Notes on Atikūṭa and Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經» (T 901)

In some of my published work I have identified the source of the Heart Sutra dhāraṇī as the Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經» (T 901), translated by Atikūṭa on 6th May 654 CE. Some recent correspondence has forced me to reconsider this. In particular, it became clear that on the evidence I had, I could not be confident of the direction of copying. And since I relied on this to date the Heart Sutra, the lack of confidence was problematic. This prompted me to go back to the sources (this time armed with ChatGPT4).

These are my edited notes on Atikūṭa and the Tuóluóní jí jīng. Another batch of notes will follow on the Tuóluóní jí jīng and the Heart Sutra dhāraṇī.

Atikuṭa

In Chinese, the name is transcribed as: Ā dì qú duō 阿地瞿多 which could conceivably represent Atikūṭa, Ādikūṭa, or even Atigupta. The name is also translated as Wújígāo 無極高 (無極 "unlimited" and 高 "Lofty" [especially lofty virtue, high-minded, etc]; esteem"). By comparison ati "very, excessively; superior", and ādi "beginning". Kūṭa can mean many things, but primarily it refers to prominence, as a horn on the head of an animal, the hump of a Brahmin bull (aṃsakūṭa), the crown of a king: This seems to support the transcription: Atikūṭa meaning something like "highest peak" or "ultimately high-minded". In one word, perhaps, Pinnacle.

Though note that words in -kūṭa are few and difficult to predict: utkūṭa "parasol", kālakūṭa "the black poison produced by churning the ocean", niṣkūṭa "guileless", parikūṭa "barrier, town gate", Atikūṭa could have a specific concrete meaning in a Buddhist context that is not apparent from the etymology.

Much of what we know about Atikūṭa comes from a Chinese story that is repeated almost verbatim in a range of sources, e.g.

1. The anonymous preface to the Tuóluóní jí jīng (T 901; 18.785a5-b4) ~654 CE
2. Dà Táng kāiyuán shìjiào lù «大唐開元釋教錄» (T 2154; 55.562c08-c22) ~730 CE
3. Sòng gāosēng chuán 宋高僧傳 (T2061; 50.718b18-c2) - included as an appendix below. ~988 CE

Given the dates, it's likely that both the Kāiyuán lù and the Gāosēng chuán copied this story with only minor changes from the Tuóluóní jí jīng itself.

Shinohara (2014: 29) comments "Atikūṭa gave an oral translation of an original Sanskrit text, from which the author produced a summary in Chinese as a work in twelve fascicles."

The text and translation of Tuóluóní jí jīng preface (T 18.785a5-b4) follows:

有高德沙門厥號阿地瞿多(唐言無極高也)，是中天竺人也。法師聰慧超群、德邁過人，弱冠慕道，歷五竺而尋友，低心躍步而諮法要，故能精練五明、妙通諸部。

There was a venerable śramaṇa of great virtue named Ādìqúduō 阿地瞿多 [Atikūṭa] (in Tang speech: Wújígāo 無極高 "Unlimited Lofty"), who was a man from Central India (中天竺). The Dharma Master (法師) was exceptionally intelligent, surpassing others, and his virtue exceeded that of ordinary people. From a young age, he admired the Dharma, travelled through the Five Indias in search of companions, humbly approached and eagerly stepped forward to inquire about essential teachings. Thus, he became proficient in the Five Sciences and adept in various teachings.

意欲運西域之法水、潤東夏之渴仰，判身許于險難，務存弘道之心，跋山巖而不疲、涉沙流而無倦，頂戴尊經向斯漢地。永徽二年正月，屈于長安，奉勅住慈門寺。

He aspired to bring the Dharma waters of the Western Region to quench the thirst of Eastern Xia, committing himself to dangerous and difficult paths with a dedicated heart for the propagation of the Dharma. He traversed mountains and cliffs without weariness and crossed sandy streams without fatigue, carrying the revered sūtras to this Han land. In Yǒnghuī 永徽 2.1 (Feb 651), he arrived in Chang'an and was commanded by imperial decree to reside at Címén sì 慈門寺 "Cimen Monastery".

但法師含珠未吐，人莫別于懷珍，雅辯既宣，方知有寶(云云)，故能決眾疑，言皆當理。然則經律論業傳者非一，唯此法門未興斯土，所以丁寧三請，方許壇法。

However, the Dharma Master, who held pearls within but had not yet revealed them, kept his treasures unknown to others. Once his elegant explanations were proclaimed, it was realised that a treasure was present (and so on). Thus, he was able to resolve many doubts, and his words were always in accord with reason. Although many have transmitted works of sūtras, vinaya, and śāstras, this particular Dharma method had not yet been introduced to this land. Therefore, after three earnest requests, he was finally permitted to perform the altar rituals.

三月上旬赴慧日寺浮圖院內，法師自作普集會壇，大乘琮等一十六人，爰及英公、鄂公等一十二人，助成壇供，同願皇基永固，常臨萬國，庶類同沾，皆成大益，其中靈瑞恐繁不述(別在傳記)。

In the first ten days of the third lunar month (March 27-6 April 651), at the Fútú Yuàn 浮圖院 within Huìrì Sì 慧日寺, the Dharma Master personally established a universal assembly altar. Sixteen individuals, including the Mahāyāna monk Dàchéng Cóng 大乘琮, and twelve officials, including Yīng Gōng 英公 and È Gōng 鄂公, assisted in preparing the altar offerings. Together, they wished for the imperial foundation to be eternally stable, to always oversee the myriad nations, and for all beings to partake in great benefits. The numerous auspicious signs that appeared are not detailed here (but are recorded elsewhere in chronicles).

余慶逢此法，不勝忻躍，躬詣翻經，所悕翻廣本屢值事鬧，不及陳請，恐幻質遷謝失于大利，便請法師于慧日寺宣譯梵本，且翻要抄一十二卷，竪興國之洪基、存隆民之祕寶歟。

I was fortunate to encounter this Dharma, and my joy was beyond measure. Personally attending the sutra translation, I had hoped to translate the extensive version but was repeatedly hindered by various disturbances, unable to make the request. Fearing that my transient existence might end and miss out on the great benefit, I requested the Dharma Master at Huìrì Sì 慧日寺 to expound and translate the Sanskrit text, and to translate an essential extract of twelve scrolls, to establish a grand foundation for the nation and preserve the secret treasures that enrich the people.

