Oldest Heart Sutra Inscriptions

I'm just finishing up a translation of an article from modern Chinese using ChatGPT: "Early Versions of the Heart Sutra" by Hè Míng and Xù Xiǎoyù was published in a collection of essays about the Fangshan collection of inscriptions. In this post I want to briefly go over the evidence presented by He & Xu and make a few remarks. The original citation is:

贺铭 续小玉 (2017) “早期《心经》的版本”. 石经研究. 第一辑. 房山石经博物馆, 房山石经与云居寺文化研究中心, 12-28. 北京 : 北京燕山出版社.

Hè Míng and Xù Xiǎoyù. (2017). "Early Versions of the Heart Sutra." In Stone Scripture Research Vol 1, edited by the Fangshan Stone Scriptures Museum, and the Fangshan Stone Scriptures and Yunju Temple Cultural Research Center, 12-28. Beijing: Beijing Yanshan Publishing House.

The authors went to quite a lot of trouble to identify early versions of the Heart Sutra in China. For each text identified they supply an image. I'll include some images, but mainly just want summarise the text. Most of the images are of "rubbings": the process is in fact similar to lithographic printing. One smears ink on the stone surface and pressed paper against it, to obtain a negative image (hence the white text on a black background in most of the images).

—Inscriptions from Fangshan—

The authors noted 26 instances of the Heart Sutra amongst the Fangshan Stone Sutras 房山石经, of which only four could be securely dated. Hè & Xù only give specific details for the first two.

Yáng Shèshēng 楊社生 stele, 661 CE.

1. sixth year of Xianqing (661 CE) (Cave Eight, number 770).
2. second year of Zongzhang (669 CE) (Cave Three, number 238).
3. second year of Tiānshòu 天授 (691 CE)
4. first year of Yánzài延载 (694 CE)

The first two are found in:

中国佛敎协会, 中国佛敎图书文物馆编. (2000). «房山石经,隋唐刻经2» 华夏出版社.
Chinese Buddhist Association and Chinese Buddhist Library and Museum. (2000). Fangshan Stone Sutras, Sui and Tang Engraved Scriptures. Vol. 2, Huaxia Publishing House.

[There are no copies of this publication in the UK.]

The first inscription was commissioned by Yáng Shèshēng 楊社生 (date unknown) on 13 March 661 CE. My understanding was that this stele was one of 10,000 votive texts buried in a courtyard in Yunjusi ca. 1100 CE. However, He & Xu's information puts the stele in one of the storage caves. A minor point, but significant since it was stored rather than disposed of by burial. Though this doesn't explain how badly damaged the stone is or where the missing piece is (and I always thought that burial did explain these things). Unfortunately we now have conflicting sources and I have no way to resolve this.

The Yáng Shèshēng 楊社生 stele is the oldest known text of the Heart Sutra, and more or less conforms to the standard canonical text (T 251) with some minor character substitutions (which have the same phonetic value). As far as I know, my investigation of this artefact (Attwood 2019) is still the only English-language study of it.

—The Beilin Stele—

Beilin Stele

Originally from the ancient capital, Chang'an, this famous stele is now on display in the Stele Museum 碑林 in Xi'an 西安, Shaanxi 陕西. The artifact is known as

Táng jí wángxīzhī shèng jiào xù bēi. «唐集王羲之圣教序碑»
“The Preface to the Holy Teaching by Wang Xizhi in the Tang Collection”

In his comprehensive study of this object, Pietro De Laurentis (2021: 1, n. 1) notes that although all scholars cite the date as 672 CE and the compilation of characters began some years earlier: “the actual date of the stele’s erection falls on the first day of 673”.

On the other hand the project was many years in the making. This object is remarkable because each character was first individually copied from extant works of the celebrated calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (307-365 CE). The style of script varies considerably from character to character, giving this text a very unusual look and feel. The stele is 226 x 94 cm. There are 30 columns of text, each of which contains up to 84 characters. Each character is about 3.5 cm in width and 4 cm in height. The Heart Sutra occurs in three columns on the left of this artefact (followed by the names of donors at the far left).

The Beiline stele image is from the Harvard University Library collection of Chinese rubbings (numbering over 5000 items, with 9 Heart Sutra texts).

