Will the Dalai Lama Reincarnate?

Over the last couple of years Tenzin Gyatso, aka the 14th Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan people has been dropping hints about the tradition of his reincarnation. When China joined in the conversation it was briefly mainstream news, covered by, amongst others, the BBC and the Economist. Some of the news coverage is sort of neutral in a bemused way. The world is still intrigued by a religious leader who has charisma. Some of it (like the Economist editorial) is openly hostile to the Chinese and passionately in favour of the Tibetans and the religious traditions of Tibet.

In answer to the question "Will the Dalai Lama Reincarnate?" we must, of course, say, "sorry, but no such thing is possible" (See There is No Life After Death, Sorry). The facts of death are not entirely relevant to the question, however, because the continuity of wealth and power is more important than the metaphysics. The wealth and power associated with the office of Dalai Lama is such that without a reincarnation a serious crisis would ensue as contenders sought to fill the power vacuum and control the wealth and property associated with the office - including that in Tibet and elsewhere.

The Tibetan word tulku (sprul sku) means something like "incarnation body". It refers to a select group of Tibetan individuals who are said to have the ability to reincarnate.  That is, they are not simply forced by the logic of the Buddhist doctrine of karma to undergo rebirth in which the connection between the dead and the reborn beings is one of conditionality. Instead, the same being is reborn with their personality. Beings able to do this are thought to be bodhisattvas of the highest order, who come back time and again "to help beings". The fact of Tibet's previous policy of isolation never really comes up in definitions of these compassionate beings who for centuries only reincarnated in Tibet. This is because the myths and superstitions surrounding the institution hide a far more mundane purpose. 

My view has long been that there is nothing particularly "spiritual" about this phenomenon. Apart from the fact that it violates the Buddhist metaphysical rules of life after death (by maintaining a continuity where none can exist), it is more obviously related to political and economic problems faced by a celibate clergy who amass wealth and power. The Catholic church forbade marriage and progeny to its priests in order to prevent the watering down of Church wealth and power by seeing it leak away to progeny. In Japan the opposite happened, with once celibate monks marrying and passing on control of monasteries to their oldest male child (primogeniture is another way to prevent the dilution of wealth through generations). Just so, it is the continuity of power that drives the tulku system. Not only is there personal continuity, but tulkus retain ownership of property.

It might be worth re-emphasising that Buddhist monks and monasteries have historically accumulated enormous wealth and wielded considerable political power. Buddhists benefit from a culture of donations to monasteries and clergy and from tax exemption. Occasionally this has bankrupted the state in which Buddhists function. Historical research also shows that far from being passive recipients of cash, monks were almost always involved in commerce and usury. The quaint myth of monks not handling money is a good story, but in fact any long established monastery is probably very wealthy and the current crop of monks are in charge of using that wealth and the power it represents for good or ill. Once wealth accumulates, there are inevitably disputes over who controls it and how that control is passed on from generation to generation. It is in this light that we must see the tulku system in Tibet.

Until the Chinese invasion of Tibetan the monasteries controlled a huge majority of the land and capital in Tibet. Tibet was a religio-feudal state. According to one newspaper report:

"Until 1959... around 98% of the population was enslaved in serfdom. Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, was one of the world's largest landowners with 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. High-ranking lamas and secular landowners imposed crippling taxes, forced boys into monastic slavery and pilfered most of the country's wealth – torturing disobedient serfs by gouging out their eyes or severing their hamstrings." The Guardian. 11 Feb 2009. 

The idea that Tibet was some kind of paradise when the Chinese invaded is a Romantic fantasy. Which is not to say that the Chinese approach was desirable either. According to the same article, life expectancy has almost doubled since 1950 to just 60 years. Indeed the inequity of life in Tibet was one of the excuses given by the Chinese for invading and sacking the monasteries of Tibet. In this we see reflections of the great Tang purges of the mid 9th century or the similar program in 16th Century Britain. While there is no excuse for the cruelty and violence of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, it will help to see it in the context of historical conflicts between religious institutions and governments. 

The wealth of the Tibetan nation was tied up in monasteries run by an elite of men (the ecclesiastical hierarchy was strictly patriarchal). Wealth on such a scale poses serious succession problems when the owners die. Since the stakes in terms of influence and power are extremely high, the machinations that would go with succession were particularly complex. The Tibetans solved this in a unique way. In its mature form what happens is this: after a leader dies, their estate (land, personal property, and notional charisma) is held in trust for them, usually a designated alternate from amongst the elite takes control, or in some cases a regent is appointed to administer the estate (or in the Dalai Lama's case the state) in the mean time. After 3 or 4 years have passed a search begins, guided by divination and other superstitious methods, for a precocious infant boy born at the right time. The infant must pass some tests, though anyone familiar with children of this age and the role of double blind testing will be able to surmise how the chosen child makes the "right" choices. 