從四年三月十四日起首，至永徽五年歲次甲寅四月十五日畢。以後頻頻勅追法師入內，邂逅之間無暇復校。此經出《金剛大道場經》，大明呪藏分之少分也；今此略抄擬勘詳定，奏請流通天下普聞焉。

Starting on Yǒnghuī 永徽 4.3.14 (16 April 653) and completed on 5.4.15 (6 May 654), in the year of Year of the Wood Tiger. Subsequently, repeated imperial edicts summoned the Dharma Master to the court, and amidst these encounters, there was no time to review again.

This sutra originates from the Jīngāng Dàdàochǎng Jīng «金剛大道場經» (*Vajra-mahābodhimaṇḍa-sūtra), a minor part of the Dàmíng Zhòucáng 大明呪藏 (*Mahāvidyākośa or Mahāvidyāpiṭaka). This current abridged extract (lüè chāo 略抄) is intended to be carefully examined and officially submitted for universal circulation throughout the world.

Chinese dates in the format: Regnal Era yy/mm/dd. Dates converted to Gregorian calendar using https://sinocal.sinica.edu.tw/

Shinohara (2014: 30) "Xuankai served as the recorder (bishou 筆受)"

Several passages, even a large part of the entry on the Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara in fascicle 4, were taken from existing Chinese translations of other texts.

T 2154 also retells the story above in similar terms (T 2154; 55.562c08-c22). Here, "he was ordered to reside at Cí'ēn Sì 慈恩寺" (T 2154; 55.562c13), rather than Címén sì 慈門寺 Sòng gāosēng chuán 宋高僧傳 has him dwelling at 慈門寺. However, far as I can tell there was no Címén sì 慈門寺 before the Yuan (13thC - 14thC), and Cí'ēn Sì 慈恩寺 was a prominent translation centre in the 650s.

Note also that the first Tantric ritual in Chinese was dedicated to promoting the empire.

Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經»

The preface of the Tuóluóní jí jīng is consistent with the idea of the text being a samucaya "anthology" or saṃgraha "collection" of extracts from a larger book of Tantric ritual. T 2154 includes the phrase "[Xuānxiē 玄揩 and others] extracted and translated essential parts from the Jīngāng Dàdàochǎng Jīng «金剛大道場經»." Two Chinese phrases catch my eye: cuō yào 撮要 "extract the essentials" and chāo yì 鈔譯 "copy and translate". This seems to compliment the phrase abridged extract (lüè chāo 略抄) in the Preface.

Unfortunately no text with the title Jīngāng dàdàochǎng jīng «金剛大道場經» *Vajramahābodhimaṇḍa Dhāraṇī is extant.

However, there is another independent extract from *Vajramahābodhimaṇḍa Dhāraṇī from ~two centuries earlier in the Fú shuō shíyī miàn Guānshìyīn shénzhòu jīng «佛說十一面觀世音神呪經» *Avalokiteśvaraikādaśamukhadhāraṇī sūtra (T 1070), translated ca. 564-572 CE. The colophon of which reads:

此經名金剛大道場神呪經，十萬偈成部，略出十一面觀世音一品。(T 1070 20.152a6-7)
This sūtra is named the Vajramahābodhimaṇḍa Dhāraṇī Sūtra, composed of 100,000 verses. This abbreviated version presents one section on the Eleven-Faced Avalokiteśvara.

Thus we have reason to believe that a text called Vajramahābodhimaṇḍa Dhāraṇī (Sūtra) existed at some point. And that is was already a compilation of various ritual texts or dhāraṇī sūtras with a Tantric flavour. As Joshua Capitanio (2017: 314) notes:

The Collected Dharani Sutras, though based on Indian manuscripts, was most likely compiled in its current form by Atikūṭa and his chinese collaborators. It consists of dozens of different ritual texts and short scriptures that are loosely organized across the text's twelve fascicles into five different groups or "families" of deities.

Though this appears to ignore the idea of the Vajramahābodhimaṇḍa Dhāraṇī Sūtra as a single source for the Tuóluóní jí jīng.

As well as Kāiyuán lù (T 2154), another catalogue records the Tuóluóní jí jīng with an interesting note. The Dà Zhōu kāndìng zhòngjīng mùlù «大周刊定衆經目錄» (T 2153), compiled 695 CE (also known as Dà Zhōu lù «大周錄»):

右大唐永徽五年四月十五日中天竺國三藏阿地瞿多(此云無極高)於西京慧日寺譯。天冊萬歲元年十月二十四日奉勅編行 (T 2153 55.379b2-4)
Translated on Yǒnghuī 永徽 5.4.15 (6 May 654) of the Tang Dynasty, by the Tripiṭaka master Aṭikūta 阿地瞿多, from Central India at Huìrì 慧日 Temple in the Western Capital. Compiled and published by imperial order on Tiāncè wànsuì 天冊萬歲 1.10.24 (5 December 695).

The text was "translated" (yì 譯) in 654 CE but also "compiled and issued" (biān xíng 編行) 41 years later in 695 CE. This later process doesn't seem to be accounted for by commentators.

The date "695 CE" and the reign name, Tiāncè wànsuì 天冊萬歲, tell us that Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 (r. 690–705 CE) was involved in the dissemination of this text. It's not clear to me what kind of process occurred here. FWIW... ChatGPT says:

The expression "biān xíng 編行" would typically appear in contexts where a compilation was not merely created but also sanctioned and actively disseminated as an authoritative or required text, such as historical records, legal codes, or other state-sanctioned works.

Note that Daoxuan's catalogue (T 2149, 55.301b19) includes a text named Tuóluóní jí  陀羅尼集 but it's not clear if this is the same text: 

陀羅尼集(十卷一百八十七紙一名雜呪集九卷) 
Collection of Dhāraṇī (Ten volumes, 187 sheets. Also called Zá zhòu jí 雜呪集 "Collection of Miscellaneous Incantations", Nine volumes)

Most scholars seem to believe that the Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經» contains Chinese elements overlaid on a Sanskrit substrate. For example, Davidson (2021: 81) asserts

...the text as it exists was clearly assembled from Indian texts and traditions in China rather than in India. This is evident from, among other places, the introduction to a short sūtra on the goddess Śrīdevī appended to chapter 15, which states that the text was transported to China by Atikūṭa and translated there.

The "introduction" he refers to is:

功德天法一卷 (中天竺國菩提寺僧阿難律木叉師、迦葉師等共瞿多法師於經行寺翻，流行於唐國。) (T. 901 18.874b25-6)

Dharma of Jíxiángtiān 功德天 [Śrīdevī or Lakṣmī], one scroll (Translated at Jīngxíng Sì 經行寺 by the monks Ānán Lǜmùchā 阿難律木叉師 and Kāshé 迦葉師 of Mahābodhi Monastery in Central India, together with Dharma Master Atikūṭa 瞿多法師, and circulated in the Tang Kingdom).

