The Extended Heart Sutra: Enter Avalokiteśvara

We now move on to Paragraph E in Silk's study of the Tibetan Text. Please note my published corrections for this passage in Conze's edition (Attwood 2015). Also note that the same sentence appears in another variant in Paragraph I of Silk's edition.

In Recension One (R1) this passage involves a variant on the first paragraph of the standard text, in which Avalokiteśavara does the Prajñāpāramitā practice and notices the five branches of experience are absent. Note that in R1 there is no interaction between the Buddha and Avalokiteśavara. I will discuss Recension Two (R2) separately because the subject matter is so different there is no comparison. Overall there is a considerable amount of variation that is difficult to explain.

The following translations reflect my conclusions, so if they are different than you expect it might be explained in the following notes (or it might just be a mistake).

Texts

Recension One

T 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。
Moreover, at that time, in that congregation there was a bodhisatva-mahāsatva named Avalokiteśvara. When he practiced the profound Prajñāpāramitā he examined the five skandhas [and saw they were] all absent, and he was separated from all suffering and misery.

T 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。離諸苦厄。
Moreover, at that time, in that congregation there was a bodhisatva-mahāsatva named Avalokiteśvara. When he practiced the profound Prajñāpāramitā he examined the five skandhas [and saw they were] all void of self-existence (自性), and [he] was separated from all suffering and misery.

T 255. 復於爾時，觀自在菩薩摩訶薩行深般若波羅蜜多時，觀察照見五蘊體性悉皆是空。
At that time, when Guānzìzài bodhisatva mahāsatva practiced the deep prajñāpāramitā, he examined and saw the five skandhas [and] their [self?] nature is, without exception, is absent.

T 257. 時，觀自在菩薩摩訶薩在佛會中，而此菩薩摩訶薩已能修行甚深般若波羅蜜多，觀見五蘊自性皆空。
Then, Guānzìzài bodhisatva mahāsatva dwelled amidst the assembly, and this bodhisatva mahāsatva was already capable of practising the very profound perfection of gnosis; he examined the five skandhas [and saw] the absence of essence (svabhāva).

Skt. tena ca samayena āryāvalokiteśvaro bodhisatvo mahāsatvo gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ caramāṇaḥ evaṃ vyavalokayati sma pañca skandhāṃs tāṃś ca svabhāvaśūnyaṃ vyavalokayati [sma].
At that time, Ārya Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva practicing the practice with respect to the deep perfection of gnosis examined the five skandhas and [saw]* them as essenceless.

*reading vyavalokayati as paśyati sma

TibA. yang de'i tshe byang chub sems dpa' sems dpa' chen po 'phags pa spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa zab mo spyod pa nyid la rnam par lta zhing / phung po lnga po de dag la yang rang bzhin gyis stong par rnam par lta'o//
Now, at that time, the bodhisatva mahāsatva Ārya Avalokiteśvara, observing the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom, observed that even the five aggregates are intrinsically empty.

TibB. yang de'i tshe byang chub sems dpa' sems dpa' chen po / 'phags pa spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa zab mo spyod par rnam par blta ste / phung po lnga po dag la de dag ngo bo nyid kyis stong par rnam par blta'o//
Now, at that time, the bodhisatva mahāsatva Ārya Avalokiteśvara, observed the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom, and with respect to five aggregates observed that they are intrinsically empty.

Observations

離諸苦厄

T 253 and 254 have an extra phrase: lí zhū kǔ è 離諸苦厄 "apart/removed from all suffering and misery" means much the same as dù yīqiè kǔ è 度一切苦厄 "transcended all suffering and misery" in std text. Note that 苦厄 can be taken as one word (suffering) or two (misery and suffering).

The extra phrase is present in the Fangshan Stele, crafted in 661 CE (within about five years of the composition of the text) so we take it to be part of the original text. No other versions of the extended text in any language have this phrase and nor does any Sanskrit text, standard or extended. The translations of T 253 and 254 were, therefore, influenced by the standard text where other Chinese versions were not. We might infer in these cases that the translators understood the standard text to be authoritative.

Examining the Five Skandhas

The extended text has the same difference in sentence structure between the Chinese and Sanskrit texts that we see in the standard texts. In Sanskrit we have three verbal forms: caramāṇa, vyavalokayati sma, and vyavalokayati sma (Std and Para I: paśyati sma) but in Chinese we only have two: xíng 行 = caramāṇa and zhàojiàn 照見 = vyavalokayati sma.

Zhàojiàn 照見 doesn't really make sense as two standalone characters: zhào 照 means "shining, radiant; illuminate, make visible; reflection" and jiàn 見 is the usual verb "to see". This has led to some very odd translations such as "illuminatingly sees", where zhào 照 functions as an adverb. This is far from satisfactory and there is no consensus on how to translate it. If the two characters are a binomial reflecting the Sanskrit vyava√lok then we still have a problem with this as one phrase because the conclusion doesn't fit the premise.

I would like to propose a solution (suggested by the Sanskrit translation), which is that zhàojiàn wǔyùn jiē kōng 照見五蘊皆空 is, in fact, two phrases zhàojiàn wǔyùn 照見五蘊 "[he] examined the fives skandhas" and jiē kōng 皆空 "all void". The latter is minimal and requires us to interpolate much that we would naturally write in English or Sanskrit. Firstly it is implied that the skandhas were void or absent. Secondly the verb "to see" is implied by the context of the initial zhàojiàn 照見. If one looks, one sees something. All this can be left out in written medieval Chinese. Knowing that Sanskrit did not have this kind of flexibility, the Translator specified the verb paśyati sma. i.e. tāṃś ca svabhāvaśūnyan paśyati sma "And he saw them as lacking essence". I read the object here as tām "them" and svabhāvaśūnyan is a predicate of the object: so the basic sentence is tām paśyati "he saw them"

T 255 complicates matters somewhat: guānchá zhàojiàn wǔyùn tǐ xìng xījiē shì kōng 觀察照見五蘊體性悉皆是空. Guānchá 觀察 would seem to be a synonym of zhàojiàn 照見 and jiē kōng 皆空 is expanded out to tǐ xìng xījiē shì kōng 體性悉皆是空 "self-nature, without exception, is absence". Here tǐ xìng 體性 conveys svabhāva. In the standard Chinese text what Avalokiteśvara sees is jiē kōng 皆空 "all empty" or "all absent".

T 254 and T 257 also pick up the Sanskrit idea that the five skandhas are void of essence (i.e. svabhā-vaśunyan; zì xìng自性). It's possible T 255 intended this but a character got dropped because the text only has characteristic (xìng 性) but there are no text critical notes in the Taishō so this is speculative. T 253 has the same text as the standard version, i.e. jiē kōng 皆空.

Gambhīra

The Sanskrit has gambhīrāyāṃ prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caryāṃ caramāṇaḥ but from the standard text we expect gambhīrāṃ prajñāpāramitācaryāṃ caramāṇaḥ. Is this a mistake? And if so, what kind of mistake is it?

1. is gambhīra an adjective of prajñāpāramitā or caryā?
2. should prajñāpāramitā or caryā be compounded?

In Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā I can find many occasions on which gambhīra is obviously an adjective of prajñāpāramitā but none in which is it an adjective of caryā.

The present participle caramāṇa is not used in either Aṣṭasāhasrikā or Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā, probably because it is the ātmanepada* (middle voice) form of the present participle and √car is usually parasmaipada (indicative), so that the expected present participle is carant (nominative singular caran) and this is the form we find throughout the two main Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. Although note that caramāṇa is found in the Ratnaguṇasamcayagāthā (not translated into Chinese till the 11th Century), the Mahāvastu, and in many Pāli suttas (although the of the ātmanepada conjugations generally in Pāli is minimal).

*ātmanepada verbs are used to refer to actions directed towards the speaker (ātmane) and parasmaipada verbs used to refer to actions directed towards another (parasmai). Although the semantic distinction is virtually lost in Classical Sanskrit, the conjugations remain and have to be learned.

With verbs of practice or training prajñāpāramitā regularly takes the locative, because it is the locus of that activity, i.e. prajñāpāramitāyāṃ śikṣitavyam, "he should train in perfect gnosis" and prajñāpāramitāyāṃ caran, "practicing in perfect gnosis". Etc.

In this context caryā means the program of practice of a bodhisatva (i.e. bodhisatvacaryā) which has several formulaic descriptions. The prajñāpāramitā-caryā is the program of practice associated with prajñāpāramitā which, thanks to Matt Orsborn, we now associate with the yoga of nonapprehension (anupalambhayoga).

Tibetan

The Tibetan rnam par lta would appear to be a counterpart of the Sanskrit vyavalokayati sma. And both TibA and TibB have this verb repeated when TibA has rnam par lta and TibB has rnam par blta, neither of which seems to be right. All Jonathan Silk (1994: 34) says about this is:

"Although grammars (for example Inaba 1986: 137) state that lta is a present and blta a future, if there is any correspondence with the Sanskrit we might expect blta (rather than the stipulated bltas) to be a past."

Inaba Shōju's study of classical Tibetan grammar is written in Japanese. So I cannot check to confirm this citation. But other sources confirm this observation. For example South Coblin (1976: 48) gives the paradigm as:

present: lta; perfect: bltas; future: blta; imperative: ltos.