The selected child is then cloistered and rigorously (and to some extent ruthlessly) trained for about 20 years to literally become their predecessor. Because of the psychological conditioning involved in the training, and since the curriculum is always the same, it tends to produce the same kind of individual: one well suited to being in charge of the wealth of Tibet. Just as the Francis Xavier is thought to have said "Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man", so the Tibetans rely on the power of conditioning to shape early promise into just the right kind of ruler. 

One moving account of the harsh training endured by tulkus can be found in the biography of Dhardo Rinpoche (see Suvajra. The Wheel and the Diamond : The Life of Dhardo Tulku. Windhorse Publications, 1991). Of course not all boys make it through the training and become the right kind of man. But those who don't are generally treated with kindness and allowed to retire quietly. In the past the tulkus operated like kings and barons; now they operate like Vatican officials. 

As it happens this is kind of religious totalitarianism was a very efficient form of government and created relatively stable political conditions in Tibetan, and certainly allowed the monks to wield an almost absolute control over the populace that Communist China could only dream of. However, no system is perfect and we know from the present Dalai Lama's own biography that power-struggles occur. The dissension of Kelsang Gyatso against the rest of the Gelugpa Order is an example that has been much studied and commented on in the West. And indeed the succession problems within his movement, the New Kadampa Tradition, or even in the organisation founded in American by Chögyam Trungpa, make for interesting reading. 

The present Dalai Lama is the product of this political system. Negotiations having broken down, the Communist Chinese invaded and annexed China in 1949-50. Gyatso was handed the dictatorship of Tibet aged just 15 because a leaderless Tibet was too vulnerable. However, after nine years of tense collaboration, there was an uprising and subsequent purge of the Tibetan government. Gyatso fled Tibet and became the leader of the Tibetan diaspora. He is still revered as a god in Tibet, however, and this continuing worship of him has been a bone of contention between the Tibetan people and the Chinese authorities. It is true that in recent times Gyatso has tried to hand political power to the Tibetan refugee community, instituting elections for the government in exile, but he continues to be the only Tibetan politician known to the outside world, both a figurehead and spokesman for the Tibetan Liberation campaign. He is also the head of the Gelug order and thus controls its extensive property and wealth. 

As time has gone on and it has been increasingly obvious that China is not planning to hand Tibet back to the Tibetans, and that world governments have no interest in getting involved except to complain about China's human-rights record from time to time. China routinely ignores such passive interventions as they know that the world has no leverage with which to make them change. In a sop to the exiles, the UN offered to recognise the same ecclesiastical titles for Tibetan leaders that representatives of the Roman Catholic Church use. Thus devotees now routinely refer to the Dalai Lama by the Pope's traditional title of His Holiness while other important clergy are referred to as Cardinals, i.e. His Eminence.  His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso has tried various strategies to shift Chinese intransigence on Tibet: attempts at cajoling, shaming, and finally negotiation and compromise all failed. China has nothing to gain by negotiating.

Tenzin Gyatso has aged well and lived to a ripe old age, but he is now old and will soon die. And with increasing age has come the realisation that his death will either trigger the traditional search for his replacement. The Tibetan community in exile has experimented with non-Tibetan tulkus with decidedly mixed results. The Spanish toddler Osel Hita Torres was "recognised" as important Tibetan leader, Lama Yeshe, by the Dalai Lama and along with the training had many special powers attributed to him as befits a saint. But he balked at the rigorous training and ended up dropping out. Many of his inherited disciples apparently still believe he is Lama Yeshe, though its not entirely clear how they rationalise his apparent indifference to what they believe. 

Over the last five years or so Gyatso has made a number of passing statements about this reincarnation and produced a document outlining the variations on the tradition that might apply (for example this statement from 2011). He has toyed with reincarnating in the West (less often since "Lama Yeshe" crashed and burned), with reincarnating as a woman, and other variations. However, in the last year his message has come into focus on the question of whether he will reincarnate at all. He has hinted that he might not. The hints appear to be testing the water to see how his idea plays out in various spheres. Why would the man/god who has come back to spread compassion amongst all beings for 14 lifetimes, suddenly decide to stop? Is the world now so full of compassion that it does not need any more? Or is it that the Tibetan people no longer need his leadership. Sadly the reasons appear to be far less "spiritual".