This does not appear to say that "the text was transported to China by Atikūṭa". It does, however, suggests that the text was translated in China by Indian monks (which is entirely unsurprising) and perhaps suggests that it circulated independently. This impression is confirmed by Shinohara (2014: 30), who adds "In fact, significant sections of this entry on Lakṣmī appear to have been taken from Dharmakṣema’s (385–433) translation of the Golden Light Sūtra."

Davidson also asserts that the Tuóluóní jí jīng contains "an alternative Heart Sūtra teaching śamatha in the contemplation of the goddess Prajñāpāramitā" which, as far as I can see, is simply not true. Stickman's (1996: 53) comments are more apposite:

Bien qu'étant tous deux décrits comme des traductions dans le canon bouddhique chinois, ils furent en fait rédigés directement en chinois. L'autorité de l'écrit en Chine a peut-être encouragé les ritualistes à transcrire leurs pratiques et traditions orales, qui n'avaient jusque-là jamais été consignées. Les textes produits dans ces circonstances sont peut-être entièrement fondés sur des pratiques indiennes, mais représentent néanmoins inévitablement des adaptations aux conditions chinoises. Bien que portant le stigmate d'apocryphes par rapport au bouddhisme indien, ces ouvrages constituent les sources les plus riches sur la pratique du bouddhisme dans la Chine médiévale.

Although both [the Book of Consecration (ca 457) and the Collection of Dharani-Sūtra (653-654)] are described as translations in the Chinese Buddhist canon, they were actually written directly in Chinese. The authority of writing in China may have encouraged ritualists to transcribe their practices and oral traditions, which had not previously been recorded. Texts produced under these circumstances may be entirely based on Indian practices, but they inevitably represent adaptations to Chinese conditions. Although bearing the stigma of being apocryphal compared to Indian Buddhism, these works constitute the richest sources on the practice of Buddhism in medieval China.

Strickman (1996: 153) again:

C'est le même esprit de tolérance qui est sans doute à l'origine de l'incorporation d'éléments indiscutablement chinois dans ce texte qui n'a d'indien que le nom. Nous avons déjà mentionné une certaine suggestio serica dans quelques-unes des cérémonies. Nous pouvons maintenant observer des traits d'origine nettement chinoise. Il y a par exemple un "monarques yakṣa bleu de l'est" que l'on invoque lors d'une cérémonie thérapeutique. C'est l'un des cinq monarques yakṣa des cinq directions, dont les noms et les couleurs symboliques trahissent l'origine chinoise. La plupart des drogues prescrites sont citées soit sous leur nom chinois, soit en transcription du sanskrit, accompagnées de gloses chinoises. On trouve aussi la mention occasionnelle d'heures et de jours correspondant au cycle sexagésimal chinois. Parmi les chinoiseries». citons une référence aux baguettes (x, 872b). Mais ce sont les références à l'argent, déjà mentionnées plus haut, qui sont le plus révélatrices. On attribue généralement les premières allusions aux offrandes en espèces à une collection d'anecdotes datant du milieu du vin siècle, le Ming-pao ki (Registre de récompenses de l'au-delà), de T'ang Lin. On peut donc se féliciter de posséder ces instructions rituelles concrètes datant de la même période.

It is likely the same spirit of tolerance that is behind the incorporation of unmistakably Chinese elements into this text, which is Indian in name only. We have already mentioned a certain suggestio serica in some of the ceremonies. We can now observe features of clearly Chinese origin. For example, there is a "blue yakṣa monarch of the east" invoked during a therapeutic ceremony. He is one of the five yakṣa monarchs of the five directions, whose names and symbolic colours betray their Chinese origin. Most of the prescribed drugs are cited either under their Chinese names or in Sanskrit transcription, accompanied by Chinese glosses. There are also occasional mentions of hours and days corresponding to the Chinese sexagenary cycle. Among the 'Chinese elements,' we find a reference to chopsticks (x, 872b). But it is the references to money, already mentioned earlier, that are the most revealing. The earliest references to offerings of money are generally attributed to a collection of anecdotes dating from the mid-fifth century, the Ming-pao ki (Register of Rewards from the Afterlife) by Tang Lin. Thus, we can be pleased to have these concrete ritual instructions dating from the same period.

I'm not sure that the association of blue and the east is Chinese however, as this combination is common in Tantras that feature Akṣobhya. 

The process described is an added complication to the revised history, since the process of creating the Tuóluóní jí jīng appears to mirror the creation of the Heart Sutra, in having been composed in Chinese, abridged, but "entirely based on Indian practices".

Shinohara (2014: 31) gives an important caveat:

For the most part, though, the material in the Collected Dhāraṇī Sūtras does not exist elsewhere in independent translations. A large body of previously unknown Indian texts must have been translated for this compilation.

and

the Collected Dhāraṇī Sūtras presents a coherent and carefully worked out picture of one distinctive kind of maṇḍala. The Indian monk Atikūṭa must have brought this understanding of the maṇḍala ceremony and its guiding principles from India.

Shinohara (2014: 31) describes the Tuóluóní jí jīng as "carefully organized"

Note: The information on T901 in Lancaster's catalogue to the Korean Tripitaka, is largely correct but cites the source as "T. 2149-260c:16". The text on that line is unrelated. A similar title is recorded in T 2149, though not where Lancaster suggests, i.e.

• T 55.301b19：陀羅尼集(十卷一百八十七紙一名雜呪集九卷) "Dhāraṇī Collection" (10 scrolls, 187 sheets; also known as Zá zhòu jí «雜呪集» "Miscellaneous Spell Collection" in 9 scrolls).
• T 55.325a24：陀羅尼集(十卷一百八十七紙一名雜呪集九卷)"Dhāraṇī Collection" (10 scrolls, 187 sheets; also known as Zá zhòu jí «雜呪集» "Miscellaneous Spell Collection" in 9 scrolls).

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Capitanio, Josh. (2017) "‘The Ritual Altar of Kuṇḍalī Vajra for Treating Illnesses’ from the Collected Dhāraṇī Sūtras." In Buddhism and Medicine - An Anthology of Premodern Sources, edited by P. Salguero, 314-321. New York: Columbia University Press.

Davidson, R.M. (2012). “Some Observations on an Uṣṇīṣa Abhiṣeka Rite in Atikūṭa’s Dhāraṇīsaṃgraha.” In Transformations and Transfer of Tantra in Asia and Beyond, edited by I. Keul, 77-79. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Giebel, Rolf W. (2015) "Tantric Ritual Manuals in East Asia". Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism.

