Heart Sutra

A reproduction of the palm-leaf manuscript in Siddham script, held at Hōryū-ji Temple, Japan. The manuscript contains the Heart Sutra, the Uṣṇīṣa-vijaya Dhāraṇī and a Sanskrit syllabary.

Chinese text of the Heart Sūtra by Yuan dynasty artist and calligrapher Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322 CE)

The Heart Sūtra (Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or 心經 Xīnjīng) is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Its Sanskrit title, Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya, can be translated as "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom". The Heart Sūtra is often cited as the best-known and most popular Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture. The text has been translated into English dozens of times from both Chinese and Sanskrit.

Introduction

The Heart Sūtra, belonging to the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) category of Mahāyāna Buddhism literature, is along with the Diamond Sutra, the most prominent representative of the genre; the versions preserved in the Chinese language Tripitakas and Kangyur are regarded as canonical in all the surviving Mahayana Buddhist traditions. The text exists in two versions, a longer and a shorter. The earliest extant version is the shorter version. The Chinese Buddhist canon includes both long and short versions, and both versions also exist in Sanskrit. In the current Tibetan canon only the longer version is preserved, although Tibetan translations without the framing text have been found at Dunhuang.

The Chinese version of the short text attributed to Xuanzang (T251) has 260 Chinese characters. This makes it one of the shortest texts in the Perfection of Wisdom genre, which contains scriptures in lengths up to 100,000 lines; the shortest text is the Perfection of Wisdom in One Letter (Prajñāpāramitā). The Heart Sūtra is often said to contain the entire meaning of the longer Sutras."

This sutra is classified by Edward Conze as belonging to the third of four periods in the development of the Prajnaparamita canon, although because it contains a mantra (sometimes called a dhāraṇī), 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. Conze estimates the sutra's date of origin to be 350 CE; some others consider it to be two centuries older than that.

The Chinese version attributed to Xuanzang (T251) is frequently chanted (in Sino-Xenic pronunciations) by the Chan, Zen, Seon, and Thiền schools during ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively. It is also significant to Shingon Buddhism, whose founder Kūkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is studied extensively. The text has been translated into many languages, and dozens of English translations and commentaries have been published, along with an unknown number of informal versions on the internet.

Origin and early translations

The text is largely a quotation from the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in 25000 lines) and it appears to have been composed in Chinese from a translation by Kumārajiva, and then later translated into Sanskrit. (See Nattier Hypothesis, below). The text was probably intended as a dhāraṇī rather than a sutra. According to Huili's biography, Xuanzang learned the sutra from an inhabitant of Sichuan, and subsequently chanted it during times of danger on his journey to the West (i.e. India).

The earliest extant text of the Heart Sūtra is a stone stele dated to 672 CE. It contains the Chinese text also preserved in the Chinese Tripiṭaka (T251), attributed to Xuanzang that is popularly dated 649 CE. The stele was originally erected at Hongfu monastery, in Changan (modern day Xian) by Emperor Gao. A palm-leaf manuscript found at the Horyuji Temple (See image top right) is popularly dated to 609 CE, however a comparison of the script with India manuscripts and inscriptions argues for a date in the 8th century for the Horyuji manuscript. Müller's Sanskrit edition of 1881, based on the Horyuji manuscript

Apocryphal stories exist of earlier Chinese versions. Zhi Qian's version, supposedly composed in 200-250 CE, was lost before the time of Xuanzang. Edward Conze acknowledges that T250, the text attributed to Kumarajīva (fl. 4th Century), is the work of his student. It is not mentioned in a biography compiled in 519 CE. John McRae and Jan Nattier have argued that this translation was created by someone else, much later, based on Kumarajiva's Large Sūtra (T233). T251 in the Chinese Tripiṭaka is the first to use the title "Heart Sūtra" (心經 xīnjīng). Fukui Fumimasa has argued that 心經 actually means dhāraṇī scripture.