Miller (1970) confirms but notes that some variations occur. The final-s is typical of the perfect, but not universal. Silk didn't offer any further explanation of the forms lta or blta in the Tibetan text when we expect bltas in both. He didn't resolve the problem but in his translations he translated what he expected to see (i.e. the past tense). This is odd because Silk is usually so particular and accurate, and his job as editor was to explain and resolve exactly this kind of problem. We're left with two recensions in Tibetan both seemingly with a different wrong tense (unless we read blta as a past perfect).

Note also that both TibA and TibB incorrectly separate out "closely examined" rnam par bltas from "the five skandhas" phung po lnga po with a punctuation marker or chad (/)

EDIT 6-8-20 A reader familiar with Tibetan suggests that the difference here is not so significant. blta and lta are pronounced the same. He suggests that since the time frame is established using the present form is understood as referring to the same period. 

Also in TibA, what on earth is zhing in the phrase rnam par lta zhing phung po lnga po?

EDIT 6-8-20 : according to a reader zhing here is "and". Which makes sense.

The mistake of having vyavalokayati sma twice when we expect paśyati sma the second time is also repeated here, though not in Paragraph I.

Recension Two

At this point R2 (T 252) is so different from R1 that we have to discuss it separately.

爾時觀自在菩薩摩訶薩在彼敷坐，於其眾中即從座起，詣世尊所。面向合掌，曲躬恭敬，瞻仰尊顏而白佛言：

At that time, Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva was abiding seated with the others; rising up from his seat amidst the congregation, he went to visit the Bhagavan, on one side he joined his palms, bowed respectfully, gazing respectfully at the honoured face, he said this to the Buddha:

「世尊！我欲於此會中，說諸菩薩普遍智藏般若波羅蜜多心。唯願世尊聽我所說，為諸菩薩宣祕法要。」

“Bhagavan, I want to preach to the bodhisattvas in this congregation the universal knowledge store, the heart of prajñāpāramitā. My only wish, Bhagavan, is that they will listen to me as I proclaim this exceptional (祕 ) summary of Dharma (法要).

爾時，世尊以妙梵音告觀自在菩薩摩訶薩言：「善哉，善哉！具大悲者。聽汝所說，與諸眾生作大光明。」

At that time, the Bhagavan, using the wondrous Brahma voice, addressed Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva: “Sādhu. Sādhu, Mahākaruṇika. May they listen to your preaching and their congregations grow and be greatly illuminated.”

於是觀自在菩薩摩訶薩蒙佛聽許，佛所護念，入於慧光三昧正受。

When this [was said], Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva mahāsatva, having received the permission of the Buddha, through the Buddha’s mindfulness, entered the wisdom light samādhi.

入此定已，以三昧力行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊自性皆空。

After he entered [samādhi] and settled, through the power of the samādhi practising the deep Prajñāpāramitā, he examined the five skandhas, each absent self-existence (自性).

Clearly this is not simply a variation on the same text. There is considerable variation in R1 but the versions are all apparently related, if only by similarity to the Std text. However, this story is very different. The Buddha is not in samādhi when Avalokiteśvara approaches him and they have a brief conversation which is entirely absent in R1 (consistent with the Buddha being in samādhi). Avalokakiteśvara seeks the Buddha's permission to teach and having been granted permission, it is he (Avalokiteśvara) that enters samādhi and has the insight that informs the rest of the text.

At this point the narrative (such as it is) begins to converge with R1, in that Avalokiteśvara converses with Śāriputra who asks a question and the reply constitutes the standard Heart Sutra.

My preliminary conclusion is that this is a separate attempt to extend the Heart Sutra. As we will see this thesis is supported by observations of the extended conclusion as well.

Conclusions

We see a lot more significant variation in this part of text and this entails developing more sophisticated explanations to account for them. I have sketched out some ideas of how we adapt the existing exegesis of this part of the extended text and the corresponding part of the standard text. In the case of the standard Heart Sutra, I think this helps to explain the differences between the Sanskrit translation and the Chinese source at this point in the text.

Chinese leaves out the verb meaning "see" because it is implied by the previous zhàojiàn 照見 "he examined". The Sanskrit and Tibetan texts definitely have the wrong verb (vyavalokayati for paśyati) but the canonical texts also seem to give this verb in the wrong tense, i.e. lta/blta, when we expect bltas. Although there is some suggestion that the final -s is sometimes left off the perfect making it look like a future.

I want to come back to the issue of the substitution of svabhāvaśūnyan for śūnyatā. In fact, the phrase svabhāvaśūnyan is absent from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā. What we do find is the list of eighteen or twenty kinds of śūnyatā (we are concerned with 16, 17, and 18)

1. Absence of internal dharmas (adhyātma-śūnyatā)
2. Absence of external dharmas (bahirdhā-śūnyatā).
3. Absence of internal-external dharmas (adhyātmabahirdhā-śūnyatā).
4. Absence of absences (śūnyatā-śūnyatā).
5. Great absence (mahā-śūnyatā).
6. Absence of the absolute (paramārtha-śūnyatā).
7. Emptimes of conditioned dharmas (saṃskṛta-śūnyatā).
8. Absence of the unconditioned dharma (asaṃskṛta-śūnyatā).
9. Limitless absence (atyanta-śūnyatā).
10. Absence of dharmas without end or beginning (anavarāgra-śūnyatā).
11. Absence of non-dispersed dharmas (anavakāra-śūnyatā). Sometimes avakāra-śūnyatā, avakārānavakāra-śūnyatā.
12. Absence of natures (prakṛti-śūnyatā).
13. Absence of all dharmas (sarvadharma-śūnyatā).
14. Absence of specific characteristics (svalakṣaṇa-śūnyatā).
15. Absence of non-apprehension (anupalambha-śūnyatā).
16. Absence of non-being (abhāva-śūnyatā).
17. Absence of being (svabhāva-śūnyatā).
18. Absence of non-being and of being (abhāvasvabhāva-śūnyatā).

Here svabhāva is not being used in the Madhyamaka sense but as a contrast to abhāva "non-being". That is to say that svabhāva appears to be used in the sense of sabhāva "with bhāva" and abhāva means "without bhāva". In the list of four kinds of śūnyatā, svabhāva "self-being" is contrasted with parabhāva, literally "other-being"

But Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā is constantly telling us not to take these as metaphysics, for example:

abhāvasvabhāvaśūnyatā abhāvasvabhāvaśūnyatāyāṃ na saṃvidyate nopalabhyate, abhāvasvabhāvaśūnyatāpi yāvad adhyātmaśūnyatāyāṃ na saṃvidyate nopalabhyate. (PvsP1-2: 146)

"... the absence of being and non-being does not perceive or apprehende the absence of being and non-being nor are the other kinds of absence perceived or apprehended."

In other words whether or not something exists is not distinguished when all sense experience has stopped. Similarly with respect to the list of four kinds of absence, the Upadeśa says (using Lamotte's reconstruction of the Sanskrit):

1. bhāvo bhāvena śūnyaḥ " being is absent from being"
2. abhāvo ‘bhāvena śūnyaḥ " non-being is absent from non-being"
3. svahāvaḥ svabhāvena śūnyaḥ "one's own being is absent from one's own being"
4. parabhāvaḥ parabhāvena śūnyaḥ "the being of others is absent from the being of others"

We have to keep in mind that in all these discussions the point of view is that of the meditator who has undergone cessation (nirodha) and is dwelling the absence of sense experience (śūnyatā). This is an attempt at a phenomenological description presented in terms of an Iron Age religious worldview.

Given that the extended text is a third generation born from the Chinese Heart Sutra, we might expect a little less variation on the one hand and less slavish copying of mistakes on the other. We have to keep in mind that the number of people who knew any Sanskrit in China at any one time was always small and most of them would not have progressed much beyond beginners level.

The leap from having Chinese as a mother tongue to learning Sanskrit as a second language in adulthood is formidable. The two languages are about as different as human languages can be from each other. We see this in the differences between the Chinese phrase jiē kōng 皆空and the Sanskrit translation: tāṃś ca svabhāvaśūnyan paśyati sma. Although we now understand that we expected tāṃś ca śūnyatā paśyati sma. It is not the case that Sanskrit has rules and Chinese does not. Chinese simply has very different rules from Sanskrit. Something else to keep in mind is that the texts we encounter are literary and are unlikely to reflect how anyone spoke in any language at the time.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

South Coblin, W. 'Notes on Tibetan Verbal Morphology.' T'oung Pao (Second Series). 62(1/3): 45-70.

Miller, Roy Andrew. (1970) 'A Grammatical Sketch of Classical Tibetan.' Journal of the American Oriental Society, 90(1): 74-96.

Revisiting Avalokiteśvara in the Heart Sutra

In my 2019 article on Xuanzang and the Heart Sutra, I argued that is was implausible for Xuanzang to have been involved in any clandestine attempt to pass the Heart Sutra off as a genuine sūtra. By contrast, Jeffrey Kotyk (2020) makes a good case for the Heart Sutra having been openly composed by Xuanzang as a condensation of the Prajñāpāramitā (i.e. a chāo jīng) and given to Gaozong and Wu Zhao as a gift on the birth of a son. On 6 January, 656, Xuánzàng sent a letter to the emperor celebrating the birth of a new prince the month before. He wrote in a letter: "I dare to offer a copy of the Prajñā Heart Sutra in gold letters, one scroll and a case." (輒敢進金字《般若心經》一卷并函 T 2053; 50.272b.12).

