Toh 21, Toh 531 — The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother
Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya
Translated by the Dharmachakra Translation Committee under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha
The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother
F.77.bF.94.bF.144.b[1]B1 Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother![2]
Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was residing on Vulture Peak Mountain at Rājagṛha together with a great saṅgha of monks and a great saṅgha of bodhisattvas. F.145.a
At that time the Blessed One rested in an absorption on the categories of phenomena called illumination of the profound.[3]
At the same time,[4] the bodhisattva great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, while practicing the profound perfection of wisdom, looked and saw that the five aggregates are also[5] empty of an intrinsic nature.[6]
Then, due to the Buddha’s power, venerable Śāriputra[7] asked the bodhisattva great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, “How should sons of noble family or daughters of noble family[8] train if they wish to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom?”
The bodhisattva great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, replied to venerable Śāradvatīputra,[9] “Śāriputra, sons of noble family or daughters of noble family who wish to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom should see things in this way: they should correctly observe the five aggregates to be empty of an intrinsic nature.[10]
“Form is empty.[11] Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form, and form is also not other than emptiness.[12] In the same way, feeling, perception, formation,[13] and consciousness are empty.
“Śāriputra, therefore, all phenomena are emptiness; they are without characteristics, unborn, unceasing, without stains, without absence of stains,[14] not deficient, and not complete.
“Śāriputra, therefore, in emptiness there is F.78.aF.95.a no form, no feeling, no perception, no formations, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture, and no mental object.
“There is no element of the eye, F.145.b up to no element of the mind, and further up to no element of the mind consciousness.[15]
“There is no ignorance and no exhaustion of ignorance, up to no aging and death and no exhaustion of aging and death.
“There is no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom,[16] no attainment, and no nonattainment.[17]
“Śāriputra, therefore, since bodhisattvas have no attainment, they rely upon and dwell in the perfection of wisdom.[18] Because their minds have no veils, they have no fear. Having utterly[19] gone beyond error, they reach the culmination of nirvāṇa.
“All the buddhas who reside in the three times have likewise fully awakened to unsurpassed and perfect awakening by relying upon the perfection of wisdom.
“Therefore,[20] the mantra[21] of the perfection of wisdom is the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra that is equal to the unequaled, and the mantra that utterly pacifies all suffering. Since it is not false, it should be known to be true.
“The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is stated thus:[22]
tadyathā[23]gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā[24]
“Śāriputra, this is the way a bodhisattva great being should train in the profound perfection of wisdom.”
Then the Blessed One arose from that absorption and gave his approval to the bodhisattva great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, saying, “Excellent![25] Excellent! Son of noble family, it is like that. Son of noble family, it is like that. The profound perfection of wisdom should be practiced just as you have taught, and even the thus-gone ones will rejoice.” F.78.bF.95.b
When the Blessed One had said this, venerable Śāradvatīputra,[26] the bodhisattva great being, noble Avalokiteśvara, F.146.a and the entire assembly, as well as the world with its devas, humans, asuras, and gandharvas, rejoiced and praised what the Blessed One had said.
This completes The Great Vehicle Sūtra “The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother.”Colophon
This was translated by the Indian preceptor Vimalamitra and the translator monk Rinchen Dé, and then edited and finalized by the editor-translators Gelo, Namkha, and others. It was then carefully proofed against the writing on the wall of the Gegye Jema Ling Temple[27] at glorious Samye—the spontaneously accomplished temple.[28]
Notes
Two sets of folio references have been included in this translation due to a discrepancy in volume 88 (rgyud ’bum, na) of the Degé Kangyur between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings. In the latter case, an extra work, Bodhimaṇḍasyālaṃkāralakṣadhāraṇī (Toh 508, byang chub snying po’i rgyan ’bum gyi gzungs), was added as the second text in the volume, thereby displacing the pagination of all the following texts in the same volume by 17 folios. Since the eKangyur follows the later printing, both references have been provided, with the highlighted one linking to the eKangyur viewer.
In the Toh 531 version of the text there is a slight discrepancy in the folio numbering between the 1737 par phud printings and the late (post par phud) printings of the Degé Kangyur. Although the discrepancy is irrelevant here, further details concerning this may be found in note 33 of the Toh 531 version of this text.
backStok: “Homage to all buddhas and bodhisattvas!”
backThis sentence could also be translated: “At that time the Blessed One rested in a Dharma-discourse-absorption called illumination of the profound.” The Tengyur commentaries are all vague on this point but are united in glossing the term dharmaparyāya (chos kyi rnam grangs), which is often translated “Dharma discourse,” as a categorization of phenomena, rather than a Dharma teaching. We have therefore opted to follow this in our translation. In recension B, the sentence is quite different. Thus, Stok reads: “At that time the Blessed One rested in the absorption called illumination of the profound Dharma discourse.”
backAt this point the short version of The Heart Sūtra begins. In the long version, the first sentence of the short version is extended into a paragraph that incorporates the original in a new, expanded context. The texts converge at the second sentence of the standard text (beginning with “Form is empty. Emptiness is form”).
