyms as it is in other cases. The new phrase completely changes the meaning of this sentence, though the (intransitive) actions are the same, the subject "undertaking" the actions is different.

Another major difference here, of which Nattier says "most striking of all", becomes apparent when we look at the Sanskrit Heart Sutra passage:

iha śāriputra sarvadharmāḥ śūnyatālakṣaṇā anutpannā aniruddhā amalā avimalā anūnā aparipūrṇāḥ

Nattier notes (172 and notes) that where the Sanskrit PPS has singular verbal forms, consistent with śūnyatā being the grammatical subject, the Heart Sutra has nominal forms in the plural. She reminds us that while plurals may be marked in Chinese, they frequently are not; and that any given character may function as noun, adjective, or verb depending on context.

Gil.	Kj.	Heart Sutra
na sā utpadyate	不生	anutpannā
na nirudhyate	不滅	aniruddhā
na saṃkliśyate	不垢	amalā
na vyavadāyate	不淨	avimalā
na hīyate	不增	anūnā
na vardhate	不減	aparipūrṇāḥ

"In each case the Chinese is a perfectly good rendition of the terminology contained in the Sanskrit Large Sutra, while the Sanskrit Heart Sutra, in turn, represents a perfectly good rendition of the Chinese" (Nattier 1992: 172).

Repairing this artefact of translation would be relatively easy, were it not for the phrase 是諸法空相. However, the Chinese Heart Sutra contains this phrase because it is in the source text. Admittedly, the terms have been altered from verbal to nominal forms, and we could fix this; the matter of the extra phrase is more difficult because we only have a small number of Sanskrit texts and it is not found in either, despite the antiquity and relative fidelity of the Gilgit ms.

All Dharmas and the Mark of Emptiness

Where does the phrase 是諸法空相 come from? The CBETA Lexicon tool shows that the phrase does not occur in any Chinese text before Kumārajīva uses it in T223, his translation of PPS. In the Sanskrit PPS (Kimura) the compound sarvadharma occurs quite often with svabhāvaśunya; e.g.:

• tathā hi svabhāvaśūnyāḥ sarvadharmāḥ. (PSP_2-3:129)
• svabhāvaśūnyā hi subhūte sarvadharmāḥ. (PSP_4:55)
• svabhāvaśūnyā hi kulaputra sarvadharmāḥ. (PSP_4:94)
• tathā hi bhagavan sarvadharmāḥ śūnyāḥ. (PSP_4:130)

But in the whole text śūnyatālakṣaṇa occurs only twice:

bhagavān āha: śūnyatālakṣaṇā hi devaputrā iyaṃ gambhīrā prajñāpāramitā, ānimittalakṣaṇā hi devaputrā iyaṃ gambhīrā prajñāpāramitā, apraṇihitalakṣaṇā hi devaputrā iyaṃ gambhīrā prajñāpāramitā. (PSP_4:67)

"The bhagavan said, for this profound perfection of wisdom, O small gods (devaputrā), has the mark of emptiness; this profound perfection of wisdom, O small gods, has the mark of signlessness; this profound perfection of wisdom, O small gods, has the mark of desirelessness." (Cf Conze 1975: 351 - the text is almost obscured by imposed subject headings).

Which is a reference to the three vimokṣas and thus to śūnyatā as meditative state, not abstract principle. And:

sarvadharmā hi subhūte viviktā asvabhāvāḥ svabhāvaśūnyāḥ, anena subhūte paryāyeṇa yena lakṣaṇena prajñāpāramitā saṃvidyate tenaiva lakṣaṇena sarvadharmāḥ saṃvidyante yad uta viviktalakṣaṇena śūnyatālakṣaṇena. PSP_5:12

"For, Subhūti, all mental objects are isolated, without essence, empty of essence. In this way, Subhūti, perfection of wisdom is recognised by this mark, that is, by the mark of isolation, the mark of emptiness." (Cf Conze 1975: 441, who seems to translate every other verb as "exists", but here and elsewhere saṃvidyate clearly does not mean "exist", but instead means, "is known, is recognised; is perceived")

This doesn't really help us, because, here, it is prajñāpāramitā that is marked with emptiness (śūnyatālakṣaṇa). Now ,we have a third object to which this condition can apply. In a related passage from the Aṣṭasāhasrikā we find:

śūnyatāsvabhāvā hi subhūte pañca skandhāḥ, asvabhāvatvāt / na ca subhūte śūnyatā lujyate vā pralujyate vā (Aṣṭa XII; Vaidya 126. Cf. Conze 1973: 173)

For, Subhūti, the five skandhas are the essence of emptiness, because they have no essence. And, Subhūti, emptiness cannot break or destruct.

The point is that śūnyatā cannot be broken (√ruj, pra√ruj), which is at least related to the idea that it doesn't arise and pass away.

As an aside, here lujyate is from a PIE root *leug̑- "to break" (the only common English cognate is lugubrious). The dialect of the composers of the Ṛgveda only had r; however, the text was redacted by speakers of a dialect that retained the r/l distinction who reinserted l. The Eastern dialect of Māgadhī developed into l-only (King Asoka referred to himself as lāja rather than rāja); whereas Western dialects tended towards r-only (See Despande p.70ff.). This is interesting because recent evidence has shown that the original Prajñāpāramitā text was composed in a western dialect, namely Gāndhārī (Falk and Karashima).