We still lack an explanation for the process of the text becoming an "authentic" sutra, although I have identified many of the components of the received myth and shown that they emerge over several decades. There must have been a point when the "fact" that the Heart Sutra was a translation by Xuanzang became established. If we accept Kotyk's thesis (and I am inclined to) then this transition occurred within five years because the Fangshan Stele, which credits Xuanzang as translator, is dated 13 March 661. 

Such considerations are tied up with questions of the historicity of sources. In the same article, Kotyk argued against the uncritical use of Xuanzang's Biography published in 688 CE* as an historical source because it is a hagiography with all that this implies: the religious and political agendas of the author are far from hidden. Unfortunately, when we strip out the magical and mystical elements we do not arrive at a narrative that tallies with the other historical sources (although, of course these also have their biases). In particular, the Biography appears to distort the relationship of Xuanzang and Taizong in ways that are favourable to the Buddhist community but not entirely plausible.

* i.e. Huìlì 慧立 and Yàncóng 彥悰. Da tang da ci'en si sanzang fasha chuan 大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳 (Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master [of the] Great Ci’en Monastery [of the] Great Tang), T 2053, 50.

Partly inspired by correspondence with Kotyk, I have also been critical of the use of the hagiography as history (Attwood 2019). By sheer bad luck my article was published before Kotyk (2020) whereas he was finished first and I had read a draft and corresponded with him about it while writing my article. Preceding us both, Max Deeg has been critical of naive readings of the Xuanzang's travelogue, Notes on the Western Regions (西域記 Xīyù jì), composed ca 645 or 646 CE.

More specifically Deeg (2016: 126-8) has pointed to historical inaccuracies in how Xuanzang portrays the Indian king, Harṣavardhana (606 to 647 CE), of the Puṣpabhūti Dynasty (henceforth King Harṣa). Deeg plausibly argues that these inaccuracies appear to be deliberate narrative devices on the part of Xuanzang. He seems to have tried create a sympathetic protagonist for the Tang Emperor Taizong to identify with, so that he might take a moral lesson worked into the story. In this essay, I will extend Deeg's argument: if we accept that Xuanzang took a didactic approach in writing Notes on the Western Regions and gave Avalokiteśvara an educational role, then it is worth reconsidering the unexpected appearance of Avalokiteśvara in the Heart Sutra in this light.

Avalokiteśvara

Name

The bodhisattva first appears in Chinese translations from the 2nd Century CE under a range of names (Nattier 2007). The various Chinese forms reflect two forms of the name in Sanskrit:, i.e. Avalokitasvara and Avalokiteśvara. The two names and the relative chronology were first noticed by Nikolaĭ Dmitrievitch Mironov (1927). The principal Chinese forms are:

• 廅樓亘  (Èlóuxuān). “Sound-Observer”
• 闚音      (Kuīyīn) “Sound-Observer”
• 見音聲  (Jiànyīnshēng) “He Sees Sounds” 
• 光世音  (Guāngshìyīn) “Sounds of the World of Light”
• 觀世音  (Guānshìyīn) “He Observes Sounds of the World”

Èlóuxuān 廅樓亘 might have been an attempt at a transliteration, perhaps of an even more primitive form of the name, i.e. Avaloka-svara. A possibility Nattier did not consider was a Prakrit form of the name: avalokita-svara in Pāḷi would be spelled olokita-sara.  The Gāndhārī form of the name is Ologispara.* 

* The Gāndhāri Dictionary) lists Olo'iśpare as representing Avalokeśvara (i.c. avaloka-īśvara). However, Salomon and Schopen (2002) have cast doubt on this reading of the inscription without being able to clarify what the correct reading should be. It is probably the locale the donor lived in. 

Up to about the 6th Century, Chinese translators were evidently encountering avalokita-svara since the translations all refer to having "observed" (avalokita) a "sound" (svara). This has a flavour of synaesthesia about it and I'm not aware of any convincing explanation of the name that deals with the fact that one does not usually observe sounds, one hears sounds and observes visual phenomena. The "spelling" Guāngshìyīn 光世音 is probably the result of having misheard the name as ābhā-loka-svara "light world sound".

It's sometimes suggested that the name Guānshìyīn 觀世音 was shortened during the Tang to Guānyīn 觀音 after the death of Emperor Taizong (r.  626 to 649), to avoid the wordshì 世 from his personal name 李世民 Lǐ Shìmín. Such taboos were common in China after Emperors died. However, the practice of shortening the name began long before the birth of Lǐ Shìmín. For example, Kumārajīva frequently uses the two character name in his Lotus Sutra translation (T. 262) dated 403 CE. In any case, the taboo usually required a substitution rather than a simple excision. For example, in some expressions 世 shì was substituted with 代 dài (Kroll 2015: 73).

From the 6th Century translations of Bodhiruci onwards, a new form of the name started appearing in which the word svara was replaced with īśvara "Lord, Master". These include Guānshìzìzài 觀世自在 (“Sovereign of the Observed World”), and Xuanzang's translation Guānzìzài 觀自在 (“Sovereign of the Observed”). Since Avalokitasvara absorbed some of the iconography of Śiva around this time it is assumed that he also absorbed one of Śiva's principle epithets, Maheśvara "Great Lord" to become Avalokita-īśvara (a-ī > e). Alexander Studholme includes a detailed discussion of the relationship between Avalokiteśvara in the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra and Śiva Mahēśvara as we meet him in the Purāṇa texts (2002: 37 ff) 

In translating Xuanzang's Travelogue, Samuel Beal explained Xuanzang's choice of characters for the name. Beal correctly back translated 自在 as īśvara, but understood it to mean “self-existent” and interpreted its meaning as “god.” This apparently influenced many later interpretations of the name. In fact Sanskrit īsvara more straightforwardly means "Lord" or "Master" from √īṣ, which is related to the PIE root *aik- "be master of, possess." Cognate words are English "own" (as in possess) and "owe" and German "eigen". In the Chinese Āgama texts, 自在 simply means "master". Reading Chinese Buddhist texts without reference to the Indic sources can lead us astray, even when they are composed in Chinese.

Sanskrit texts and fragments noted by Mironov (1927) confirm that the name starts off as Avalokitasvara and transforms into Avalokiteśvara at some point. This change is more recently documented by Jan Nattier (2007) and Seishi Karashima (2016). It has also been noted by all and sundry that the latter name never caught on in China where the, now female, figure is still principally known as Guānyīn 觀音. The gender-change came much later than the period that interests me. 

What is not much discussed is the kind of compound that the words avalokita-svara and avalokita-īśvara might be. It is important to note that avalokita is a part participle, i.e. "seen, viewed, observed", not "seeing, viewing, or observing"; it comes from a root √lok meaning "look", i.e. it is rooted in the visual sense. The Chinese translation, guān 觀, also means "observe, consider"; the character combines the semantic radical xiàn 見 meaning "see" with a phonetic radical guàn 雚. As far as I can tell, few of the common  English translations correspond to possible grammatical analyses of the compound. The form avalokita-īśvara seems obviously to be a tatpuruṣa, "Lord of the seen [world]" or "Lord with [a compassionate] gaze."

However, avalokita-svara could be any of: "viewed sound" (karmadhāraya), "sound of the seen" (tatpuruṣa), or "whose sound is observed" (bahuvrīhi). None of these particularly makes sense to me, but then none of the traditional explanations follow the rules for interpreting Sanskrit compounds. There are certainly folk etymologies that sound plausible, but if you approach the compound from a purely grammatical point of view, then this name is strange.

One possibility is that the name was not composed in Sanskrit, but in Prakrit. So svara could be a wrong Sanskritisation of a Prakrit word. We know several examples of this (e.g. bodhisatva, sūtra, mahāyāna). We might note for example that Skt svara is Pāli sara "sound, voice". But Pāli sara is also Sanskrit:

• śara "reed, arrow" 
• śara "going" (√sṛ) 
• saras "lake"
• sara "remembering" (√smṛ)

Another root, √śṛ "crush", might also have given rise to sara (but this is not listed in the PTS Dictionary). So Pāli sara could stand for Sanskrit words śara, saras, sara, or svara. And only context can disambiguate them. With a name, the context could easily remain ambiguous. For example avalokitaśara "the one whose going is observed" is not entirely stupid as a name. The same root also gives us P. saraṇa "refuge" as in saraṇagamana "going for refuge", which could give the name a Buddhist flavour. I'm not saying this is the answer, but I am saying that answers we do have don't make much sense and this might be a way to seek a better explanation.

Roles

Nattier (2007) further summarises the roles that Guanyin tends to play in these early Mahāyāna texts:

1. A passive audience member. The name Guanyin crops up in lists of those present when doctrines are preached. 
2. As Èlóuxuān, the bodhisatva becomes an object of devotion. This is unusual because usually texts admonish us to become bodhisatvas, not the worship them. Paul Harrison has suggested that this role may be a Chinese invention. 
3. Receives a prophecy to Buddhahood.
4. Successor to Amitābha.