Glucklich, Ariel. (1997). The End of Magic. New York, Oxford University Press.

Shinohara, K. (2014) Spells, Images, and Maṇḍalas: Tracing the Evolution of Esoteric Buddhist Rituals. New York: Columbia University Press.

Silk, J.A., “The Jifayue sheku tuoluoni jing: Translation, Non-translation, Both or Neither?,” JIABS 31/1–2, 2008, 369–420.

Strickmann, M. 1996. Mantras et mandarins: Le bouddhisme tantrique en Chine. Paris: Gallimard.

~~oOo~~

APPENDIX Sòng gāosēng chuán 宋高僧傳biography of Atikūṭa

T50n2061_p0718b18：釋無極高，中印度人，梵云阿地瞿多，華云
T50n2061_p0718b19：無極高也。出家氏族未憑書之。高學窮滿
T50n2061_p0718b20：字，行潔圓珠，精練五明，妙通三藏。永徽三
T50n2061_p0718b21：年壬子歲正月，自西印度齎梵夾來屆長
T50n2061_p0718b22：安，勅令慈門寺安置。沙門大乘琮等十六人、
T50n2061_p0718b23：英公李世勣、鄂公尉遲德等十二人，同請高
T50n2061_p0718b24：於慧日寺浮圖院建陀羅尼普集會壇，所須
T50n2061_p0718b25：供辦。法成之日，屢現靈異，京中道俗咸歎希
T50n2061_p0718b26：逢。沙門玄楷等固請翻其法本。以四年癸
T50n2061_p0718b27：丑至于五年，於慧日寺從《金剛大道場經》
T50n2061_p0718b28：中撮要而譯，集成一部，名《陀羅尼集經》一
T50n2061_p0718b29：十二卷，玄楷筆受。于時有中印度大菩提寺
T50n2061_p0718c01：阿難律木叉師、迦葉師等，於經行寺譯《功德
T50n2061_p0718c02：天法》，編在《集經》第十卷內，故不別出焉。

Wú Jí Gāo 無極高, a man from Central India, is called Atikūṭa 阿地瞿多 in Sanskrit, which translates to 'Supreme and Lofty' (無極高) in Chinese. His background and family details are not recorded. His studies were exhaustive, his conduct was pure and rounded like a perfect pearl. He was proficient in the Five Sciences and thoroughly versed in the Tripiṭaka.

In the third year of the Yǒnghuī 永徽 era, during the rénzǐ 壬子 year and the first month, he brought Sanskrit texts from Western India to Cháng’ān 長安 and was ordered by imperial decree to reside at Címén Sì 慈門寺. Sixteen śramaṇas, including Dàchéng Cóng 大乘琮, and twelve officials, including Duke Ying Lǐ Shìjí 英公李世勣 and Duke È Yùchí Dé 鄂公尉遲德, jointly invited Wú Jí Gāo to the Fútú Yuàn 浮圖院 at Huìrì Sì 慧日寺 to establish a universal assembly altar for dhāraṇī, providing all necessary offerings.

On the day the Dharma was accomplished, numerous auspicious signs repeatedly appeared, and the people, both lay and ordained, in the capital marveled at this rare event. The śramaṇa Xuānkǎi 玄楷 and others earnestly requested to translate the original Dharma texts. From the fourth year, guǐchǒu 癸丑, to the fifth year, at Huìrì Sì 慧日寺, they extracted and translated essential parts from the Vajra Great Altar Sūtra (Jīngāng Dàdàochǎng Jīng 金剛大道場經), compiling it into a single work named the Dhāraṇī Collection Sūtra (陀羅尼集經), consisting of twelve scrolls. Xuānkǎi 玄楷 transcribed the texts.

At that time, there were monks from Mahābodhi Monastery 大菩提寺 in Central India, such as Ānán Lǜmùchā 阿難律木叉師 and Kāshé 迦葉師, who translated the Sūtra on the Merit of the Deva Method 功德天法 at Jīngxíng Sì 經行寺. This was included in the tenth volume of the collected sūtra, so it was not separately published.

What Have We Proven About the Heart Sutra?

My thinking on the Heart Sutra was probably due for an overhaul, and I have been fortunate recently to correspond with an academic who has taken an interest in the Heart Sutra. This has led me to rethink some aspects of the "Chinese origins" thesis.

In particular, I have been thinking about what has been proven or (better) established about the history of the Heart Sutra. By "established" here, I think more of the legal criteria of proving something beyond reasonable doubt. I don't mean perfect and eternal certainty, since nothing in ancient history is ever that certain. I mean "established" in the sense that if a fair-minded person with the appropriate background knowledge and skill, would examine the evidence we have presented, they would agree that our methods are both practicable and applicable, and would come to the same, or very similar, conclusions. With the caveat that all conclusions are subject to revision if new information comes along.

So what have Watanabe Shōgo, Jan Nattier, Matthew Orsborn (aka Huifeng), and I actually proven, in this sense? I think three propositions can be regarded as well-established historical facts.

1. Two passages in the Chinese Heart Sutra were copied from the Chinese Large Sutra translation by Kumārajīva (T 223).
2. The Sanskrit Heart Sutra was translated from a Chinese source.
3. The Heart Sutra enters the historical record in a Chinese document dated to 25 Dec 656 CE.

While I have made larger claims in the past, my recent correspondence has prompted me to clarify what seems certain and what is speculative.

1. The Chinese Heart Sutra copied two passages in Chinese
from the Large Text translation by Kumārajīva.

It was common knowledge amongst the early Tang commentators—by Kuījī 窺基 (T 1710), Woncheuk 圓測 (T 1711), Jìngmài 靖邁 (X 522), Fǎzàng 法藏 (T 1712), Huìjìng 慧浄 (X 521) and Zhishen 智詵 (Dunhuang ms.*)—that (at least some of) the text of the Heart Sutra was extracted from another Prajñāpāramitā text, with some of them specifically naming the Large Sutra. So this part of the thesis should be uncontroversial (and as far as I know, it is).

* The text of Zhishen's commentary has appeared in a Japanese publication by Yanagida and was used in a Japanese language study by Cheng (2007). On which see Notes on Zhishen's Heart Sutra Commentary (23 August 2024).

The two passages that we have identified are what Nattier called the "core section" and the "epithets section". Below I put the versions of the core section alongside each other, further broken down into three sections. As Nattier noted, you don't actually need to understand Chinese or Sanskrit at this point, you can follow this argument on pattern recognition alone.

Chinese

When we compare the two versions of the passage in the Chinese Heart Sutra and Kumārajīva's Mohe jīng, they are nearly identical on a character-by-character basis. The two texts have been punctuated differently in CBETA, so I have standardised this to make the comparison easier. I have highlighted the differences.