There is an interesting passage in Aṣṭa XV:

iha subhūte bodhisattvā mahāsattvā anuttarāṃ samyaksaṃbodhim abhisaṃbuddhāḥ santo lokasya ākāśagatikaṃ rupamiti dharmaṃ deśayanti | evaṃ vedanā saṃjñā saṃskārāḥ | evameva subhūte sarvadharmā ākāśagatikā anāgatikā agatikā ākāśasamāḥ | yathā ākāśam anāgatam agatam akṛtam avikṛtam anabhisaṃskṛtam, asthitam asaṃsthitam avyavasthitam, anutpannam aniruddham, evam eva subhūte sarvadharmā anāgatā āgatā ākṛtā avikṛtā anabhisaṃskṛtā asthitā asaṃsthitā avyavasthitā anutpannā aniruddhā ākāśakalpatvādavikalpāḥ | (Aṣṭa 15.2)

Here, Subhūti, the bodhisatvas mahāsatvas, being unexcelled fully-enlightened Buddhas, teach the Dharma that form has the [same] condition of space in the world. So also sensation, apperception, and volition. In the same way, Subhūti, all dharmas have the condition of space, not coming, not going, just like space. Just as space does not come or go, it is not made or unmade or shaped, it does not last, remain, or endure, it does not arise or cease, so also all dharmas do not come or go; they are not made or unmade or shaped, they do not last, remain, or endure, they do not arise or cease, they are not falsely distinguished from these aspects of space.

And the reason this is true is that, "all dharmas are in a state of emptiness" (śūnyatāgatika sarvadharmāḥ).

Another interesting passage is the section which uses the Gāndhārī alphabet (a ra pa ca na...) as an acrostic by which to remember various aspects of emptiness upon which to meditate. In PPS (Kimura 1-2: 85) we find the phrase:

akāro mukhaḥ sarvadharmāṇām ādyanutpannatvāt

The letter 'a' is a door, because of the primordial non-arising of all dharmas.

Here mukha is usually (following Conze) rendered as "door" or "opening", but may also mean "mouth, face, head; chief". What the letter 'a' (a-kāra) is, in practice, a mnemonic, a place holder or a reminder, for a word that begins with that letter, i.e., anutpanna 'unarisen'. More hints about the meditation practice are found elsewhere in the text:

"Moreover, Subhuti, the Bodhisattva, who courses in perfect wisdom, admonishes the Bodhisattvas as follow: 'Sons of good family, may you become skilled in the consummation of the letters! May you become skilled in one letter, in two letters, etc., to: in forty-two letters! May you through these forty-two letters come to a state which has moved away from everything. May you meditate on the 42 letters as contained in one letter, and may you meditate on one single letter as contained in 42 letters!" (PPS VIII 5.3; Conze 1975: 587. For more on this, see my essay The Wisdom Alphabet Meditation on visiblemantra.org.)

Although I don't think there is any direct connection between the Heart Sutra and the Arapacana Alphabet, this does, at least, confirm that the idea of dharmas not arising was also stated in this context. However, as discussed in the essays about form is emptiness, I think this refers to the state of śūnyatā-samādhi, where there is no experience. Buddhists involved in the Prajñāpāramitā texts seem to have come to ontological conclusions on the basis of this experience. By this I mean they adopted the stance that śūnyatā-samādhi was reality, or at least a more fundamental reality than what we normally experience. When you take consciousness and subtract all experience, what you are left with is awareness with no subject or object, no spatial or temporal orientation, and so on. This state is often described as "luminous".

While this certainly tells us something interesting and profound about the nature of our minds, I think it is a mistake to turn from epistemology to ontology on this basis. Defining reality on this basis seems, frankly, foolish to me. Reality is almost impossible to understand from a single point of view, which has led to a tendency to solipsism in both Western and Eastern philosophy, even after the power of comparing notes on experience has been demonstrated by scientists.

The solipsistic tendency in "hardcore" Buddhism is pronounced and, perhaps, unavoidable. The experience of no (normal) experience is so vivid and compelling that it must be hard not to use it as an absolute reference point around which we organise our worldview, if we have it, just as ontological dualism seems entirely plausible to those who've had out of body experiences, or God seems to exist for those who've had that kind of experience.


Conclusion

In many cases where the Heart Sutra is problematic, where Conze has made a mistake (Nattier 1992, Attwood 2015) or where the original Sanskrit translator has made a mistake (Huifeng 2014, Attwood 2017), the philologist can see the error and suggest a solution (although some philologers seem reluctant to offer such solutions, I am not). Of course, whether religieux accept such suggestions is another matter. Even errors can be authoritative when they are over 1000 years old.

But in this case there is no obvious resolution. The introduction of the phrase "all dharmas are marked with emptiness" is a discontinuity, because it is not found in any Sanskrit witness, albeit that we have very few Sanskrit witnesses: only a handful of manuscripts in two small caches.

That said, the idea is itself fairly orthodox and in keeping with many statements found elsewhere in the Prajñāpāramitā literature. So it is not wrong in the way that some other parts of the Heart Sutra are wrong. Once again, we see the issues of authority and authenticity are complex with respect to the Heart Sutra. The creator of the text appears to have faithfully copied a passage from Kumārajīva's text, and the Sanskrit translator to have tackled it with some success, even if some of his word choices were not. But where did Kumārajīva get it from? Did Xuanzang also have a source with this phrase, or did he include it because it was in Kumārajīva's text, which he was apparently copying (at least in this passage)?

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Conze, Edward. (1973). The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and its Verse Summary. San Francisco: City Lights, 2006.