His first significant appearance is the Larger Sukhāvativyūha Sūtra. He was popularised in the translations of Dharmarakṣa, especially the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra. In none of these texts does Guanyin play the active role of teacher. In other words, what should surprise us about the appearance of Guanyin in the Heart Sutra is not that its a so-called wisdom text, since that compassion/wisdom distinction is anachronistic in relation to bodhisatvas at that time.  Of course, Guanyin is associated with compassion in the sūtras but not exclusively. For example, Kuījī describes him as "possesses wisdom and compassion, universally practices kindness, perpetuates pure lands, and rescues the defiled worlds" (Heng-Ching and Lusthaus 2001: 15. Translating 有具悲智遍行慈愍。紹隆淨剎府救穢方。T. 1710; 33.524c.10).

Before moving on I should say that Kuījī expresses no surprise at finding Guanyin in this text.  He tackles the name in his commentary as though it is just another set of characters. Woncheuk does spend some time establishing that Guanyin is fully enlightened, so we might infer that he uncomfortable about the absence of the Buddha. He notes "There is no introduction or conclusion in this [sūtra]. Since [this text] selects the essential outlines from all the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtras, it has only the main chapter, without introduction and conclusion, just as the Kuan-yin ching (Avalokiteśvara-sūtra) is not composed of three sections." (Choo 2006: 138)

The idea that Guanyin's presence is unexpected may be partly due to expectations that grew up later, perhaps as a result the tantric practice of dividing deities up into demarcated "families". What ought to stand out is the fact that Avalokiteśvara is giving instruction, using words that—in the Large Sutra—were put into the mouth of the Buddha. However, there is a text in which Avalokiteśvara does have such a role and that is Xuanzang's Notes on the Western Regions (西域記 Xīyù jì). Before we turn to this text, we need to consider some generalities about the politics of early medieval China.

The Politics of Buddhism in China

Politics is an important aspect of the historiography of Buddhism in China, especially in Tang China. In order to flourish, in the ancient world, any religion has to negotiate a relationship with state power. There is no right of free of religion, though the Chinese were often tolerant of heterodoxy at this time. This relationship with the state has political, economic, and social dimensions. We may say that, in the ancient world, Buddhism flourishes because of these relations with governments and rulers, if only because monks are economically unproductive and supporting large numbers of them requires surplus wealth. A small community may produce surplus food to feed an extra person or two. But the building of, for example, large monasteries for hundreds of monks to live in one place requires the kind of wealth and resources that usually only states have access to. Rulers expect return on investment, even if that return is an intangible like the promise of a good afterlife. But religion can be a double edged sword, because it comes with obligations, both personal and political. A ruler has to be seen to be pious and to support the institutions of religion. In Tang China, even Taizong gave imperial support to Buddhism though it is clear that he did not like it. 

The dynamic with respect to Buddhism is particularly interesting because of the social structure of Buddhism: the distinction between full-time monks and the devout laity is not absolute. People could move between these two worlds and the monastic sangha was (at least in theory open to anyone). Increasingly, women were excluded from the monastic side Buddhism so that by the Tang women play a marginal role in Buddhist history (with one very notable exception).

The relationship between Buddhist monks and the Chinese state is fascinating because monks are economically unproductive, eschew social norms (especially the Confucian ethos of filial piety), refuse to acknowledge the superiority of the emperor (monks refuse to bow to him), and yet rely on patronage for their existence. Confucians saw Buddhists as deeply immoral for these reasons. While Buddhism did evangelise and attract largesse from the merchant class, it was their appeal to rulers that ensured that Buddhism flourished. This is all the more apparent in the light of periodically anti-Buddhist sentiment and purges such as occurred in China during the Tang. In addition, religious institutions were exempt from paying taxes and so tended to accumulate wealth. Although there are technical restrictions on individual monks from handling money or owning property, in practice Buddhist monasteries in the Tang Capital of Chang'an had incalculable wealth, were involved in usury and commerce, and as a result caused economic imbalances in the Chinese economy. We could see the purges in 845 CE in which the wealth of Buddhist monasteries was appropriated by the state and the scale of Buddhist institutions was drastically reduced (although only briefly) as a rebalancing of the economy. The expansion of Buddhist monasticism is often an economic disaster for the countries in which it happens (more especially where they also capture the reins of governance). 

Those who invest want a good return. In the case of Buddhism, the beneficiaries promise that generosity goes towards good fortune in the present life and a good rebirth for the donor. In a pre-modern world where life and death appear to be entirely a matter of fate, the promise of good fortune and a good rebirth attracted considerable largesse. Buddhists also provided pageantry in the form of large-scale ritual performances. The key to survival in early Medieval China was to have the ruling family on side, and while the Sui Dynasty Emperors had been great supporters of Buddhism, the early Tang Emperors, Gaozu, Taizong, and Gaozong were all indifferent or, in the case of Taizong, hostile, to Buddhism. 

For Xuanzang to be a favourite of the Buddhism-hating emperor, Taizong, then, is a not inconsequential historical fact. In the Biography, Xuanzang is first portrayed as defying the emperor to seek the Dharma in the West, although Kotyk (2019) shows that this defiance may have been invented since the imperial ban on travel was lifted before Xuanzang set out. On his return from the West, Xuanzang is welcomed and feted by the same Emperor (i.e. his defiance has no negative consequences). This is the Buddhist struggle with temporal power in a nutshell. 

We also have to look at the audience for the Biography. Xuanzang's influence as a translator is facet that is often exaggerated. In fact very few works attributed to him were influential except for some of his translations of Yogācāra works for which there were no previous translations. When it came to sūtras, none of Xuanzang's translations displaced those of Kumārajīva from 250 years earlier. The Fǎxiàng 法相 School of Yogācāra Buddhism that he founded lasted only about a century and was never very influential (although Yogācāra per se was very influential). By 688, some 24 years after his death, Xuanzang's lack of influence must have started to be obvious. Yancong's Biography seems to be tuned to giving Xuanzang's remaining followers a boost and perhaps generating some positive PR amongst other Buddhists. It is, however, unlikely that the Biography was widely read outside of Buddhist circles. This circle may or may not have included the Empress Dowager Wu Zhao (her husband Gaozong died in 683 CE) although in 688, Wu Zhao had her hands full suppressing a rebellion by members of the ruling Li family, paving the way to becoming Emperor herself. Wu Zhao was not beyond inducing Buddhist monks to engage in conspiracies to promote the idea of a female emperor. 

Teachable Moments

With this overview, we can now consider the political dimension of Xuanzang's Notes on the Western Regions (西域記 Xīyù jì) and in particular the role played by Guanyin in the story of King Harṣa. Max Deeg (2009, 2012, 2016) has made a considerable contribution to our understanding of the Notes. He highlights and critiques the naive, positivist use of the text, in which everything is taken at face value. He also points out that little or no attempt has been made to position the Notes as one of a genre of Buddhist travelogues (2009: 35-41). In addition, while Xuanzang likely wrote notes for the book, the fincal composition was actually compiled and redacted by Biànjī 辯機. 

Deeg has shown that Xuanzang manipulated his narrative to make it more palatable to Taizong. 

"In the light of Taizong's sensitivity to his own standing, reputation and the impression he would make on future generations, it becomes clear that Xuanzang had to manoeuvre and act quite adroitly to convey the politically and morally critical message directed to his emperor" (Deeg 2016: 98).

As noted above, Deeg (2016) concentrates on King Harṣa. This is partly because Harṣa is quite well documented. We have inscriptions, three plays that are attributed to him, and a biography, Harṣacarita, composed in Sanskrit by Bāṇabhaṭṭa (Bāṇa). So we can directly compare Xuanzang's narrative with the Indian evidence. Deeg argues "that the Indian king is portrayed not as a historical person, but as an idealized Buddhist ruler and—as I have argued elsewhere [Deeg 2009: 51]—as a speculum, or a 'mirror,' held before Taizong." (2016: 100). Xuanzang has two political purposes in the Notes. Firstly to flatter Taizong and secondly to quietly admonish him by presenting kingdoms in Indian in ideal Buddhist terms. And to this end Xuanzang presents Harṣa as relatable, but also as a Buddhist (an ideal Buddhist) king. 

A clearly Buddhist embellishment in Xuanzang’s story is the episode of Avalokiteśvara’s advice to Harṣa to take up the royal or imperial duties without assuming the “lion throne” (shizi zhi zuo 師子之座, Skt. siṃhāsana) and the title “great king” (dawang大王, Skt. mahārāja, or mahārājādhirāja) which does not have any direct correspondence in any of the other sources on Harṣa. (Deeg 2016: 126-7).

In the story of Harṣa, as Xuanzang tells it, the reigning king is killed by a neighbouring kingdom. His son is dead, but his younger brother (Harṣa) is proposed as king instead. This idea is greeted with popular acclaim and the job is offered to Harṣa. However, Harṣa hesitates, protesting that he is hardly qualified and lacks virtue. Something Deeg does not comment on, I think, is that this level of modesty is a Chinese virtue that is not so prominent in India (Compare my discussion of Ajātasattu's meeting with the Buddha. Attwood 2010).

"The public opinion considers (me) suitable (for the throne, but how could forget (my own) shortcomings? Now, at the banks of the river Gaṅgā there is a statue of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, Since it has (already shown) a lot of wonderful signs I wish to go there and ask for advice." (Deeg 2009: 52)

Translating: 物議為宜，敢忘虛薄？今者殑伽河岸，有觀自在菩薩像，既多靈鑒，願往請辭。(T 2087; 51.894.b8-10 ff.)