Gaoyang County

This artefact is only mentioned in passing, the whole entry can be translated as:

"The National Library 国家图书馆 holds rubbings from the stele Fú shuō Mílè púsà dōu lǜ tiānxià shēngchéng fójīng bēi «佛说弥勒菩萨兜率天下生成佛经碑» “The Sutra of the Buddha Pronouncing the Advent of Maitreya Bodhisattva and His Attainment of Buddhahood”, from the third year of Tang Yifeng (678 CE) in Gaoyang County 高阳县, Hebei Province 河北 . On these rubbings, the translation of the Heart Sutra by Master Xuanzang can also be observed."

The stele is ca 206 x 95 x 24 cm, with writing covering front, back, and the sides. The Heart Sutra is on one side. He & Xu don't supply an image of this inscription, but images are online in any number of places. This image from an auction house is the only one I could find which included the side panels. I can just make out part of the Heart Sutra on the left side panel.

—Inscriptions from Longmen—

The authors identified three datable Heart Sutra texts in the Longmen Grottoes 龙门石窟, in Henan 河南 Provence. This is the site of the other ancient capital of Tang China, Luòyáng 洛阳.

Two copies of the Heart Sutra were found in the Liánhuā dòng 莲花洞 “Lianhua Cave”, both dated by He & Xu to ca 700 CE. One was inscribed by Huángfǔ Yuánhēng 皇甫元亨. This is all the detail that the author's give. However, from a forthcoming article by Claudia Wenzel we learn:

The Heart Sutra inscription below niche 37 is followed by a date corresponding to July 11, 700 (久視元年八月廿一日).

It seems that the other inscription (below niche 43) is in fact undated, and that He & Xu simply assumed it was from the same period. I don't have enough information to know if this was valid, but Wenzel had access to He & Xu (2017).

A third copy found in the Leigutai Zhong Cave 擂鼓台中洞, dates from the reign of Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 (690-704 CE) [aka Wǔ Zhào 武曌; 624–705 CE].

Rubbing of a Heart Sutra from Liánhuā dòng 莲花洞

The source that He & Xu cite for these inscriptions is

王振国 (2006) «龙门石窟与洛阳佛教文化» 中州古籍出版社

Wáng, Zhènguó (2006) The Longmen Grottoes and Buddhist Culture in Luoyang. Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House.

—Earliest Dated Manuscript—

Pelliot Chinois 2884

In addition to noting the oldest inscriptions, the authors also attempted to identify the oldest Heart Sutra manuscript in China. This is a manuscript, dated 771 CE, from the Dunhuang cache. It was acquired by Paul Pelliot and is now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France: catalogued as Pelliot Chinois No. 2884. The paper is ripped and pieces are missing.

The last line of the colophon reads:

景雲二年四月八日孔直主安張而易思忠敬忍

This may be translated as:

"On the 8th day of the 4th month of the 2nd year of Jingyun, Kǒng Dàoshēng's 孔道生 wife, née Zhāng 張, respectfully had this copy made for her son Sīzhōng 思忠 ." [Based on the BnF translation].

The date in question, 景雲二年四月八日 "Jǐngyún 2.4.8", corresponds to 30 April 711 CE (De Laurentis 2021: 111).

Note: I used a colour image from the BnF site rather than the monochrome image from the article.

—Spurious Claims to Antiquity—

The authors note some minor variations in the various inscriptions. More significantly they also track down some rumours of older texts that are, to my knowledge completely unknown in the English language Heart Sutra literature.

The first is a claim that a copy of the Heart Sutra was made by Ouyang Xun 欧阳询 in 625 CE (a date that would confound my own theories). The image of this calligraphy has been published numerous times (and can be found in many places online),

The authors dismiss the date as spurious:

However, this is impossible because it was not until the twenty-third year of the Zhenguan 贞观 era (649) on May 24th that Master Xuanzang translated this sutra in Cuìwēi gong 翠微宫 ”Cuiwei Palace” on Zhōng nánshān 终南山 “Mount Zhongnan”.

While this fact is widely cited, it is certainly not accurate. 