Conze, Edward. (1975). The Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom. University of California Press.

Deshpande, Madhav M. (1995) 'Vedic Aryans, non-Vedic Aryans, and non-Aryans: Judging the Linguistic Evidence of the Veda', in Erdosy, George. The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.

Falk, Harry and Karashima, Seishi. (2012). ‘A First-Century Prajñāpāramitā Manuscript from Gandhāra — parivarta 1 (Texts from the Split Collection 1)’. ARIRIAB 15: 19-61.

Karashima, Seishi, et al. (2016) Mahāyāna Texts: Prajñāpāramitā Texts (1). Gilgit Manuscripts in the National Archives of India Facsimile Edition Volume II.1. The National Archives of India and The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, Tokyo.

Kimura, Takayasu. (2010). Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Tokyo: Sankibo Busshorin.

Nattier, Jan (1992). ‘The Heart Sūtra: a Chinese apocryphal text?’ Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 15 (2) 153-223. Online: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8800/2707

Further Problems with the Heart Sutra: acittāvaraṇa

In this and the previous essay I am summarising and discussing Huifeng's article on terminology in the Heart Sutra. To reiterate, in this essay, we are assuming that the Sanskrit Heart Sutra is a translation from a Chinese text (though not one of the surviving versions). So we're investigating how a translator might understand the Chinese text, and were subjecting the received Sanskrit text to a critical examination in the light of comparative philology, especially within the Prajñā-pāramitā literature, facilitated by electronic texts and word searches. The fundamental (radical) question we are asking is, "Is the received Sanskrit text an accurate translation of the Chinese Heart Sutra?" But this also hints at an unasked question, "Which Chinese Heart Sutra is the Sanskrit a translation of?" The latter question will have to wait for another day

We now move onto the phrases 心無罣礙 and 無罣礙故 which were translated into Sanskrit (in Conze's edition) as acittāvaraṇa and cittavaraṇa-nāstitvād. Conze is again in poor form translating the latter as "without thought coverings" and "in the absence of thought coverings".

This section of the text was apparently composed to accompany the quotation which finished as the end of the last section. So we do not expect to find exact equivalents in the Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā literature, but we might wish that the Sanskrit translation of the Chinese was at least consistent with that literature. Although one might equally argue that the requirement is still to be true to early medieval China. 

The easiest part of this passage is 心. We expect citta in Sanskrit and we find citta in the Sanskrit Heart Sutra. So far so good. 

The translation of 心無罣礙 as acittāvaraṇa was a phrase that Conze had a great deal of trouble with. In his edition he notes some manuscripts have acittālambana and he describes how one might have become the other through a series of scribal errors of the type that are so common in the Nepalese manuscripts (e.g., mistaking v and b). However, Huifeng finds that neither of these possibilities—āvaraṇa or ālambhana—are plausible readings of 罣礙 (2014: 98-9). For example, he cites what seems to be an important passage from Kumārajīva's Large text:

Then Śakra, Lord of the Gods, said to Subhūti: Whatever Subhūti has stated is only for the sake of emptiness, without being hung-obstructed [sic] (無罣礙). Just as an arrow shot up into empty space is not obstructed (無礙), so too is Subhūti's Dharma teaching not obstructed (無礙). (92) 

Now, the awkward phase "hung-obstructed" is not very convincing and I find that I cannot go along with Huifeng in either his interpretation of 罣 as "hang" in this context. The basic meanings of the two verbs here are according to Kroll (2015):

• 罣: catch fish; enmesh, ensnare, entangle.
• 礙: impede, hamper, hinder; obstruct, block off.

If we are describing the way an arrow shot into space travels as "無礙" then it seems straight forward to say it is "not impeded". If we are looking to compliment this with 罣 then "hung" is not an obvious choice, whereas some kind of entanglement is. The arrow is not impeded or entangled in anything - therefore it continues on its way. 

As Huifeng points out this is only reinforced by the Sanskrit equivalent of the phrase 無罣礙 in this simile which is: na kvacit sajjati. The form sajjati is unusual. The Sanskrit verb is √sañj, which means "adhere to, be attached to, cling to". Other Sanskritists I consulted all took the verb sajjati to mean "cling", on face value. And we expect a passive form, sajyate. In Pāli this is sajjati. So this looks like an example of a Prakrit form being used in Sanskrit. That it occurs in a Buddhist text makes this quite likely, as Buddhists mixed up forms from Prakrit and Sanskrit very often.

One of the things about this verb is that it governs the locative - the place of clinging or attachment is given in the locative case. Hence kvacit "anywhere", a locative adverbial pronoun.

So the Sanskrit phrase na kvacit sajjati means "it doesn't stick anywhere" (and this time Conze accurately translates "...does not get stuck anywhere"). Elsewhere, saṅga means "attached" and asaṅga means "unattached" or "without attachment" (hence the name of the Yogācāra co-founder). Huifeng's argument for "hung, hanging", is not wrong, but it overlooks the obvious meaning. It is true that √sañj can mean "hang", but when describing the arrow or the mind of the meditating bodhisatva., the basic sense works fine. Also an arrow shot into space doesn't stick anywhere, as opposed to an arrow shot at a target which does. We don't say that an arrow that strikes a target is "hung" on the target. It's sticks into, or is embedded in it.