The Bodhisatva counsels Harṣa to take the job, predicting that because of his previous merit he will be a great king. This is where he advises Harṣa not to assume the “lion throne” (Shīzǐ zhī zuò 師子之座, Skt. siṃhāsana) and the title “great king” (dàwáng 大王, Skt. mahārāja, or mahārājādhirāja). Harṣa takes the throne and eschews the titles, but his first act is to vow vengeance on the neighbours who killed his elder brother. He goes on to conquer them and the rest of India in a sweeping military conquest. 

In his presentation of this material, Xuanzang is at pains to make Harṣa recognizable to Taizong, to make Harṣa a "mirror" for Taizong to see himself.

"The intention in the context of the [Notes] is clear: both rulers are lauded because of their pacification of the realm, the construction of stūpas and monasteries (vihāra), and the convocation of donation parties. This was certainly meant as a propagandistic and 'pedagogical' hint directed to the address of the emperor Taizong..." (Deeg 2009: 57)

Deeg (2016) returns to the Notes and draws out further reasons to think that this is so. For example, he draws parallels between Xuanzang's Harṣa narrative and the facts of how Taizong gained the throne, i.e. by murdering his brothers and the heir apparent, and forcing his father to Abdicate (2016: 125). Deeg notes that there was an ongoing power struggle between Taizong and his chief ministers over who would succeed him. In the end it was Li Zhi , his 9th son, who became Emperor Gaozong in 649 CE. Court factionalism raged on until 655 CE, when Wu Zhao became Empress Consort and decisively brought the still powerful Yang family in on the side of Gaozong (see for example the account in Eisenberg 2012).

In Xuanzang's narrative, Harṣa's older brother is killed and his taking the throne is encouraged by Avalokiteśvara. Taizong had murdered his own brother to take the throne. Deeg seems to argue that Xuanzang is offering Taizong a justification for his fratricide in the form of adopting Buddhist ideals of rulership. But this is achieved indirectly and Taizong is left to draw his own conclusions. Deeg speculates that Taizong might have felt reluctance to assume the throne given his means of ascension. I find this aspect of his account less plausible. A man who murders his brother and forces is father to retire does not seem the type to then have doubts. Taizong is, above all, decisive. However, as Deeg points out (2016: 128) the Harṣacarita does portray Harṣa as reluctant to assume the throne, so perhaps the comparison was intended to flatter Taizong (the man with no doubts). The other parallel between the two rulers is that Harṣa goes on to conquer all of India unifying it under his rule. This was ever the ideal for a Chinese emperor and something that Taizong was quite successful at.

"I think that the narrative of Harṣa's royal lineage and ascension to the throne is directed towards the ruling emperor Taizong—and maybe also towards the ambitious crown prince, and later emperor, Gaozong—as a reminder of the pious and correct behavior of an ideal ruler" (Deeg: 2016: 125).

Although Gaozong is mentioned in passing, and is not prominent in Deeg's articles, it is worth considering that Gaozong was part of the intended audience of the Notes.


Īśvara

Indian records show that Harṣa was not a Buddhist, he was a devotee of the benevolent forms of Śiva, particularly Maheśvara or Paramameśvara. Deeg suggests that if there were an historical event behind the story, that Maheśvara could mutatis mutandis become Avalokiteśvara for Xuanzang's purposes. Especially in Xuanzang's Chinese where the names are Dàzìzài 大自在 and Guānzìzài 觀自在 respectively (128). It is not that Buddhism was entirely foreign to Harṣa, Buddhists were a major presence in India at the time. The Harṣacarita, authored by "stern Śaiva" Bāṇabhaṭṭa, used Buddhist elements in his description of the king. 

For my purposes, what is significant is not simply that Xuanzang has altered the story to serve a political purpose, so much as that he has Avalokiteśvara step outside his role of saviour and protector to become a political advisor. One whose advice led to the annihilation of Harṣa's enemies (who had killed his brother) but which also led to a massive subcontinent spanning war of conquest. The model here, of course is Asoka. The key difference is that Asoka became a Buddhist only after being repulsed by his bloody wars of conquest. Asoka renounced violence to become the ideal Buddhist king, whereas Harṣa embraces violence on the advice of Avalokiteśvara. Taizong was also involved in pacifying remaining pockets of rebellion in the newly reforged Chinese Empire, but was also actively extending the boundaries. 

Summary and Conclusion

Max Deeg has argued that we need to be aware of the political and didactic elements in Xuanzang's Notes on the Western Regions (Xīyù jì 西域記). Focussing on the events that Xuanzang links to the historical figure of King Harṣa, we can see from Indian sources that this story has been changed (by Xuanzang) in ways that can be interpreted as manipulation for political ends. The story has been recast so as to reflect Chinese values. It makes flattering comparisons between Harṣa and Taizong, but reflects Xuanzang's views on ideal governance and regal deportment. Xuanzang is a Buddhist while Taizong is rather unsympathetic to Buddhism. Xuanzang therefore uses the medium of an historical morality take, based on a real story, to get his message across. In this cause, Śaivite Harṣa becomes a Buddhist who consults and receives political advice from Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisatva of compassion. This advice is apparently calculated to resonate with Taizong and to justify his wars of conquest. Xuanzang cannot come right out and chastise Taizong for usurping the throne, but he can show Taizong a way to atone for his usurpation by being a "good" emperor on Xuanzang's terms. This is a rather bold project on Xuanzang's part, but since no one in China at that time had the ability to fact-check his account, it was taken at face value.  It is only now that we can compare the Indian accounts and see the discrepancies.

The Biography by Huìlì 慧立 and Yàncóng 彥悰 portrays Taizong undergoing a deathbed conversion to Buddhism under the skilful guidance of Xuanzang. This is a kind of apotheosis for Taizong, since in embracing Buddhism he becomes in his last few days exactly the ideal ruler that Xuanzang had wanted. It is also the ultimate vindication of Buddhism to bring around the notoriously hostile emperor. However, again, the non-Buddhist Chinese historical sources make it very unlikely that Taizong did convert to Buddhism and few historians accept this account as factual. There is no supporting evidence from non-Buddhist (non-hagiographical) sources and it seems rather too convenient.

Avalokiteśvara is the bodhisatva par excellence in 7th Century China. Maitreya and Manjuśrī are also important but Avalokiteśvara's role in the Lotus Sutra and the Guanyin Sutra make him the most prominent "bodhisatva" in that context. And this alone could explain Xuanzang's use of Avalokiteśvara in the Heart Sutra. However, he had to have known that the words he copied from the Large Sutra were mostly from the mouth of the Buddha and that the principal protagonists of the Prajñāpāramitā were the Buddha, Subhūti, Śāriputra, and Śakra, Lord of the Gods; not bodhisatvas. The instruction in the Large Sutra begins with the Buddha speaking to Śāriputra, although in the Small Sutra the Buddha asks Subhūti to instruct the bodhisatvas in Prajñāpāramitā. 

If Deeg's conjectures about Xuanzang's relations with Taizong and his attempts to create teachable moments in the Notes are right, then the unexpected appearance of Avalokiteśvara might be explained by his role in Xuanzang's narrative of Harṣa. While the Heart Sutra is more or less what it appears to be—i.e. a short summary of Prajñāpāramitā doctrine—and lacks the obvious political overtones of the Notes, the mere reference to Avalokiteśvara could be enough to invoke that earlier narrative for Gaozong and Wu Zhao. Gaozong took the throne more conventionally than his father, although in a parallel to Harṣa, only after his two older brothers had been eliminated (although in this case they but Wu Zhao (if any story about her can be believed) may well have emulated Taizong in murdering rivals for her position and purging the opposition once she gained power.

It's worth emphasising this last point since it is seldom even mentioned: Wu Zhao was not some kind of psychopathic anomaly. She has to be seen in the context of Taizong's murder of his brothers and competitors, his ruthless suppression of opposition, and relentless wars of conquest. Both unexpectedly rose to high office. Both murdered those who stood in their way. Both were astute leaders and politicians.

Kotyk has proposed that Xuanzang composed the Heart Sutra ca February 656 CE as a gift for the birth of Wu Zhao's son, Lǐ Xián 李賢 (29 January 655 – 13 March 684) who would later go on to be Crown Prince. Around the same time, Lǐ Hóng 李弘 (652 – 25 May 675) was made Crown Prince, an event that also gave rise to the founding of Ximing and Jing'ai monasteries (in Chang'an and Luoyang respectively) and to projects to copy the entire Tripiṭaka and to catalogue all Buddhist texts in each city (which bore fruit in 664 and 666 CE respectively).

Xuanzang had to be very careful in expressing his criticism of Taizong. Wu Zhao was already a Buddhist and perhaps more likely target of the gift of a new condensed sutra which emphasised the ephemeral nature of experience than Gaozong. Perhaps Xuanzang felt less comfortable expressing criticism, but still managed to create a pointer back to the Notes by unexpectedly placing Guanyin where he was least expected. The gift of the sutra happened at a time when Wu Zhao had eliminated the most vehement opposition and cemented her grip on power. This did not end the factionalism that had begun during the reign of Taizong, but it was a decisive moment in bringing it to an end. Perhaps in retrospect the naming of Li Hong as Crown Prince is more significant than the birth of Li Xian.

