Minor Figures: Lìyán 利言 and Liú Zhìchéng 劉志成

In Buddhist Modernism, there are strong currents of Romanticism and Protestantism, which leads to an emphasis on the "heroic" individual practitioner liberating themselves (and perhaps hanging around afterwards to help other people). A major emphasis in Buddhism is on traditional texts, which outside of India are presented in translation. For this reason, translators have long been important characters in Buddhist myth and legend.

The image of the translator follows a similar pattern. When we think of how we come to have translations of Buddhist texts we tend to think of "the translator" who toils away in isolation. This is reinforced by the practices of modern scholarship in the humanities. However, as the new book by Siu Sai-Yau (2024) shows, translation in China was almost always a group effort. The first translation groups were small and ad hoc. Over time, such groups blossomed into a special kind of pageantry, sometimes involving dozens of monks, each with well-defined roles within government-endowed translation bureaus.

Taking an example from my recent reading, the preface of Dàshèng lǐqù liù bōluómìduō jīng «大乘理趣六波羅蜜多經» (T 261), for example, lists the translation team and their roles:

The Tripiṭaka master Prajñā from Kashmir clarified the Sanskrit original; sramana Lìyán, from Guangzhai Temple and official in the Hanlin Academy, interpreted; sramana Yuánzhào, of Ximing Temple, recorded in writing; Dàoyè from Zisheng Temple, Liángxiù from Ximing Temple, Yìngzhēn from Zhuangyan Temple, Chāowù from Liquan Temple, Dào'àn, and Biànkōng all contributed to verifying the meaning.

有勅令京城諸寺大德名業殊眾者同譯，得罽賓三藏般若開釋梵本，翰林待詔光宅寺沙門利言度語，西明寺沙門圓照筆受，資聖寺道液、西明寺良秀、莊嚴寺應真、醴泉寺超悟、道岸、辯空，並充證義。(T2061: 50.716b16-20)

Note this preface shows that Liyan was responsible for translating Prajñā's commentary into Chinese. 

Siu (2024) shows how this collective approach evolved over time. It's a very useful addition to our knowledge of Chinese Buddhist culture. However, despite the collective nature of translation in China, when we read about classic Chinese translations of Buddhist texts, they are almost invariably attributed to one man. Even in China, even amongst Buddhists, and even amongst scholars of Buddhism.

This is driven partly by anxiety over authenticity (one of the principal motivations underpinning religious Buddhism). One of the ways of asserting the authenticity of a Buddhist text in China was to link the text and/or translation to India. Ideally, the leader of the translation project would be an Indian monk commenting either on a memorised text or reading from a manuscript. If no Indian monk was available, the leader should be someone who visited India. Failing that, some effort might be made to assert that the manuscript they translated arrived from India. While Kumārajīva was a Kuchan, his facility with Sanskrit and his possession of Indian manuscripts made him authoritative. 

And yet, as hinted at in the preface to T261, it was often the case that the translator of record could not communicate effectively in Chinese. The classic case is Kumārajīva, widely considered to be the most influential translator of Buddhist texts in Chinese history. A few of Kumārajīva's early 5th-century translations are still in use today. Notably, for my project, his Prajñāpāramitā translations are still the standard texts in present-day China (and the sphere of Chinese cultural influence). 

However, his collaborator Sēngruì 僧睿 (352?–436? CE), noted that Kumārajīva could barely be understood when he tried to speak in Chinese (Chou 2004: 293) and his suggested translations were sometimes so garbled as to make no sense at all. Nor was this unusual in foreign (i.e. non-Han) monks. In such cases, the task of actually translating the text into Chinese fell to a Chinese colleague, such as Liyan. In the case of translations attributed to Kumārajīva, for example, Sengrui and others were largely, if not wholly, responsible for the Chinese texts. In modern terms, Sengrui was the actual translator since he made the choice of how to express the text in Chinese, although he didn't work alone either. In the final analysis, all Kumājīva did was read out the Sanskrit and comment on it in broken Chinese. It was Sengrui et al who composed the Chinese text. 

In this post, I will explore the identity and history of the Chinese translator Lìyán 利言 "Beneficial Speech". His name crops up in relation to two different Heart Sutra texts, which are typically treated as translations and attributed to other men: T252 and T253. Respectively the attributions in the Taishō Ed. read:

Pǔbiàn zhì cáng bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» (T252)
摩竭提國三藏沙門法月重譯
Re-translated (重譯) ca. 741 CE by the Tripiṭaka monk Fǎyuè 法月 from Magadha.

Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T253)
罽賓國三藏般若共利言等譯
Translated (譯) ca. 788 CE by the Tripiṭaka monk Bānrě 般若, from Kashmir, together with Lìyán 利言, and others.

The Zhēnyuán lù «貞元錄» (T 2157), a catalogue of Buddhist texts composed in 800 CE, records that a monk called Lìyán 利言 also helped Fǎyuè to translate T252. At first, it seemed to me that this must have been two different people, but the records suggest that Lìyán did indeed contribute the Chinese text of both T252 and T253. As Siu (2024: 61) puts it:

Liyan possessed prior experience in translating another version of the Longer Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya during the Kaiyuan 開元 period of Emperor Xuanzong, making him an excellent candidate to apply his previous translation expertise to this new project (T55, no. 2156, vol. 1, 748).

The Lìyán 禮言 ("courteous speech") who compiled the Fànyǔ zá míng «梵語雜名» T2135, a Chinese-Sanskrit dictionary with a focus on ritual, is probably an alternate spelling of the same name.

Lìyán was too late to be found in the earlier compilation of biographies of monks: Xù gāosēng chuán «續高僧傳»; compiled by Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667 CE), with a cutoff date at about ~645 CE. We do get some biographical details from the biography of Fǎyuè 法月 in the Revised Zhenyuan Catalogue:

Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mù lù «貞元新定釋教目錄» "Zhenyuan Revised List of Canonical Buddhist Texts" (T 2157: 55.878.b12-c10). Composed by the śramaṇa Yuánzhào 圓照 of Xīmíng Temple in the Western Capital" (西京西明寺沙門圓照撰), ca 800 CE.

The Tripiṭaka śramaṇa /Dat mâ tsiᴇn net lâ/ 達摩戰涅羅 (in Tang language, Fǎyuè 法月 "Dharma Moon" *Dharmacandra) was a native of Eastern India. He travelled in Central India and is also known as a native of the Mathura Region. He mastered the Tripiṭaka and was skilled in medicine.

Through various circumstances, he arrived in Kucha (Qūzhīguó 屈支國: erroneously referred to as Qiūcí 丘慈 in the Hànshū «漢書»), where he taught his disciples. His student /Tsiᴇn ʂɨp lâ/ 戰濕羅 (in Tang language, Zhēnyuè 真月 *Candraśīla[?], personal name Bù Nàxiàn 布那羨, also called Lìyán 利言) was entrusted with memorizing the Sanskrit original of the Yuè dēng sānmódì jīng «月燈三摩地經» Candrapradīpa Samādhi Sūtra, which contained over seven thousand verses, and the Lìdì Jì «歷帝記 » "Records of the Emperors", with ten thousand verses. Lìyán also memorised five thousand verses of the Yúqié Zhēnyán «瑜伽真言» Yoga Mantras. Whatever he heard once was memorized in his heart.

In the 14th year of the Kāiyuán era (開元十四年) (726 CE), [Lìyán] received full ordination. Afterwards, he studied the Vinaya, Abhidharma, and Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna sūtras, as well as Sanskrit and Chinese texts. At the Four Fortresses of Shíchéng 四鎮石城, he protected the secret battle 密戰 in Tǔhuǒluó words 吐火羅言.* He was able to comprehend everything he saw and heard. He was then commanded to translate the scriptures, always keeping their essence intact.

* 石城四鎮護密戰于吐火羅言. I don't understand this sentence. It's a non sequitur. 四鎮 could be a reference to the caturmahārāja (四天王). Shíchéng 石城 "Stone City" may be in modern day Ganzhou (赣州) (SE China). 吐火羅 appears to transcribe Tukhāra, home of the Tocharoi. But what does any of it mean?

In Kāiyuán 開元 18 (730 CE), Lǚ Xiūlín 呂休林, the military governor of Ānxi 安西, recommended [Fǎyuè] to the imperial court [of Xuanzong, r. 712–756]. Lìyán 利言 accompanied his master to serve as interpreter. Along their journey, they passed through several major stations: Wūqí 烏耆, Yīxīsì 伊西寺, and Mógāyánqì 摩賀延磧. They continued through Guāshā 瓜沙 and Gānsù 甘肅, proceeding westward to Xīliáng 西涼.

Upon reaching Cháng'ān 長安 in the 20th year (732 CE), the officials submitted a report, and [Fǎyuè] was summoned to the imperial palace. There, he presented expertise in medicinal arts, Sanskrit texts, herbal medicine, and other scriptures, all of which were well received by the emperor. He was sometimes escorted by the imperial cavalry and was generously rewarded multiple times. His disciple, the bhikṣu Lìyán 利言, followed along, serving as his interpreter. Medicinal formulas and materia medica were translated and presented to a superior. In spare time, the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng Bōrě Bōluómìduō Xīnjīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» was translated. It showed no significant difference from the two older versions. The Yáoqín Dynasty 姚秦 (aka Later Qín 394-416) translation is titled Móhē bāně bōluómì dàmíng zhòu jīng «摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪經» [T250].

The emperor, in his free moments among the myriad affairs of state, devoted himself to annotating the Jīngāng Jīng «金剛經» "Diamond Sutra". By the 23rd year (735 CE), he completed his writings. The monastic community requested the establishment of a platform for the Bōrě Jīng «般若經». In the 27th year (739 CE), the work was fully completed. Monks established a hundred ritual sites. In the seventh month, the imperial decree was presented. Following approval, on the tenth day of the eighth month, the opening ceremony for the Sūtra was held at Ānguó Temple 安國寺. On the ninth day at dusk, a gathering was held at Xīmíng Temple 西明寺. On the tenth day, the procession to the Ānguó ritual site began, and the lecture was delivered.

The Emperor's commentary on the Jīngāng Jīng and the Rénwáng Bōrě «仁王般若». Fǎyuè was responsible for elaborating on the Sanskrit sūtra, while Lìyán translated the words [into Chinese]. All who attended the teachings returned with great benefits. The seven calamities were eternally cleared, and the seven blessings were all gathered.

In the following year, the mad rebel Liú Zhìchéng 劉志成 secretly plotted a vicious scheme. A divination was sought from the Tripiṭaka master Bǎohuā 寶花, and heaven did not prolong the evil. The rebellious faction was pacified. All foreign monks were ordered to return to their countries, but Tripiṭaka master Fǎyuè 法月 was graciously allowed to stay. Later, he yearned for his homeland and requested to return. On the 26th day of the seventh month in the 29th year (741 CE), he took leave from the imperial palace.

He journeyed through Xīliáng 西涼, the desert of Shāqì 沙磧, Yīxī 伊西, Wūqí 烏耆, and Shūlè 疎勒, heading toward Tiānzhú 天竺. Proceeding westward, he gradually neared his destination. Upon reaching the mountain pass at the Jílián town of Shìnìguó 式匿國, he encountered bandits and could not proceed further. He retreated into the city of Shūlè 疎勒.

He then travelled southeast for 800 li and arrived at Jīnlún Temple 金輪寺 in Yutian 于闐. He spread the Dharma and benefited those with connections for over a year, during which time both monastics and laypeople paid homage. However, he gradually fell ill and his condition worsened. Despite receiving medicine, it was of no avail, and he passed away. He was 91 years old, having been a monk for 72 years. He died on the 23rd day of the 11th month in the 2nd year of the Tiānbǎo era (743).