The 649 CE date only occurs in the hagiography of Xuanzang composed by Yàncóng 彥悰, brought out in 688 CE (24 years after Xuanzang's death). The fact is not corroborated by any contemporary document or official records (Kotyk 2019; Attwood 2020). Furthermore, it occurs in the context of a standard Chinese miracle tale. The same story asserts that Emperor Taizong made a deathbed conversion to Buddhism, which mainstream historians have universally expressed doubts over (he was famously anti-Buddhist). All of which cast doubt on the 649 CE date.

My work on the history of the Heart Sutra suggests that the text was not composed until after 654 CE, when the text containing the Heart Sutra dhāraṇī—Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經» (T 901)—was translated by Atikūṭa. Thus I come to the same conclusion as He & Xu, for slightly different reasons.

The upshot is that the date on the Ouyang calligraphy is (still) not creditable. The authors note several other claims that copies or inscriptions were made much earlier than 654 CE and dismiss these for the same reason. My rationale for rejecting these claims is the same.

Another spurious claim is that a Heart Sutra text was inscribed in stone by Zhāng Ài 张爱 "at Shàolín sì 少林寺 'Shaolin Temple' in August of the twenty-third year of the Zhenguan era (649)." While this "fact" is also widely cited, the authors could find no evidence that it ever existed: there is no extant inscription and no rubbing of it. They concluded that Zhēnguān 贞观 may have been a mistake for Kāiyuán 开元 (some centuries later).

I note that the Shaolin Temple is now a Chinese government-run tourist attraction focused on martial arts and the link between martial arts and Buddhism has always seemed tenuous for the simple reason that Buddhists universally espouse non-violence.

And finally the authors investigated the claim that on “August 27, 657", Zhuāng Níng inscribed a blessing for Husband Zīfú” (显庆二年八月一日庄宁为夫资福书) and included the Xīn jīng «心经»). And they concluded that the texts were actually fabricated by Gù Nányǎ 顾南雅 (1765-1832).

Thus none of the stories of early copies Heart Sutras in China stand up to scrutiny. Which is something of a relief for me. My thesis on the date of composition survives a major test.

~~oOo~~

My thanks to Ji Yun 纪赟, who first alerted me to this article in 2018. And thanks to Michael Radich for allowing me a preview of Claudia Wenzel's forthcoming article.

—Bibliography—

On Chinese epigraphy generally see the Stone Sutras project which will eventually reproduce the fine, large-format printed volumes from Harrassowitz Verlag and the China Academy of Arts Press.

Attwood, Jayarava. (2019). "Xuanzang’s Relationship to the Heart Sūtra in Light of the Fangshan Stele." Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies, 32, 1–30. https://chinesebuddhiststudies.org/article/xuanzangs-relationship-to-the-heart-sutra-in-light-of-the-fangshan-stele/

———.2020. "The History of the Heart Sutra as a Palimpsest." Pacific World, Series 4, no.1, 155-182. https://pwj.shin-ibs.edu/2020/6934

De Laurentis, Pietro. (2021). Protecting the dharma through calligraphy in Tang China : a study of the Ji wang shengjiao xu 集王聖教序 , the preface to the Buddhist scriptures engraved on stone in Wang Xizhi's collated characters. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica.

Kotyk, Jeffrey. (2019). "Chinese State and Buddhist Historical Sources on Xuanzang: Historicity and the Daci'en si sanzang fashi zhuan 大慈恩寺三藏法師傳." T'oung Pao 105(5-6): 513–544. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685322-10556P01

Wenzel, Claudia. (forthcoming). Buddhist Stone Sutras: Shaanxi 3. Wiesbade: Harrassowitz Verlag – Hangzhou: China Academy of Arts Press.

The Earliest Dated Heart Sutra Revisited

This material has now been published as: 'Xuanzang’s Relationship to the Heart Sūtra in Light of the Fangshan Stele.' Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies (2019, 32: 1–30).

Heart Sutra stele Commissioned by Yáng Shèshēng 楊社生 (13 March 661)
(From 中国佛教协会 and 中国佛教图书文. 2000. Vol 2, p.1). 