The Heart Sutra has been translated into modern languages very often. The first English translation was presented to the Royal Asiatic Society in 1863 by Samuel Beal. He used a Chinese text corresponding to T251 and a 9th Century commentary by "Tai Teen" [ca. 815 CE], "republished in 1850 by a scholar (Tau jin), named Woo Tsing Tseu". In 1881 Max Müller published a Sanskrit text based on the Hōryū-ji manuscript along an English translation.

Critical editions

There have been several critical editions of the Sanskrit text of the Heart Sūtra, including Müller (1881) and Vaidya (1961). To date, the definitive Sanskrit edition is Conze's, originally published in 1948, reprinted in 1967 and revised in 1973. Conze had access to 12 Nepalese manuscripts; seven manuscripts and inscriptions from China; two manuscripts from Japan; as well as several translations from the Chinese Canon and one from the Tibetan. There is a great deal of variation across the manuscripts in the title, the maṅgala verses, and within the text itself. Many of the manuscripts are corrupt or simply carelessly copied. In 2014, Attwood described a previously unknown manuscript of the long version of the Heart Sutra,. In 2015 Attwood published a proposed correction to Conze's Sanskrit edition.

Jonathan Silk (1994) produced a critical edition of the Tibetan Kanjur version. The Kanjur only contains the long text, in two recensions, however a number of short texts in Tibetan were found at Dunhuang. One has been published, but there has been no study of these texts to date.

There is no critical edition of the Chinese versions.

Nattier hypothesis

Based on textual patterns in the extant Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Heart Sūtra and the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra, Professor Jan Nattier has suggested that the earliest version of the Heart Sūtra was probably first composed in China in the Chinese language from a mixture of material derived from Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (cf. vol. 1-1, pg 64 of Takaysu 2007) and new composition, and that this assemblage was later translated into Sanskrit (or back-translated, in the case of most of the sutra). The Chinese version of the core (i.e. the short version) of the Heart Sūtra matches a passage from the Large Sutra almost exactly, character by character; but the corresponding Sanskrit texts, while agreeing in meaning, differ in virtually every word.

Nattier argues that there is no evidence (such as a commentary) of a Sanskrit version before the 8th century, and she dates the first evidence (in the form of commentaries by Xuanzang's disciples Kuiji and Woncheuk, and Dunhuang manuscripts) of Chinese versions to the 7th century. She considers attributions to earlier dates "extremely problematic". The corroborating evidence supports a Chinese version at least a century before a Sanskrit version. The earliest written version of the text is a Chinese stele dated to 678 CE.

This hypothesis, however, is rejected by some Japanese scholars and practitioners. Red Pine, a practicing American Buddhist, for example, favours the idea of a lost manuscript of the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra with the alternate Sanskrit wording, allowing for an original Indian composition.

Text

Title

The title of the Heart Sutra varies widely depending on place and time.

The Nepalese Sanskrit manuscripts used by Conze for his 1948 edition refer to the text as āryaprajñāpāramitāhṛdayaṃ or ārya-pañcaviṃśatikā-prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya nāma dhāraṇī or some variation on these. Note that they do not refer to the text as a sutra, and some include the word dhāraṇī in the title. The Japanese Sanskrit manuscripts prefer prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtraṃ. The Chinese titles also vary, T250 摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪經 = *Mahāprajñāpārami[tā]-mahāvidyā-sūtra and T251 般若波羅蜜多心經 = Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra. T251 seems to have been the first to use 心 xīn ("Heart") in the title.

In the Tibetan text the title is given first in Sanskrit and then in Tibetan: Sanskrit: भगवतीप्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय (Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya), Tibetan: བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: bcom ldan 'das ma shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying po

In other languages, the title is often a local pronunciation of the Chinese, e.g. Korean: Banya Shimgyeong (반야심경 / 般若心經); Japanese: Hannya Shingyō ([はんにゃしんぎょう / 般若心経] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: jp (help)); Vietnamese:Bát-nhã tâm kinh (chữ Nho: 般若心經).

Sanskrit manuscript of the Heart Sūtra, written in the Siddhaṃ script. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Content

Various commentators divide this text into different numbers of sections. Briefly, the sutra describes the experience of liberation of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, as a result of vipassanā gained while engaged in deep meditation to awaken the faculty of prajña (wisdom). The insight refers to apprehension of the fundamental emptiness (śūnyatā) of all phenomena, known through and as the five aggregates of human existence (skandhas): form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), volitions (saṅkhāra), perceptions (saṃjñā), and consciousness (vijñāna).