T 251	T 223
舍利子，色不異空，空不異色， 色即是空，空即是色。 受想行識亦復如是。 舍利子，是諸法空相，不生不滅，不垢不淨，不增不減。 是故空中無色，無受想行識，無眼耳鼻舌身意，無色聲香味觸法，無眼界 乃至 無意識界，無無明亦無無明盡 乃至 無老死亦無老死盡，無苦集滅道，無智亦無得，以無所得故。	舍利弗，非色異空，非空異色， 色即是空，空即是色， 受想行識亦如是。 舍利弗，是諸法空相，不生不滅、不垢不淨、不增不減。 [是空法非過去、非未來、非現在]*， 是故空中無色，無受想行識，無眼耳鼻舌身意，無色聲香味觸法，無眼界 乃至 無意識界，亦無無明亦無無明盡，乃至 [亦]無老死亦無老死盡，無苦集滅道，[亦]無智亦無得，[亦無須陀洹無須陀洹果，無斯陀含無斯陀含果，無阿那含無阿那含果，無阿羅漢無阿羅漢果，無辟支佛無辟支佛道，無佛亦無佛道。] * bracketed parts are omitted from T 251

There are two main types of difference here: omissions and amendations.

Omissions

There are two large omissions: (1) A whole line in the middle is omitted. (2) The final section is cut short, so that, after mentioning zhì 智 "knowledge" and dé 得 "attainment", T 223 carries on to give examples of each. This section is complicated by Kumārajīva appearing to mistranslate na prāptir nābhisamayaḥ “no attainment, no realisation”. The significance of the phrase is still visible in T 223, however, which carries on to say:

亦無須陀洹無須陀洹果，無斯陀含無斯陀含果，無阿那含無阿那含果，無阿羅漢無阿羅漢果，無辟支佛無辟支佛道，無佛亦無佛道。
"There is no stream-enterer, no fruit of stream-entry; no once-returner, no fruit of once-returning; no non-returner, no fruit of non-returning; no arhat, no fruit of arhatship; no pratyekabuddha, no path of pratyekabuddha; no buddha, and no path of buddhahood."

This fits well with the Sanskrit text of the Gilgit manuscript (see below). The "stream-enterer" (須陀洹), "once-returner" etc are examples of prāpti "attainment", while the fruit (guǒ 果) of Stream Entry, etc are examples of abhisamaya "realisation".

We are more used to seeing the terms "path" (marga) and "fruit" (phala) here or, in Chinese, the sìxiàng sìguǒ 四向四果 "four accesses and four realisations". The sìxiàng 四向 are: 須陀洹 "stream-enterer", 斯陀含 "'once-returner", 阿那含 "non-returner", and 阿羅漢 "arhat", and sìguǒ 四果 are the guǒ 果 (fruit) of these. To this list, T 223 adds the pìzhī fó 辟支佛 "pratyeka buddha" and the fó 佛 "buddha". The list in Pañc also has an entry for the bodhisatva and the fruit of bodhisatva-hood.

Amendations

Where the text of T 251 is amended, words and phrases are changed from Kumārajīva's translation idiom to Xuanzang's translation idiom, i.e. Shèlìfú 舍利弗 becomes Shèlìzi 舍利子; and fēi sè yì kōng, fēi kōng yì sè 非色異空，非空異色 becomes sè bù yì kōng, kōng bù yì sè 色不異空，空不異色. The first expression negates the idea that 色 and 空 are different, while the second states that 色 and 空 are not different. It's just two ways of saying the same thing.

Note that my view on the latter change has shifted from what I wrote in Attwood (2021: 25-26). It has become clear from new notes added by CBETA to T 1858 that 非色異空，非空異色 is the version of the phrase in T 223. Thus, this difference appears to be better explained as another case of the text being amended to fit Xuanzang's idiom. See also the discussion on CBETA.

In any case, even without knowing Chinese, we can see that the two Chinese texts are substantially the same and, where they are different, we have a simple explanation of why they are different. As we will see, the relationship between the two Sanskrit texts is very different indeed.

Sanskrit

Below is the core passage in Sanskrit, using the revised edition I published earlier this year and the text of Pañc transcribed by Zacchetti (2005:393) from the Gilgit manuscript (actually one of three, but only one has been published and then only in a facsimile edition). Again, even without knowing any Sanskrit, one can see that the two texts have some very different choices of words and idioms.

Hṛd	Pañc (Gilgit)
[iha] śāriputra rūpameva śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śūnyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ | evam eva vedanā-saṃjñā-saṃskāra-vijñānaṃ ||	na hi śāradvatīputrānyad rūpam anyā śunyatā nānyā śunyatānyad rūpam rūpam eva śunyatā śunyataiva rūpam evaṃ nānyā vedanānyā śunyatā | nānyā saṃjñā nānyā śunyatā | nānye saṃskārā anyā śunyatā | nānyad vijñānam anyā śunyatā | nānyā śunyatānyad vijñānaṃ | vijñānam eva śunyatā śunyataiva vijñānaṃ |
[iha] śāriputra sarvadharmāḥ śūnyatālakṣaṇā anutpannā aniruddhā amalā avimalā anūnā aparipūrṇāḥ ||	yā śāradvatīputra śunyatā na sā utpadyate na nirudhyate | na saṃkliśyate na vyavadāyate | na hīyate na vardhate | [nātītā nānāgatā na pratyutpannā |]*
[tasmāc chāriputra śūnyatāyāṃ]* na rūpaṃ na vedanā na saṃjñā na saṃskārāḥ na vijñāna,	na tatra rūpaṃ na vedanā na saṃjñā na saṃskārā na vijñānaṃ
na caksuḥśrotraghrāṇajihvākāyamanāṃsi; na rūpaśabdagandharasaspraṣṭavyadharmāḥ	na cakṣur na śrotraṃ na ghrāṇaṃ na jihvā kāyo na manaḥ na rūpaṃ na śabdo na gandho na raso na sparśo na dharmāḥ
	[na tatra skandhā na dhātavo nāyatanāni]*
na cakṣurdhātur yāvan na manovijñānadhātuḥ	na tatra cakṣurdhātur na rūpadhātur na cakṣurvijñānadhātur na śrotradhātur na śabdadhātur na śrotravijñānadhātuḥ na ghrāṇadhātur na gandhadhātur na ghrāṇavijñānadhātur na jihvādhātur na rasadhātur na jihvāvijñānadhātuḥ na kāyadhātur na spraṣṭavyadhātur na kāyavijñānadhātur na manodhātur na dharmadhātur na manovijñānadhātur
nāvidyā nāvidyākṣayo yāvan na jarāmaraṇaṃ na jarāmaraṇakṣayo	na tatrāvidyā nāvidyānirodhaḥ na saṃskārā nna saṃskāranirodhaḥ na vijñānaṃ na vijñānanirodhaḥ na nāmarūpaṃ na nāmarūpanirodhaḥ na ṣaḍāyatanaṃ na ṣaḍāyatananirodhaḥ na sparśo na sparśanirodhaḥ na vedanā na vedanānirodhaḥ na tṛṣṇā na tṛṣṇānirodhaḥ nopādānaṃ nopādānanirodhaḥ na bhavo na bhavanirodhaḥ na jātir na jātinirodhaḥ na jarāmaraṇaṃ na jarāmaraṇanirodhaḥ
na duḥkhasamudayanirodhamārgā	na duḥkhaṃ na samudayo na nirodho na mārgaḥ
na jñānam na prāptiḥ || * not present in Pañc	na prāptir nābhisamayaḥ [na srotaāpanno na srotaāpattiphalaṃ na sakṛdāgāmī na sakṛdāgāmiphalaṃ nānāgāmī nānāgāmiphalaṃ nārhan nārhatvam na pratyekabodhir na pratyekabuddhaḥ na tatra mārgākārajñatā na bodhisatvaḥ na tatra bodhir na buddhaḥ]* *bracketed sections omitted from Hṛd