In 2016, a story made its way around the Chinese media (e.g., the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage) that a new discovery had been made of the earliest dated Heart Sutra. A stone stele, inscribed with the Heart Sutra and carrying the date of 661 CE, had been found at Fángshān near Beijing. The story was not picked up in the West. During correspondance with Ji Yun about my review of his article on the Heart Sutra he generously informed me about this inscription and kindly supplied me with a copy of a recent journal article outlining the find (He & Xu 2017) and a book with another transcription (Beijing Library... 1987).

I uncovered some older sources which mention the Fángshān Stele. Firstly, I found that the colophon (containing the date) was transcribed and published in Dàoān and Zhāng (1977). Unfortunately, I cannot get access to this book, except through "snippets" on Google Books. However, I also discovered the text of a pamphlet on Fángshān, which also transcribes the colophon (Lin 1958). And note that Lin 1958 was published in Taipei, Taiwan, not in Communist China and was thus always available to scholars outside the region. The text of Lin (1958) was also used in a pamphlet about the temple on Fángshān, i.e., Yang (2003). Different transcriptions of the colophon disagree on some details. I'm grateful to members of the Omniglot Facebook group and the Chinese Language Stack-exchange for help with deciphering the colophon (though of course any remaining mistakes or infelicities are down to me).

The Fángshān Xīnjīng Stele is of considerable interest because it purports to be carved in 661 CE, three years before the death of Xuánzàng in 664 CE and yet it attributes the translation of the Heart Sutra to him, which as we know is problematic. I have done my best to assemble and evaluate the evidence below.

The text is inscribed on a stone tablet or stele. It's dimensions are unclear, but the ratio of its sides is approximately 2:3 and I would guess at dimensions in the realm of 60 x 90 cm (allowing ca. 3 x 3 cm for each character and some leeway). The surface of the stele seems to be badly damaged so that many characters are obscured. It was broken in half at some point and appears to have been repaired. The lower left corner is missing, obscuring up to nine characters.

The stone tablet now resides at 雲居寺 Yúnjū sì which translates something like Temple Dwelling in the Clouds. The temple is on 房山 Fángshān, which means something like Repository Mountain. Nearby is 石經山 or Stone Sutra Mountain where Buddhist sutras were carved on thousands of stone slabs in an attempt to preserve the entire Buddhist Canon (as described in the 8th Century). Fángshān is about 65km south-west of Beijing.

Title

The title displayed on the stele comes at the end of the text, which is usual for Indic Buddhist texts. The full title of the text is:

般若波羅蜜多心經

The Middle Chinese pronunciation of this can be reconstructed as Banya-baramida-sim-keng. This translates into Sanskrit as Prajñā-pāramitāhṛdaya-sūtra. We can see that the first part—般若波羅蜜多— is an attempt to represent the sounds of the Sanskrit word using Chinese characters, while the last two characters represent whole words.

This transliteration was used by Mokṣala in his translation of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra dated 291 CE and was also used by Kumārajīva in his translation of the text in 404 CE.

Note that the character 經 is a variant.

Attribution

The stele attributes the text to Xuánzàng (see detail, right):

三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯

三藏 Tripiṭaka
法師 Dharma master (Skt dharma-bhāṇaka)
玄奘 Xuánzàng
奉 詔譯 translated with imperial authorisation

Note that there is a full character space between 奉 and 詔. We see the same space in the Beilin Stele. This is added as a mark of respect to the Emperor. The character詔 means:

"An imperial edict. To decree. Appearing in the colophons of translated scriptures, it indicates official authorization at the highest level, indicating the high level of the translatorʼs reputation." (DDB)

Note that this attribution occurs at the beginning of all of Xuánzàng's translations in the Taishō Tripiṭaka. However, it also occurs in his travelogue 大唐西域 (T2087) which was not translated but composed by him. Note also that there are minor variations in some earlier editions suggesting that the wording was not fixed.

Date

The date of 661 CE comes from the phrase 顯慶六年二月八日造, which occurs at the bottom of the leftmost column on the stele.This is considerably less clear than the attribution.