It's been obvious for years now that with the Chinese ensconced in Tibet they can and do control who is chosen as a tulku and what training they receive. This was the case with the Panchen Lama, of whom there were two incarnations, one acknowledged by the Tibetan community in exile and one by the Tibetans in Tibet and Chinese government. The former candidate disappeared. A similar thing happened with the Karmapa, the head of the Kagyu Order, who also goes by the Vatican title His Holiness. It is apparent that when Gyatso dies that there will be at least two candidates for the post of Dalai Lama. One will be found in Tibet proper, endorsed by the Chinese, and installed in the Potala Palace; and another will be found, probably in India amongst the diaspora and denounced by the Chinese as an imposter. The people of Tibet, being rather superstitious, will be in a difficult position to say the least. They worship the Dalai Lama as the living embodiment of their religion, as a god in effect if not in reality. If the boy who takes over is raised by the Chinese to be open to continued Chinese rule then Tibet loses hope of independence for generations to come. Only the complete collapse of China could undo such a development. Remember that no other world power is even willing to acknowledge Tibet's right to independence, let alone willing to come to their assistance in resisting the Chinese occupation.

We get some sense of how unlikely the suggestion that the Dalai Lama will not reincarnate is likely to be taken. Dhardo Rinpoche also said that he would not reincarnate and his wealth is strictly small beer. But this did not stop the Tibetan establishment from seeking out and installing a boy as his successor. It seems unlikely in the extreme that the Tibetan establish or the Tibetan people would accept the end of the institution of the Dalai Lama. 

This is the situation facing the ageing Tenzin Gyatso. With him will die all hope of independence for his people precisely because he is an embodiment of a bizarre system of religious governance that invests him and his successors with an almost absolute power, not to mention considerable wealth. We can easily imagine that he now curses, albeit it in a kindly and jovial way, the centuries of tradition that has left him in this position. Few of the 14 Dalai Lamas are interesting enough to be remembered as individuals, but he will be remembered as the last before the total control of Tibet by the Chinese. Many people find the Dalai Lama an inspiring figure. He certainly has grace under pressure and embodies many of the values that Buddhists hold dear. But the tradition will mean that the world will treat his reincarnation with all the respect he has earned. And that successor will almost certainly be a Chinese puppet. 

An interesting side-issue is that Tibetan Buddhism is once again becoming popular in Mainland China as restrictions on religious observances are relaxed along with economic strictures of Maoism. Thus, not only will the government control the Tibetan people by proxy, but it will also mean that they retain control over Buddhists who give allegiance to the Dalai Lama. It is this question of loyalty to the state that has undone many of the minor cults that have sprung up over the years, with Falun Gong being a stand-out. For any state, the problem with religious people, of any sort, is where their allegiance lies (the same concern is regularly articulated here in Britain and in the coming election immigration is a major issue). China expects and demands allegiance to the state. Not only is this a Communist doctrine, but it fits with centuries old Confucianist doctrine of filial piety as well. If they are smart, the Communists will be paying attention to history, and in particular how the emperors of the Sui and Tang periods used Buddhism to legitimise their absolute power. Control of the Dalai Lama means his unwavering endorsement of and support for their government. 

Almost everyone will have noted the irony of the government of China insisting that the Dalai Lama reincarnate per the religious traditions of Tibet. I doubt anyone has failed to grasp why they have weighed in on this matter. For all that the political system of pre-invasion Tibet was oppressive by modern standards and rife with inequalities of all kinds, no one would have wished the devastation wrought on Tibet by the Red Army still full of revolutionary zeal, nor the China-wide catastrophe that was the Cultural Revolution. The carnage was on a par with the worst ravages of 19th century European imperialism in the Americas, Africa, India and Polynesia. And that is saying something. The continued economic imperialism from China and attempts to suppress Tibetan culture continue to be a source of misery and discontent for some Tibetans. History shows that people's who are colonised and become dispossessed fair very badly. So in criticising traditional Tibet, I am in no way endorsing Chinese rule.

That said, one cannot deny that in this latest move the Chinese are playing the politics of Tibet in a masterful fashion. Compared to the clusterfuck that is modern Western imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinese have been very astute in biding their time and preparing the ground for a take-over of the office of Dalai Lama, which will cement the relationship between the two countries. The Chinese have played the long game and are about to win a generational victory. They will almost certainly never have this kind of control over the Uighurs for instance, because there is no single point of leverage like the Dalai Lama. The unique form of government used for centuries in Tibet to maintain almost absolute power over the Tibetan people has been their undoing. It is precisely ability to mould a promising infant into a leader that the Chinese government will exploit to control Tibet in the stead of a dictatorship of Buddhist monks.