At the time, the vice governor of the region, Níng Chà 零詧, oversaw the funeral rites. His disciples, including the bhikṣu Lìyán 利言, mourned deeply, weeping in sorrow. They performed the cremation, offering incense and flowers, and constructed a stupa. The texts he translated had not been included in the Kāiyuán Catalog «開元目錄» [T2155; 730 CE], but by imperial decree, they were later added to the Zhēnyuán Newly Revised Buddhist Catalog «貞元新定釋教目錄» [T2157, i.e. the present text composed in 800 CE].

~o~

Notes

Although this is ostensibly a biography of Fǎyuè 法月, you can see that the author, Yuánzhào 圓照, also frequently mentions Lìyán 利言 (aka Zhēnyuè 真月) who plays a major role in the story as Fǎyuè's interpreter when they reach China.

Unfortunately, the narrative tends to segue between the two characters without always flagging the change. It is sometimes ambiguous who "he" refers to. For example, when it says "he received full ordination" in 726, it's only when we get to the end of the account and find out that "He [Fǎyuè] was 91 years old, having been a monk for 72 years" that we see that "he" [in 726] could only have been Lìyán.

One unfortunate ambiguity is "In [his] spare time, [he] translated the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng" (三餘之間遂譯普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經). Sān yú zhī jiān 三餘之間 means "the remaining three intervals", which traditionally refers to intervals of time available for study or other pursuits outside main duties: the periods of winter, nighttime, and rainy days. Hence: "in spare time". In fact, the phrase lacks pronouns and other indicators of who the translator was. Since it follows a sentence with Lìyán as the subject (弟子比丘利言隨師譯語 b28), it seems that this task was accomplished by Lìyán. However, it could well have been Fǎyuè and Lìyán working together.

More broadly, Fǎyuè appears to have been dependent on Lìyán acting as his translator in China. He could not communicate in Chinese. In my terms, then, the texts were enunciated and explained by Fǎyuè, but they were in fact translated into Chinese by Lìyán (and others). The intellectual work of working out how to express the concepts in Chinese was not done by Fǎyuè. 

Although Yuánzhào says that the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng «普遍智藏», "showed no significant difference from the two older [versions]" (與古舊二經中無少異。T 2157: 55.878c1), this is self-evidently not true.

Given that Yuánzhào mentions the Dàmíng zhòu jīng (T250) by name, the other "older [version]" (gǔjiù 古舊) has to be Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T251). As an extended text, T252 is clearly very different from the standard text of either the Xīn jīng or the Dàmíng zhòu jīng. For example, where the Xīn jīng is 260 characters and Dàmíng zhòu jīng is 298 characters, the Pǔbiàn Zhìzàng is 648 characters or somewhat more than twice the length. I'd call this a significant difference.

That said, T252 retains most of the actual text of the Xīn jīng (T251). As such it is only the introduction and conclusion that are substantially different, while the main body of the text—the "teaching" if you like— was indeed identical. But this also means that if T252 is a translation, only the introduction and conclusion were translated anew, and the text must have been redacted in Chinese to incorporate the text of T251.

This appears to confirm that T252 was the first extended text to be created, though T252 was a cul de sac and all the other extended texts follow T253 (also apparently translated by Lìyán). We still don't know which language the extended text was composed in, Sanskrit or Chinese, although no Sanskrit text corresponding to T252 has ever been found.

As I noted in comparing T253 and T254, T253 may not be a translation from Sanskrit either. There are times when the Sanskrit Hṛdaya is substantially different from the Xīn jīng and this had no effect on how T251 was incorporated into either T252 or T253. At the very least, T253 underwent editing in Chinese to integrate the text of T251 in its entirety. 

I can confirm that the Pǔbiàn zhìzàng bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心經» (T252) is mentioned in the Dà táng zhēnyuán xù kāiyuán shìjiào lù «大唐貞元續開元釋教錄» compiled in 794 CE by Yuanzhao 圓照 (T 2156), and it is not mentioned in the Dà táng kāiyuán shìjiào lù «大唐開元釋教錄» (T 2154) compiled by Zhìshēng 智昇 ca. 730 CE. And that the Kāiyuán lù «開元錄» (T 2154), is the first catalogue (or document of any type) to mention the Dàmíng zhòu jīng.

This gives us a rough order of when each text first appears in the historical record:

Xīn jīng (T251)	656 CE.
Dàmíng zhòu jīng (T250)	730 CE.
Pǔbiàn zhìzàng (T252)	738 CE.
Dà xīn jīng (T253)	788 CE.

A problem I have not addressed here is that the information presented is from a single uncorroborated source, and that source is a religious text (which carries a high likelihood of religious bias). It's further problematic that later sources tend to uncritically rely on and repeat information from earlier sources. On the plus side, the source was at least composed by someone who knew Lìyán. 

A figure like Lìyán is almost entirely left out of accounts of the Heart Sutra. You won't find his name in any of the popular works on the Heart Sutra. He is mentioned by Siu (2019, 2024), largely because of his direct involvement in translating T253, which was the focus of Siu's PhD. 

Liú Zhìchéng

The mention of Liú Zhìchéng 劉志成 and his ill-fated rebellion is intriguing. I had not come across it before and could not find much information about it. The name Liú Zhìchéng only occurs once in the Taishō and only rarely elsewhere. He doesn't have a Wikipedia page and does not seem to be mentioned in the comprehensive Cambridge History of China.  There is, however, a modern person with exactly the same name. The name Bǎohuā 寶花  is even more obscure. 

Yang (2018: 29) sums up the story of the rebellion this way:

In 736, when the court was in Luoyang, many foreign monks were deported from the country in the aftermath of a revolt led by one Liu Zhicheng 劉志成 in the fifth month. Liu sought out a certain Tripiṭaka Bǎohuā 寶花 to decide upon a most propitious date to launch the uprising. Unfortunately, the plot was uncovered, and apparently the foreigner monk Baohua was convicted of complicity. The resentment of the authorities expanded to all foreigner monks, and an edict was issued to expel them from the land.

The story of the expulsion of foreign monks from China runs counter to the historically dominant narrative in Buddhist literature, which typically asserts Buddhist exceptionalism in China and the idea that Buddhists were always held in the highest regard by the Chinese state. Even in the 8th century, which some imagine to be "a golden age" of Chinese Buddhism, the position of Buddhists in Tang China was actually precarious. I note that this expulsion of foreign monks is not counted amongst the "four Buddhist persecutions" (Sān wǔ yī zōng fǎnàn 三武一宗法難), which occurred in 446, 567, 845, and 955 CE. 

Abramson's (2008: viii) account of ethnicity in China mentions that Vajrabodhi was caught up in the expulsions, but not the reason for them. No date is given, but the phrasing here suggests it was "shortly after" Vajrabodhi arrived in China in 719. Gibson (1997: 54) also mentions this event (though with a different date) in a note:

The deportation of the hu monks in 740 followed another revolt led by [Liú Zhìchéng], who had a monk as co-conspirator (Chou, 1945, Appendix L, p. 320).

The cited passage in Chao (1945: 329) adds some historical detail that confirms the modern view that the Buddhist histories have distorted our view of state-Buddhist relations in the Tang.

It is usually believed that Buddhism prospered in the Tang dynasty because of the Emperors' goodwill toward it. This is true only in respect to the later T'ang dynasty. T'ai-tsung, the second Emperor and the actual founder of the dynasty, officially preferred Taoism to Buddhism because he claimed to be a descendant of Lǎozǐ 老子, who had the same surname as that of the imperial family (Táng huì yào 唐會要 49.4a). Despite the great favour shown to Xuanzang by Taizong and his son Gaozong, the petition of the monks who asked for official priority of position in an interview with the Emperor was never granted (Jí gǔjīn fú dào lùn héng 集古今佛道論衡, T 52.382b27).

The entry in the Xīn táng shū 新唐書 "New Book of Tang" is minimal:

二十四年... 五月丙午，醴泉人劉志誠反，伏誅。
On the bǐngwǔ day in the fifth month, Liú Zhìchéng from Lǐquán rebelled and was executed.

This seems to be the same event but with almost no detail and no mention of the expulsion. Here the name Liú Zhìchéng is spelled 劉志誠 vs Taishō 劉志成. NB 劉志誠 is not found in Taishō. As far as I can see, there is no mention of this in the Jiù táng shū 舊唐書 "Old Book of Tang".

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Abramson, Marc Samuel. (2008). Ethnic Identity in Tang China. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Chou, Yi-liang. (1945). Tantrism in China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 8(3/4), 241–332. https://doi.org/10.2307/2717819

Gibson, T. (1997). Inner Asian Contributions to the Vajrayāna. Indo-Iranian Journal, 40(1), 37–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24662320

Siu, Sai-yau 蕭世友 (2019). 唐代般若、利言《般若波羅蜜多心經》的漢譯研究 . 香港中文大學. [On the Chinese Translation of Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya by Prajña and Satyacandra in the Tang Dynasty. PhD Dissertation. Chinese University of Hong Kong.]

———. (2024). The Evolution of Team-Based Buddhist Scripture Translation in Tang China: United in Dharma. Springer. Open access: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-2293-8

Yang, Zeng. (2018). A biographical study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705-774): networks, institutions, and identities. PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. https://open.library.ubc.ca/media/stream/pdf/24/1.0363332/4

Notes on T253 and T254

In this post, I will show that the extended Heart Sutra text T254 is a lightly redacted or edited version of T253, rather than an independent translation from Sanskrit. Moreover, T253 incorporates all of T251, including parts with no Sanskrit counterpart, which could only result from redaction in Chinese. Moreover, since the main text is essentially just a repeat of T251, only the extended opening section and additional closing sections of T253 were translated from Sanskrit. Given the history of this text, we do have to wonder if T253 was entirely composed in Chinese. I make no judgement on the value of Chinese-produced Buddhist texts, I merely wish to clarify the history of the text.

Both texts are titled: Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» "The Sutra of the Heart of Perfection of Insight". T253 is attributed to a Khotanese monk, Bānrě 般若 (Prajñā), a Chinese monk Lìyán 利言, and "others" (děng 等), and traditionally dated to ca. 788 CE. (A note in the Zhēnyuán lù «貞元錄» (T 2157), suggests that Bānrě 般若 had Sanskrit Heart Sutra text - I'll likely cover this in a  separate post). The text of T253 is 545 characters (not counting spaces or punctuation). It seems that Prajñā did not speak Chinese, and Lìyán 利言 acted as his translator in China (note: I will soon post an exploration of the dual identity of Lìyán 利言).

T254 is attributed to Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪 (*Prajñācakra), a noted tantrika, and traditionally dated to 861 CE. I still cannot find where this attribution comes from. The text is 569 characters.

T253 is recorded in the Tripitaka Koreana, but T254 is not. In yet another forthcoming essay will look at the TK, which only records T250, T251, 252, T253, and 257.

After 12 years of literature searching, I know of no secondary literature on this issue except for my own preliminary investigations here and in Attwood (2021).

My method is simple. I break the text into 18 sentences. For sentences from the introduction and conclusion, I will paste the sentences from the two texts alongside each other, and I will compare them both with the Sanskrit, and occasionally with T251. There appear to be some errors in both T253 and T254, which I will indicate using strikethrough and explain in notes. At the very end, I've appended a list of all the differences, sentence by sentence.

My aim was to have the same punctuation in both T253 and T254, which Taishō does not provide and thus it required some changes. I have not noted such changes. Sometimes the punctuation is incorrect, which I have noted. 