顯慶 Xiǎnqìng refers to a period of the rule of Emperor 唐高宗 Táng Gāozōng, roughly coinciding with the years 656-661. 唐 was the name of the dynastic lineage, hence Táng Dynasty. Chinese emperors would take special "reign names" (年號) at significant points in their reign. Gāozōng used 14 different names during his time as Emperor (649-683).

The Chinese new year begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice, usually in mid January to mid February. The length of months varied, but generally they were defined from new moon to new moon which was on average 29 ​³²⁄₆₀ days long. Thus a typical month might be 29 or 30 days, and this would always leave a few days at the end (12 x 30 = 360 and a year is 365.25 days). [I'm told that this is an over simplification]

However, reign periods did not always change at new year. The Xiǎnqìng period began on 7 February 656 and ended on 4 April 661, to be followed by the 龍朔 Lóngshuò period. Lóngshuò began on the 30th day of the second month (= 5 April), so this stele was made towards the end of Xiǎnqìng, on 13 March, 661.

顯慶 Xiǎnqìng era
六年 6th Year
二月 2nd month = March
八日 8th day = 13
造 made, constructed.

Not all the elements of the first character 顯 are clear, but the second 慶 is clear and there seems little doubt that this is the correct interpretation. This is partly because 慶 is not used in many other names of any other regnal periods and is thus a useful identifier. There is no obvious reign period for which this could be mistaken.

The Text

The rest of the text is presented in 11 columns of 26 characters (or less), most of which are clearly visible and match the text of T251. There are some minor differences, however.

One feature of the text is the substitution of the simplified character 无 for 無 throughout. At first this struck me as odd, but asking around I found that it was actually common, especially in inscriptions where the justification was that it was easier to inscribe. The Wiktionary entry says "First attested in the Warring States period; used interchangeably with 無 until the Tang dynasty." Some of the simplified characters introduced by the PRC government actually have long histories.

In the dhāraṇī, 帝 is written as 諦 "examine", with the same pronunciation /tei/. This composite character has 言 "speech" as a (vaguely) semantic element and 帝 as a phonetic element. We also saw this substitution in the Beilin Stele. If we explain 无 for 無 as a simplification, then 諦 for 帝 is the opposite, since 諦 is considerably more complex and therefore difficult to carve. However, the so-called two truths are often transliterated as 二諦 and it may that the calligrapher thought this connection too good to pass up.

The text appears to be signed at the end of the sutra, but I cannot make out the character and none of my sources mentions it.

Colophon

The colophon is important because it not only gives us the date of the work, but some details about the donor who paid for the stele to be made. Such items were a fund-raiser for the monastery to help pay for their main project of carving the entire Tripiṭaka into stone (which remained incomplete, but covered thousands of tablets). Indeed, our text is not only the oldest dated Heart Sutra, it is the oldest dated colophon at Fangshan and thus marks the beginning of a new phase of the project.

By comparing the image of the rubbing from He and Xu (2017) and published transcriptions (which disagree, are partial, and/or contain errors), I have created a kind of critical edition. The colophon must have had more characters where the corner is broken off (indicated in light grey beow).

雍州櫟陽縣遊騎將軍守左衛淥城府左果毅都尉楊社生□父楊
母段□妻扈息懷慶玄嗣玄器玄貞女大娘二娘隸利巫山？？？
家眷屬緣此功德齊成正覺？？顯慶六年二月八日造經？？？

□ = a full character-sized space in the inscription.

What can we find in this? Firstly the inscription was commissioned by 楊社生 Yáng Shèshēng. Unfortunately, he seems not to have made any other mark on history. However, 楊 is a very significant name in Chinese history because the Emperors of Sui were from the 楊 clan; although it is not clear if Yáng Shèshēng was closely related to them, because of his name and rank we can say that he is a member of the aristocracy.

Line 1. 雍州櫟陽縣遊騎將軍守左衛淥城府左果毅都尉楊社生

Yáng was from 雍州 Yōng Zhōu or Yong Province in which the Tang capital, Chang'an (長安) was located (modern day Xian). More specifically, he was from 櫟陽縣 Yueyang county.* Yueyang was a temporary capital of the Han (200-205 BCE). It is now in the Yanliang District (阎良区) about 50 km from Xian.

* note that the usual Mandarin pronunciation of 櫟 is lì, but the name of the County is definitely Yue, probably based on the pronunciation of 樂 yuè.