Some other passages show that Kumārajīva also used the character 礙 for Sanskrit prati√han, "to strike against." This adds a certain semantic richness, but the basic sense of √sañj, "stick", conveys the meaning of the text. There's also an unnoticed play on words here, because the secondary verb in the Sanskrit, translating 依, is āśritya and this has a connotation of "to adhere to, to attach one's self to". So the sentence is saying that because he is attached to the perfection of wisdom, the bodhisatva doesn't stick elsewhere. In Chinese 依 means "to rely on, fall back on; be guided by". 

Huifeng's grammatical commentary also informs us that 故, "alone after a verbal form is usually grammatically equivalent to a Sanskrit ablative form" (81) suggesting that 無罣礙故 corresponds to an ablative form. The received Sanskrit cittāvaraṇa-nāstitvād i.e. (citta-āvaraṇa-na-asti-tvād), is such a form, though the idea of negating a verb by compounding it with nāstitvā 'non-existence-ness' is idiosyncratic at best, and I can find no examples of this form in PPS. Where PPS does use the abstract form of nāsti (as a stand alone term), it opts for nāstitā, not nāstitvā (e.g., Kimura 1-1: 154, 1-2: 17). The form ‑nāstitvād doesn't fit the Prajñāpāramitā idiom. I've not been able to turn up this idiom anywhere, except in the Sanskrit Heart Sutra. We can see what it means, but not why anyone would chose to translate 無 this way.


Translating from Chinese into Sanskrit

So in 心無罣礙 無罣礙故: 心 is citta; 無罣礙 is most likely na [kvacit] sajjati; and 無罣礙故  is asaṅgatvāt. We just need to assemble the elements into a Sanskrit sentence. We also have to keep in mind that the preceding passage describes the bodhisatva as being "engaged in non-perception" (anupalambhayogena) and we need to translate this phrase to fit that setting. We're looking for a phrase that says that the bodhisatva's mind, while engaged in non-perception, does not stick anywhere.

Unfortunately, Huifeng does not commit to a Sanskrit translation at this point, though he does give an English translation that reinterprets the Chinese text.

The bodhisattvas, due to being supported by transcendental knowledge, have minds which do not hang on anything; due to their minds not hanging on anything, they are without fear... (103)

Given my discussion of this above, my rendering of this same passage (trying to avoid Buddhist Hybrid English) would be

Being supported by the perfection of wisdom, the mind of the bodhisattva does not get stuck anywhere; and because it does not stick, they are fearless ...

We can see now why some manuscripts have bodhisatva in the genitive case; they want to indicate that the mind in question is possessed by the bodhisatva. What I take the passage to mean is that through insight style meditations such as the contemplation of the skandhas, and dwelling in emptiness, the bodhisatvas disentangle themselves from the snares of sensory experience and become free (vimokṣa).

Now that we are clear what the text says and what it means, and we know roughly what kind of words the authors of the Prajñāpāramitā literature might have used, we can try to translate 菩提薩埵 依 般若波羅蜜多故 心無罣礙 無罣礙故 into Sanskrit.

So we want a compound that says "unattached mind" or "mind which is unattached" or "mind which is not stuck". We can see why a translator might have adopted a-citta-āvaraṇa, since in Buddhist Sanskrit and in Pāḷi āvaraṇa means "hindrance" or "obstruction" (BHSD). The translator has understood impediment and opted for a common word, but without reference to the Prajñāpāramitā idiom. Still it can mean "without mental hindrances". Note also that the Sanskrit texts interpolates viharati as a main verb and treats 依 as a gerund āśritya. The former is odd, but the latter fits the context.

One way to say in Sanskrit what we understand the text to say and which doesn't diverge too far from the Chinese source text would be:

[Yo] bodhisatvaḥ prajñāpāramitām āśritya [tasya] cittam na kvacit sajjati. Asaṅgatvāt so 'trasto...* 

That bodhisatva, relying on perfect wisdom, his mind does not stick anywhere. Being unattached, he is unafraid...

Words in square brackets have no Chinese word equivalent but are added to create grammatical Sanskrit.This is necessary because the grammar of Sanskrit is more elaborate than that of Chinese.  Kvacit is implied by Kumārajīva's idiom and a locative is required by the verb. In plain English

Because the bodhisatva adheres to the perfection of wisdom, his mind doesn't get stuck elsewhere. Not being stuck, he is fearless... 

* Thanks to Dhīvan and Dayāmati for help with composing this Sanskrit. It will no doubt be subject to revision.

Conclusions

The conclusions of both part one and two of this essay are similar. Whoever translated the Chinese Heart Sutra into Sanskrit could have done a better job of it. They mistook 以無所得故 for aprāptirvād and mistook 心無罣礙 無罣礙故 for acittavaraṇaḥ | cittāvaraṇa-nāstitvād  when, in fact, these are not very likely translations, in the light of the Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā traditions. The idiom nāstitvād is particularly nasty. In fact, although we stipulated the Chinese origins hypothesis at the outset, the awkwardness and idiosyncrasy of these two phrases alone make the hypothesis seem plausible.

So ,over and above what we can glean from the manuscript tradition of the Heart Sutra, it seems that the Sanskrit ur-text was botched. The question for scholars and Buddhists is then: Should we correct these errors?

Given that the errors are in the order of 1300 years old and universally attested in the Sanskrit manuscript and epigraphical witnesses, given how familiar they are to Buddhists and scholars alike, perhaps we ought to leave them alone? We can treat the Heart Sutra as a quaint oddity, a somewhat perplexing, but unarguably positive one. I imagine that many practitioners would like to continue to chant the familiar text.