The specific sequence of concepts listed in lines 12-20 ("...in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, ... no attainment and no non-attainment") is the same sequence used in the Sarvastivadin Samyukta Agama; this sequence differs in comparable texts of other sects. On this basis, Red Pine has argued that the Heart Sūtra is specifically a response to Sarvastivada teachings that, in the sense "phenomena" or its constituents, are real. Lines 12-13 enumerate the five skandhas. Lines 14-15 list the twelve ayatanas or abodes. Line 16 makes a reference to the eighteen dhatus or elements of consciousness, using a conventional shorthand of naming only the first (eye) and last (conceptual consciousness) of the elements. Lines 17-18 assert the emptiness of the Twelve Nidānas, the traditional twelve links of dependent origination. Line 19 refers to the Four Noble Truths.

Avalokiteśvara addresses Śariputra, who was the promulgator of abhidharma according to the scriptures and texts of the Sarvastivada and other early Buddhist schools, having been singled out by the Buddha to receive those teachings. Avalokiteśvara famously states, "Form is empty (śūnyatā). Emptiness is form", and declares the other skandhas to be equally empty – that is, dependently originated. 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 notions apply. This is interpreted according to the two truths doctrine as saying that 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 mental understanding. Thus the bodhisattva, as the archetypal Mahayana Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra 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.

It is unusual for Avalokiteśvara to be in the central role in a Prajñāpāramitā text. Early Prajñāpāramitā texts involve Subhuti, who is absent from both versions of the Heart Sūtra, and the Buddha who is only present in the longer version. This could be considered evidence that the text is Chinese in origin.

Mantra

Jan Nattier points out in her article on the origins of the Heart Sūtra that this mantra in several variations is present in the Chinese Tripiṭaka associated with several different Prajñāpāramitā texts. The version in the Heart Sūtra runs:

• Sanskrit IAST: gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā, Devanagari: गते गते पारगते पारसंगते बोधि स्वाहा, IPA: ɡəteː ɡəteː paːɾəɡəteː paːɾəsəŋɡəte boːdʱɪ sʋaːɦaː

This was transliterated by other Mahayana Buddhist traditions in China and Tibet, and then spread to other regions such as Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Classical transliterations of the mantra include:

• Chinese: 揭谛揭谛，波罗揭谛，波罗僧揭谛，菩提萨婆诃 / 揭諦揭諦，波羅揭諦，波羅僧揭諦，菩提薩婆訶; pinyin: Jiēdì, jiēdì, bōluó jiēdì, bōluósēng jiēdì, pútí suōpóhē; Japanese pronunciation: Gyatei gyatei haragyatei harasōgyatei boji sowaka; Korean: 아제 아제 바라아제 바라승아제 모지 사바하; romaja: Aje aje bara-aje baraseung-aje moji sabaha; Vietnamese: Yết đế, yết đế, Ba la yết đế, Ba la tăng yết đế, Bồ đề tát bà ha
• Tibetan: ག༌ཏེ༌ག༌ཏེ༌པཱ༌ར༌ག༌ཏེ༌པཱ༌ར༌སཾ༌ག༌ཏེ༌བོ༌དྷི༌སྭཱ༌ཧཱ།

Exegesis

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".

Two commentaries of the Heart Sutra were composed by pupils of 玄奘 Xuánzàng, 원측 [Woncheuk] and 窺基 [Kuījī], in the late 7th or early 8th century. These appear to be the earliest extant commentaries on the text. Both been translated into English (Hyun Choo 2006; Shih & Lusthaus 2006). They approach the text as a Yogācāra document.

Eight Indian commentaries survive in Tibetan translation and have been the subject of two books by Donald Lopez. These typically treat the text either from a Madhyamaka point of view, or as a tantra.