I will also provide Middle Chinese transcriptions where it seems helpful. My approach to MC is indicative rather than systematic, meaning that anyone interested in MC should consult the experts. Two main problems make attempting to provide MC transcriptions difficult: no one system of reconstruction covers all the characters used in the Heart Sutra; and all of the many systems use different notation. The notation used is often idiosyncratic, but even when the International Phonetic Alphabet is used, most of the "letters" are unfamiliar most readers. That said, I have tried to use the IPA because at least it is easy to look up. 

Since the titles are identical, we begin with the text itself.

1. Introduction

Sentence 1.

253	如是我聞：一時佛　　在王舍城耆闍崛山中，與大比丘眾及　菩薩眾俱。
254	如是我聞：一時薄誐梵住王舍城　鷲峯山中，與大苾蒭眾及大菩薩眾俱。
Skt.	evaṃ mayā śrutam: ekasmin samaye bhagavān rājagṛhe viharati sma gṛdhrakūṭe parvate mahatā bhikṣusaṃghena sārdhaṃ mahatā ca bodhisattvasaṃghena |

One time 一時, buddha 佛 dwelled 在 Rājagṛha 王舍城, Gṛdhrakūṭa Mountain 耆闍崛山 on 中; together [with] 與 a great 大 bhikṣu 比丘 congregation 眾 and 及 a [great 大] bodhisatva 菩薩 congregation 眾 accompanied 俱.

The word order of the Chinese is similar to English, except for certain words that we would put at the beginning; go at the end. Here the word jù 俱 "accompanied by" would come earlier in English, as would zhōng 中 when used as a locative preposition "in, on".

Qí dū jué 耆闍崛 (MC: /gi dʑia gʷiᴇt/) is a partial transcription of Gṛdhrakūṭa (Pāli: Gijjhakūṭa), plus shān 山 "mountain"; while Jiù fēng shān 鷲峯山 is a translation: vulture 鷲 peak 峯 mountain 山.

Note that final sounds (in particular) were affected by changes in pronunciation of both Indic and Chinese languages. Notably for many Indic speakers, a final vowel, especially -a, would be de-emphasised to the point of ambiguity or absence (noted by Edgerton in his Grammar of Buddhist Hydrid Sanskrit). A modern Hindi speaker, for example, would pronounce Gṛdhrakūṭa as /ɡɾɪ d̪ʱɾə kuːʈ/ (Pāli /ɡɪd͡ʒ.d͡ʒʰə.kuːʈə/). So the transcription 耆闍崛 /gi dʑia gʷiᴇt/ could accurately reflect what a Chinese interpreter heard an Indian informant saying, even if the spelling seems a little off. And in the case of these two texts, neither of the named translators, Bānrě 般若 nor Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪, could speak Chinese. 

Báo'éfàn 薄誐梵 (MC: /bɑk ngɑ bɨuam/), in T254, is an unusual transcription of Bhagavan that is used only this one time. Elsewhere T254 uses the expected Chinese phrase Shìzūn 世尊, literally "world honoured".

This is very much a standard opening for a Buddhist sutra. Compare these other examples from Kumārajīva's oeuvre:

• T 227: 如是我聞：一時佛在王舍城耆闍崛山中，與大比丘僧千二百五十人俱，...
• T 235: 如是我聞：一時佛在舍衛國祇樹給孤獨園，與大比丘眾千二百五十人俱。
• T 245: 如是我聞：一時佛住王舍城耆闍崛山中，與大比丘眾八百萬億，...

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Sentence 2.

253	時，佛世尊即入三昧，　名廣大甚深。
254	爾時，世尊　入三摩地，名廣大甚深照見。
Skt	tena khalu punaḥ samayena bhagavān gambhīrāvabhāsaṃ nāma dharmaparyāyaṃ bhāsitvā samādhiṃ samāpannaḥ |

[Then 爾] at that time 時, Buddha 佛 Bhagavan 世尊 then 即 entered 入 [a] samādhi 三昧， named 名 vast 廣大 and profound 甚深.

Contrast shí 時 "then" with ěr shí 爾時 "at that time", both of which translate Sanskrit: tena samayena and ignore khalu "indeed" and punaḥ "again". Note that in Sentence 3: T253 爾時 vs T254 時.

While T254 began with a transcription Bhagavan 薄誐梵, here it reverts to the more usual translation Shìzūn 世尊 "World honoured". 

Sānmèi 三昧 and Sānmóde 三摩地 both transcribe samādhi. In S16 both texts have 三摩地.

T254 appends zhàojiàn 照見 (a binomial verb meaning "to observe") to the end of the sentence, but this is an obvious mistake. Possibly an eye-slip given that the same binomial occurs in the next sentence. Whatever the explanation, this phrase makes no sense here (and has no counterpart in Sanskrit). Were I editing this text, I would have omitted these two characters.

After the completely standard opening, we immediately run into problems here because the Sanskrit is substantially different from the "translations".

Then tena indeed khalu again punaḥ at that time samayena the Well-Endowed bhagavān profound illumination gambhīrāvabhāsaṃ named nāma Dharma teaching dharmaparyāyaṃ having spoken bhāsitvā meditation samādhiṃ entered samāpannaḥ |

The main clause is "At that time the Bhagavan entered samādhi." (tena samayena bhagavān samādhiṃ samāpannaḥ). The subordinate clause is "having spoken a Dharma teaching named profound illumination" (gambhīrāvabhāsaṃ nāma dharmaparyāyaṃ bhāsitvā). The Sanskrit text unambiguously tells us that having spoken (bhāsitvā) the dharmaparyāya the Buddha entered meditation (samādhiṃ samāpannaḥ). But no Chinese text has a term corresponding to dharmaparyāya.

Words like khalu and punaḥ tend to be ignored in the Chinese translations (as they often are in English translations).

Surprisingly, neither T253 nor T254 gets this sentence right. In T253 and T254 (and all of the other extended texts, including the Tibetan) the name gambhīrāvabhāsa is attached to the samādhi, not to the dharmaparyāya. Indeed, the dharmaparyāya is entirely omitted from T253 and T254. This kind of gross mismatch is problematic for the idea that either T253 or T254 are translations from Sanskrit. 

Reading this passage in isolation, it's not entirely clear what has happened here. But it is quite an oddity when every single one of the extant "translations", in both Chinese and Tibetan, has misapprehended, and thus mistranslated, this sentence in more or less the same way. Given the history of the text, perhaps we should be questioning which came first? Or perhaps the Sanskrit text was changed after the fact and we no longer have the original that was available in the early eighth century?

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Sentence 3.

For this section, I include the relevant text from T251. I've colour-coded based on T251 to make it easier to see how all of this first sentence was assimilated into the expanded introduction. You can see that the whole of the text from T251 is preserved in both T253 and T254, with only minor variations.

251	觀自在菩薩行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊，皆空，度一切苦厄。
253	爾時，眾中有菩薩摩訶薩，名觀自在，行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊，皆空，離諸苦厄。
254	時，眾中有一菩薩摩訶薩，名觀世音自在。行甚深般若波羅蜜多行時，照見五蘊，自性皆空。
Skt.	tena ca samayena āryāvalokiteśvaro bodhisattvo mahāsattvo gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ caramāṇaḥ evaṃ vyavalokayati sma pañca skandhāṃs tāṃś ca svabhāvaśūnyaṃ paśyati sma |

Then 爾 at that time 時 within the congregation 眾中 there was 有 a bodhisatva mahāsatva 菩薩摩訶薩，named 名 Guanzizai 觀自在，practiced 行 deep 深 prajñāpāramitā 般若波羅蜜多 {while 時}, examined 照見 the five skandhas 五蘊, all were absent 皆空，[he] got away from 離 all 諸 suffering 苦厄.

Here the Sanskrit largely follows the text of the standard Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, including doubling up words from √car: cāryāṃ caramānaḥ. This is not idiomatic Buddhist Sanskrit. We never see "practising the practice of prajñāpāramitrā" in other Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā texts. The word cārya seems never to be applied to Prajñāpāramitā in this way. On the other hand, we regularly see terms such as bodhisatvacārya and brahmacārya.

For example in volume one of Kimura's (2009) edition of Pañc alone there are 193 occurrences of passages ending ...bodhisattvena mahāsattvena prajñāpāramitāyāṃ śikṣitavyam "...bodhisatvas should be trained in prajñāpāramitā". According to convention, one may "train in prajñāpāramitā" (indicated by verbs from √śikṣ), and one may "practice prajñāpāramitā" (verbs from √car), but no one ever "trains in the practice of prajñāpāramitā".

Moreover, there are 73 occurrences of ...bodhisattvena mahāsattvena prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caratā with the present active participle caratā, and none at all with the present middle participle caramānaḥ. In the standard text, a mismatched synonym (like this) is taken to be a result of back-translating Chinese to Sanskrit. That such expressions were retained unchanged in the extended Sanskrit text is significant because it tells us that the "translators" were aware of the standard text and gave it priority. 

Here, it is the Chinese texts that conform to the expected idiom, which is one line of argument for the composition of the Heart Sutra in Chinese.

Notably, no known Sanskrit text has an equivalent to dù yīqiè kǔ è 度一切苦厄. Although T253 changes the verb from dù 度 "overcome" to lí 離 "separate [from]", and yīqiè 一切 "everything, all" to zhū 諸 "all", the overall meaning is the same. While the term is absent from this sentence of T254, the phrase lí zhū kǔ è 離諸苦厄 is appended to the end of S7 (see below).

There is also some variation in the name. The basic form of the name in Sanskrit is Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva. On this name see: Revisiting Avalokiteśvara in the Heart Sutra (10 April 2020). The Sanskrit has been elaborated by the addition of āryya "noble" and mahāsatva.

Over time, it becomes increasingly common to see mahāsatva added to bodhisatva. I still don't really understand what mahāsatva means. The traditional explanations ignore Classical Sanskrit grammar. As a suffix, it forms bahuvrīhi compounds of the type X-sattva, meaning "whose nature is X", "having X as their essence", and so on. A bodhisatva, therefore, is a person "whose nature is awakening".

T251 uses Xuanzang's preferred transcription of the name: Guānzìzài púsà 觀自在菩薩. T253 also uses the name Guānzìzài 觀自在, but does so in the context of being within "the congregation 眾中有 of bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatvas 摩訶薩"; all later occurrences in T253 add púsà móhēsà 菩薩摩訶薩 after the name as convention dictates.

However, both before and after Xuanzang, Chinese Buddhists strongly preferred the name Guānshìyīn 觀世音, often abbreviated to Guānyīn 觀音. Xuanzang's spelling never really took off. The fact that T253 uses Guānzìzài 觀自在 suggests that Bānrě 般若 or Lìyán 利言 had some a connection to Xuanzang, though such a connection is not obvious or explicit, since Xuanzang died in 664, some decades before Bānrě 般若 arrived in China.  

T254 adopts an unusual hybrid of the two forms Guānzìzàishìyīn 觀世音自在, throughout. Both of the later translations, i.e. T255 and T257, also spell the name Guānzìzài 觀自在, long after everyone else reverted to Guānyīn. Perhaps this reflects the lasting influence of T251, but it certainly speaks to the power of the existing Chinese texts in creating these new translations.

爾時/時 already discussed above.

T253 and T254 consciously place Guanyin amidst the congregation:  in the saṃgha 眾中 there was 有 [one 一] bodhisatva mahāsatva 菩薩摩訶薩.  T254 adds yī 一 "one", seemingly to emphasise that only one of the bodhisatvas assembled was called 觀世音自在. Which seems completely unnecessary, but is not wrong. This change cannot have been inspired by the Sanskrit text, because S3 of that version contains no mention of the bodhisatvasaṃgha.