When Buddhist countries (and I think we can include China in this) conceive of such anti-liberal, anti-democratic forms of government, it must give us pause to think about whether the goal of a Buddhist world is really worthwhile pursuing. As I've pointed out previously, Buddhists countries all too often have authoritarian, dictatorial, not so say, militaristic governments. At the very least Buddhist countries are no less likely to be dictatorships that those infused with other religions. In practice Buddhism seems to have very little to offer in terms of governance, at least going by historical manifestations. Having studied the history of Buddhism, I find myself strongly in favour of secular democracy (with proportional voting) as the least worst form of government. 

~~oOo~~

Kūkai's journey to China : Kentōshi Ships and Weather

To see my Google Map click here

One of the marvels of modern technology is that we have easy access to all kinds of information. I've been trying to visualise Kūkai's journey to China and to understand the scale of it. Using the internet I was able to locate a journal article which discusses the detail of the journey, then using Google Maps I have been able to visualise it and get a sense of the scale of it. The route outlined here relies on an article by Robert Borgen in Monumenta Nipponica.*

Kentōshi (遣唐使), which means 'Envoy to the Tang' i.e. mission to Chinese court of the Tang (T'ang 唐) dynasty,** was used to describe both the people and the ships they went on. We don't have much definite information about the vessels, but it is assumed that they were built on the model of the Chinese junk which were developed in China during the Han Dynasty (220 BCE - 200 AD) which were being used for ocean voyages by the 3rd century. Such Chinese ships visited Japan for trade. We know that the Japanese and the Koreans definitely used Chinese junks as models for later ships. It's often stated that because the ships had a flat bottom and no keel that they could only use the sails when the wind was directly behind them. However the boats used a very large rudder which projected well below the bottom of the ship, and did much the same job as a keel, i.e. it stopped the wind pushing the boat sideways when sailing to windward. They could probably have managed to sail close hauled at between 45-60° to the wind. Which in fact means that they could sail in much the same way as an early square rigged European ship such as Magellan had sailed around the world in.

The idea that the Japanese were poor sailors seems to be an assumption related to their decision to sail in the typhoon season, but as I pointed out in an earlier post (Why did Kūkai sail in summer?), the Japanese envoys were concerned to get to the Tang court on New Years day in order to offer their tribute at the appropriate time, and this must have over-ridden the concerns of the sailors. In fact the Japanese were highly attuned from ancient times to the annual changes to their climate wrought by the monsoon, and I find it very unlikely indeed that they did not understand the wind patterns. Note also that by Kūkai's time, in the early 9th century, envoys from the nation of Po-hai (north of Korea) to Japan regularly timed their journeys to take advantage of seasonal winds.

It's very often stated that the winds were against the ships sailing across the sea to China, but the prevailing wind during the summer monsoon in that region is from the south-east. This means that the Kentōshi ships, sailing south and west, were most likely cutting across the wind - a favourable geometry for sailing. With a wind from the south-east (135°) they could probably have sailed in any direction from say 0° - 75° and 195° to 360°. In fact a line joining Tanoura to Ming-chou is at about 252-3° which in sailing terms is a 'close reach' and probably well within the capabilities of the ships.

It is quite unlikely that they could have made the journey at all if they had to row ships that probably weighed over 100 tons all the way, and it does not seem so unreasonable to me that they relied on sails most of the time - even sailing north from Fu-chou to Ming-chou. Note that all four ships of the mission survived a typhoon, some of them two typhoons, and a 500 mile ocean crossing so they must have been reasonably well built. European ships of a similar size and square rigged could make about 5-7 knots, and, allowing for variable wind conditions and given that they would have paused during the night when they could, I initially guessed that they might average about 20 or 30 miles per day.

Previous missions would have made a quick jump across the straights of Korea probably via Tsushima Island, a journey of about 150 miles with a longest stretch of open water of about 35 miles. On a good day the Kentōshi ships could have sailed that distance in a single long day. From there the boats would have hugged the coast all the way to China. However in the 7th century Japan's long term enemy Silla had, with the help of Tang China, unified the whole Korean peninsular under their rule, leaving the Japanese with no bases on the mainland and a more powerful antagonist as neighbour.

The four Kentōshi ships left from Naniwa (modern day Ōsaka) and headed for Hakata (Fukuoka) on Kyūshū Island, a distance of 330 miles most of which is in the usually pacific Inland Sea. Note however that in 803 when the mission first sailed the boats were almost wrecked by a (rare) storm in the Inland Sea. From Fukuoka the ships hugged the coast of Kyūshū down to Tanoura (since merged into Ashikita), the last stop before heading west across the East China Sea. We don't know how good the navigation techniques were at this time, though simply sailing west would mean hitting China at some point, but the ships ideally would make land near the modern city of Shanghai or north of there. They left from Tanoura on the 6th day of the 7th month of Enryaku 23 (ca 14 August 804).