One of the main developments within the Prajñāpāramitā literature was the expansion of abbreviated passages. So for example, an abbreviated list of dhātu found in Hṛd: na cakṣurdhātur yāvan na manovijñānadhātuḥ (where yāvan means something like et cetera or "and so on, up to"). In Pañc we get the unabbreviated list:

na tatra cakṣurdhātur na rūpadhātur na cakṣurvijñānadhātur
na śrotradhātur na śabdadhātur na śrotravijñānadhātuḥ
na ghrāṇadhātur na gandhadhātur na ghrāṇavijñānadhātur
na jihvādhātur na rasadhātur na jihvāvijñānadhātuḥ na
kāyadhātur na spraṣṭavyadhātur na kāyavijñānadhātur
na manodhātur na dharmadhātur na manovijñānadhātur.

This kind of difference is not problematic, since we know our witnesses of Pañc are ~250 years later than the version that Kumārajīva had. And this kind of change is exactly what we expect. Moreover, the general gist of the Gilgit passage is identical in the later Nepalese manuscripts edited in the Kimura edition of Pañc, with only minor differences.

The point I wish to make is that, even allowing for expansion over time, the core passage found in Hṛd cannot have been copied from Pañc or any text like Pañc. I will look at the details of some of the differences below, but here we are simply looking at whether Hṛd could have conceivably been copied from a version of Pañc (likely one with more abbreviations). If you are comparing them, focus on the first two parts above. See how the words and phrasing are considerably different,

There's only one plausible conclusion here since only one chain of events can explain this pattern of differences. The copying cannot have happened in Sanskrit because the Hṛdaya is clearly not a copy of any known text of Pañc; nor could it be a copy of some unknown text affected by known processes such as the expansion of abbreviated passages. The copying happened in Chinese.

An argument can be made that "any known text" is too narrow. Some people appear to believe that a version of the Large Sutra text must have existed in which the copied passage is the same as the Heart Sutra. It is true that these texts changed over time. However, it's they did not change at random. Rather the Large Sutra changed in relatively predictable ways, by far the most common was the expansion of abbreviated passages. Importantly, however, no matter what changes we find between versions, the whole text of Pañc was always in idiomatic Buddhist Sanskrit.

The changes we find between Sanskrit Heart Sutra and Sanskrit Large Text don't fit such known patterns of change. The Sanskrit Heart Sutra frequently diverges from well-known Sanskrit idioms. If it had to draw from a Sanskrit original, then we have to posit a whole lineage with nonstandard locutions which spawned their own lineage of Prajñāpāramitā but died out before anyone noticed them, but not before the Heart Sutra was composed and left no trace of its existence in India. Even if we didn't already have a much simpler answer, this scenario is far too convoluted to be plausible.

Arguments from absence are weak, but especially weak when the absent thing has been invented in the absence of evidence in the first place. Occam's Razor counsels us against inventing new entities to explain our evidence.

Everyone accepts that the copying took place. We know that Chinese Buddhists had already been copying passages from Buddhist texts for centuries. They copied passages to make inscriptions, for example, and to make handy summaries of long texts, or to carry around with them for the putative magical benefits. We also know that extracts of texts—either in the form of digest texts (chāo jīng 抄經) or parts of texts that circulated independently (bié shēng 別生) such as the Guānyīn jīng «觀音經» (a chapter of the Miàofǎ Liánhuá jīng «妙法蓮華經» or Lotus Sutra)—were common. Copying passages is an everyday routine operation in Chinese Buddhism. There is absolutely nothing strange about Chinese Buddhists copying passages.

The simplest solution is the best solution: the copied passages were copied in Chinese. This is straightforward, historically plausible, and explains all the facts that we have.

Of course, it is tempting to expand on this, and in the past, I have done so without much hesitation. But such expansions are conjectural. It is logical to assume that if one part of the text was composed in Chinese then the rest of it must have been also. But this is not proven, this is an open conjecture.

The likelihood is that the whole text was composed in Chinese. The fact is that the copied passages were copied in Chinese. Since these copied passages amount to about half the text, we have also proved that this half of the text was composed in Chinese.

2. The Sanskrit Heart Sutra was translated from a Chinese source.

We now shift focus to certain details of the Sanskrit texts, comparing the idioms in Hṛd with its parallels in Pañc with the aim of showing that the Sanskrit text in Hṛd is more plausible as a translation of a Chinese source.

Nattier (1992: 170) noted some diagnostic criteria for back-translations. These include “unmatched but synonymous equivalents” for some Sanskrit terms and “incorrect word order, grammatical errors that can be traced to the structure of the intermediary language, and incorrect readings (due to visual confusion of certain letters or characters in the intermediary language)”.

2.1. The first passage to look at is part of the famous phrase usually translated as "form is not different from emptiness".

Hṛd	Pañc (Gilgit)
rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śūnyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ	nānyā śunyatānyad rūpam rūpam eva śunyatā śunyataiva rūpam

Again, even without a detailed knowledge of Sanskrit, one can see that, apart from certain jargon terms, both the words and the phrasing of Hṛd are quite different from Pañc. And this is definitely not an example of the kind of change that we expect to see over time. The manuscripts show that this type of idiom is stable over time and Prajñāpāramitā has a very strong preference for one over the other.