T254 adds a superfluous superlative shèn 甚 "very, extremely" to the already superlative adjective shēn 深 "deep, profound" (Skt. gambhīra).

A problem I have commented on before is that the Sanskrit text has a structure based on complimentary verbs for "looking" (vyava√lok) and "seeing" (√paś). This look/see structure appears to be absent in the Chinese expression that T253 has copied verbatim from T251: zhàojiàn wǔyùn, jiē kōng 照見五蘊, 皆空 (universally printed without the comma I have added). In my view, "looking" is explicit in 照見, but "seeing" is implicit and what was seen was jiē kōng 皆空 "all absent". Thus I see the canonical 照見五蘊皆空 as two clauses: 照見五蘊，皆空 "[He] observed the five branches, [and what he saw was that] all [were] absent."

T251 has no term corresponding to svabhāva. T253 simply reproduces T251, but T254 has added a term meaning svabhāva, i.e. zìxìng 自性. This may reflect influence from Sanskrit, though T254 still doesn't translate paśyati sma "he saw", it's still a moot question whether is passage was translated from Sanskrit or composed/redacted in Chinese. 

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Sentence 4.

T253	即時，　　舍利弗，承佛威力，合掌恭敬，白觀自在　　菩薩摩訶薩言：
T254	即時，具壽舍利子，承佛威神，合掌恭敬，白觀世音自在菩薩摩訶薩言：
Skt.	athāyuṣmān śāriputro buddhānubhāvena āryāvalokiteśvaraṃ bodhisattvam etad avocat-

At that 即 time 時，Śāriputra 舍利弗，receieved 承 buddha 佛 power 威力，joining hands 合掌 respectfully 恭敬，addressing 白 Guānzìzài 觀自在 bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatva 摩訶薩 he said 言：

T254 adds the honorific jùshòu 具壽, i.e. jù 具 "possessing, having" shòu 壽 "longevity, life" which equates to Skt. āyuṣmant "Elder" (āyuḥ life; -mant a possessive suffix). In Prajñāpāramitā literature generally, we expect someone like Śāriputra will always be referred to as Elder Śāriputra (āyuṣmān śāriputraḥ), although it is sometimes dropped when he is being addressed as an inferior.

Note also that honorifics such as āyuṣmant always precede the name; whereas descriptors indicating rank or status, e.g. bodhisatva, or sthavīra, always follow the name. 

There is no counterpart of hézhǎng gōngjìng 合掌恭敬 "joining hands respectfully" in any Sanskrit manuscript. Though it is a common Chinese expression and a very common Buddhist way of showing respect. This again suggests redaction in Chinese rather than translation from Sanskrit. 

Some notes on anubhāva. A strange word whose etymology is no help. The word is used to indicate that someone is acting from an impetus emanating from the Buddha, i.e. his anubhāva. This could be something as banal as the Buddha's charisma and authority, but it tends to suggest a more supernatural power that could influence his followers to state truths that they might not be able to attest from their own insight.

However, in Aṣṭa the Buddha asks Subhūti to instruct the bodhisatvas and Śāriputra wonders:

kim ayam āyuṣmān subhūtiḥ sthavira ātmīyena svakena prajñāpratibhānabalādhānena svakena prajñāpratibhānabalādhiṣṭhānena bodhisattvānāṃ mahāsattvānāṃ prajñāpāramitām upadekṣyati utāho buddhānubhāveneti?

“Will this Elder Subhūti senior, explain the perfection of insight of the bodhisatva-mahāsatvas by employing the power (bala) his own (ātmīyena) personal (svakena) insight and eloquence, based on the power of his own insight and eloquence, or will he speak by the authority (anubhāva) of the Buddha?”

Subhūti's answer is that a disciple who has practised the Dharma and realised the truth for themselves and carries that realisation with them always speaks with the anubhāva of the Buddha. See also my discussion of this passage: Aṣṭasāhasrikā: Insight and Ongoing Transformation. (01 December 2017).

In Chinese, we see wēilì 威力 (T253) and wēishén 威神 (T254) for anubhāva. Wēi 威 means "power". Since lì 力 also means "strength, power, etc.", T253 could be said to have a double translation. By contrast, shén 神 refers to supernatural beings, powers, and events (giving anubhāva a magical quality). Elsewhere, wēishénlì 威神力 has been used to translate both anubhāva and adhiṣṭhāna.

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Sentence 5.

T253	「善男子！若有欲學甚深般若波羅蜜多行者，云何修行？」。
T254	聖者！若有欲學甚深般若波羅蜜多行，　云何修行？」
Skt.	yaḥ kaścit kulaputro vā kuladuhitā vā asyāṃ gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ car[i]tukāmaḥ, kathaṃ śikṣitavyaḥ?

"Kulaputra 善男子 if 若 there is 有 desire [for] 欲 training [in] 學 the extremely 甚 profound 深 prajñāpāramitā 般若波羅蜜多 practice 行，how 云何 cultivate 修 [that] practice 行?"

I've commented in print that it is odd for Śāriputra to address Guanyin as "kulaputra" since it's generally used for social juniors (Attwood 2021: 74-75). It would be unremarkable for Gunyin to refer to Śāriputra as kulaputra. Perhaps Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪, the redactor of T254, felt this as he changed the vocative to shèngzhě 聖者 "Venerable One", which carries the implication that the one being addressed is awakened. This is a more appropriate form of address in the context.

In fact, it is rare in Prajñāpāramitā for any person to be directly addressed as kulaputra, except for one circumstance, the sadhukāra, which we encounter in Sentence 17. This involves saying "sadhu sadhu" to the person (always twice); and is the Prajñāpāramitā it is very often "sadhu sadhu kulaputra" Sadhu likely derives from √sādh "succeed" and means "good". The sadhukāra reflects approval by, and acknowledgement from, a superior. 

More often in Prajñāpāramitā literature, kulaputra (in the nominative case) is the agent in a hypothetical: "How does a kulaputra cultivate prajñāpāramitā?" This is how the Sanskrit Heart Sutra text uses the term, but it is not how the Chinese texts use it. 

Note that neither Chinese text includes the kuladuhitṛ here in the question, but both include her in the answer (see S7). The extant Sanskrit texts mentions the kuladuhitṛ in both cases. 

If T253 and T254 are translations, and if the extant Sanskrit texts reflect the text translated, then Bānrě 般若, Lìyán 利言, et al have made an error here. It seems that Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪 attempts to correct this error in T254 so that at least Guānyīn is not being addressed inappropriately as kulaputra, but he has not corrected it so that T254 conforms to the Sanskrit. In this case, even if we postulate a non-extant Sanskrit source, it would be very odd indeed if Avalokiteśvara (or anyone) was addressed in it as kulaputra. This is consistent with T254 being redacted in Chinese with little or no reference to the Sanskrit.

In Attwood (2021: 74-75), I outlined my view that, in this context, kulaputra is a way of referring to a bhikṣu in the abstract; and kuladuhutṛ to a bhikṣunī. Kula is a general term for any group of humans or animals which carries no implication of status (high or low). So kulaputra is literally "group-son" and kuladuhitṛ "group-daughter" (duhitṛ is cognate with daughter). Both terms seem to be tatpuruṣa compounds: a son or daughter of the group. Note that it was not uncommon for bhikṣus to refer to themselves as śakyaputra "a son of the Śakya(s)"; where "the Śakya" is the Buddha and "the Śakyas" refers to the Buddha's tribe. So putra is literally "son", but is used figuratively to mean something like "disciple".

The association with "nobility", "goodness" or "high status" is also implied by the Chinese translation shàn nán zi 善男子 literally "good male child". Shàn 善 "good, kind, virtuous, friendly; apt, adept, expert" is also a character used to translate kuśala "good, adept, etc". However, this appears to be a mistake based on misreading certain early Buddhist texts which appear to conflate kulaputra with sujāta "well born" (notably the Ambaṭṭha Sutta DN 3). In fact, these are two different adjectives in a longer list of distinctive qualities. They are not synonyms. So I think all such translations as "noble son", "son of good family", etc are simply wrong.

This passage is important because it sets things up so that the unattributed statements in the main body of the text appear to be the answer to this question. As in the TV game show Jeopardy, the "translator" had to come up with a suitable question to fit an existing answer. It's artful enough in its own way, but we know that the answer—i.e. the text of T251—came first. 

Common forms of indicating who is speaking—such as idam avocat, evaṃ ukte, or āha (and their Chinese counterparts)—do not occur in the standard Heart Sutra. The inescapable conclusion is that, despite centuries of tradition, the words in the text are not uttered by Guānyīn. These passages come from Pañc where they are spoken by the Buddha (something that Woncheuk is cognizant of in his commentary). See: Guanyin Does Not Speak in the Heart Sutra (9 February 2024).

In The Extended Heart Sutra: Avalokiteśvara Preaches (14 August 2020) I noted that cartukāma (yù 欲) is a variant of caritukāma "one whose desire is to practice"; a bahuvrīhi compound combining the infinitive caritum/cartum "to practice" and kāma "desire".

T254 drops the zhě 者 from xíngzhě 行者, which makes more sense, since if xíng 行 is "practice" then xíngzhě 行者 should be "a practitioner". And this doesn't fit the context.

In this passage, the changes to T254 appear to be corrections of mistakes in T253, though without reference to a Sanskrit text.

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Sentence 6.

253	如是問已，爾時，觀自在菩薩摩訶薩　　告具壽舍利弗言：
254	如是問已，爾時，觀世音自在菩薩摩訶薩 告具壽舍利子言：
Skt.	Evam ukte āryāvalokiteśvaro bodhisattvo mahāsattvaḥ āyuṣmantaṃ śāriputram etad avocat:

Thus 如是 asked 問 already 已, at that time 爾時, Guānzìzài 觀自在 bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatva 摩訶薩 spoke [to] 告 Elder 具壽 Śāriputra 舍利弗 saying 言：

Of the three texts, the easiest to understand is the Sanskrit: "That being said, Noble Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva said this to Elder Śāriputra". This is very much a standard Buddhist locution in Sanskrit and Pāli. We see such sentences on almost every page of every sutra/sutta.

The Chinese text is unnecessarily complicated. The phrase rúshì wèn yǐ 如是問已 "having been asked" appears to correspond to Sanskrit evaṃ ukte "when this was said". As per the Sanskrit, this is one grammatically simple sentence. If 如是問已 is to be included then the following full stop in CBETA is clearly incorrect because this is one sentence. I've changed the full stop to a comma. However, note that the Sanskrit merely says "thus spoken" (evam ukte), while the Chinese explicitly mentions the "question" (wèn 問).

The real problem here is ěr shí 爾時 "at that time" in both Chinese texts. It's not really needed or wanted here and could be omitted with no change to the meaning of the sentence. Nor is it implied by the extant Sanskrit text. So once again the connection between the Sanskrit "source" and the Chinese "target" texts is not a straightforward "translation". 

Note that T253 includes Śāriputra's honorific this time, having previously omitted it. The inclusion is not compulsory but it is included more often than not in Prajñāpāramitā literature.

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Sentence 7.