I'm aware that the conclusion here is tenuous. As I revise the received tradition of the Heart Sutra I have to gently remove the layers of accreted myth and legend. What remains is fragmented and partial. It is not yet possible to clearly the shape of it. What is needed is for a qualified, preferably young, Sinologist to take up the enquiry and see what else may be discerned in the Chinese sources by someone with an open mind. As an enthusiastic amateur, who started this adventure far too late in life, I can only go so far with this. There are many questions about the Heart Sutra still to be answered, but we tend not to answer a question before it is asked. If I can contribute anything it is to show that there are open questions.

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Attwood, J. (2010). "Did King Ajātasattu Confess to the Buddha, and did the Buddha Forgive Him?" Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 15, 279-307.

Deeg, Max . (2009). ‘Writing for the Emperor. Xuanzang between Piety, Religious Propaganda, Intelligence and Modern Imagination’, In Straube, Martin, et al. (eds), Pāsādikadānam. Festschrift für Bhikkhu Pāsādika. Marburg: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 32–60 (Indica et Tibetica 52).

Deeg, Max. (2012) “‘Show Me the Land Where the Buddha Dwelled …’—Xuanzang’s ‘Record of the Western Regions’ (Xiyu ji): A Misunderstood Text?,” China Report 48 (2012): 89–113.

Deeg, Max (2016). 'The political position of Xuanzang: the didactic creation of an Indian dynasty in the Xiyu ji.' In: Juelch, Thomas ed. The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel: Aspects of the Relationship between the Buddhist Saṃgha and the State in Chinese History, Vol. 1. (Sinica Leidensia, vol. 133). Leiden, Boston: Brill, pp. 94-139.

Eisenberg, Andrew. (2012) 'Emperor Gaozong, the Rise of Wu Zetian, and factional politics in the Early Tang.' Tang Studies 30, 45-69.

Karashima, Seishi. (2016) “On Avalokitasvara and Avalokiteśvara”, in Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University (ARIRIAB), vol. 20 (2017): 139-165.

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

Mironov, N. D. (1927). 'Buddhist Miscellanea'. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 2 (Apr., 1927): 241-279.

Nattier, Jan. (2007) ‘Avalokiteśvara in Early Chinese Buddhist Translations: A Preliminary Survey.’ In Magee, W and Huang, Y.H. (Eds). Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin) and Modern Society. Proceedings of the Fifth Chung-Hwa International Conference on Buddhism, 2006: 191-212. Taiwan: Dharma Drum Publishing.

Salomon, R. and Schopen, G. (2002) 'On an Alleged Reference to Amitābha in a Kharoṣṭhī Inscription on a Gandhārian Relief.' Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 25(1-2): 3-31.

Avalokiteśvara & The Heart Sutra

Avalokiteśvara 
Huntington Archive

Avalokiteśvara (aka Guānyīn, Kannon, Chenrezik) is probably the best known Buddhist deity after the Buddha. Avalokiteśvara makes his first appearance in Buddhist literature as one of two bodhisattvas flanking Amitāyus in the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtras and continues to play roles associated with the qualities of Amitābha, particularly karuṇā, or compassion. He is one of the first mythic figures who has no discernible basis in an historical person, but emerges as a Buddhist value (karuṇā) personified. He (or, indeed, She in China) was and continues to be one of the most important figures in the Buddhist pantheon, both in Asia and in the West.

This essay will be particularly concerned with the name Avalokiteśvara. We most commonly read that this name means something like 'Lord Who Looks Down'. This is how Conze reads the name in his Heart Sutra commentary and it's also a feature of the commentarial literature on the Heart Sutra . We'll see that the name changed, perhaps in the 6th or 7th century, and that the etymology alone is insufficient to fully understand what the name means and how to translate it. 

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit we find two forms of the name: Avalokitasvara (avalokita-svara) and Avalokiteśvara (avalokita-īśvara). The name Avalokitasvara does not appear in any complete Sanskrit manuscript, but is found on fragments of an old manuscript Saddharmapuṇḍarikā Sūtra (Studholme 53). The form is confirmed by the Chinese translation with 音 yīn which means 'sound' (discussed in more detail below). 

The first part of the name avalokita is usually interpreted as something like 'looked down'. This is a deceptively literal reading of the etymology. Avalokita is a passive past participle from ava + the verbal root √lok. The root does mean 'look', and the prefix ava- can mean 'down'. A quirk of Sanskrit is that past participles such as avalokita can take on an active meaning (Studholme 2002: 55). Thus we can understand how translators such as Conze get "looks down" as the translation. This is often how the tradition has understood the name. As I comment in my forthcoming article on the Heart Sutra (JOCBS 8):

This is confirmed, for example, by the Indian commentaries preserved in Tibetan, viz. “Because he looks down on all sentient beings at all times and in all ways with great love and compassion, he is the one who looks down (avalokita)” (Lopez 1988: 43); “Because he is superior and is the lord who looks down, he is called the ‘Noble Lord Who Looks Down (āryāvalokiteśvara)” (Vimalamitra in Lopez 1996: 52). Looking down on the world and its inhabitants is one of the prominent characteristics of this figure in Buddhist mythology. 

Studholme suggests that the name might be understood as "sound viewer", or "sound perceiver" which he ties to the mythology of Avalokiteśvara, the one who responds to the cries of the suffering (55-56). This is a theme in the myth of Amitābha as well, with whom Avalokiteśvara is closely connected: calling his name results in an intervention, usually at death, so that the supplicant is reborn in Sukhāvati, the Pure Land of Amitābha. This practice is known as nāmānusmṛti 'recollection of the name'. In the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra, the efficacy of the mantra oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ is explained as a form of nāmānusmṛti, since maṇipadma is a coded form of the name of Avalokiteśvara, though here the supplicant is reborn in one of the worlds which occupy the hair pores on Avalokiteśvara's body.

As my forthcoming article says, the closely related verb vyavalokayati (vi + ava + √lok) does not mean 'look down' but 'examine', still with a visual connotation. Which suggests to me that the ava in ava√lok does not mean 'in a downwards direction', but more like 'to look closely', 'to narrow down one's field of view', either by concentrating or by physically getting close to the object.

The problem here is that we have a mixed metaphor, a jumbling of sensory modes. The idea of seeing sounds is not found in early Buddhist texts which assert that only the eye can see forms and only the ear can hear sounds. Studholm also notes this synaesthesia and does what we all do, he changes the sense of avalokita from a visual one to a general sensory perception. While this certainly solves the problem, I'm not convinced that it is justified because ava√lok is specifically a visual verb. However, we have no better explanation and the Buddhist tradition has also used this solution.

There is another potential solution. Peter Alan Roberts (2012: 236-7) points out that the word avalokita has a different meaning in the Mahāvastu, which contains two sub-texts both called Avalokita Sutra (See Jones Vol. II: 242-253) [I'm grateful to Richard Gombrich for pointing out this article to me]. Curiously, amongst the audience for the texts are two devas called Īśvara and Maheśvara, two epithets traditionally associated with Śiva. According to Roberts, because the Mahāvastu is the product of the Lokavattarin branch of the Mahāsaṅghika sect, it may well represent a kind of proto-Mahāyāna view of what the word means. 

"In the Avalokita Sūtras, avalokita does not refer to a being, but means that which has been seen by those who have crossed over saṃsāra, and is therefore a synonym for enlightenment." (237)

Roberts' observation helps a bit with the earlier form of the name: avalokita-svara where svara means 'sound, noise' and the whole must mean something like 'the sounds perceived by the enlightened'. Unfortunately I don't quite see why Roberts thinks avalokita means "that which has been seen by those who have crossed over saṃsāra". I have looked at the Avalokita Sūtras and as far as I can tell they don't actually comment on this issue, they merely contain episodes in the biography that makes up the Mahāvastu. 

The situation improves somewhat with the change of the bodhisattva's name. As Studholme discusses, in his study of the Kāraṇḍavūyha Sūtra, Avalokiteśvara converts the god Śiva to Buddhism and in the process seems to assimilate some of Śiva's iconography, including especially the epithet īśvara 'Lord' (Studholme 2002: 37ff.). For a Lokottaravādin, according to Roberts, "whatever the actual etymological origin of the name may be, it would inescapably have had the resonance of meaning 'Lord of Enlightenment'." (2012: 237). It may be that reading the Mahāvastu in Sanskrit reveals something about the word avalokita that the translation does not, but since it is 100 pages of translation, the reading becomes a fairly major project in itself for little reward.

The association with the Avalokita Sūtras, however, opens up the possibility of another way of understanding avalokita-īśvara.  It might mean 'Īśvara of the Avalokita'; i.e., the Īśvara who was in the audience of the Avalokita Sūtra. But this may be too simple and obvious to appeal to many people.

Translations of the name into other languages, particularly Chinese, shed further light on the name. The Chinese forms are particularly useful because texts in which Avalokiteśvara appears were translated from early on, which, in this case, means from around the late 2nd Century CE onwards. 

Chinese & Tibetan

As in Sanskrit, there are two forms of the name in Chinese. Avalokiteśvara is known in Chinese by the name 觀世音 Guānshìyīn. Literally 'look-world-sound' or 'watching the sounds of the world'. This is apparently a translation/interpretation of the name Avalokita-svara. Note that the Chinese translators preserve the synaesthetic idea of seeing sounds. 