Of the two ships that completed the journey in 804 Ship Two is said to have taken about two months to get to Ming-chou (near modern Ningpo). Now here is a puzzle: Abe, Hakeda, and others give this time frame, but Abe says that the Vice Ambassador who lead Ship Two died in Ming-chou on the 25th day of the 7th month of Enryaku 23. This is a mere 19 days after leaving Tanoura. So, assuming this is not a misprint, either the Vice Ambassador died at sea less than half-way across, or Ship Two made very good time crossing the 540 miles, averaging about 30 miles a day. The latter figure is not unreasonable if they met no more storms, and my other assumptions are correct.

Ship One, the ship that Kūkai was on, took much longer to make the crossing, coming to land on the 10th day of the 8th month (ca 17 September 804) after 34 days at sea. They landed near the city of Fu-chou, in Fukien province (modern day Fuzhou, Fujian). It is sometimes said that this was 1000 miles south of where they intended to be, however the map above makes it clear that the distance from Fu-chou to Ming-chou by sea is about 390 miles, and by land about 360 miles to Hang-chou (using a route something like that suggested by Borgen). In a straight line Ship One covered about 750 miles in the crossing, which means they averaged at least 22 miles per day. In fact we know that they didn't go in a straight line because they were blown off course by the typhoon.

On the return journey (late June early July of 805) which was apparently without major incidents Ship One took nineteen days to make landfall at Tsushima (the island in the Strait of Korea); while Ship Two took twenty eight days to arrive at Hizen on Kyūshū Island. This is about 29 and 19 miles per day respectively - quite comparable to the outward journey suggesting that 20-30 miles per day is a good measure of the average speed of the ships.

Typhoon Tokage near Japan
Image Courtesy NASA Earth Observatory

Typhoons make a rather wavy line as they progress towards Japan from the Pacific Ocean, typically they follow the prevailing winds which spiral out from a massive region of high pressure over the Pacific and into a low over continental Asia. In August the typical typhoon would swing around Kyūshū and head up the Sea of Japan - though a lot of variation has been observed. As the typhoon approached the wind would have swung around initially from the south-west, to the west - the winds swirl in anti-clockwise to the centre, and have become a tight knot by the time they reach Japan. On the western side of the storms the winds are blowing more or less to the south and this explains how Ship One might have been sent far southwards. Ship Two somehow escaped this. The trailing edge of the typhoon seems to have blown Ships Three and Four eastwards back to Japan, though this suggests that there was already a significant distance between them and Ships One and Two by this stage.

Borgen's article is an important source of information about ships 3 and 4 from the Kentōshi flotilla - but that is another story. Hopefully you can see that using Google maps in this way really does makes the scale of the journey clearer, and you find my route plausible where I have supplied details not vouchsafed by history. The historical sources are vague on the construction and design of the ships, but I hope my reinterpretation of the Japanese as intelligent and able boat builders and sailors is both welcome and sound - I hate it when historians assume that people are stupid because they (the historians) don't understand what was going on!


Notes

* Borgen, R. The Japanese Mission to China 801-806. Monumenta Nipponica, Vol 37(1), 1982, p.1-28. In this article I also indirectly cite or use information from: Abé, Ryūichi. The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse. (Columbia University Press, 2000); and Hakeda, Y.S. Kūkai : major works : translated and with an account of his life and a study of his thought. (New York : Columbia University Press, 1972).
** I tend to use the Pinyin version of Chinese transliteration with Wade-Giles equivalents in parentheses at the first occurrence. If there is only one transliteration it is Wade-Giles and I don't have a Pinyin version. Some names have changed substantially since Kūkai's time.

For other materials related to Kūkai and his voyage see my Kūkai bibliography.

Aug 2010 Update.

Since writing this essay I have studied the Diary of Ennin (Ennin, E.O. Reischauer (Translator] Diary: Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law) paying particular attention to his records of wind and sailing directions. Although he records about a dozen combinations, the ships he sails on never seem to sail into the wind, and only run before it. It now seems more likely to me that the ships couldn't manage anything more than a broad reach - about 45° either side of the wind direction, i.e. that they could not use a head wind. I've noted that the prevailing wind at the time of year is from the South-East (or perhaps the East) and this may tally with their leaving from quite far south on Kyūshū - they expected to make leeway to the North while travelling West. Although my lines on the map are straight it seems likely the storm blew them far to the south, and that they then sailed North/N' West to make landfall. I have no idea if the could accurately determine latitude.