253	「舍利子！若　善男子、善女人，行甚深般若波羅蜜多行時，應觀五蘊性空。
254	「舍利子！若有善男子、善女人，行甚深般若波羅蜜多行時，應照見五蘊自性皆空，離諸苦厄。
Skt.	yaḥ kaścicChāriputra kulaputro va kuladuhitā vā [asyāṃ] gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ cartukāmaḥ, tenaivaṃ vyavalokitavyam-pañca skandhāṃs tāṃś ca svabhāvaśūnyān samanupaśyati sma |

"Śāriputra 「舍利子！if 若 [a] kulaputra 善男子、[or] kuladuhitṛ 善女人 [desires] to practice 行 very profound 甚深 prajñāpāramitā 般若波羅蜜多 practice 行 when 時，[they] should 應 observe 觀 five 五 skandhas 蘊 nature 性 absence 空。

T254 inserts yǒu 有 into ruò shàn nánzǐ 若善男子 "If a kulaputra..." giving ruò yǒu shàn nánzǐ 若有善男子, which seems to say "if that kulaputra...", or "if there is a kulaputra..."; whereas the Sanskrit still seems to discuss kulaputra in the abstract.

Despite asking the question solely in terms of kulaputra, T253 and T254 both answer in terms of both kulaputra and kuladuhitṛ. This inconsistency seems to be the result of poor editing.

While T253 and T254 now omit yù 欲 (cartukāma), it is repeated in the Sanskrit. Perhaps in Chinese, the context makes it clear, but without yù 欲, the sentence doesn't entirely make sense on its own. 

Note the addition of 離諸苦厄 in T254 at the end (it occurs in Sentence 3 of T253). Placed here it doesn't fit the context. In sentence 3, it follows on from the realisation that the skandhas are absent. Here, the sentence is recommending this same practice to the unenlightened kulaputra or kuladuhitṛ. So it makes no sense to say "free from all suffering" at this point. Note the absence of any such statement in Sanskrit. The introduction of T254 appears to have been edited in Chinese and the editor seems not to have been cognizant of the Sanskrit text.

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2. Middle Section (i.e. T 251)

The middle of T253, sentences 8-14 is identical to T251 except for (14) the dhāraṇī. T254 has a few changes.

In sentence 9:

253	舍利子！是諸法空相，不生不滅、不垢不淨、不增不減。
254	舍利子！是諸法性相空，不生不滅、不垢不淨、不減不增。

Where T251 and T253 have "Here 是 all 諸 dharmas 法 [are] absence 空 marked 相", T254 has an extra character xìng 性, which also means "quality, nature" so really just reinforces xiāng 相 which generally translates lakṣana "characteristic".

Note also that T254 reverses the order of the last pair of phrases: 不減不增. This actually brings it into conformity with the Sanskrit text, i.e. T251/253 have their pairs reversed compared to the Sanskrit.

The original passage from Pañc is: ya Śāradvatīputra śūnyatā na sā utpadyate, no nirudhyate, na saṃkliśyate, na vyavadāyate, na hīyate, no vardhate. This clearly places "not diminishing" (na hīyate) before "not growing" (no vardhate). So this is the order we expect. Still, if we were translating into English, it feels more idiomatic to say "not growing, not diminishing", especially in the light of "not arising, not ceasing". Similarly, in English we'd prefer to say "not pure, not stained", giving the positive quality first and the negative second.

Where T253, sentence 11, has jiùjìng nièpán 究竟涅槃 equating to niṣṭhanirvāṇa, T254 has jiùjìng jìrán 究竟寂然。I cannot explain this change. It seems entirely arbitrary, since nièpán 涅槃 is a very common translation of nirvāṇa, and jìrán 寂然 is more often used to translate such Sanskrit terms as upaśānta, praśānta, śama, śamatha, and śānti, all representing the idea of "peace" or "peacefulness". Presuming that the creator of T254 was translating from a Sanskrit text that said nirvāṇa (which all of the extant documents do) this is a very odd change to make. Again, this redaction appears to have occurred in Chinese without reference to the Sanskrit text.

A similar change occurs in the passage 三世諸佛依般若波羅蜜多故，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。"All the buddhas of the three times relying on this prajñāpāramitā completely attained anuttarāṃ samyaksaṃbodhim." To this, T254 appends xiàn chéng zhèngjué 現成正覺, "manifests perfect awakening" which again corresponds to no known Sanskrit text. This phrase appears to be a translation of anuttarāṃ samyaksaṃbodhim whereas ānòuduōluó sānmiǎosānpútí 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提 is a transcription. Perhaps the addition of the translation was a commentarial gloss?

In the epithets section, sentence 13, T254 changes the ambiguous zhòu 呪 "incantation" to zhēnyán 真言 "true words", a term only used by Tantrikas and which can only mean "mantra". As we will see, T254 also changes the dhāraṇī into a mantra. This is consistent with the attributed author, Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪 (*Prajñācakra), being a tantrika. And this change is consistent with the Sanskrit text.

---

Sentence 14. The Dhāraṇī

251	即說呪曰　揭帝　揭帝　般羅揭帝　般羅僧揭帝　菩提　薩婆訶。
253	即說呪曰「櫱諦　櫱諦　波羅櫱諦　波羅僧櫱諦　菩提　娑(蘇紇反)婆訶
254	即說真言「唵(引)　誐帝　誐帝　播(引)囉誐帝　播(引)囉散誐帝　冒(引)地　娑縛(二合)賀(引)
Skt.	Tadyathā: gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā |

Neither T253 nor T254 completely follow the dhāraṇī transcription in T251. T254 takes an explicitly tantric approach.

Where we find tadyathā "this way" in Sanskrit, T251 has "now 即 speak 說 the incantation 呪 that says 曰". The word is frequently translated dátā 怛他 or some other variant. T253 preserves the reading in T251. T254 again substitutes 真言 for 呪, emphasising the idea that "mantra" was intended, even though we know that the original word (in Pañc) was in fact vidyā.

T254 inserts 唵(引) /ʔəm/, i.e oṃ. Here, (引) indicates a long vowel. In Sanskrit, e and o are always long; the short e and o were assimilated to short a prior to Vedic (aka Old Indic) emerging as a distinct language. Hence we don't usually mark them as long with the macron: ē and ō as we do with other long vowels, i.e. ā, ī, ū, and ṝ.

In T245, T251 揭 /kæt/ representing Skt ga is changed to 櫱 /ŋi̯ät/ in T253 and 誐 /ngɑ/ in T254. 

The anomalous 般 /pan/ in T251 becomes the expected 波 /pa/ and 播(引) /pā/

In T253 the expression sū hé fǎn 蘇紇反 represents a fǎnqiè 反切 formula, where sū 蘇 provides the initial sound and hé 紇 provides the final sound and tone. However, I don't think this makes sense in context and a Middle Chinese transcription is no help. T253 has a three-character transcription of svāhā, i.e. suō pó hē 娑婆訶, where 娑 and 婆 together represent svā. T254 reflects a more common approach: 娑縛(二合) which tells us to combine the two sounds (MC /sa bɨak/) into one conjunct consonant sound supposed to represent svā in a language that lacks a /v/ sound.

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3. The Concluding Section

Sentence 15.

253	「如是，舍利弗！諸菩薩摩訶薩，於甚深般若波羅蜜多行，應如是行。」如是說已。
254	「如是，舍利子！諸菩薩摩訶薩，於甚深般若波羅蜜多行，應如是學。」
Skt.	evaṃ śāriputra gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāyāṃ śikṣitavyaṃ bodhisattvena |

In this way 如是，Śāriputra 舍利弗！all 諸 bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatva 摩訶薩，regarding 於 very profound 甚深 prajñāpāramitā 般若波羅蜜多 practice 行，should 應 in this way 如是 practice 行。」

The addition of rúshì shuō yǐ 如是說已 "Thus, having spoken" at the end of the line in T253 should correspond to evaṃ ukte "when this was said" or to etad avocat "that being said". In fact, such expressions are absent from the Sanskrit text and it seems to have been added in error or despite the Sanskrit text. The same phrase occurs in sentence 17 of T254 where it does fit the context and T253 has Shuō shì yǔ yǐ 說是語已 "Having spoken these words.".

At the end, T253 has cíng 行 for both caryā and śikṣitavya. The last character of T254 substitutes xué 學 corresponding to √śikṣ "train", which better reflects the Sanskrit text. 

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Sentence 16.

253	即時，世尊從 廣大甚深三摩地起，讚觀自在菩薩摩訶薩　言：
254	爾時，世尊從　三摩地安祥而起，讚觀世音自在菩薩摩訶薩言：
Skt.	atha khalu bhagavān tasmāt samādher vyutthāya āryāvalokiteśvarāya bodhisattvāya mahāsattvāya sādhukāram adāt |

At that time 即時，Bhagavan 世尊 from 從 the vast 廣大 and [very 甚] profound 深 samādhi 三摩地 he arose 起，praising 讚 Guānzìzài 觀自在 bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatva 摩訶薩 saying 言：

The main difference here is how they refer to the samādhi. T253: Guǎngdà shènshēn sānmódì 大甚深三摩地 (T253 S2 spelled samādhi as sānmèi 三昧).

T254 spells samādhi consistently but here does not refer to the samādhi by name, merely adding that the Buddha... "arose from samādhi, peaceful and composed" (從三摩地安祥而起).

On this occasion, T254 appears to follow the Sanskrit rather than T253. 

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Sentence 17.

253	「善哉，善哉！善男子！如是，如是！如汝所說。甚深般若波羅蜜多行，應如是行。如是行時，一切如來皆悉隨喜。」
254	「善哉，善哉！善男子！如是，如是！如汝所說。甚深般若波羅蜜多行，應如是行。如是行時，一切如來悉皆隨喜。」
Skt.	sādhu sādhu kulaputra | evam etat kulaputra, evam etad gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ cartavyaṃ yathā tvayā nirdiṣṭam anumodyate tathāgatair arhadbhiḥ |

Good! 善哉，Good! 善哉！Kulaputra 善男子！It is so, 如是，it is so 如是 it is as you just said 如汝所說。Very 甚 profound 深 prajñāpāramitā 般若波羅蜜多 practice 行，[you] should 應 this way 如是 practice 行。in this way 如是 practising 行 when 時，all 一切 tathāgatas 如來 all 皆 completely 悉 rejoice. 隨喜。

This phrase sādhu sādhu kulaputra (善哉，善哉！善男子!) occurs several times in the later chapters of Aṣṭa (Vaidya 1960: 195, 238, 240, 247, 252, 255, 256, and 258). In the first occurrence (195), Māra is addressing a hypothetical bodhisatva (this event is absent from Conze's translation). The rest are in Chapters 30 and 31, on Sadāprarudita and Dharmodgata respectively. Thus phrase is absent from what is thought to be the core of the text and is mainly found in chapters widely considered to be later additions.

In the chapter on Sadāprarudita (Vaidya 238 ff.), the Bhagavan tells an avadāna story to Subhūti. In the story, the words sādhu sādhu kulaputra are spoken to Sadāprarudita by "a voice from the sky" (antarīkṣān nirghoṣaḥ). The second time (Vaidya 238) it is "the figure of a tathāgata" (tathāgata-vigrahaḥ) who appears and speaks.* The third time (247) it is Śakra (aka Indra) who addresses Sadāprarudita. A little later (still on 247), a merchant's daughter addresses Sadāprarudita, saying "You should come, Kulaputra" (ehi tvaṃ kulaputra...); at the end of Chp 30 (Vaidya 252), it is Sadāprarudita himself, recounting to Dharmodgata how the tathāgatas appeared to congratulate him.

* Note that Conze (1973: 279) translates tathāgata-vigrahaḥ as "a tathāgata-frame" which is both incomprehensible and wrong.

The pattern is similar in Pañc.

Here T253 and 254 are identical except for the transposition of two characters in the last phrase: 皆悉 "all completely" versus 悉皆 "completely all". The latter seems to be more idiomatic, and better expresses the sense of "completeness".