Although 觀世音 was used by earlier translators, it was the translations of Kumārajīva, in the early 5th Century CE, which popularised this form of the name. The name is regularly shortened to 觀音 Guānyīn, though there is no evidence for doing so until around the sixth century (Studholme 2002: 53). It is this shortened form of the name by which Avalokiteśvara is known in China down to the present. The shortening is sometimes said to be because of the death of the Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty (唐太宗; 599-649) to avoid uttering one of the characters in his personal name 李世民 Lǐ Shìmín. This is a traditional form of Chinese taboo, but that it applies in this case is disputed. Indeed, the word 世 'world' is so common it would be hard to avoid it completely.

Buddhist Chinese routinely abbreviates words, so that prajñāpāramitā is transcribed as 般若波羅蜜多 bōrěbōluómìduō, but just as often, and routinely by Kumārajīva, the last syllable is dropped. So in some respects 觀音 is an unexpected form of the name. If it were an abbreviation in this style, we might expect 觀世. Studholm, apparently following an argument made by Lokesh Chandra, seems to suggest (2002: 57) that 觀音 might have been the original form of the name in Chinese, since there is no Sanskrit equivalent of 觀世音 containing the word 世, which in Sanskrit is loka; i.e., we do not find the form avalokita-loka-svara. (this claim is repeated without caveats on Wikipedia). However, this is not entirely convincing because it is not backed up by evidence for the existence of earlier texts without 世.

It might be more plausible to suggest that 觀世 conveyed avalokita by combining a word meaning 'to see' with one that suggested 'loka'. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism associates 觀 more with verbs from the root √paś and √īkṣ than with √lok. In other words, 世 was not intended as a standalone character, but as one which modifies 觀 phonetically. The principle of phonetic and semantic radicals pervades the construction of complex Chinese characters from simpler elements. Indeed, the character 觀 guān is made up from two radicals:  雚 guàn is a phonetic element which suggests how the word is pronounced and 見 jiàn 'see' is a semantic element suggesting what the word means. This trend continues with Modern Mandarin frequently employing two characters to both avoid ambiguous homonyms and to expand the range of meaning carried by single characters. 

In my other writing about the Heart Sutra, I've noted that the first sentence in Sanskrit contains two visual verbs meaning roughly 'to look' and 'to see', the first being vyavalokayati and the second being paśyati. In Chinese, these both tend be covered by 見 and related words.  So, in the Chinese Heart Sutra, instead of Avalokiteśvara looking and seeing as he does in the Sanskrit, we find the puzzling phrase 照見. This is variously translated as "illuminated and saw" or  "illuminatingly saw/clearly saw", since 照 means 'illuminate, shine' and it is ambiguous as to whether it is intended as a second verb (illuminated) or as an adverb (illuminatingly). Since we now know that the Chinese preceded the Sanskrit, and we can infer that the first translator of the Heart Sutra was better informed about Chinese than Sanskrit, we can assume that, for that translator, 照見 conveyed both looking and seeing, since that is how they chose to translate it. The shift of perspective provided by Nattier (1992) provides us with valuable insights into these small textual or linguistic problems.  

The form 觀自在, Guānzìzài ('watching one's existence'), was introduced by Xuánzàng and used, for instance, in the translation of the Heart Sutra attributed to him. My friend Maitiu has written in to point out that:

"自在 means 'free', 'unrestrained' or 'independent'. It has the sense of 'sovereignty' and it's used to translate īśvara more generally than just Avalokiteśvara's name."

Thus, 觀自在 ought to mean 'Watching Lord'. Studholme suggests that the timing of this new form coincides with the change of the last element of the name from svara to īśvara (2002:56-57). However, though Xuánzàng's translations are acknowledged to be more faithful to the Sanskrit, where a translation by Kumārajīva exists it has always remained more popular that Xuánzàng's (with the sole exception of the Heart Sutra and this is taken as evidence to doubt the attribution). And so it is with the name. In fact, even Xuánzàng's followers, and his biographer Huili, continued to use the older form of the name.

The Tibetan version of the name is སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས i.e. spyan ras gzigs (pronounced Chenrezik). Romanisations for this name vary and I have adopted that used by the Dictionary of the Tibetan & Himalayan Library. The name is translated literally as 'sees with eyes'. The word spyan means 'eye' and is frequently used to translate words related to Sanskrit cakṣu or sometimes netra both meaning 'eye'; and spyan ras can mean "penetrating vision, observation". Gzigs means 'to see, gaze, perceive, realise', etc., and is used to translate Sanskrit words from √īkṣ 'to see' and √paś 'to see'.  As we can see, the Tibetans resolved the difficulty of the different sensory modes in their translation of the name in favour of the visual sense. This in itself is interesting, since it must have been a source of cognitive dissonance for the Tibetan translators, who are usually very faithful to the Sanskrit. Studholme suggests that spyan ras gzigs is "an honorific form of the Sanskrit Avalokita" (2002: 58).


The Heart Sutra

One of the differences between the two short versions of the Heart Sutra in Chinese, T250 and T251, is the name they use for Avalokiteśvara. The former uses 觀世音, consistent with being translated by Kumārajīva; while the latter uses 觀自在, consistent with being translated by Xuánzàng. As we recently saw (Chinese Heart Sutra: Dates and Attributions),  the attribution of these translations to these translators is now plausibly disputed, because the facts of history, such as they are, conflict with the traditional authorship. Now that we also know the text was composed in China, it also alters the landscape. The scholarly consensus is that Kumārajīva did not translate or compose T250. Nattier makes a good case for Xuánzàng not being the translator/composer of T251 (See Nattier 1992: 184 ff.). Both texts seem to be later creations, based on some earlier text, that have been edited to look like authentic productions of the two famous translators. Indeed, Nattier shows that T250 has most likely been altered to look more like《大智度論》Dàzhìdù lùn (*Mahā-prajñā-pāramitopadeśa; T1509 ), a commentary on Pañcaviṃśati Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra attributed to Nāgārjuna, also translated by Kumārajīva. 

However, since 觀世音 as the translation of Avalokiteśvara both predates Kumārajīva and is the standard form he used in his translation of Prajñāpāramitā texts (from which the Heart Sutra certainly draws its core), then we can assume that the ur-text of the Heart Sutra used this form of the name also.

In his translation of the Heart Sutra, Edward Conze takes the odd step of carving up the name Āryāvalokiteśvara into its constituent parts: ārya, avalokita, and īśvara. He then takes īśvara to be an epithet like ārya and translates "Avalokita, the Holy Lord". There is simply no way to construe ārya as qualifying īśvara here. Although it is true that some texts, notably the Bodhicaryāvatāra, use the name Avalokita, Avalokiteśvara can only be read as a compound with an implied syntactic relationship between the two words, because avalokita is undeclined. Ārya then qualifies the whole name. Indeed, in this period of Buddhism it was typical to add ārya to names of people and texts as a mark of special status. Perhaps "holiness" is not too far from the mark, though we can refine it to mean 'connected with awakening'.

In China, Avalokiteśvara took on a female form, partly through syncretisation with the myth of Miaoshan (妙善)  (Guang 2011). Though scholars differ on when the sex-change took place, it seems to have begun to manifest by the Tang Dynasty. This covers the likely period of composition of the Heart Sutra. However, as far as the Sanskrit text is concerned, Avalokiteśvara is a grammatically masculine name, as is the alternate Avalokitasvara.  We can assume, therefore that at least the translator from Chinese into Sanskrit thought of the deity as masculine. 

The question is frequently raised as to what a deity associated with compassion is doing in a sutra about wisdom. Various theories have been put forward to explain this disparity. However, given what we now know and can deduce about the history of the text, it was composed or collated by an early medieval Chinese monk who saw nothing strange about worshipping Guānyīn and studying Prajñāpāramitā. By the seventh century the geography of Chinese Buddhism was very different from its Indian forms. Boundaries shifted or disappeared. Elements that might have seemed distinct—Pure Land Buddhism and Prajñāpāramitā Buddhism—became mixed and recombined to form native Chinese sects. Indeed, Xuánzàng dealt with the Prajñāpāramitā texts from a Yogācāra perspective as did his main disciples 窺基 Kuījī (632–682) and 圓測 Woncheuk (613-696).

Thus, even if the association of Avalokiteśvara still strikes us as incongruent, we must accept that it did not seem so to the author/composer. The failing is on our part. Perhaps because of monotheism or perhaps because European Christian churches dealt with heresy so viciously, for so long, we find syncretism difficult to fit within our paradigms of religion. At best, "syncretism" is pejorative, at worst, dismissive. However, it was the norm in both ancient India and China and their culture spheres in Central and South-East Asia. Synthesis is just as common and accepted as schism is. I've explored this also in my critiques of the tree as a metaphor for evolution. Which is not to say that there are no arguments over orthodoxy and orthopraxy, only that these arguments seldom seemed to generate quite the hostility that we find in European religion. And this situation has changed in modern India, perhaps under the influence of European values, certainly in reaction to colonialism and its aftermath.

It is a curious feature of history that some details seem to become so well known that we stop explaining them, and they are subsequently lost without possibility of recovery. If the early Mahāyāna Buddhists puzzled over the name Avalokiteśvara, they did not record their thoughts. Nor does any justification for the name change survive. Attempts to reconstruct ancient knowledge from minimal clues is a fascinating endeavour and I'm grateful to the people at the coal face, the various experts, whose work makes my kind of writing possible. 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Guang Xing (2011). 'Avalokiteśvara in China.' The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies 12, 2011 

Jones. J. J. (1952) Mahavastu. (Trans.) Vol. II. Luzac & co.