The Heart Sūtra - Indian or Chinese?

In this post I want to call attention to an important article, now over 15 years old, but with hardly any recognition outside academic circles. The article is:

Jan Nattier. 1992. The Heart Sūtra : a Chinese apocryphal text? Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. Vol. 15 (2), p.153-223.

The editors of JIABS are in the process of digitising their back issues which will be available for free download. In the meantime they have graciously given me permission to offer the pdf to anyone who would like a copy. Click here.

Jan Nattier (left) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University, and a scholar of great merit and interest. The article is a fine example of contemporary scholarship, meticulously reasoned, well structured, and typically for Nattier, well written. This last is a strong feature of Nattier's published work - she can write very well. However the article also offers a startling conclusion with wide implications for Buddhists.

The main argument of the article is that the Heart Sūtra was composed in China, incorporating some verses from the Chinese version of the Large Prajñāpāramita text, and back translated into Sanskrit sometime in the 7th century. Nattier also offers an explanation for the two different versions, one longer and one shorter, of the Heart Sūtra. Page references are to Nattier's article.

Nattier focuses initially on the shorter version of the Heart Sūtra. This has several problematic features which distinguish it from sūtras generally and the other Prajñāpāramita sūtras in particular. Firstly it does not begin with 'thus have I heard'; second there is is no audience reaction at the end of the sūtra; third the Buddha makes no appearance; fourth Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion makes an unexpected appearance, while the usual characters of Prajñāpāramita sūtras (such as Subhuti) do not; and lastly the sūtra contains a mantra, which few other Prajñāpāramita sūtras do, and then only the later tantric sūtras. Any explanation of the origin of the Heart Sūtra should provide some insights into these oddities, and Nattier's article does just this.

It has been known for centuries that the lines beginning with "form is not other than emptiness" and ending with "no knowledge and no attainment" are quoted from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramita Sūtra, or Perfection of Wisdom in 25,000 Lines (hereafter the Large Sūtra). The first reference to this borrowing is in a Chinese commentary from the 7th century. Nattier spends quite some space looking at the various versions of these verses. They occur in four places:

• Sanskrit Large Sūtra (using the oldest extant manuscript from Gilgit)
• Chinese Large Sūtra (trans. by Kumarajiva)
  
• Sanskrit Heart Sūtra (Conze's critical edition)
• Chinese Heart Sūtra (trans. Hsuan-tsung)
  

Nattier makes several comparisons. Firstly the Chinese Heart Sūtra and the Chinese Large Sūtra. These are laid out side by side and even without being able to understand the Chinese characters, it is obvious that they are virtually identical. Next the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra and the Chinese Heart Sūtra are compared and we find a "virtual word for word correspondence" (p.160). However comparing the Sanskrit Large Sūtra and the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra we find many differences of vocabulary and word order, although the meaning is synonymous. An example is:

Sanskrit Large Sūtra : (na)anyad rūpam anyā śunyata / nānya śunyatānyad rūpa
Sanskrit Heart Sūtra : rūpān na pṛthak śunyatā / śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpam

In the list of the nature of dharmas the Sanskrit Large Sūtra uses singular verbal forms, is more repetitious and slightly longer; while the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra uses plural adjectival forms, and is shorter and more succinct. Almost every word, barring some very well known technical terms such as śunyata, are different. Conze explains the differences in repetition as a process of summarising, however Nattier contends that this runs counter to the general Indian tendency to elaboration. In any case the changes in vocabulary are unprecedented and "there is no straight forward way to derive the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra from the Sanskrit Large Sūtra, or vice versa." (p.167)

The best way to understand the progression is that the verses moved from the Sanskrit Large Sūtra to the Chinese Large Sūtra, and thence into the the Chinese Heart Sūtra, and finally into the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra. Which is to say that it is far more plausible on philological grounds that the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra is a translation of the Chinese rather than the other way around.

Nattier proceeds to marshal supporting evidence for this conclusion beginning by considering known examples of back-translation - these are plentiful in Mongolian scriptures apparently. An important sign of back-translation is the choice of "unmatched but synonymous terms" (p.170). Also there may be occurrences of incorrect word order, grammatical errors point to the under lying language. In this case the evidence points to the Chinese Heart Sūtra as being a likely intermediary between the Sanskrit Large Sūtra and the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra: where the former has nirodha (extinction), the latter has kṣayo (destruction) while the Chinese Heart Sūtra has chin which can be a translation of either. This turns out to be true for each synonym in the Sanskrit texts.