Again, I think it's unusual to see Guanyin addressed as kulaputra, even by the Buddha.

The latter part of the Sanskrit is a little different from the Chinese: "[it]... should be practised cartavyaṃ just as yathā by you tvayā has been indicated nirdiṣṭam, rejoiced in anumodyate by tathāgatas tathāgatair and arhats arhadbhiḥ."

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Sentence 18.

253	爾時，世尊說是語已，具壽舍利弗，大喜充遍，觀自在菩薩摩訶薩亦大歡喜。時彼眾會天、人、阿修羅、乾闥婆，等，聞佛所說，皆大歡喜，信受奉行。
254	爾時，世尊如是說已，具壽舍利子，　　　觀世音自在菩薩，　　　　及彼眾會一切世間天、人、阿蘇囉、巘䭾嚩，等，聞佛所說，皆大歡喜，信受奉行。
Skt.	Idam avocad bhagavān, āttamanā āyuṣmān śāriputraḥ āryāvalokiteśvaraś bodhisattvo māhasattvas te bhikṣavas te ca bodhisattvā sā ca sarvāvatī pariṣat sadeva-mānuṣāsura-garuḍa-gandharvaś ca loko bhagavato bhāṣitam abhyanandann iti ||

Then indeed 爾時，Bhagavan 世尊 spoke 說 these 是 words 語 after 已，Elder 具壽 Śāriputra 舍利弗，[with] great 大 joy 喜 was entirely filled 充遍，Guānzìzài 觀自在 bodhisatva 菩薩 mahāsatva 摩訶薩 also 亦 great 大 delighted 歡喜。Then 時 that 彼 congregation 眾會 of devas 天、humans 人、asuras 阿修羅、gandarvas 乾闥婆 etc 等，heard 聞 [by] buddha 佛 what was said 所說，all 皆 greatly delighted 大歡喜，believed 信 accepted 受 respectfully 奉 put into practice 行。

The Chinese ending is characteristically Chinese and the structure of the Sanskrit is quite different here:

The Bhagavan said this: [And] overjoyed, Elder Śāriputra, Noble Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva, those bhikṣus and bodhisatvas, the whole gathering, and the world with its devas, humans, demons, garudas and gandharvas rejoiced in the words of the Bhagavan.

T254 omits dàxǐ chōng biàn 大喜充遍 "was entirely filled great joy". However, in T253 this appears to translate āttamanā "enraptured", so the omission from T254 seems to be a mistake.

Conclusion

Any conclusions about T253 and T254 need to be contextualised in terms of what we already know. T251 was assembled from some copied passages, some original composition, and a copied dhāraṇī. This composite text was later translated into Sanskrit. The Hṛd is a poor translation with numerous poor word and syntax choices, and a least one obvious calque of Chinese (Attwood 2021b). There are two main recensions of the extended text: (1) T252 and (2) the rest, i.e. T253, T254, 255, 257, the Sanskrit, and canonical Tibetan.

T252 (translated by Fǎyuè 法月 ca 741 CE) clearly had the same goal of completing the sutra by adding a suitable introduction and conclusion. This not only made the text seem like an Indian sutra, but also helped to clarify the otherwise ambiguous role of Guanyin. Apart from this, and the fact that T252 also incorporates the text of T251, it is in every other respect different from both T253 and T254. T252 is certainly not the same text as T253 but has to be seen as an independent attempt to supply the missing parts of a standard sutra.

From the present study, it seems that T254 is not an independent translation of the Heart Sutra. Rather it is a lightly edited version of T253, with only minor alterations. It's difficult to quantify, but I would guess that T254 is ~90% T253, and most of the variation is merely alternative spellings or synonyms.

The redacting of T253 to produce T254 appears to have occurred in Chinese. It is possible that a Sanskrit text was consulted, more so for the concluding section than the introduction. So for example, when T254 adds jùshòu 具壽 āyuṣman "Elder" to the name Śāriputra, this appears to reflect a Sanskrit practice that is not observed in Chinese translations. That said, T254 also seems to adopt readings that do not reflect the Sanskrit. Such as: adding hézhǎng gōngjìng 合掌恭敬 "joining hands respectfully" in Sentence 4; and omitting dàxǐ chōng biàn 大喜充遍 in Sentence 17.

When we look at T253, we see that it contains the entire text of T251, with a handful of minor alternations, even including a variant of a phrase from T251—lí zhū kǔ è 離諸苦厄—that is not found in any extant Sanskrit text.

T253 has several obvious mistakes that appear to be scribal errors: especially adding words and phrases where they do not belong. At present, I have no access to the witnesses that the editors of the Taishō used to create their edition. As such, I'm not sure whether such errors are found in the manuscripts/inscriptions or are the result of poor editing.

Neither T253 nor T254 really captures the Sanskrit of sentence 2. But then nor does any other version of the Heart Sutra (including the Tibetan). It's not clear how this happened.

The whole of T251 is integrated into T253 and this integration had to have happened in Chinese. This raises the question of whether T253 is a translation from a Sanskrit text at all. Perhaps it was composed in Chinese and the extended Sanskrit Heart Sutra came later? As with T254, T253 does not always follow the Sanskrit text.

At the very least Prajñā and Lìyán, like Fǎyuè 法月, salvaged the entirety of T251 in T253, seemingly without regard for any of the differences between T251 and their Sanskrit source. They all show the same blindness as Woncheuk who also supposedly had a Chinese source text.

It seems that the contribution of the "translators" only included the introduction and conclusion and a few minor changes to the rest of the text. This raises the question of whether T253 is an independent translation. For example, it is odd that T253 contains an expression hézhǎng gōngjìng 合掌恭敬 "joining hands respectfully" that has no counterpart in any known Sanskrit Heart Sutra, though it is a common enough expression.

Takeaways

1. T254 is a lightly redacted version of T253. Although most of the sentences have changes, they are mostly matters of alternate spelling or synonyms. Zhìhuì Lún 智慧輪 may have consulted a Sanskrit text in the process but all of T251 is preserved intact. This suggests that the redaction occurred in Chinese. Ergo, T254 is not a separate translation of the Heart Sutra. And is not really a "translation" at all.

2. T253 retains the entirety of T251 intact. Thus, even if it was initially a translation from Sanskrit, only the introduction and conclusion were translated afresh (if that). Given the integration of T251 within it, even if there was a Sanskrit text, T253 was likely substantially redacted in Chinese.

3. The extended Hṛd mirrors the redaction process of T253 in the sense that Hṛd_ext preserves the Hṛd_std text in its entirety; including all of the odd expressions, Chinese idioms, and calques. Thus it seems likely that Hṛd_ext was produced in much the same (Chinese) milieu as Hṛd_std and in much the same way.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Attwood (2021a). "Preliminary Notes on the Extended Heart Sutra in Chinese." Asian Literature and Translation 8(1): 63–85. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18573/alt.53

———. (2021) "The Chinese Origins of the Heart Sutra Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of the Chinese and Sanskrit Texts." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 44: 13-52.

A list of all the differences

253 vs 254

Sentence 1

• 佛 vs 薄誐梵 (bhagavan)
• 耆闍崛山 vs 鷲峯山 (Gṛdhrakūṭa)
• 菩薩眾 vs 大菩薩眾 (cf 大比丘眾 in both)

S2

• 佛世尊 vs 世尊 (previously 薄誐梵)
• 時 vs 爾時
• 三昧 vs 三摩地 (cf S16 where both have 三摩地).
• T254 照見 added in error

S3

• 爾時 vs 時
• 觀自在 vs 觀世音自在
• 深 vs 甚深
• 般若波羅蜜多時 vs 般若波羅蜜多行時
• 皆空 vs 自性皆空
• 離諸苦厄 vs 254 omit (added S7)

S4

• 舍利弗 vs 具壽舍利子 (253 adds 具壽 in S18)
• 白觀自在 vs 白觀世音自在

S5

• 善男子 vs 聖者
• 行者 vs 行 (者 added in error)

S6

• 觀自在 vs 觀世音自在

S7

• 若 vs 若有
• 性空 vs 自性皆空
• 254 added 離諸苦厄。(from S3)

S8

• N/A

S9

• 是諸法空相 vs 是諸法性相空
• 不增不減 vs 不減不增

S10

• N/A

S11

• 究竟涅槃 vs 究竟寂然 (nirvāṇa)

S12

• 245 adds 現成正覺 (autocommentary?)

S13

• N/A

S14

• 櫱諦　櫱諦　波羅櫱諦　波羅僧櫱諦　菩提　娑(蘇紇反)婆訶
• 唵(引)　誐帝　誐帝　播(引)囉誐帝　播(引)囉散誐帝　冒(引)地　娑縛(二合)賀(引)

S15

• 舍利弗 vs 舍利子
• 應如是行 vs 應如是學 (improvement based on Sk)
• 253 adds 如是說已。 in error

S16

• 廣大甚深三摩地起 vs 三摩地安祥而起

253: vast 廣大 and profound 甚深 samādhi 三摩地 he arose 起
254: arose from samādhi 三摩地, peaceful 安祥 and composed 而起

• 觀自在 vs 觀世音自在

S17

• N/A

S18

• 語已 vs 說已
• 具壽舍利弗 vs 具壽舍利子 (253 adds 具壽)
• 大喜充遍 vs 254 omitted.
• 亦大歡喜。 vs 254 omitted
• 時彼眾會天 vs 及彼眾會一切世間天
• 阿修羅 vs 阿蘇囉 asura
• 乾闥婆 vs 巘䭾嚩 gandharva
• both have 信受奉行 with no Sk counterpart.

The False Allure of Origins

“The story of human origins has never really been about the past. Pre-history is about the present day. It always has been.” --Stefanos Geroulanos

Earlier in the year, I addressed some methodological issues in Buddhist Studies in three blog posts:

• History as Practiced by Philologists: A Response to Levman's Response to Drewes.
• Notes on Finding Buddhists in Global History.
• Early Buddhism as an Orientalist Construct.

In this post, I am returning to the topic of methodology and addressing a theme that has spawned numerous methods.

Human beings have always had a deep and abiding fascination with origins. For millennia humans have told stories about the origins of the universe, the origins of life, and the origins of humans. More recently we have sought the origins of tool use, consciousness, language, writing, religion, race, and inequality.

The idea is that if the past illuminates the present, then origins are the ultimate source of such illumination. If we can just understand the origins of a phenomenon, we can understand everything about it: because the origin is the source. When we say that scientists are exploring the origins of the universe, the origins of life, or the origins of consciousness, we mean that they seek the source of the universe, life, and consciousness. We seek to understand, at the most fundamental level, what sustains the universe, life, and consciousness, because we desperately want them to continue. But we also want to have more leverage to ensure our own flourishing. We want to be able to predict and thus avoid misfortune.

The discovery of origins is not always as illuminating as we might hope. In this essay, I'm going to explore some scenarios in which a successful quest to discover the origins does not lead to illumination of the present, let alone to the source of illumination. I will show that, at least to some extent, our quest for origins is misguided. As a general approach, it is flawed. There are many situations where knowing the origin does not provide us with accurate information about the present.

The Etymological Fallacy

Perhaps the most obvious place to start is with the etymological fallacy. Presented with an unfamiliar word we adopt various strategies to discover what it means. One of these strategies is to enquire into how the word was used in the past. The word etymology is itself ancient and still used in that old sense: from the Greek etymon "true sense, original meaning" and logia "speaking of".

The idea here is that if we can only trace the word back to its origins then we get the "original" meaning and this will explain how to use the word in the present. The problem here is that etymology, or better historical phonology, is not a tool developed to answer this question of what a word originally meant in one language. Rather it developed to discover the common grammatical and lexical roots of two or more different languages.