Hṛd has the syntax Y na pṛthak X, where Y is a noun in the ablative case (indicating "from Y") and na pṛthak means "not different". Hence, Y na pṛthak X means "X is not different from Y" (though English translations often get the word order wrong). This expression is not used in Pañc or Aṣṭa, though contra my previous assertions, pṛthak does occur as a standalone term in Pañc. Rather such comparisons are made using the formula: na anya X anya Y. Here anya "other" is a pronoun. A literal translation is not that helpful, but the idiom means "X is not other than Y". Sometimes I translate this as "It's not that X is one thing and Y another".

The two texts use different idioms to say the same thing. More than this, however, the idiom found in Pañc is widely used in Prajñāpāramitā literature, and other idiom is found only in Hṛd (To the best of my knowledge). As noted, this means that the copying happened in Chinese. The synonymous expression with unidiomatic wording is Nattier's "leading indicator" of a back-translation.

The Chinese expression fēi sè yì kōng 非色異空 is a conceivable translation of either rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā or nānyā śunyatānyad rūpam.

2.2. The second example shows a much greater set of differences, not all of which are simply a choice of idiom.

iha śāriputra sarvadharmāḥ śūnyatālakṣaṇā anutpannā aniruddhā amalā avimalā anūnā aparipūrṇāḥ ||

yā śāradvatīputra śunyatā na sā utpadyate na nirudhyate | na saṃkliśyate na vyavadāyate | na hīyate na vardhate

We need not dwell on the two different forms of the name—Śāriputra and Śāradvatīputra—since these are known to vary in Mahāyāna texts, meaning that this is not a diagnostic criterion.

The subjects of the two phrases are different. The sentence in Hṛd is about "all phenomena" (sarvadharmāḥ), while the sentence in Pañc is about "absence" (śūnyatā). Hṛd is generally read as saying that "all phenomena" are qualified by a series of three pairs of adjectives, necessarily in the plural. In Pañc, by contrast, "absence" is qualified by a series of three pairs of verbs in the singular present indicative. However, it is also possible to read Hṛd as saying that all dharmas are qualified by (-lakṣana) an absence (śūnyatā) and that absence is unarisen, unceased, etc.

And in the light of Pañc, I think this latter reading is preferable, but it doesn't change the point here.

The set of six adjectival qualifiers in Hṛd is found nowhere else in Prajñāpāramitā literature. One pair, anutpannā aniruddhā does occur elsewhere, but the other two adjectives are not found paired anywhere in the literature. By contrast, the set of six verbs does occur elsewhere in Prajñāpāramitā, and all of the pairs often occur independently as well.

Again, we have two distinct idioms. The idiom of Hṛd is confined to Hṛd alone, and the idiom in Pañc is simply a standard Buddhist Sanskrit idiom. As Nattier (1992: 170) pointed out, this pattern of differences in Hṛd bears all the hallmarks of a “back-translation”.

2.3 Huifeng (2014) noted, amongst other pertinent observations that yǐwúsuǒdégù 以無所得故 was Kumārajīva's translation of anupalambhayogena, whereas Hṛd has aprāptivāt.

While aprāptitvāt looks plausible based on the idea that dé 得 "attain" was used to translate Sanskrit words from pra√āp "attain", in fact, closer analysis shows that the verb here is a binomial, suǒdé 所得, which both Kumārajīva and Xuanzang use to translate words from √labh "obtain", particularly upa√labh "apprehend". In Sanskrit to apprehend an idea is to grasp it, obtain it, and understand it mentally. The cognitive metaphor here is IDEAS ARE OBJECTS (we have this same cognitive metaphor in English also). Once we make this equivalence we can metaphorically apply to ideas any action that applies to objects.

This word anupalambhayogena also provides an important key to understanding Prajñāpāramitā and forms the basis of my exegesis of the text (Attwood 2022)

2.4 I've made two contributions to this part of the project. Attwood (2017) shows, following a note in Nattier's article, that the original vidyā becomes mantra, with the Chinese míngzhòu 明呪 or zhòu 呪 providing the intermediary. And Attwood (2018) showed that the Sanskrit phrase tryadhvavyavasthitāḥ sarvabuddhāḥ "all buddhas of the three times" is a calque of the Chinese Sānshì zhū fó 三世諸佛, where we expect: atītānāgatapratyutpanna "past, future, and present" (Attwood 2018).

2.5 Compare also Hṛd nāvidyā nāvidyākṣayo and Pañc: na tatrāvidyā nāvidyānirodhaḥ. For me, this is the most iconic difference. We know that avidyā "ignorance" is the root condition for the whole nidāna sequence in the forward (anuloma) direction that leads to birth and death. In in the reverse direction, avidyā-nirodha the cessation of ignorance is the final step in liberating oneself from birth and death. And Indian Buddhist texts universally (across Pāli, Sanskrit, and Gāndhārī), with only one exception, speak of avidyā-nirodha. The exception is the Sanskrit Heart Sutra, which has avidyā-kṣaya.

Note that although Harada Waso (2002) claims to have found a discussion of avidyā-kṣayatva in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, in fact, the whole passage he cites concerns the opposite of kṣaya, namely akṣaya "indestructible". (Cf Conze's translation 1973: 271 where he translates akṣaya as "inexhaustible").

Conclusion

There is a pervasive pattern of differences between Hṛd and Pañc. Not only is Hṛd not a copy from Pañc, Hṛd is largely an unidiomatic paraphrase of Pañc, where only well-known (and stable) Buddhist technical terms are unchanged. This is consistent with Hṛd being a back-translation from a Chinese Heart Sutra. It is not consistent with any scenario in which the Hṛd was composed in India or in Sanskrit. Moreover, in each case, the Chinese text is a plausible intermediary between the two different Sanskrit phrases and explains why the Sanskrit in the Heart Sutra is so peculiar.

However, there are a number of passages that make the source text uncertain. For example, in the first sentence, there is no Sanskrit counterpart of the Chinese expression dù yīqiè kǔ è 度一切苦厄. The omission is problematic, but in such a way as to complicate the picture, not as a refutation.

It is, therefore, a well-established historical fact that the core section and the epithets sections of Hṛd were translated into Sanskrit from Chinese. We have reason to be confident that the rest of the Sanskrit text is translated from Chinese as well since neither anupalambhayogena nor tryadhvavyavasthitāḥ sarvabuddhāḥ occurs in the core or the epithets section.

