Heart Sutra

The Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra or Heart Sutra or Essence of Wisdom Sutra (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदयसूत्र Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra; Chinese: 般若波羅蜜多心經, Pinyin: Bōrěbōluómìduō Xīnjīng; Template:Lang-ja, Hannya Shingyō; Template:Lang-ko, Banya Simgyeong, Template:Lang-vi) is a well-known Mahāyāna Buddhist sutra that is very popular among Mahayana Buddhists both for its brevity and depth of meaning.

Introduction

The Heart Sutra is a member of the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) class of Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, and along with the Diamond Sutra, is considered to be the primary representative of the genre. It consists of just 14 shlokas or verses in Sanskrit and 260 Chinese characters in the most prevalent Chinese version, Taisho Tripitaka Vol. T08 No. 251, translated by Xuan Zang. This makes it the most highly abbreviated version of the Perfection of Wisdom texts, texts which exist in various lengths up to and including 100,000 slokas. This sutra is classified by Edward Conze as belonging to the third of four periods in the development of the Perfection of Wisdom canon, although because it contains a mantra (sometimes erroneously called a dharani), it does overlap with the final tantric phase of development according to this scheme, and is included in the tantra section of at least some editions of the Kangyur.

The study of the Heart Sutra is particularly emphasized in the practice of East Asian Buddhism. Its Chinese version is frequently chanted (in the local pronunciation) by the Zen (Chan/Seon/Thiền) sects during ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is also significant to the Shingon Buddhist school in Japan, whose founder Kūkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively.

A striking feature of the sutra is the fact that the teaching is not actually delivered by the Buddha, which places it in a relatively small class of sutras not directly spoken by the Buddha. In some Chinese versions of the text, the Buddha confirms and praises the words of Avalokiteśvara, although this is not included in either the extant Sanskrit version nor the preeminent Chinese version translated by Xuan Zang.

The text

Various commentators divide this text in different numbers of sections. Briefly the sutra introduces the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, who in this case is representing the faculty of prajña (wisdom). His analysis of phenomena is that there is nothing which lies outside the five aggregates of human existence (skandhas) — form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), volitions (samskārā), perceptions (saṁjñā), and consciousness (vijñāna).

Avalokiteśvara then addresses Śariputra, who in this text — as with many other Mahāyāna texts — is a representative of the Early Buddhist schools, described in many other sutras as being the Buddha's foremost disciple in wisdom. Avalokiteśvara famously states that, "form is emptiness (Śūnyatā) and emptiness is form" and declares the other skandhas to be equally empty — that is, without an independent essence. Avalokiteśvara then goes through some of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and explains that in emptiness none of these labels apply. This is traditionally interpreted as saying that Buddhist teachings, while accurate descriptions of conventional truth, are mere statements about reality — they are not reality itself — and that they are therefore not applicable to the ultimate truth that is by definition beyond dualistic description. Thus the bodhisattva, as the archetypal Mahāyāna Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the larger Perfection of Wisdom sutras to be the wisdom that perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment. This perfection of wisdom is condensed in the mantra with which the Sutra concludes.

Mantra

This mantra, chanted throughout the Mahāyāna Buddhist world, appears in transliterated Sanskrit even in the Chinese version, as pronunciation of mantras is held to be important if they are to function properly. The mantra goes:

Sanskrit
Devanāgarī	Romanization	Pronunciation	Translation
गते गते	Gate gate	[gəteː gəteː]	Gone, gone
पारगते	Pāragate	[pɑːɾə gəteː]	Gone beyond
पारसंगते	Pārasamgate	[pɑːɾəsəm gəteː]	Gone completely beyond
बोधि स्वाहा	Bodhi svāhā	[boːdɦɪ sʋɑːhɑː]	Praise to awakening.

(The translation can only be loose since, as with many mantras, the Sanskrit does not appear to be completely grammatical)

The text itself describes the mantra as "Mahāmantro, mahā-vidyā mantro, ‘nuttara mantro samasama-mantrah", which Conze translates as "The great mantra, the mantra of great knowledge, the utmost mantra, the unequalled mantra, the allayer of all suffering." These words are also used of the Buddha, and so the text seems to be equating the mantra with the Buddha. Although the translation is acceptable, the case ending in Sanskrit mantra is the feminine vocative, so gate is addressed to a feminine person/figure. A more accurate translation is "Oh she who is gone!" In this respect, the mantra appears to be keeping with the common tantric practice (a practice supported by the texts themselves) of anthropromorphizing the Perfection of Wisdom as the "Mother of Buddhas."

One can also interpret the mantra as the progressive steps along the five paths of the Bodhisattva, through the two preparatory stages (the path of accumulation and preparation — Gate, gate), through the first bhumi (path of insight — Pāragate), through the second to seventh bhumi (path of meditation — Pārasamgate), and through the eight to tenth bhumi (stage of no more learning — Bodhi svāhā).

The current Dalai Lama explains the mantra in a discourse on the Heart Sutra both as an instruction for practice and as a device for measuring one's own level of spiritual attainment, and translates it as go, go, go beyond, go thoroughly beyond, and establish yourself in enlightenment. In the discourse, he gives a similar explanation to the four stages (the four go's) as in the previous paragraph.

Musical setting

American composer Lou Harrison set Esperanto language texts translated from the Heart Sutra to music in his 1973 cantata La Koro Sutro.

See also

• Mahāyāna sutras
• Perfection of Wisdom

External links

• Heart Sutra translated into English by Nalanda Translation Committee
• Heart Sutra translated into English by Edward Conze.
• Heart Sutra at LamRim.com.
• Heart Sutra in Chinese calligraphy.
• Heart Sutra translated into English by The Sutra Pagoda Institute
• Heart Sutra sung by Anita Mui.
• Various English translations in PDF format.
• Heart Sutra with Annotation
• Template:PDFlink by Venerable Taranatha
• Heart Sutra (Sutra del cuore) Sanskrit, Korean, Chinese, Italian, and Latin translations
• Heart Sutra in Chinese
• A discourse on The Heart Sutra by Pasada of Edinburgh Buddhist Centre/MP3

Further reading

• Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, ISBN 0-938077-11-2
• Hakuin Ekaku, Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra, translated by Norman Waddell, Shambhala, 1996 ISBN 1-57062-165-9
• Edward Conze, translator, Perfect Wisdom, Short Prajnaparamita Sutras
• The Heart Sutra: the womb of Buddhas, by Red Pine, 2004, Shoemaker & Hoard, ISBN 1-59376-082-5