Historical evidence also supports the argument. Indian commentaries cannot be dated to before the 8th century, while there is no independent evidence such as quotes in other texts which might place it earlier. By contrast Chinese commentaries are definitely dated in the 7th century, and "..the existence of the Heart Sūtra is attested in China at least a century before its earliest known appearance in India" (p.174)

However there are still some problems. In particular the Chinese were usually very particular when composing apocryphal texts, taking a lot of effort to make them look like Indian sūtras, and yet the Heart Sūtra clearly lacks many important features. Nattier cites a Japanese study (by FUKUI Fumimasa) which she says make a strong case for reconsidering the Chinese title of the Heart Sūtra : hsin ching. Fukui says this should be understood not as saying that the text is the heart, or essence of the Prajñāpāramita tradition, but rather represents a "dhāraṇī scripture", ie simply a text to be chanted. It is clear that this has indeed been the function of the text since its earliest mentions. The missing attributes (such as the 'thus have I heard') are less of a problem if we accept that the text is not even attempting to be a sūtra.

Most of the remaining problems occur in the portion of the text which surrounds the quoted verses - what Nattier calls "the frame". She seeks to show that it is plausible for the frame to have been composed in China. For instance the presence of Avalokiteśvara: this is quite consistent with devotional Buddhism in South West, 7th century China, and his presence is less surprising if the text is a devotional text for chanting rather than the essence of the Prajñāpāramita tradition. The presence of the mantra also marks out the Heart Sūtra as different. Nattier points out that the mantra is present in at least three other Chinese texts, and the epithets of the mantra also exist independently. (p.177). The point being that the presence of a mantra need not rule out a Chinese origin.

I think this is the only place where Nattier misses a trick. Donald Lopez, for instance, has commented on the lack of coherence between the mantra and the text.

"The question still remains of the exact function of the mantra within the sutra, because the sutra provides no such explanation and the sadhanas make only perfunctory references to the mantra". - Lopez. The heart sutra explained. p.120.

The mantra is not of a piece with the sūtra, but appears to have been tacked on. Further Alex Wayman has noted that commentaries on the text lack coherence:

"The [commentators] seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in exposition, as though they were not writing through having inherited a tradition about the scripture going back to its original composition" - Secret of the Heart Sutra p.136

This observations only strengthen the impression of a text appearing suddenly without a history of exegesis to be referred to. But, back to Nattier's article...

Another feature which supports the idea that the frame was written in China relates to phrases such as "satyam amithyavāt" which Conze translates as: "[It is] true. For what could go wrong". This is clearly an awkward phrase both in Sanskrit and in English translation. The Chinese - chen shih pu hsü or "genuine, not vain" - however is "entirely natural in Chinese". As Nattier says:

"The Heart Sūtra thus diverges from anticipated Sanskrit usage, offering instead a precise replication of the word order of the Chinese" (p.178)

The final mystery is the existence of the two versions of the sūtra. The evidence is good that the short version was the one which was most prominent version in China. All of the extant Chinese commentaries are based on the Hsüan-tsang's (or Xuanzang) 'translation' of the short version. If we accept the idea that the sūtra was back-translated into Sanskrit after being composed in China, then the long version makes sense in the face of Indian criteria for authenticity - which include the appropriate opening, the presence of the Buddha, and the audience reaction to the discourse. The long version supplies all these features that are missing from the short version. From the Indian point of view the short version is not a sūtra at all - which fits with the idea that it was not intended to be one.

On purely philological grounds it seems that the Heart Sūtra was composed in China around the verses quoted from the Chinese version of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramita Sūtra. Internal textual evidence supports this conclusion, as do historical considerations. In short everything points in the direction of the 'Heart Sūtra' being a Chinese liturgical text which only became a sūtra on being back translated into Sanskrit, probably in India in the late 7th century. What is more, the most problematic features of the sūtra become comprehensible if we accept this view.

Nattier spends several pages exploring the role of Hsüan-tsang in the popularisation of the text: it was certainly a favourite of the pilgrim/translator, and he did know it before he left on his trip to India. It seems likely, though it is not proven, that it was Hsüan-tsung himself who introduced the text to India and translated it into Sanskrit when he discovered that the Indians lacked it. We know that exactly this happened in the case of another Chinese apocryphal text, the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, which he translated into Sanskrit during his stay at Nālandā.