Other notable traditional commentaries include those by Kūkai (9th Century, Japan) who treats the text as a tantra., and Hakuin

The text has become increasingly popular amongst exegetes as a growing number of translations and commentaries attest. The Heart Sutra was already popular in Chan and Zen Buddhism, but has become a staple for Tibetan Lamas as well.

Selected English translations

There are more than 40 published English translations of the Heart Sutra from Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, beginning with Beal (1865). Almost every year new translations and commentaries are published. The following is a representative sample.

[1]

Author	Title	Publisher	Notes	Year	ISBN
Geshe Rabten	Echoes of Voidness	Wisdom	Includes the Heart Sutra with Tibetan commentary	1983	ISBN 0-86171-010-X
Donald S. Lopez, Jr.	The Heart Sutra Explained	SUNY	The Heart Sutra with a summary of Indian commentaries	1987	ISBN 0-88706-590-2
Thich Nhat Hanh	The Heart of Understanding "Translation amendeded 2014". Retrieved 2017-02-26. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)	Parallax Press	The Heart Sutra with a Vietnamese Thiền commentary	1988	ISBN 0-938077-11-2
Norman Waddell	Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra	Shambhala Publications	Hakuin Ekaku's commentary on Heart Sutra	1996	ISBN 9781570621659
Donald S. Lopez, Jr.	Elaborations on Emptiness	Princeton	The Heart Sutra with eight complete Indian and Tibetan commentaries	1998	ISBN 0-691-00188-X
Edward Conze	Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra	Random House	The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, along with commentaries on the texts and practices of Buddhism	2001	ISBN 978-0375726002
Tetsugen Bernard Glassman	Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen	Shambhala Publications	Translations and commentaries of The Heart Sutra and The Identity of Relative and Absolute as well as Zen precepts	2003	ISBN 9781590300794
Geshe Sonam Rinchen	Heart Sutra: An Oral Commentary	Snow Lion	Concise translation and commentary from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective	2003	ISBN 9781559392013
Red Pine	The Heart Sutra: the Womb of Buddhas	Counterpoint	Heart Sutra with commentary	2004	ISBN 978-1593760090
14th Dalai Lama	Essence of the Heart Sutra	Wisdom Publications	Heart Sutra with commentary by the 14th Dalai Lama	2005	ISBN 978-0-86171-284-7
Geshe Tashi Tsering	Emptiness: The Foundation of Buddhist Thought	Wisdom Publications	A guide to the topic of emptiness from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, with English translation of the Heart Sutra	2009	ISBN 978-0-86171-511-4
Karl Brunnholzl	The Heart Attack Sutra: A New Commentary on the Heart Sutra	Shambhala Publications	Modern commentary	2012	ISBN 9781559393911
Doosun Yoo	Thunderous Silence: A Formula For Ending Suffering: A Practical Guide to the Heart Sutra	Wisdom Publications	English translation of the Heart Sutra with Korean Seon commentary	2013	ISBN 978-1614290537
Kazuaki Tanahashi	The Heart Sutra: A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism	Shambhala Publications	English translation of the Heart Sutra with history and commentary	2015	ISBN 978-1611800968

Recordings

Japanese recitation

The Heart Sūtra has been set to music a number of times. Many singers solo this sutra. The Buddhist Audio Visual Production Centre (佛教視聽製作中心) produced a Cantonese album of recordings of the Heart Sūtra in 1995 featuring a number of Hong Kong pop singers, including Alan Tam, Anita Mui and Faye Wong and composer by Andrew Lam Man Chung (林敏聰) to raise money to rebuild the Chi Lin Nunnery. Other Hong Kong pop singers, such as the Four Heavenly Kings sang the Heart Sūtra to raise money for relief efforts related to the 921 earthquake. An alternative Mandarin version was performed by Faye Wong in 2009 at the Famen Temple and its recording subsequently used as a theme song in the blockbusters Aftershock (2010) and Xuanzang (2016). Shaolin Monk Shifu Shi Yan Ming also recites the Sutra at the end of the song "Life Changes" by the Wu-Tang Clan, in remembrance of the deceased member ODB. The outro of the b-side song Ghetto Defendant by the British first wave punk band The Clash also features the Heart Sūtra, recited by American beat poet Allen Ginsberg. A slightly edited version is used as the lyrics for Yoshimitsu's theme in the PlayStation 2 game Tekken Tag Tournament. An Indian styled version was also created by Bombay Jayashri title named - Ji Project. It was also recorded and arranged by Malaysian singer/composer Imee Ooi. An Esperanto translation of portions of the text furnished the libretto of the cantata La Koro Sutro by American composer Lou Harrison.