Yang was a military officer. With help from Charles Hucker's (1985) Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China we can determined that he held (守) the prestige title of General of Mobile Cavalry (游騎將軍), but served as Courageous Commander" (果毅都尉) of the left (左) in the guard of the left (左衛) in the garrison 府 of 淥城 Lùchéng. The early Tang military was divided into 12 armies, each comprised of a number of garrisons (~ 650 in total). Each garrison had an overall commander and two "courageous commanders" (果毅都尉), left and right. The "courageous" part related to the way of referring to different garrisons.

The place name 淥城府 or Lùchéng Garrison seems to correspond to modern day 涿州为 [涿州為] or Zhuōzhōu Province which is about 30km south-east of Fángshān. This explains why the stele was found in Yúnjū Temple rather than somewhere closer to Chang'an.

Line 2: 父楊 母段□ 妻扈息懷慶玄嗣玄器玄貞女大娘二娘隸利巫山

Line two is all summed by Yang (2003) as 其全家 "his family". It begins with his Mother 母 Duan段. Duan would be her family name. Next is his wife 妻 Hu 扈; his sons (息): 懷慶, 玄嗣, 玄黎*, and 玄貞; his daughters (女) 大娘^† and 二娘 (i.e., first daughter, second daughter); and finally someone named 利巫山 who is a servant or dependent (隸). Perhaps a "ward" given that he is included with the family. The person missing from all this is his father. Since the tablet has columns of 26 characters, there are potentially three characters missing from the end of each colophon column. We can conjecture that the end of line one included the word father (父) and his name, which was presumably also 楊.

* 玄器 is an alternative reading of 玄黎.
† in this context we might expect 太 rather than 大.

The traditional Chinese system of names is relatively complex. They have a family (originally a clan) name, in this case 楊. Then they have a given name (名) which may be given by the head of the family rather than the parents and only used in the family. Women only used their family and given names. Boys might have an infant name (乳名) used up to adulthood. At adulthood men get a 字 or "courtesy name" which is the name they use in everyday life, though intimates may also call them by a nickname (號). At ordination monks take a Dharma name (法號). It's possible that the younger sons became monks and that their names with the common element 玄 (which they share with Xuanzang) reflect this. Other names, such as a nom de plume, or posthumous names were also common. Emperors often took a new name when they took the throne.

Three characters are missing at the end of this line.

Line 3: 家眷屬緣此功德齊成正覺？？顯慶六年二月八日造經？？？

The third line asks that family (家) members (眷屬) be caused (緣) by this merit (此功德) to attain awakening (成正覺) together (齊).

The date 顯慶六年二月八日 when the sutra was made 造經 we have already discussed.

Discussion

For the first time we have physical evidence linking the Heart Sutra to Xuánzàng during his lifetime and naming him as translator (譯). However, we need to be cautious. What this tells us is precisely that those involved in the production of the inscription believed that Xuánzàng had translated the sutra. Xuánzàng is mentioned in this inscription, but he wasn't involved in it.

I asked Dr Jeffrey Kotyk if he could shed any light on the chronology from the traditional histories. In the 《釋氏通鑑》, a Buddhist history of China up to ca 960 CE, we find a single mention of Xuánzàng for year 5 of Xianqing 顯慶 (kindly translated for me by JK, but with some slight modifications of my own):

「三月。西明寺靜之禪師遷逝。甞鼻患肉塞。百方無驗。有僧令誦般若心經萬遍。恰至五千。肉鈴便落(本傳)○奘法師。於玉華譯般(若經)○」(CBETA, X76, no. 1516, p. 88b2-4)

"3rd lunar month. Chanshi Jingzhi of Ximing-si passed away. He once suffered from blocked nasal passages. Hundreds of remedies were ineffective. There was a monk who had him recite the Prajñā-Heart Sutra ten-thousand times. At exactly five-thousand [recitations], his [nasal] flesh tinkled [like a bell]. (original biography). Master Xuánzàng at Yuhua translated the Pra(jñā Sūtra)."

Words in square brackets are added to help make sense of the translation. The words in parentheses are notes from the CBETA edition.