On the other hand, what Huifeng has identified in his article are errors. Since I have identified other errors, I think there is a growing case for retranslating the Heart Sutra from Chinese into Sanskrit that is more consistent with the Prajñapāramitā tradition and the improved understanding of the text that philology affords. Of course, the Indian tradition was originally one that spoke Gāndhārī and reconstructing that vocabulary would be difficult, to say the least. But we can, and I argue that we should, construct a better Sanskrit Heart Sutra. One that makes sense, that eliminates the bizarre contradictions, and is in keeping with the other Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā texts, at least at the time the sūtra was composed, ca. 7th Century.

To this end we have three Gilgit manuscripts of the PPS, one of which has been published in facsimile and partially transcribed. We know from recent publications that full transcriptions of all of the manuscripts are well underway and that we can expect a critical edition at some point. There is a huge amount of comparative information in Karashima, et al. (2016).

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Karashima, Seishi, et al. (2016) Mahāyāna Texts: Prajñāpāramitā Texts (1). Gilgit Manuscripts in the National Archives of India Facsimile Edition Volume II.1. The National Archives of India and The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, Tokyo.

Kimura, Takayasu (2006). Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. 6 vols. Tokyo: Sankibo Busshorin.

Kroll, P. W. (2015). A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. Brill.


~o~

Note, 18 April 2017


evam ukte āyuṣmān subhūtir bhagavantam etad avocat: kiṃlakṣaṇā (PSP_5:12) bhagavan prajñāpāramitā? bhagavān āha: asaṅgalakṣaṇā subhūte prajñāpāramitā na subhūte prajñāpāramitā lakṣaṇan na prajñāpāramitāyāḥ kiñcil lakṣaṇam.

Further Problems with the Heart Sutra: aprāpti

Ven. Dr. Huifeng (釋慧峰)

In this essay I will attempt to summarise and critically assess the article, Apocryphal Treatment for Conze’s Heart Problems, by Huifeng (2014). The article is long and complex. It deals with three philological problems in Conze's Sanskrit text of the Prajñāpāramitahṛdaya or Heart Sutra. Conze, himself, highlights these problems and Huifeng tackles them by using the method, suggested by Jan Nattier and Nobuyoshi Yamabe (Nattier 1992), of tracing the passages back to the Prajñāpāramitā source texts in Chinese and Sanskrit. Huifeng discovers that the  person who translated the Heart Sutra from Chinese into Sanskrit misread the text. However, Huifeng leaves open the correct readings, which I will attempt to supply. I will also discuss the problems raised by this discovery (which, in many ways, parallels my own discoveries about this text) and I disagree with Huifeng on how to translate a key term.

Huifeng's article concerns the passage (Sanskrit from Conze 1967; Chinese from T251).

na jñānam, na prāptir na aprāptiḥ. Tasmāc chāriputra aprāptitvād bodhisattvo prajñāpāramitām āśritya viharaty acittāvaraṇaḥ. Cittāvaraṇanāstitvād atrastro viparyāsātikrānto niṣṭhanirvāṇa.

無智，亦無得。以無所得故，菩提薩埵依般若波羅蜜多故，心無罣礙；無罣礙故，無有恐怖，遠離顛倒夢想 ，究竟涅槃。

I'll separate the three problems into two separate installments: this one will deal with the Conze's phrases na prāptir na-aprāptiḥ and aprāptitvād; the next will deal with the phrases containing the compound a-citta-varaṇa, which occurs twice in different grammatical forms. In the conclusions, we will see that this whole passage needs to be reinterpreted and retranslated.

Nattier's Chinese Origins hypothesis been shown beyond reasonable doubt to be the only plausible account of the history of the text. Until such time as it is refuted, I take it for granted. This gives us a timeline like this:

-100	Putative origin of Prajñāpāramitā
~70	8000 line manuscript in Gāndhāri
179	《道行般若經》T224 (8000) by Lokakṣema
225	《大明度經》T225 (8000) by Zhī Qiān
291	《放光般若經》T221 (25,000) by Mokṣala
382	《摩訶般若鈔經》T226 (8000) by Zhú Fóniàn
404	《摩訶般若波羅蜜經》Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra T223 (25,000) by Kumārajīva
406	《大智度論》*Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa, T1509. Composed by Nāgārjuna, trans. Kumārajīva
408	《小品般若經》T227 (8000) by Kumārajīva
404-600?	Heart Sutra ur-text in Chinese from various sources including T223 or perhaps T1509.
404-600?	《摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪經》 *Mahāprajñāpārami[tā]-mahāvidyā-sūtra, T250 atrrib. Kumārajīva
663	《大般若波羅蜜多經》 T220-ii (25,000) by Xuánzàng
7th C?	《般若波羅蜜多心經》 Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra, T251 attrib. Xuánzàng.
7th C?	Sanskrit translation of Chinese 心經
7th C?	First Chinese commentaries on T251
8th C?	First Sanskrit long text
741	《般若波羅蜜多心經》Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra (long text) T 252 translated by 法月 Fǎyuè (Skt. *Dharmacandra?)
9th C	Transmission to Tibet of corrupt Heart Sutra ms.

I understand the later Chinese Heart Sutras (T252-7) to be translations from Sanskrit texts, except T255, which is a translation from Tibetan. I take the two early short-text Heart Sutras (T250 and T251) to derive from the no-longer-extant Chinese ur-text. The Heart Sutra was mainly composed of passages from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (PPS), aka the 25,000 Line Prajñāpāramitā Text. See also my list of Chinese Heart sutra texts, with translators and dates. My focus is almost entirely on the relationship between the Sanskrit and Chinese short texts and when I refer to the "Chinese Heart Sutras" I mean only T250 and T251, unless otherwise specified.