Popular culture

In the centuries following the historical Xuanzang, an extended tradition of literature fictionalizing the life of Xuanzang and glorifying his special relationship with the Heart Sūtra arose, of particular note being the Journey to the West (16th century/Ming dynasty). In chapter nineteen of Journey to the West, the fictitious Xuanzang learns by heart the Heart Sūtra after hearing it recited one time by the Crow's Nest Zen Master, who flies down from his tree perch with a scroll containing it, and offers to impart it. A full text of the Heart Sūtra is quoted in this fictional account. The mantra of the Heart Sūtra was used as the lyrics for the opening theme song of the 2011 Chinese television series Journey to the West. In episode 4 of Haganai Next, Yukimura chants this while on a roller coaster.

There is a documentary Journey of the Heart that primarily focuses on the meaning of the Heart Sutra. The documentary has interviews with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr Thupten Jinpa etc.

Influence on Philosophy

Schopenhauer, in the final words of his main work, compared his doctrine to the Śūnyatā of the Heart Sūtra. In Volume 1, § 71 of The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer wrote: "…to those in whom the will [to continue living] has turned and has denied itself, this very real world of ours, with all its suns and Milky Ways, is — nothing." To this, he appended the following note: "This is also the Prajna–Paramita of the Buddhists, the 'beyond all knowledge,' in other words, the point where subject and object no longer exist."

See also

• Mahāyāna sutras
• Prajñāpāramitā

References

• Attwood, Jayarava (2015). Heart Murmurs: Some Problems with Conze’s Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya. Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 8, 28-48.
• Beal, Samuel. (1865) The Paramita-hridaya Sutra. Or. The Great Paramita Heart Sutra. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No.2 Dec 1865, 25-28
• Bühler, G (1881). 'Palaeographical Remarks on the Horiuzi Palm-Leaf Manuscripts' in Müller (1881), p. 63-95.
• Buswell, Robert E. (ed). (2003) Encyclopedia of Buddhism MacMillan Reference Books. ISBN 0-02-865718-7
• Conze, Edward (1948). Text, Sources, and Bibliography of the Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 80(1-2): 33-51.
• Conze, Edward. (2000) Prajnaparamita Literature Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers ISBN 81-215-0992-0 (originally published 1960 by Mouton & Co.)
• Conze, Edward (1967). ‘The Prajñāpāramitā-Hṛdaya Sūtra’ in Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies: Selected Essays, Bruno Cassirer. p. 147-167.
• Conze, Edward. (1975). Buddhist Wisdom Books: Containing the "Diamond Sutra" and the "Heart Sutra" (New edition). Thorsons. ISBN 0-04-294090-7
• Fukui Fumimasa 福井 文雅 (1987). Hannya shingyo no rekishiteki kenkyu 般若心経の歴史的研究. 東京: Shunjusha 春秋社. ISBN 4-393-11128-1 (in Japanese)
• Hakeda, Y.S. (1972) Kūkai, Major works: Translated and with an account of his life and a study of his thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Harada Waso 原田和宗 (2010). Hannya shingyo no seiritsu shi ron 「般若心経」の成立史論. 東京: Daizo-shuppan 大蔵出版. ISBN 9784804305776 (in Japanese)
• Hyun Choo, B. (2006) 'An English Translation of the Banya paramilda simgyeong chan: Wonch'uk's Commentary on the Heart Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra)' International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture. February 2006, Vol.6, pp. 121–205.
• Kelsang Gyatso, Geshe (2001). Heart of Wisdom: An Explanation of the Heart Sutra, Tharpa Publications, (4th. ed.). ISBN 978-0-948006-77-7
• Kimura, Takayasu (2007). Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Vol. I-1, Tokyo: Sankibo Busshorin 2007. online [Input by Klaus Wille, Göttingen, April 2010].
• Lopez, Donald S., Jr. (1988). The Heart Sutra Explained: Indian and Tibetan Commentaries. State Univ of New York Pr. ISBN 0-88706-589-9
• Lopez, Donald S., Jr. (1996). Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sūtra. New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
• Luk, Charles (1991). The Secrets of Chinese Meditation, Samuel Weiser. ISBN 978-0-87728-066-8
• Lusthaus, Dan (2003). 'The Heart Sūtra in Chinese Yogācāra: Some Comparative Comments on the Heart Sūtra Commentaries of Wŏnch’ŭk and K’uei-chi.' International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture 3, 59-103.
• Müller, Max (1881). ‘The Ancient Palm Leaves containing the Prajñāpāramitā-Hṛidaya Sūtra and Uṣniṣa-vijaya-Dhāraṇi.’ in Buddhist Texts from Japan (Vol 1.iii). Oxford University Press. Online
• Nattier, Jan (1992). 'The Heart Sūtra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?'. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 15 (2), 153-223.
• Pine, Red (2004). The Heart Sutra: The Womb of the Buddhas (2004) Shoemaker 7 Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-009-4
• Shih, Heng-Ching & Lusthaus, Dan (2006). A Comprehensive Commentary on the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita-hyrdaya-sutra). Numata Center for Buddhist Translation & Research.
• Silk, Jonathan A. (1994) The Heart Sūtra in Tibetan: a Critical Edition of the Two Recensions Contained in the Kanjur. Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien.
• Tanahashi, Kazuki (2014). The Heart Sutra: A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism. Shambala.
• Wayman, Alex (1990). 'Secret of the Heart Sutra.' in Buddhist insight: essays Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1990. pp. 307–326. ISBN 81-208-0675-1.
• Yu, Anthony C. (1980). The Journey to the West. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-97150-6. First published 1977.