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

Roberts, Peter Alan. (2012) ‘Translating Translation: An Encounter with the Ninth-Century Tibetan Version of the Kāraṇḍavyūha-sūtra.’ Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. 2: 224-242.

Senart, Émile (1882-1897) Mahavastu-Avadana. 3 vols. Paris.

Studholme, Alexander. (2002) The Origins of Oṃ Maṇipadme Hūṃ: A Study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. State University of New York.

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Note 8 Jun 2015

Who Composed the Mahāyāna Scriptures? ––– The Mahāsāṃghikas and Vaitulya Scriptures.
Seishi KARASHIMA

ARIRIAB XVIII (2015), 113–162.

"An illustrative example of this sort of misunderstanding is Avalokitasvara and Avalokiteśvara. There are at least eight old Sanskrit fragments from Central Asia which bear the name Avalokitasvara, as well as one fragment from Kizil, which has (Apa)lokidasvara. These older forms agree with the early Chinese renderings “One, who observes sounds” and “One, who observes sounds of the world” (闚音, 現音聲, 光世音, 觀世音), which were made between the 2nd and 5th centuries, [114] while the newer form Avalokiteśvara, which first appears in a Mathurā inscription of the Gupta year 148 (467/468 C.E.)¹ and later in the Gilgit manuscript of the Lotus Sutra, dating back to the 7th century, agrees with the newer Chinese renderings “One who observes the sovereignty of the world” and “One who observes sovereignty” (觀世自在,觀自在) from the 6th century onwards. We cannot say for certain that the older forms are “corruptions” of the newer ones.²"

¹ Cf. IBInsc I 686~687.

² The most recent example of this misunderstanding is found in Saitō 2015. I assume that, in the language (probably Gāndhārī), in which the verses of the Samantamukha Chapter of the Lotus Sutra had been composed originally, svara (or śpara) might have meant both “sound” and “thinking” (= Skt. smara), and the composer of the verses himself may have understood *Avalokitasvara (or Avalokitaśpara, *Olokitaśpara or the like) as “One, who Observes Thinking”. Much later, when this -svara (or -śpara) was no longer understood as meaning “thinking; memory”, people probably began to regard it literally as “sound”. Thus, the composer of the prose portion of the same chapter understood the Bodhisattva’s name in this way, which was shared also by the early Chinese translators. I assume, also, that the Gāndhārī form *Avalokitaśpara could have been incorrectly sanskritised later to Avalokiteśvara by somebody who knew the development Skt. īśvara > Gā iśpara. Cf. Karashima 1999 and 2014a.

The Meaning of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ

In my last essay on this all important mantra I summarised the findings of Alexander Studholme on the origins of the oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ mantra, and some interesting facets of the identity of Avalokiteśvara in the Karandavyuha Sutra.

One of the main questions that Westerners ask when they come across something like a mantra is "what does it mean?" Donald Lopez, in Prisoners of Shangrila, outlines the progress of the Western understanding of the meaning of oṃ maṇipadme hūm over the centuries. One feature of the Western commentaries on the mantra is that the Westerners are convinced that the Tibetans do not know the meaning of the mantra. This is an example of what Edward Said called "Orientalism" - an attitude of disdain towards Asians who did not conform to European norms, and assessments of Asian culture from those norms. Eurocentrism certainly comes across as arrogant and over-bearing in relation to oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ.

The first European interpretation of the mantra dates from 13th century when William of Rubruck reported that the Tibetans chanted "om mani baccam" which is "God, thou knowest". Over the years such basic mis-hearings, and mis-interpretations were the rule. Interpretations such as "Lord forgive my sins", "O god Manipe, save us" followed. In the 18th century the Jesuit Ippolito Desideri who actually learned Tibetan published his interpretation of the mantra as "O thou who holdest a jewel in Thy right hand, and art seated on the flower Pêmà", which may just capture one of the senses of manipadme . However with the coming of scientific philology, in part inspired by the discovery of the Sanskrit Grammarians, a new interpretation emerged. In 1831 Heinrich Julius von Klaproth explained that padmè was padma in the locative case (i.e. in the lotus) and that the mantra means: Oh! The jewel is in the lotus, Amen. From this time on some variation on "The Jewel in the Lotus" became the standard meaning of the mantra. [1] Of course oṃ and hūṃ are always difficult since they are not words in the way that maṇi and padma are, and so they are treated differently, but maṇi and padma become standardised in English language works as two words with padme in the locative case.

The apotheosis of this, orientalist, interpretation is perhaps represented by Lama Govinda's book "The Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism", in which the mantra is explicated over the course of 300 pages. Lopez notes that despite its title it is "based on no Tibetan text", but draws on "the Upanishads, Swami Vivekananda, Arthur Avalon, Alexandra David-Neel, and especially the tetralogy of Evans Wentz". "Lama Anagarika Govinda" always brings to mind Harold Bloom's quip about Freudian Literacy Criticism being like the Holy Roman Empire - not Holy, not Roman, and not an Empire. Perhaps it would equally apply to "Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism". Even Robert Thurman a scholar/practitioner in the Gelug tradition adopts "The Jewel in the Lotus" as the explanation of the mantra in his book Essential Tibetan Buddhism. As Lopez notes, no Tibetan text is ever cited to justify this reading.

As early as the 1950's David Snellgrove pointed out that maṇipadme is not two words but a single compound. Maṇi is uninflected, and maṇipadme is not the locative, but a vocative of the feminine form maṇipadmā. The compound is according to Sten Konow (quoted by Lopez) a bahuvrīhi compound which means "O Jewel-lotus" Alexander Studholm critiques this gloss, and by referring to a number of similar expression in Mahāyāna literature concludes:

"The expression should be parsed as a tatpurusa, or "determinative," compound in the (masculine or neuter) locative case, meaning "in the jewel-lotus," referring to the manner in which buddhas and bodhisattvas are said to be seated in these marvellous blooms and, in particular, to the manner in which more mundane beings are believed to appear in the pure land of the buddhas". [2]

This I think sorts out the grammatical issues, although without reference to traditional Tibetan exegesis. Ironically, given the effort that has gone into answering it, Western scholars and Buddhists may have been asking the wrong question. Faced with a mantra the tradition doesn't ask "what does it mean?" it asks "what does it do?". The mantra in the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra is said to result in rebirth in one of the hair pores on Avalokiteśvara's body. This alternate destination to the usual pure land, is probably influenced by Puranic traditions, but has the same advantages as a pure land. The Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra likens chanting the mantra to a pre-existing tradition of calling to mind of the name of a Buddha or Bodhisattva (nāmanusmṛti). That is to say that the mantra is an invocation of the deity, and offers similar protection to that offered in the Saddharmapuṇḍarika, to the one who calls out the name of Avalokiteśvara.

A much more important approach to "meaning" in esoteric traditions is to take the individual syllables one at a time and establish connections with other sets of six such as the six realms. Avalokiteśvara appears in each of the realms to save the beings there from the particular kinds of suffering that afflict beings in them. When they do address the semantic meaning of maṇipadme, it seems that Tibetan texts read it as jewel-lotus. This fact may have been of very little importance in Tibet however, as the mantra is a invocation of Avalokiteśvara, and what else does one need to know?

However this is not to say that the "jewel in the lotus" interpretation is wrong. It is a powerful image, completely consonant with Buddhist principles, and has inspired many people over the years. It may be a case for Sangharakshita's expressed preference for bad philology with good doctrine being preferable to good philology and bad doctrine. It is bad philology, but since the function of the mantra is more important than it's "meaning" the semantics are actually of only minor interest.

Another way of understanding what the mantra does, and which may help us to understand how the chanting of sounds, the semantic content of which may be completely obscure for the person chanting them comes from Ariel Glucklick's phenomenological study of Tantric magic. Magic, he says:

"is based on a unique type of consciousness: the awareness of the interrelatedness of all things in the world by means of simple but refined sense perception… [magical actions, such as mantra chanting] constitute a direct, ritual way of restoring the experience of relatedness where that experience has been broken" [3]

The idea here is not that the mantra affects anything in the outside world - the distinction of inside/outside has no ultimate meaning in Buddhist epistemology in any case - it addresses the sense of relatedness. In the case of illness this awareness is itself healing. In the case of the incessantly chanted mantra is maintains the empathetic link with all beings, and no doubt produces a sense of wholeness and well-being. There is nothing overtly mystical in this explanation as Glucklich adds. "It is a natural phenomenon, the product of our evolution as a human species and an acquired ability for adapting to various ecological and social environments".[4] This is no to deny benefits which go beyond the understanding of science and scholarship. But here at least is an explanation which allows the materialistic Western the leeway they might need to unselfconsciously engage in mantra chanting without worrying about metaphysics. Mantra works on any number of levels, some of which are undoubtedly comprehensible to the modern Western intellect.

Notes.

1. Lopez, D. S. (jr.) 1988. Prisoners of Shangri-la : Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago University Press. p.114ff.
2. Studholme, Alexander. 2002. The origins of oṃ maṇipadme hūm : a study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. Albany : State university of New York Press. p.116
3. Glucklich, Ariel. 1997. The End of Magic. New York : Oxford University Press. p.12
4. Ibid., p.12.
   

For the oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ mantra in a variety of scripts see the Avalokiteśvara Mantra on visiblemantra.org.

image from: He's the Wiz!