At some point, I hope that Ben Nourse will finish his study of approximately 300 short text manuscripts in Chinese and Tibetan found at Dunhuang, but until then I won't be considering them.

Sanskrit Heart Sutra

The passage that concerns us initially begins "Therefore, Śāriputra, in emptiness..." (Tasmāc chāriputra śūnyatāyāṃ); negates the skandhas. etc/, and then concludes with "no wisdom, no attainment and no non-attainment" (na jñānam, na prāptir na-aprāptiḥ)(Conze 1975: 89). Here, the Sanskrit word prāpti means "attainment". It is an action noun from the verb prāpṇoti (pra√āp) which means "to attain, to reach, arrive at".

I've noted previously that some editors and/or copyists get carried away with the negations and modify the nidāna section of this passage—i.e., nāvidyā nāvidyā-kṣayo yāvan na jarāmarṇnaṃ na jarāmaraṇakṣayo—so that it reads (interpolations underlined):

navidyā nāvidyā navidyākṣya nāvidyākṣayo yāvan na jarāmarṇnaṃ na jarāmaraṇakṣayo

It would seem that the double negative na-aprāptiḥ in the current passage falls into the same category, though, curiously, the editor has not included na ajñānaṃ. It is contradictory to state, as Conze's Heart Sutra appears to, that there is "no nonattainment" (na-aprāpti) and then in the next sentence say that it is precisely "because of being in a state of non-attainment" (a-prāpti-tvād) that bodhisatvas get enlightened. The Chinese Heart Sutras lack any equivalent of nāprāpti. Since Conze includes the this phrase, he has to resort to convoluted explanations for the apparent contradiction, which are not very convincing. Thus, we can treat na aprāpti as an interpolation and a clumsy one at that. 

The phrase na jñānaṃ na prāpti is found in the section of PPS that is quoted in the Heart Sutra. However, the original passage lists na prāptir nābhisamayo; i.e., "no attainment, no realisation" and then continues on listing types of attainment, from stream-entrant up to Buddhahood. At least one Heart Sutra manuscript also has na prāptir na abhisamaya, e.g., Cb aka T256 (a Sanskrit text transliterated using Chinese characters). I'll return to this when considering the Chinese texts.

Conze's next sentence begins tasmāc Chāriputra aprāptitvād bodhisattvasya..., which he translates as "Therefore, O Śāriputra, it is because of his non-attainment-ness that a bodhisattva...", which is one of the more egregious examples of his Buddhist Hybrid English. We need to be aware of how Sanskrit uses abstract nouns (indicated by the suffix -tvā). It can be very like English, in which case the suffix -ness can work well. However, the abstract can also represent the idea of being in a particular state. Coulson's discussion of abstract nouns is instructive: "English noun clauses ('that the grass is green') and noun phrases with a verbal component such as an infinitive ('for the grass to be green') tend to be replaced in Sanskrit by a straight abstract noun ('the greenness of the grass')" (2003: 130-1). And thus in translation we sometimes have to produce a noun clause and noun phrase to translate a Sanskrit abstract noun.

Conze is surely correct to interpret aprāptitvād as an ablative of cause ("because"), but the abstract noun can't really be forced into a single word here. The compound must mean something like, "because of being in a state of non-attainment". As PPS explains repeatedly, if a bodhisatva were to think "I am a bodhisatva", or "I have an attainment", then they would not be a bodhisatva. I believe that this kind of talk relates to what in Pāḷi is called suññatāvihāra or "dwelling in emptiness", something the Buddha was said to do frequently. This involves cultivating the formless (arūpa) meditations and sustaining the samādhi in which one experiences nothing at all (śūnyatāsamādhi), i.e., one is alert, but without any sense of being a subject observing an object.

Having described and tidied up the Sanskrit Heart Sutra passages, we now turn to the Chinese texts and begin to unpick the Sanskrit translation and, of course, any English translations based on it.

Chinese Words

There is a problem throughout the Chinese Canon because translators, especially Kumārajīva, have "flattened" the lexicon by using the same character to translate multiple words. This means that there can be considerable ambiguity when looking at a Chinese text as to what Indic word was being translated. So, for example, Huifeng notes that the character 得 has been used to translate √bhū, prāpta/prāpti, √budh, √labh, and other terms (81).

Unfortunately, we also have to add the almost ubiquitous possibility of problematic Chinese translations. As Jan Nattier has said:

"In short, when reading any given line of a Chinese Buddhist sūtra—excepting perhaps those produced by Hsüan-tsang, who is justifiably famous for his accuracy—we have a roughly equal chance of encountering an accurate reflection of the underlying Indian original or a catastrophic misunderstanding." (2003: 71)

T250 and T251 are the same at this point, though both slightly different to the Sanskrit text. Between na jñānaṃ na prāpti , and aprāptitvād bodhisatvasya... the Sanskrit has tasmāc chāriputra "therefore Śāriputra". The Chinese text does not have this, but reads (without the modern punctuation):

...無智亦無得以無所得故...

...no knowledge and no attainment because of there being no attainment...