backAccording to Vimalamitra’s commentary, the word “also” indicates that Avalokiteśvara also saw that the sense sources and the elements likewise are empty of an intrinsic nature. (Toh 3818, F.271.a)
backStok: “and he saw that the five aggregates are empty of an essence.” On the variations of this sentence across the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan sources, see Attwood 2015. Our translation of the Tibetan agrees with Attwood’s proposed reading of the Sanskrit. However, unlike Attwood, we also believe that the same reading can be applied to the Tibetan text in both Recension A and Recension B. Besides simply making better sense overall, this reading is also supported by Vimalamitra’s commentary on this passage (Toh 3818, F.270.a–F.271.b), and, moreover, it agrees semantically with the shorter version of The Heart Sūtra in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. Attwood’s analysis of the Tibetan (2015, p. 40) therefore misreads the Tibetan, we would argue, as does Jonathan Silk’s translation of the same passage (1994, pp. 174–75) on which Attwood’s arguments are based. Several other translators, e.g., Donald Lopez (1996, p. vii) and Thupten Jinpa (Dalai Lama 2015, pp. 59–62), translate using the same reading as Silk, though not all (e.g., Nālandā Translation Committee 1980).
backStok: “Śāradvatīputra.”
backStok omits “or daughters of noble family.”
backThe names Śāradvatīputra and Śāriputra are used interchangeably in the sūtras to refer to the same person.
backStok: “the five aggregates to be empty of an essence.”
backBoth recensions A and B in Tibetan read “empty” (stong pa) rather than “emptiness” (stong pa nyid). Conze’s edition of the Sanskrit reads śūnyatā (“emptiness”), although several sources read śūnyam (“empty”) (1967, p. 150, note 10). Taishō 250 and 251 both read “emptiness” (Attwood 2017b, p. 56).
backOn these four sentences, see Attwood 2017b where their origins in earlier Prajñāpāramitā literature are traced. This way of articulating the relationship between emptiness and the phenomena of the five aggregates echoes sets of passages in all three of the long Prajñāpāramitā sūtras. In two passages in The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines (Toh 10, #UT22084-029-001-396 and #UT22084-029-001-808), two in The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines (Toh 9, #UT22084-026-001-465–#UT22084-026-001-471 and #UT22084-026-001-1060), and three in The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines (Toh 8, #UT22084-014-001-450–#UT22084-014-001-463, #UT22084-014-001-525–#UT22084-014-001-534, and #UT22084-014-001-2718-#UT22084-014-001-2739) there are similarly statements to the effect that emptiness is not other than form, that form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form. Those passages go on to characterize the relationship between emptiness and the other aggregates, and all other phenomena, in the same way. See also #UT22084-034-009-87.
backStok: “formations.”
backStok: “free from stains, without stains.”
backStok: “There is no element of the eye and no element of the eye consciousness, up to no element of the mind and no element of the mind consciousness.”
backStok: “no cognition.”
backThis series of negations echoes the more extensive series found in passages in The Perfection of Wisdom in Eighteen Thousand Lines (Toh 10, #UT22084-029-001-398–#UT22084-029-001-402), in The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines (Toh 9, #UT22084-026-001-467–#UT22084-026-001-471), and in The Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand Lines (Toh 8, #UT22084-014-001-450–#UT22084-014-001-456), which also begin by negating each of the five aggregates. The series of negations there is immediately preceded by a passage declaring that each of the aggregates “is not one thing and emptiness another,” since each of the aggregates “is itself emptiness,” and emptiness is each of the aggregates. See also #UT22084-034-009-77. See also Shi 2014 who analyzes earlier Chinese translations of Prajñāpāramitā literature to argue for a new translation of the terms “no nonattainment” in this sentence and “no attainment” in the following sentence.
backStok: “they rely upon the perfection of wisdom.”
backStok omits “utterly.”
backStok: “Śāriputra, therefore.”
backAttwood (2017a) has argued that the term mantra in The Heart Sūtra most likely is a mistranslation of the Chinese rendering of the term vidyā, because this is what appears in Sanskrit manuscripts of the The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines and because of how Kumārajīva phrases it in his translation of that text.
backInstead of these last two sentences, Stok reads: “The perfection of wisdom, which is without error, should be known as a true mantra and as knowledge.”
backMost witnesses of Recension A (though not the versions in the Degé Kangyur, nor the versions in Choné, Lhasa, Lithang, or Urga) include the syllable oṁ after tadyathā. See Silk 1994, p. 138. None of the Chinese sources include oṁ whereas some Sanskrit manuscripts do.
backThis mantra can be rendered in English as “Like this: gone, gone, gone beyond, utterly gone beyond. Awakening. Svāhā.” At this point the short version of The Heart Sūtra ends.
backBefore “Excellent,” Stok inserts “Son of noble family.”
backStok: “Śāriputra.”
backThe “writing on the wall of the Gegye Jema Ling Temple” is a reference to a Sanskrit version of The Heart Sūtra written on one of the walls in the Gegye Jema Ling (dge rgyas bye ma gling) Temple at Samye Monastery. That the writing was in Sanskrit, and that the comparison of the translation to that Sanskrit text took place “at a later time,” is mentioned in the catalogs (dkar chag) of the Narthang, Degé, Urga, and Lhasa Kangyurs. The earliest of these is the Narthang catalog, written by the Lelung Jedrung Lobzang Trinlé (1690–1740), which specifies that the version on the wall was the one “with introduction” (gleng gzhi’i bkod pa dang bcas bris pa; see Narthang dkar chag F.85.b). For the mention in the Degé catalog, see Degé Kangyur vol. 103 (lakṣmī), F.118.b. See also Silk 1994, pp. 48–49.
backThis colophon is missing in Stok.
back