From the 《大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》, a biography of Xuánzàng composed by慧立 Huìlì, edited and published by 彥悰 Yàncóng in about 688 CE (T 2053), we know that Xuánzàng moved to Yuhua late in the 4th year of Xianqing (659), and started translating the Mahāprajñāpāramitā (i.e., T220) at the beginning of the 5th year (660). See below for more on dates. What this passage suggests is that the Heart Sutra predates the translation of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā.

The phrase 三藏法師玄奘奉　詔譯 appears at the beginning of T220, Xuánzàng's translation of the collected Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. By contrast, Huìlì and Yàncóng state that the work was translated due to a request from the "people"

東國重於《般若》，前代雖翻，不能周備，眾人更請委翻 (T 2053.275c.17-19)

In the Eastern Country the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra was highly esteemed. Although it had been translated into Chinese during a previous dynasty, the translation was incomplete, so the people [眾人] requested that the Master kindly translate it anew. (Li 1995: 327)

From what I can make out, such translations were presented to the Emperor after completion and then received the imperial seal of approval.

The 玉華宮 Yuhua Gong, or Palace of Jade Flowers, is the place where Xuánzàng's translation team worked on T220. It is about 100 km north of Changan, well away from the distractions of life in the capital (and quite far from where Yang lived, also). According to Huìlì and Yàncóng, Xuánzàng moved out to Yuhua in 顯慶四年十月 or November 659 (T2053.275c). Yaowang Mountain, about halfway between Chang'an and Yuhua also has a collection of stone sutras.

The date of 顯慶六年二月八日 for the Fángshān stele is interesting because it's in the middle of the period during which Xuánzàng and his team of translators were translating the collection of sixteen Prajñāpāramitā sūtras known as the 大般若波羅蜜多經 or Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra (T220). This took about four years and occurred between: 顯慶五年正月一日 and 龍朔三年十月二十日. The table below shows the key events and the dates in the traditional Chinese and Gregorian calendars.

Event	Chinese date	Gregorian
	顯慶 begins (i.7)	656 Feb 7
Move to Yuhua	顯慶四年十月	659 Nov
T220 Trans begins	顯慶五年正月一日	660 Feb 16
Fángshān stele	顯慶六年二月八日	661 March 13
	龍朔 begins (ii.30)	661 Apr 4
T220 Trans ends	龍朔三年十月二十日	663 Nov 15
	麟德 begins (i.1)	664 Feb 2
Xuánzàng dies	麟德一年二月五日	664 March 7

As we can see, the stele purports to be from a time a little over a year into the translation of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra collection. And at a time when Xuánzàng had retreated from public life in the capital to a mountain retreat 100 km away. If we take this at face value, then Xuánzàng must have "translated" the Heart Sutra attributed to him (T251) before he started this magnum opus. I use scare quotes on "translated" because it is clear from other evidence that he did not translate it. Note that Xuánzàng died within a few months of completing the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra translation.

All of the circumstantial evidence points away from Xuánzàng's being involved in translating it (see Nattier 1992: 189ff for a survey of the evidence).

1. The Heart Sutra is a 抄經 (chāo jīng) or "sutra extract" rather than a translation.
2. The extraction was from Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of the Large Sutra (T223), with other parts inspired by the same text, and a dhāraṇī from elsewhere. It now clearly predates the completion of T220.
3. Like a lot of English (so-called) "translations" the text attributed to Xuánzàng (T251) is an edited version of an existing text (T250). Two lines were removed and the characters for two names and one technical term (skandha) were changed.
4. All the terms changed were introduced by Xuánzàng, but were seldom taken up by later translators.
5. No text translated by Xuánzàng ever replaced one translated by Kumārajīva in popular Chinese Buddhism - Kumārajīva's texts are still in use today.
6. Xuánzàng's biography mentions him being given the text, not translating it.
7. Xuánzàng's own travelogue doesn't mention the Heart Sutra at all.
8. The Heart Sutra does not appear in T220, Xuánzàng's collection of Prajñāpāramitā sutras translated from Sanskrit (though we have reason to believe he already possessed a version). No other Prajñāpāramitā text translated by Xuánzàng occurs outside of T220.