All modern editions punctuate, and translate, as two sentences (see below). Here, 無智 would appear to correspond to na jñānam, and 無得 to na prāpti. However, because the Gilgit ms. of PPS has na prāptir nābhisdamayo at this point, Huifeng would like to read 智 as abhisamaya (85). This would also mean that the order of the two negated terms had been switched. With the inherent ambiguity of the Chinese translations, this is plausible. My view is that the Gilgit PPS ought to be treated as authoritative when it comes to the correct Sanskrit of quoted passages. 

The phrase 以無所得故 presents us with some difficulties. The verb is again 得. Huifeng points out that the character combination 以 ... 故 usually stands for a Sanskrit instrumental (2014: 80). However, note that Kieschnick & Wiles (2016) say of this same structure: "故 often works together with 以, meaning “for this reason”, “because”" (39), i.e., it can be consistent with an ablative of cause, which also fits this context. Huifeng also notes that 故 "...when alone after a verbal form is usually grammatically equivalent to a Sanskrit ablative form" (81). For Huifeng 所 before a verb indicates a past participle. Kieschnick & Wiles (2016) explain that "when placed before a verb or verb phrase, 所 turns it into a noun."

When he compares the use of this Chinese phrase he finds: "examination of other examples reveals that the majority of the appearances of the Chinese phrase “以無所得故” (yĭ wú sŭodé gù) directly corresponds to the Sanskrit an-upa√lambha-yogena" (88). The phrase frequent appears appended to sentences describing practices, and means "by being engaged in non-apprehension".

Despite meaning prāpti in the immediately preceding phrase, here 得 appears to equate to a Sanskrit verb upa√labh "obtain; perceive, behold". Edgerton's Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary lists anupalambha as meaning "inconceivability, inconceivable", particularly in relevant phrases such as śūnyatānupalambheṣu dharmeṣu "in regard to states of being which because of voidness are inconceivable". However, s.v. upalambha; Edgerton defines upalambhayogena as "by the (erroneous) method of upalambha"; and the latter means "mental perception or apperception, realization by the intellect (c.f. Tibetan dmigs-pa). This supports reading anupalambhanayogena as "by the method of non-perception".

Thus Huifeng argues that, in the phrase 以無所得故 the verb 得 has to be read differently from its use in the previous 無得. He points out that, in any case, denying attainment is inconsistent with the passage in which the bodhisatva attains nirvāṇa (niṣṭhanirvāṇaprāptaḥ). Though note that I have already showed that niṣṭhanirvāṇa is probably another mistake and that what was intended by the Chinese phrase 究竟涅槃 was more likely to be nirvāṇa-paryavasānam ("whose culmination is extinction").

Having said that 所 indicates a past participle, which would be upalabdha or upalabdhita, Huifeng does not note any such forms but, instead, finds forms such as upalambha (action noun) or upalabhamāna (present participle). So here 所得 probably stands for the noun derived from the verb upalambha, and 無所得 for anupalambha; and thus we expect 以–無所得–故 to translate anupalambhena (instrumental) or anupalambhāt (ablative). Apparently, the yoga was simply left out. But this is not uncommon in Chinese translations.


Structures

Various modern versions punctuate the Chinese text differently, but the oldest versions of the text have no punctuation. Huifeng thinks that other modern editors have broken the sentence in the wrong place. He argues that the version punctuated as:

...無智亦無得。以無所得故...
... no wisdom and no attainment. Because of non-attainment...

Ought to be

...無智亦無得，以無所得故。

... no wisdom and no attainment, due to engagement in non-apprehension.

This creates a structure in which the whole passage opens with the words, "Therefore in emptiness" (是故，空中) proceeds to say there is no form (無色) etc, but concludes, in Huifeng's new English translation, "...due to engagement in non-apprehension" (以無所得故)(2014: 103). This also means we would read the Sanskrit differently. As Huifeng says, this introduces a major shift in orientation:

"It is our view that this shifts emphasis from an ontological negation of classical lists, i.e., 'there is no X', to an epistemological stance. That is, when the bodhisattva is 'in emptiness', i.e., in the contemplative meditation of the emptiness of phenomena, he is 'engaged in the non-apprehension' of these phenomena" (2014: 103).

This view is consistent with my own reading of the Prajñāpāramitā literature as continuing an epistemological stance found in the Pāḷi suttas and described in detail by Sue Hamilton (2000). The main focus of early Buddhism is experience. Similarly, the Prajñāpāramitā literature is focussed on the experience of states which are characterised as "empty"; i.e., states in which there is no sense of being a subject observing an object, and no arising and passing away of experience. In this altered state there is just alertness and no content. It is cultivating this state that is the summum bonum of Buddhist practice. I suspect that, in the Prajñāpāramitā texts, the character of Subhuti represents this point of view, while Śakra and Śāriputra represent other points of view; most likely dhyānic meditation and abhidharma-style analysis.

The problem here, however, is that Huifeng appears to overlooked another kind of boundary in the text. In fact, 無智亦無得 is the end of the quotation from PPS and 以無所得故 is part of the text composed in China. There is no reason to think that the non-quoted parts of the Heart Sutra were composed by Kumārajīva and thus no a priori reason to think that they will conform to Kumārajīva's idiom. Importantly, because of this transition from quotation to composition there is no necessity to read 得 as being from two different verbs, which, after all, is a rather startling ambiguity. Just as the translator has read 以無所得故 as aprāptitvād, so might we.