This approach was inaugurated in European culture by William Jones (ca 1786 CE), who noticed structural similarities between Sanskrit, Old Persian, Latin, and Greek. The similarities were of such a type that the languages in question had to spring from a common source. And if there was a common language, then there must have been a culture in which the language was spoken. This project led to the plausible reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, an entirely unattested language last spoken some 3000 years ago. It was soon linked to archaeology so that we could conjecture where and when the PIE-speakers lived and to some extent how they lived. This is one of the great successes of philology.

An example that illustrates the limits of etymology for explaining the present is the word "nice". This word is presently used as a weak or banal compliment or, equally often, as a sarcastic compliment. "It's nice to see you", "That's nice, Dear...", "Nice hat!". This sense arose out of the 19th century meaning "kind, thoughtful" which was intended without sarcasm or irony. This in turn grew out of the 18th century meaning "agreeable, delightful". In the 16th century, nice meant "precise, careful". This in turn developed from the 15th century usage "dainty, delicate". In the 14th century nice meant "fussy, fastidious", which all goes back to the 13th century when the word came into English from French where it meant "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish,".

In fact, we can trace this word all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. It combines an affix ne "not" with the root scire "to know". In the oldest sense that we can derive, nice means "ignorant". In fact, we can see "nice" as a contraction of the word nescient.

So now we can ask the question: Having identified that the original meaning of "nice" was "nescient", what does this tell us about the present use?

In this case, it's no help because the meaning has changed so often, so much, and in such unexpected ways. In 2024, the way we use "nice" is entirely unconnected to "nescient". While "nice" is an extreme example, all words change their meaning and their pronunciation over time. There is a kind of evolution by mutation and natural selection going on all the time.

Etymology as a method comes under the heading of semantics, which is broadly concerned with what words mean. Semantics is a subfield of semiotics, the study of meaning generally. There is another approach to thinking about words which is pragmatics. In a pragmatics approach, rather than inquiring into (abstract) meaning, we ask "What does a word or phrase do?". A classic expression of this is found in Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:

“For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (1967 Philosophical Investigations. Section 43)

This is often abbreviated to "meaning is use", which is a good rule of thumb. The meaning of words is not intrinsic to the words but rather emerges from how a language-using community understands the words. Virtually all words change their meaning over time, though some kinds of words, such as kin terms and numbers, tend to be conserved more than others.

John "J. L." Austin and his one-time student, John Searle, developed the idea of speech acts, which focus on how we do things with speech. An example might be "I now pronounce you man and wife". The words have meaning, but the statement is intended to mark the change in status of two single people into one married couple. This is a change in legal status affecting, for example, how much tax they pay. Austin and Searle looked into how merely saying some words can result in a change of legal status. Searle's book The Construction of Social Reality is a brilliant exploration of this problem.

Austin and Searle classified speech acts according to locution (what was said), illocution (what a speech act was intended to do), and perlocution (what was understood or done).

If we take this approach, the idea of origins has no great appeal unless, for example, we need to know how a word was used in a historical document. The way the word was used in the past is only relevant to the past. The way that a word is used in the present, is what it means in the present.

Let's take the example of "literally" being used as an intensifier: "I literally died" (said for example by someone living, who got a fright).

The process of words being used as intensifiers in this way is a constant in English. There are dozens of examples across time (including "nice"). And yet this one word has become a particular bugbear for language pedants. "Literally", means, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary "according to the exact meaning of the word." But OEtD also notes that the hyperbolic use of literally, to mean "in the strongest admissible sense" was first recorded in the late 17th century. Using "literally" as an intensifier is not a new usage, complaining about it is new.

Complaining about language use is very much an elitist pastime, in which parts of the British Empire continue to assert their sense of entitlement and superiority by criticising the vernacular speech differs from the speech of the historical aristoi. The British ruling classes despise the plebian hoi polloi. One way to align oneself with the elite, and hope to curry favour, is to mount a defence of the way the elite speak. In Britain, this goes back to 1066 and a land of people speaking Old English being ruled by French-speaking aristoi from Normandy.

Cases like "nice" or "literally" show that what a word previously meant is irrelevant if people just agree to start using it to mean something different. Intensifiers are subject to fashions and thus change more rapidly than other words. Look up the etymology of, for example, "very" or "terrific".

In Buddhist studies, we find numerous examples of the etymological fallacy because ancient Buddhists very often used words in new ways that were unrelated to the previous use. If you look at Buddhists writing about a word like vedanā, you will see them carefully explain that the word derives from the root √vid "to know (via experience)" and then proceed, without irony, to explain that the word is never used in that sense, but it was used to indicate the positive and negative hedonic qualities of sensory experience (sukha, duḥkha, asukkhamaduḥkha). Since there was no word that meant this, they adapted one to their purposes. No amount of etymologising or semantic analysis will reveal the Buddhist usage, because it's based on pragmatic considerations.

Similarly when they try to translate vedanā into English, typically translators choose either "feelings" or "sensations". Neither of these words conveys "the positive and negative hedonic qualities of sensory experience" or anything like it. Moreover, no one really likes either translation and good arguments have been put forward against using both of them. However, in the end, there is no common English word that denotes "the positive and negative hedonic qualities of sensory experience". This concept is not part of our worldview, with one important exception. Neuroscientists have a very similar concept of experience having positive and negative hedonic qualities, and they have adapted the word valence to convey this. Valence means "strength, or capacity" (cognate with English wield). Again, this is pragmatic rather than semantic.

Staying in the realms of philology, we come to the idea of the original text or urtext.

The Urtext fallacy

As the European Crusaders crashed about murdering Muslims and looting the Middle East they occasionally stumbled on hand-copied bibles from the Syriac or Ethiopic Churches. These texts were recognisably Christian Bibles, but they contained obvious and significant differences from European Bibles. Since the Bible was considered the literal(!) word of God, that two Bibles might have any differences, let alone major differences, was intolerable (and almost inconceivable).

For theologians, it was deeply troubling to discover that some Bibles told different stories, or at least the same stories in different ways. Theologians were concerned that the perfect words of god had been adulterated and they could not be entirely sure that the Bible they had was the right one.

Drawing on methods of interpreting legal documents, theologians began to develop methods for recovering the "original" Bible. Underpinning this exercise was an assumption that we find prominently enunciated in the Bible itself, viz:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Later, the methods used to reconstruct the words of god were codified and systematised by Karl Lachmann (1793-1851). Although there were competing systems and a lot of criticism, Lachmann is the one we remember (which itself may reflect the "great men of history" fallacy.

The method begins with the assumption that there was once a perfect original. Also known as an urtext, so called because in German ur means "original, earliest, primitive". And Germans were very influential in the early days of philology. The brothers Grimm and Humbolt come to mind for example.

As manuscripts are repeatedly copied by scribes, errors and amendments may creep in and accumulate. By carefully comparing witnesses using Lachmann's method, the textual critic may restore the (perfect) "original text" by eliminating all the errors, even though none of the surviving documents on their own reflects the pure original any longer.

This unspoken assumption of original perfection is also apposite to the practice of philology on Buddhist literature. God did not make errors. Neither, apparently, did the Buddha. So any and all errors must be adventitious and can be safely eliminated. This leads to some oddities, however.

For example, more or less every Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā manuscript spells bodhisattva as bodhisatva and ārya as āryya. In almost every case, editors have tacitly "corrected" this to conform to the classical Sanskrit spelling. However, if a scribe misspells a word consistently throughout, and if all of that scribe's contemporaries also misspell the word in the same way; this is not a "mistake" to be corrected. Rather, it's a distinct orthography that is characteristic of the literature and should be preserved. Some scholars have adopted the Buddhist spelling bodhisatva in recognition of this.

Why do scholars adopt this practice of privileging classical Sanskrit? One answer might be that Sanskrit is supposedly the original language of the Indo-Aryans, that is to say, the Vedic-speakers or Vaidikas who migrated into the Punjab from Afghanistan, ca 1500 BCE. Sanskrit refers to itself as the saṃskṛtabhāṣya "perfected speech". Treating Buddhists as idealised Sanskrit speakers is irrational.

The idea of a perfect Buddhist ur-text is also incoherent. Buddhists often wrote as they spoke, in a vernacular Middle-Indic language, with more or less cultural influence from Sanskrit.

Moreover, while scribal error was a factor in changing Buddhist texts, the active intervention of Buddhists making deliberate changes was a much greater factor. Any given story usually appears in several variants. Most of the suttas contain narrative elements drawn from a common pool and put together in novel ways. Few suttas are entirely "original".

Moreover, long after the putative death of the Buddha, Buddhists continued to both redact their existing texts and to compose new texts attributed to the Buddha. Is this attribution to the Buddha a new thing or is it a continuation of standard practice? We don't know because the "fossil record" of texts is incomplete and there is an epistemic horizon because writing was first used in India in the mid-3rd century BCE. Prior to this, we don't know what Buddhist texts looked like. Some Buddhist Studies scholars who want Buddhism to be old assume strong continuity going back in time. This gives them the idea that, for example, Pāli suttas are an authentic and accurate record of Buddhist thought going back centuries before the advent of writing. In this view, nothing changes over time; or things only change in insignificant ways.

Frankly, this position is weird for the religion that preaches that "everything changes". And for a religion, whose study is complicated by the fact that, while scripture was canonised in Sri Lanka, it never was in India. The fact is that Buddhist sutras underwent constant revision and renewal in India. We also know that Buddhism emerged along with the rise of the second urbanisation of India, a few centuries of extraordinary social and political change across Northern India. The idea that prior to writing, nothing much changed is clearly nonsensical.

In Buddhist Studies, there is no hope of using the method of eliminating errors to reveal the pure original words of the Buddha. No Buddhist urtexts are waiting to be revealed. Rather such texts were clearly constructed piecemeal, more often than not using pericopes or stock phrases that are repeated across the canon: like evaṃ mayā śrutaṃ. And they continued to be deliberately changed even after being written down.

The literature we have is the product of centuries of oral storytelling that was not concerned with preserving "the original" but with communicating Buddhist values to each new generation on its own terms. This was followed by centuries of written transmission which involved editing, redacting, and other ways of introducing variation that are not "errors" to be removed.

The Evolutionary Tree Fallacy

One of the most powerful scientific models we have is Darwin's evolutionary tree, famously first sketched in a notebook in 1837.

This developed into a model in which new species branch off from existing species. A modern example looks like this:

However, this is not how evolution proceeds at all, especially in the Bacteria/Archaea kingdoms. This linear-branching tree obscures more than it reveals.

1. All species live in ecosystems and cannot be (fully) understood apart from that ecosystem. If you isolate any living thing from its ecosystem it typically dies soon afterwards. We can supply an ersatz environment that keeps them alive but, for example, many zoo animals have severe behavioural problems associated with living in captivity. The more intelligent the animal, the more they suffer from captivity.

2. Almost all species live in some kind of symbiosis. All animals, for example, have a microbiome on the skin and lining the gut consisting mainly of bacteria and fungi. These organisms act as an interface between us and the world and contribute in many different ways to our well-being (not least of which is helping us digest plants). Plants have mycorrhizal fungi that penetrate both roots and soil, connecting the two. Claims that plants use this fungal network as a kind of "internet" seem to have been greatly overstated, but the symbiosis is real and vitally important. The macrobiome cannot do without its microbiome.

3. Hybridisation of species is far more common than classical taxonomies allow. It is very common in organisms that use external fertilisation such as fish and plants. It is the norm amongst bacteria and archaea since both support extra-genomic (free-floating) genes and have the ability to share genes with any other bacteria. It is questionable whether the term "species" applies to them at all.