Further reading

• Conze, Edward (translator) (1984). Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines & Its Verse Summary. Grey Fox Press. ISBN 978-0-87704-049-1. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Fox, Douglass (1985). The Heart of Buddhist Wisdom: A Translation of the Heart Sutra With Historical Introduction and Commentary. Lewiston/Queenston Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 0-88946-053-1.
• Gyatso, Tenzin, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama (2002). Jinpa, Thumpten (ed.). Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama's Heart of Wisdom Teachings. English Translation by Geshe Thupten Jinpa. Boston: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-318-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Hasegawa, Seikan (1975). The Cave of Poison Grass: Essays on the Hannya Sutra. Arlington, Virginia: Great Ocean Publishers. ISBN 0-915556-00-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• McRae, John R. (1988). "Ch'an Commentaries on the Heart Sutra". Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. 11 (2): 87–115.
• McLeod, Ken (2007). An Arrow to the Heart. Victoria, BC, Canada: Trafford. ISBN 978-1-4251-3377-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Nhat Hanh, Thich (1988). The Heart of Understanding. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press. ISBN 978-0-938077-11-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Rinchen, Sonam. (2003) Heart Sutra: An Oral Commentary Snow Lion Publications
• Waddell, Norman (1996). Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra. Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-57062-165-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Shih, Heng-ching, trans. (2001). A comprehensive commentary on the Heart Sutra (transl. from the Chinese of K'uei-chi). Berkeley, Calif.: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. ISBN 1-886439-11-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

Translations

• "The Shorter Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra". Lapis Lazuli Texts. Retrieved 2010-08-30. From the Chinese version attributed to Xuanzang (T251).
• "The Shorter Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra". Sutras Mantras. Retrieved 2017-03-02. From the Chinese version attributed to Kumārajīva (T250).
• "The Longer Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra". Lapis Lazuli Texts. Retrieved 2010-08-30. From the Chinese translation by Prajñā (T253).
• "The Shorter Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra". Fodian. Retrieved 2017-03-02. Conze's translation from his Sanskrit edition (1948, rev. 1967).
• "The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom". LamRim.com. Retrieved 2008-03-22. From the Tibetan text.