This issue becomes more interesting if we repeat Huifeng's search for this phrase to see who used it. Using the online CBETA Lexicon tool, I searched for the phrase and found that it occurs 238 times in the Taishō edition of the Tripiṭaka. Before Kumārajīva it is used just once:

• T318 文殊師利佛土嚴淨經,  a translation of the Ratnakuta Sutra on the Prediction of Mañjuśrī to Buddhahood (cf 310.15) translated by Dharmarakṣa 竺法護 in the Western Jin [西晉] (A.D. 240 ~ 290)

Notably it is not used in Dharmarakṣa's Prajñāpāramitā translations. In Kumārajīva's translations we find the phrase multiple times: T223 26; T250 1; T307 1; T586 1; T1509 35. All the rest of the occurrences are in versions of the Heart Sutra or commentaries on it, and thus can be thought of as copying the Chinese Heart Sutra; or they are from later translators. Thus, the phrase, though first used by Dharmarakṣa, is quite distinctive of Kumārajīva's PPS and his translation of the Upadeśa or commentary on the PPS attributed to Nāgārjuna. This suggests that the composer of the Heart Sutra was familiar with Kumārajīva's idiom! 

And just to make matters more complex, we know from ample attestation, that Kumārajīva—a native of Kucha who was taken to Changan as a captive late in life—was probably never fluent in Chinese and his "translations" were probably all the result of collaboration with Chinese monks who produced the actual translations based on his lectures about the texts (Daňková 2006). In other words, "Kumārajīva" is a cipher for a process in which he provided the intellectual understanding, but not the actual Chinese expressions that bear his name.

The upshot of this is that we cannot be sure whether to read 以無所得故 as aprāptitvād or as anupalambhayogena. It also makes me wonder what else can be discovered by comparing other phrases with Kumārajīva's translations. For the purposes of this essay I will follow Huifeng's lead in my conclusions, but more work is required to establish the relation of the composed parts of the text to the quoted parts. 

I would further quibble with Huifeng's translation of anupalambha as "non-apprehension" and replace it with "non-perception". The meaning of the term is the same, but I think it more clearly conveys the epistemological stance of the text. Apprehension is a metaphor quite at home in this context; however, it implies that something is there to be apprehended which is not apprehended, whereas, in the state of emptiness there is nothing to apprehend. I think non-perception conveys this better.

Another effect of this is to cast doubt on the use of Tasmāc Chāriputra in this passage. The earlier use is probably also an interpolation, but here it definitely gets in the way and contradicts the sentence structure. So, again, it looks like an interpolation that ought to be excised. However, note that in PPS this quoted passage begins "So, therefore, Śāriputra..." (tathā hi śariputra) (Kimura 1-1: 64)

Reconstructive Heart Surgery

Huifeng thus reads the passage of the Chinese Heart Sutra as:

"Therefore, Śāriputra, in emptiness there is no form ...etc... no gnosis, no realization, due to engagement in non-apprehension." (102-3)

是故，空中無色，無受 ... etc ... 無智，亦無得，以無所得故。

He does not give a reconstructed Sanskrit translation, but this would be:

tasmāc [chāriputra] śūnyatāyām na rūpa ... etc ... na prāptir na abhibhasamayo anupalambhayogena.

I would give an interpretative translation of this:

Therefore, Śāriputra, in [the state of] emptiness, due to being engaged in [the practice of] non-perception [of objects], there is no form... etc... no attainment, and no realisation.

Note that in some of his the first Sanskrit edition (1948) Conze follows aprāptitvād with bodhisattvasya,  i.e., bodhisatva in the genitive singular case. This was a mistake that was corrected in the 1967 edition, to bodhisattvo, i.e., the nominative singular. Unfortunately, the second edition of Buddhist Wisdom Books (1975), originally published in 1958 using the 1948 text, doesn't include the correction. This change was not picked up by Kazuaki Tanahashi in his recent Heart Sutra Book (2014: 181).

In the next instalment I will look at Huifeng's treatment of the compounds acittavaraṇaḥ cittavaraṇa-nāstitvād /心無罣礙 無罣礙故.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

All Chinese texts from CBETA.
All Sanskrit texts from Gretil. Except Heart Sutra from Conze (1967).

Conze, Edward (1948) Text, Sources, and Bibliography of the Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April 80(1-2): 33-51.

Conze, Edward. (1967) The Prajñāpāramitā-Hṛdaya Sūtra in Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies: Selected Essays, Bruno Cassirer, pp. 147-167. Modified version of Conze (1948).

Conze, Edward. (1975) Buddhist Wisdom Books: The Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra. George Allen & Unwin. First Ed. 1957.

Coulson, M. (2003) Teach Yourself Sanskrit. teach Yourself Books.

Daňková, Zuzana. (2006) Kumarajiva the Translator His Place in the History of Translating Buddhist Scriptures into Chinese. Diplomová práce. Ústav Dálného Východu Filozofická fakulta Univerzita Karlova v Praze.

Huifeng. (2014). ‘Apocryphal Treatment for Conze’s Heart Problems: “Non-attainment”, “Apprehension”, and “Mental Hanging” in the Prajñāpāramitā.’ Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. 6: 72-105. http://www.ocbs.org/ojs/index.php/jocbs/article/view/75

Nattier, Jan (1992). 'The Heart Sūtra: a Chinese apocryphal text?' Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 15 (2) 153-223. Online: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8800/2707

Nattier, Jan. (2003). A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The INquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). University of Hawai'i Press.

Kieschnick, J. & Wiles, S. (2016) A Primer in Chinese Buddhist Writings. Stanford University. http://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/a-primer-in-chinese-buddhist-writings/

Tanahashi, Kazuaki. (2014). The Heart Sutra: A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism. Shambhala