4. Virtually all life is communal, cooperative, and mutually interdependent. Yes, there is competition as well, and sometimes this results in the death of the loser, but this is secondary. All bacteria definitely live in communities, usually with multiple species contributing to the persistence of the whole. Social animals routinely outstrip their more solitary cousins. The collective aspect of life defies the paradigmatic reductionist approach to science. We can see Dawkins' "selfish gene" as an application of neoliberal individualism and selfishness applied to biology.

The quest for origins is fundamentally a reductive approach to knowledge: present-day complexity is reduced to a single simple starting point. But life is irreducible. There is more to be gained from studying a living organism in its ecosystem than from killing and dissecting it.

While the tree metaphor makes evolution seem simple, it's not. A better model is the braided stream, which splits into multiple streams but also recombines.

This is more like what evolution looks like in reality. Especially if you think of the river as just one manifestation of the water cycle. The origins of a river are not simplistic. Despite the Victorian fascination with discovering "the source of the Nile" and so on, the truth is we can never point to one spot and say, this is the origin of a river. Rather the origins of rivers are to be found in the water cycle.

Surface water evaporates and plants transpirate, and wind transports water-laden air, which falls as rain on oceans and land. On land, rain forms rivers and lakes and so on, only to evaporate all over again. Where is the origin? It is nowhere.

Nor does the water cycle happen in isolation. It depends on other physical, often cyclic, processes, including numerous oceanographic, atmospheric, and geological processes.

Everything is interconnected. The origins of species may not be accessible to reductionist approaches since evolution is not linear and nor are most ecosystems. This brings us to the topic of emergence.

Emergence

Let us say that we wanted to understand the properties of table salt: cubic white crystals of sodium chlorine. The reductionist approach is to break the substance into its constituents, in this case, we might electrolyse molten sodium chloride to get sodium metal and chlorine gas. Sodium is a soft grey metal that reacts violently with water to produce hydrogen gas and enough heat to spontaneously combust the hydrogen. Chlorine is a pale green gas that reacts with water to form hydrochloric acid, which is what our stomach uses to digest food. If inhaled or in contact with the eyes, chlorine can cause severe acid burns. (I have personal experience of both elements).

What have we learned about table salt? On this model, we expect sodium chloride to be a grey-green material that is wildly explosive and corrosive. But of course, this is not what sodium chloride is like. The reason is that in changing from elemental forms to compounds we add something that is not a new substance. That something is structure. When we add structure to sodium and chlorine we get something new that has its own properties. While there are many different definitions of emergent property, my definition derives from the book Analysis and the Fullness of Reality by Richard H. Jones. Here it is:

An emergent property is a property that derives from structure rather than substance.

I treat "system" and "structure" as the dynamic and static elements of the same concept. Reductionism is concerned with building blocks. Antireductionism (aka holism, or emergentism) is concerned with how arranging those building blocks into static structures and/or dynamic systems, allows new properties to emerge that are largely dependent on how the building blocks are arranged.

Think of a ship. A ship has to float. But the fact that it floats has less to do with the substance we make the ship out of and more to do with the structure. Large ships are made from steel which is roughly eight times denser than water. But by arranging it so that the overall volume enclosed by the steel is eight times larger than a solid steel ingot, we can make the density of the hull small enough to float. Floating in water is not a fundamental property of steel. It's an emergent property of hull-shaped objects made of virtually any material no matter how dense they are naturally. One could even imagine a boat made of neutronium (which has a density of has a density of almost 400 quadrillion kg/m³, compared to water at 1000 kg/m³).

Biologists, being concerned with complex interacting systems and structures, tend to understand the limits of reductionism very well. One can only learn so much from dissecting an organism. Understanding it requires that we study living examples, in their communities, and within their ecosystems. This means that to understand an organism we have to understand how it interacts with the systems and structures that it is embedded in.

However, the philosophy and practice of science is generally dominated by reductionists. So the way we understand science as a practice is distorted in favour of substances, reductive methods, and reductive explanations. And as a result many people believe that if we can only discover and explain the most basic elements of the universe, we will understand everything. The biologist knows this is not true.

This idea ran onto the rocks almost 100 years ago with the development of quantum theory. Quantum theory operates like a black box. If we plug numbers in, we get out predictions in the form of probabilities, and those predicted probabilities are very consistent with observations. The problem is that no one knows why the Schrodinger equation works or to what physical reality it corresponds. Many physicists take an insouciant attitude to this, arguing that since the equations work, there is no mileage in asking why (an attitude more like the medieval Roman Catholic Church than that of Galileo Galilei).

This disconnect has only been made worse by experimental proof that certain quantum phenomena are non-local - i.e. not constrained by space and time in the way that we expect from classical physics. Locality is explicit and implicit in how we think about the world. Some of the most basic information we get about the world, for example, is our location, orientation, and extension in space. If this is not relevant on the smallest scale then it seems unlikely that we will ever understand that scale in any conventional sense.

I think Kant was correct to argue that, as far as human minds are concerned, location and extension are baked into how we think about the world. Without them, we are literally and figuratively lost. And it has been experimentally proved that locality is not fundamental. One way around this is to posit that locality is a function of the degree of entanglement between microscopic regions of space-time, i.e. that locality itself is an emergent property of a more fundamental property. Whether this bears fruit only time will tell. At this point, however, it appears unlikely that studying the origins of matter will solve this problem.

The "Original Buddhism" Fallacy

A constant theme of discussion in Buddhist texts is authenticity and the threat posed by inauthenticity. This continues to be an important theme for Buddhists. At its most banal, authentic means "our style of Buddhism" and inauthentic means "any other style of Buddhism". At the other end of the scale, we might say that authentic means "leads to liberation" in practice (as opposed to in theory). And inauthentic does not lead to liberation. Between these two extremes are a range of views, often based on conformity with some template such as certain old texts.

A common theme for Buddhists seeking to legitimise their practice of Buddhism is to cite some authority that suggests that this or that practice is prominent in older Buddhist literature (though the dating of Buddhist texts by non-historians is quite nutty). This way of thinking has led to many formulations that purport to represent "original Buddhism", "pre-sectarian Buddhism", or "Buddhism before Buddhism". The general process is that employing a variety of heuristics, one selects certain texts, ideas, or practices (excluding all others) and from them, one makes an argument that this is how all Buddhists went about things in the past, or that this is what the Buddha did (when he was "all Buddhists").

The idea, for example, that the Pāli suttas represent "the actual words of the Buddha" (buddhavacana) holds powerful sway over some Buddhists. A ragtag group of scholars have pursued projects like identifying the language the Buddha spoke. On the other hand, other scholars have pointed out that the very notion of a "historical Buddha" is incoherent because of the absence of any primary sources (i.e. contemporary, written, eyewitness accounts).

Given the ubiquitous appeal of these "origin" ideas, it is strange that so few Buddhists will admit that all the Buddhist traditions for which we have reliable documentation, abandoned so-called buddhavacana in favour of new ideas and practices. All of them, including the Theravādins (who seem to make the most noise about "authenticity").

It is perhaps the single most striking fact about the Buddhist religion that everyone claims to be following "the teachings of Buddha" when in point of fact, none of them does. Rather they all follow the teachings of later interpreters and reformers. All modern forms of Buddhism are just that: modern. This is not problematic per se; just in obvious conflict with the idea that any modern person is engaged in the practice of original or early Buddhism.

The closest we get to an admission of this is the anachronistic "back to Buddha" groups, including many Theravādins (and ex-Theravādins) who seek to reconstruct "original Buddhism" by selecting (and excluding) extracts from the Pāli suttas. In point of fact, those who take this approach invariably invent a new form of Buddhism that has never existed before. This is inevitable because we don't live in Iron Age India and we do have conditioning from modernity.

David McMahan famously identified three powerful modern influences on what he called "Buddhist Modernism" a term he chose to deliberately suggest that living Buddhism owes more to modernity—especially Romanticism, Protestantism, and Scientific Rationalism—than it does to Buddhism. It's a pity that McMahan chose not to address the political dimension in which Liberalism is also a major influence on Buddhist Modernism. However, the basic approach is sound. Yes, we are Buddhists, but we are also modernists. McMahan's view that modernism is the dominant aspect is controversial but not necessarily wrong. It's certainly food for thought.

One of the main methods for seeking original Buddhism is one I noted above. Exegetes assume that texts have an objectively factual core, which has been overlain with adventitious elements including "superstition". The idea is that if we just subtract the superstition we arrive at historical facts.

Sadly, this method is incoherent if only because it's clear that the authors of the Pāli suttas themselves did not make such a distinction. To the authors, it was all buddhavacana, including all the miracles, superstitions, and supernatural entities. One cannot cut away any part of it without doing violence to the literature, though this has not stopped prominent Buddhist leaders from taking such an approach.

The ideas and practices expressed in the texts reflect the beliefs of the authors and redactors, and such beliefs clearly changed, often radically, over time. The supernatural and miracles appear to have been central to this worldview. The idea that these elements are absent amongst present-day Buddhists is naive at best.

Conclusion

It's not that the quest for origins is pointless, it's not. It can be illuminating. There are, however, two major problems: (1) locating origins in the deep past is seldom possible (because, e.g. the epistemic horizon of "history" represented by the advent of writing); and (2) even when we can identify origins, they often turn out to be uninformative.

Origins can be uninformative because: there never was a perfect or idealised "original" to begin with; because of continual deliberate change over time which cannot always be traced or undone; because contemporary meaning is contemporary use; because of the reductive nature of the quest for origins and the emergent nature of the phenomena of interest; or because the methods we use reflect all manner of unexamined and untenable assumptions.

In seeking knowledge, the methods we use are important. On this I disagree with my sometime mentor Richard Gombrich who has argued that method all boils down to conjecture and refutation. While I remain grateful to Richard for his insights and generous help, I think his position on this issue is easily refuted. All too often it is lack of attention to methods that scuppers Buddhist Studies scholarship.

I do agree that the general principle of conjecture and refutation is important. In the ideal, this is what we are all doing, after all. Still, one has to pay attention to methodological issues to avoid making gross mistakes, such as treating a figure as "historical" when there are no primary sources for that figure they do not qualify to be "historical". Or applying philological methods to history as though the change of topic and media makes no difference. Human behaviour does not change in same way as human language. This ought to be a no-brainer and yet when philologists write about history, they simply ignore the methods of history. There is even a tendency to denigrate historians who insist on historical methods (with Gombrich's protege, Alex Wynne, being perhaps the worst offender).

I learned Buddhist Studies from reading hundreds of articles and dozens of books. Very few of these products of scholarship discuss methodology in a meaningful way. One of the exceptions is Jan Nattier's (2003) influential book A Few Good Men. My impression is that methodology is generally downplayed in Buddhist Studies and that religious ideas are often taken at face value.

What seems clear is that few Buddhist Studies scholars are capable of articulating basic historical methods, let alone of applying them, and as a result we see a lot of junk scholarship that can only lower the value of Buddhist Studies in academia (a dangerous situation under neoliberalism). In a sense, the field of Buddhist Studies is in the midst of an unacknowledged methodological crisis.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Jayarava. (2013) Evolution: Trees and Braids.

Geroulanos, Stefanos. (2024). The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins.

Graeber, D. and Wengrow D. (2021). The Dawn of Everything.

Jones, Richard H. (2013). Analysis & the Fullness of Reality: An Introduction to Reductionism & Emergence. Jackson Square Books.

Searle, John R. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. Penguin.