To those amused, or perhaps alarmed, by this apparent forgery, Nattier points out that "it is now becoming clear that the Chinese were avid producers as well as consumers of Buddhist sūtras... and indeed evidence is accumulating for an important backwash of Chinese Buddhist influence into Central Asia" (p.181). Though the Heart Sūtra may be an apocryphal text:

"...this in no way undermines the value that the text has held for Buddhist practitioners. "Whatever is conducive to liberation" - so the Buddha is said to have told his followers - "that is my teaching"." (p.199)

Nattier's article is a fantastic example of the kind of careful and exacting scholarship which marks her out. The conclusions are monumental, and yet eminently accessible. I highly recommend reading the article. Her work deserves a wider audience, and her conclusions should be informing our understanding of Buddhist history, both social and textual. One thing is clear from this, and her other publications, we Buddhists cannot afford to be fundamentalists when it comes to texts!

Kukai in China

I've not been thinking much about the Dharma per se this week. Most of my reflection time has been spent mulling over Kukai's trip to China in 804-6. It's a fascinating episode in the life of one of my very favourite historical Buddhists - yes one of my Buddhist heros!

Kukai had dropped out of mainstream life to practice as a freelance ascetic, which made him an outlaw in late 8th century Japan. Some years earlier he had written and circulated a satirical attack on the official confucianist doctines of the Imperial state. Having repudiated by word and deed the Imperial orthodoxy, he was the antithesis of an establishment figure.

So how did he come to be included in the diplomatic mission to Tang China in 804? Maybe his relatives pulled some strings, but historians love to point out that his family and clan were Aristocracy in decline, and probably had little influence with the court. It may have been because he volunteered to go on a mission which most people in the right mind did anything they could to get out of. Trips to China involved taking completely unsuitable craft across over 1000km of open ocean, where more often than not they were sunk by storms. It wasn't certain death, but two of the four boats in the fleet were lost in the first week. Kukai had volunteered because he figured that someone in China would be able to explain the Mahāvairocana Sutra to him.

The fact is that we don't know how Kūkai got on the boat, nor the circumstances of his ordination as a bhikṣu. But we know that he caught the boat, survived the storm, and charmed the pants off the Chinese when he got there. Kūkai's boat was blown 1600km south of it's intended destination. The port authorities at the out of the way port refused them permission to land. They sailed north to the city of Fu-chou where their boat was impounded and the crew forced to live in a swamp for a few weeks. Until Kūkai wrote a letter to the authorities that so impressed them that I organised proper accommodation for the rest of the mission - including the official ambassador and his staff. Kūkai again prevailed upon the Chinese when he was at first not permitted to travel to Chang-an the capital. Finally, after a month of travelling overland, and the death of the Chinese Emperor just a few weeks after their arrival, Kūkai managed to get himself posted to Xi-ming temple.

Xi-ming was the greatest temple in China, and contained one of the great libraries in history. It housed for instance the texts brought back from India by Xuan-zang and other Chinese pilgrims. It was the nexus of Chinese efforts to translated Buddhist texts, and Buddhist culture into Chinese. At Xi-ming Kūkai learned Sanskrit, in the space of a few weeks, from an ex-pat Indian monk who had himself been trained at Nalanada. He also studied poetry and calligraphy, and is a celebrated exponent of both arts.

Chang-an at this time was the largest city in the world, with more than a million inhabitants. The regular, tree lined streets were wide, clean, ordered, and foreigners could be seen everywhere. The Silk Rd was still open and Chang-an formed one end of it. It was one of those times in Chinese history which was very open to outsiders and their cultures. These were prosperous times and Buddhist temples in particular prospered. The wealth of the dozens of temples has been described as "incalculable". Amongst the Buddhist temples were of course Taoist and Confucian temples, but also a couple of Nestorian Churches (which gave a Jesuits a fright centuries later!), Manichean and Zoroastrian temples, as well as, possibly a mosque or two.

Kūkai had grown up in rural Japan, and after only a couple of years in the very much smaller capital city Nara, had absconded back to the wilderness. Kūkai even described himself as a child of nature. So what would it have been like for him to arrive in uber-urban Chang-an? What would the impact of this most cosmopolitan of cities?

All we really know is that Kūkai made excellent use of his time in Chang-an. He arrived back in Japan two years later, eighteen years earlier than expected, with a boatload of new scriptures, images and artefacts, but also with a new language and script, and with a new form of Buddhism. It would take almost the rest of his life, three decades, to firmly establish Shingon. But while Shingon waxed and waned in terms of influence on Japanese society, the thing that really revolutionised it was the idea of writing in a syllabic script. Until then all writing was in Chinese characters and most in the Chinese language and only the male aristocracy were suffered to learn Chinese. It is ironic that the most valuable thing that Kūkai brought back from China had been a way for the Japanese to free themselves of the Chinese cultural hegemony!