So, Xuánzàng was, at best, an editor of the text. And such edits as occurred were relatively minor. In a forthcoming essay I will show that the character 譯 does not always mean "translate" but can mean precisely "edit". In any case, the resulting text, or one very like it, was attributed to Xuánzàng three years before he died (early in 664 CE) by someone who lived several hundred kilometers away.

Even if the story about the blocked nasal passages is not exactly historically accurate, it probably does reflect the use to which the Heart Sutra was put in the 10th Century, when the commentary was composed. And this is confirmed by other sources. While a handful of scholars studied and interpreted the text as a document of Buddhist ideas, the majority of Buddhists, then and now, see it in magical terms, in which understanding the text is secondary, if it has any importance at all.

The Fángshān Stele can now claim to be the oldest dated Heart Sutra. It forces us to review the relationship between Xuánzàng and the Heart Sutra, though I do not think that we can take the attribution to him at face value. Since the Heart Sutra Xuánzàng had was almost certainly already in Chinese, we cannot say that he translated it. It is possible, even likely, that he edited it for publication. If he did so, it was most likely before he embarked upon his translation of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra. And he probably did not include the Heart Sutra in this collection, because it was already in Chinese. If the biography of Huìlì and Yàncóng can be believed, then Xuánzàng treated the text as a locally produced (magically efficacious) dhāraṇī, not as an authentic Indian sutra. However, the commentaries of Kuījī and Woncheuk (which I have written about before) clearly do treat the text as having an Indian origin and as being a text about ideas rather than simply apophatic magic.

Bibliography

Chinese Canonical texts from the CBETA Reader, except where stated.

北京圖書館金石組, 中國佛教圖書文物館石經組編 (1987) ‘房山石經題記匯編’. 书目文献出版社 : 新華書店北京發行所發行, 1987. = The Beijing Library Metal and Stone Group and The Chinese Buddhist books and Cultural Relics Museum Stone Sutra Group. (1987). Classified Compilation of Headings and Records of the Stone Scriptures on Mt. Fang, Beijing: Bibliographic Literature Publishing House and Xinhua Bookstore.

中国佛教协会 and 中国佛教图书文. 2000. 「房山石经」（全30册）华夏出版社. [= Chinese Buddhist Association and Chinese Buddhist Literature Museum (eds) (2000) Mount Fang Stone Sutras. 30 Vols. Huaxia Publishing House.]

道安 and 張曼濤. (1977)「大藏經硏究彙編」(2 Vols.) 台北: 大乘文化出版社. = Dàoān and Zhāng Màntāo. (1977) Collection of Tripiṭaka Research. (2 Vols.). Taipei: Mahāyana Culture Press.

賀銘, 續小玉, “早期《心經》的版本”，房山石經博物館/房山石經與雲居寺文化研究中心，編輯，《石經研究》，第一輯，頁12-28. 北京：北京燕山出版社，2017年。= He Ming, Xu Xiaoyu. (2017) “the Early recessions of Heart Sutra”, in Fángshān Stone Sutras Museum & Research Center of Fángshān Stone Sutras and Yunju Temple, ed., Stone Sutras Studies, Vol,1, pp.12-28. Beijing: Beijing Yanshan Chubanshe.

Hucker, Charles O. (1985). Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford University Press.

Li Rongxi (1995) A Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang. Numata Centre for Buddhist Translation and Research.

林元白。(1958)「唐代房山石经刻造概况」現代佛學 , 3。 一九五八年。= Lin Yuanbai. 'A General Survey of Fángshān Stone Sutras from the Tang Dynasty. Modern Buddhist Studies, 3, 1958. www.baohuasi.org/qikan/xdfx/5803-011A.htm. Cached copy.

杨亦武. (2003) 云居寺. 华文出版社. = Yáng Yìwǔ (2003). Yún jū Temple. Huawen Publishing House.

Additional Links

Chinese news story: http://www.sach.gov.cn/art/2016/9/27/art_723_133778.html

Video on Fángshān showing caves and stone steles with carved sutras. http://www.ikgf.uni-erlangen.de/videos/china-academic-visit-2013/the-video-on-Fángshān.shtml