3. The Heart Sutra enters the historical record in a Chinese document dated to 25 Dec 656 CE.

Establishing this proposition as a fact is more difficult because we have conflicting historical records and scholarly opinions. The majority of scholars put the composition of the Heart Sutra in the third or fourth century CE, but we regularly see other dates from the first to the seventh century CE.

However, unbeknownst to the English-speaking world, the year before Nattier published her paper, the Japanese scholar Watanabe Shōgo (1991) had already made a huge contribution. Using entries in Chinese catalogues of Buddhist texts in translation, Watanabe was able to show that we can discount all the stories of older or lost translations. The oldest text we know of is T 251.

This is confirmed by two surveys of the oldest Heart Sutra inscriptions in China: Wang (2010) and He & Xu (2019). Of the two dozen or so Tang Dynasty Heart Sutra inscriptions, all have the text of T 251, though many have minor character substitutions that don't change the meaning or the pronunciation. This is followed by a rapid expansion in the number of inscriptions, commentaries, catalogue entries, and other kinds of evidence in China. These surveys confirm that the first physical evidence of the Heart Sutra is the stele from Fangshan dated 13 March 661 CE.

There is a mention of the title in Xuanzang's biography by Huili and Yancong (T 2053), in a letter from Xuánzàng 玄奘 (602–664) to Emperor Gāozōng 高宗 (15 July 649 – 27 December 683), dated 25 December 656 CE. Since Jeffrey Kotyk (2019) has shown that this letter is independently preserved elsewhere, we can credit this as the earliest mention of the title of the Heart Sutra, though note that this tells us nothing about the content of the text mentioned.

There is no physical evidence of the Heart Sutra from India, not a single scrap of manuscript has ever been identified (and given how idiosyncratic Hṛd is, a scrap with, say, avidyākṣaya on it would be sufficient). No other kind of evidence has turned up either: the title Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya is never mentioned in any canonical or post-canonical Indian text, including several anthologies made using extracts of popular sutras. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if the Heart Sutra were an Indian text we would strongly expect to at least find some mention of it somewhere.

The Heart Sutra next turns up in the late eighth century in both Dunhuang and Tibet. This was at a time when Tibet ruled Dunhuang. While seven commentaries in Tibetan are credited to Indian Buddhists, some of these are clearly commenting on a Tibetan text (Horiuchi 2021). And the attributions have never been tested. Is the commentary attributed to, say, Kamalaśīla, consistent with other works known to have been composed by him? We don't know. And I suspect that when someone finally looks at this, they will find reasons to doubt all of these attributions. Part of the problem with these commentaries is that none of them includes a whole embedded text.

Thus in terms of the historical record, the first reliable evidence of the Heart Sutra's existence is the mention of the title by Xuanzang, on 25 December 656 CE. The first evidence of the content of the Heart Sutra is the Fangshan stele from 13 March 661 CE.

I have argued that the Heart Sutra cannot have existed before 654 CE when the Tuóluóní jí jīng «陀羅尼集經» (T 901). was translated by Atikūṭa. This is based on the idea that the Heart Sutra copied the dhāraṇī from this text, though my academic interlocutor has argued for an alternative conjecture that is not implausible. I therefore do not include this as an established fact, until we can get some clarity on this issue.

Conclusion

Based on these methods applied to this evidence, then, we can say that Watanabe, Nattier, Orsborn, and I have established three historical facts beyond reasonable doubt:

1. Two passages in the Chinese Heart Sutra were copied from the Chinese Large Sutra translation by Kumārajīva (T 223).
2. The Sanskrit Heart Sutra was translated from a Chinese source.
3. The Heart Sutra enters the historical record in a Chinese document dated to 25 Dec 656 CE.

If anyone has a genuine way to dispute these facts I have yet to see it. I understand that many Buddhists find these facts unpalatable, but this is insufficient to falsify the facts. Polemics by Fukui, Harada, and Ishii make no dent in these facts.

To be clear, I think these facts are falsifiable. One simply has to find, for example, a manuscript or scrap of manuscript of the Sanskrit Heart Sutra from before the seventh century, or a much older Chinese witness. Or a previously unknown version of Pañc that is unidiomatic in the way that Hṛd is. Such evidence would be near miraculous, but if it turned up, we'd have to rethink things.

However, a historian composes a history based on the evidence at hand, not based on what might turn up in the future. "Black swan" events happen all the time, but the whole point of them is that we cannot predict them.

I believe that any open and fair-minded person would come to the same conclusion if they examined the evidence that we have published to date, using the (simple) methods that Nattier developed. Moreover, we now have quite a bit more evidence than Nattier had, and we have better access to the Sanskrit Pañc witnesses (Kimura's edition of the Nepalese and Karashīma et al's new facsimile edition of the Gilgit ms.)

These facts are consistent with comments made by the early Tang commentators, who were all associates of Xuanzang, but all took distinctly different approaches to the text. However, these facts are not consistent with the well-documented myth of the Heart Sutra. And so we are left with some mysteries: who created the Heart Sutra in the first place and for what purpose? Who translated the text into Sanskrit? Who added the extensions (and when and where)? We can fill some of these gaps with plausible conjectures, but in this essay, I wanted to focus on historical facts that can be considered established.

We could wish for more secondary literature on back-translations that was relevant. The problem is that back-translation has become a major tool for assessing the validity of translations, especially in sensitive areas such as translated medical advice pamphlets and for assessing machine translations. The literature on the application of back-translation is extensive, but I cannot find any other literature on back-translations in a situation such as we have with the Heart Sutra (I haven't given up, but wading through hundreds of irrelevant database hits is time-consuming and boring).

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Dà Táng dà Cí’ēnsì sānzàng fǎshī chuán xù «大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳序» A biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty (T 2053). Translated into English by Li Rongxi (1995).

Attwood, Jayarava. (2017). "‘Epithets of the Mantra’ in the Heart Sutra." Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 12: 26–57. http://jocbs.org/index.php/jocbs/article/view/155

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Attwood, Jayarava. (2022) "The Cessation of Sensory Experience and Prajñāpāramitā Philosophy" International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 32(1):111-148.

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Huifeng, Shi. [aka Orsborn, M.] (2014). "Apocryphal Treatment for Conze’s Heart Problems: “Non-attainment”, “Apprehension”, and “Mental Hanging” in the Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya." Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 6: 72-105.

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

Watanabe, Shōgo 渡辺章悟 (1991). 経録からみた『摩訶般若波羅蜜神呪経』と『摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪経』」印度学仏教学研究 39-1: 54–58. [“Móhē bānrě bōluómì shénzhòu jīng and Móhē bānrě bōluómì dàmíngzhòu jīng, As Seen in the Sutra Catalogues.” Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū 39-1: 54–58.]