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The Heart Stra (Sanskrit: Prajpramit Hdaya) is a famous stra inMahyna Buddhism. Its
Sanskrit namePrajpramit Hdaya literally means "The Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom". The
Heart Stra is often cited as the best-known
[1]
and most popular Buddhist scripture of all.
[2][3]
Contents [hide]
1 Introduction
2 Origin and early translations
2.1 Critical Editions
2.2 Nattier hypothesis
2.3 Title
3 Text
4 Mantra
4.1 Chinese exegesis
4.2 Tibetan exegesis
4.3 Translation
5 Recordings
6 Popular culture
7 Western philosophy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
12.1 Translations
12.2 Discourses
Introduction [edit]
The Heart Stra, belonging to the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajpramit) category of Mahyna Buddhism literature
along with theDiamond Stra, is perhaps the most prominent representative of the genre.
The Heart Stra is made up of 14 shlokas in Sanskrit, with each shloka containing 32 syllables. In the standard
Chinese translation byXuanzang, it has 260 Chinese characters. In English it is composed of sixteen
sentences.
[4]
This makes it the shortest text in the Perfection of Wisdom genre, which contains scriptures in lengths
up to 100,000 shlokas. According to Buddhist scholar and author Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in his commentary to
the Heart Stra:
The Essence of Wisdom Sutra (Heart Stra) is much shorter than the other Perfection of Wisdom
stras but it contains explicitly or implicitly the entire meaning of the longer Sutras.
[5]
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 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.
[6]
Conze estimates the sutra's date of origin to be 350 CE; some others consider it to be two
centuries older than that.
[7]
Recent scholarship is unable to verify its existence before any date earlier than the 7th
century CE.
[8]
The Chinese version is frequently chanted (in the local pronunciation) by the Chan(Zen/Seon/Thin) school during
ceremonies in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnamrespectively. It is also significant to the Shingon Buddhist school in
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Japan, whose founderKkai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools, where it is
studied extensively.
The stra is in a small class of stras not attributed to the Buddha. In some versions of the text, starting with that of
Fayue dating to about 735,
[9]
the Buddha confirms and praises the words of Avalokitevara, although this is not
included in the preeminent Chinese version translated by Xuanzang. The Tibetan canon uses the longer
version,
[10][11]
although Tibetan translations without the framing text have been found at Dunhuang. The Chinese
Buddhist canon includes both long and short versions, and both versions exist in Sanskrit.
[10]
Origin and early translations [edit]
The earliest extant text of the Heart Sutra is the palm-leaf manuscript found at the Horyuji Temple, and dated to 609
CE. It was one of two texts which formed the basis for a published edition by Max Mller (1881), and formed the
basis of a published edition by Shaku Hannya (1923). (See image top right) However it is important to note that a
comparison of the script with India manuscripts and inscriptions argues for a date in the 8th century for the Horyuji
manuscript.
[12]
A Chinese text attributed to Xuanzang and dated 649 CE is preserved in the Chinese Tripiaka. Stories exist of earlier
translations but are likely to be apocryphal. In particular Edward Conze acknowledges that the text attributed to
Kumarajva is the work of his student. It is not mentioned a biography compiled in 519 CE.
[13]
John McRae and Jan
Nattier have argued that this translation was created by someone else, much later, based on Kumarajiva'sLarge
Stra.
[14]
Zhi Qian's version, supposedly composed in 200-250 CE, was lost before the time of Xuanzang, who
produced his own version in 649CE, which closely matches the one attributed to Kumarajiva.
[15]
Xuanzang's version
is the first record of the title "Heart Stra" ( xnjng) being used for the text,
[16]
and Fukui Fumimasa has argued
that actually means dhra scripture.
[17][18]
According to Huili's biography, Xuanzang learned the sutra from an
inhabitant of Sichuan, and subsequently chanted it during times of danger in his journey to the West.
[19]
Thus the available evidence points towards the Heart Sutra being composed in the sixth or seventh centuries.
Critical Editions [edit]
There have been several critical editions of the Sanskrit text of the Heart Sutra, but to date the definitive edition is
Conze's, originally published in 1948, reprinted in 1967 and revised in 1973. Conze had access to 12 Nepalese
manuscripts; seven mss. and inscriptions from China; two mss. from Japan; as well as several translations from the
Chinese Canon and one from the Tibetan.
[20]
There is a great deal of variation across the manuscripts in the title,
themagala verses, and within the text itself. Many of the manuscripts are corrupt or simply carelessly copied.
Nattier hypothesis [edit]
However, based on textual patterns in the Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Heart Straand
the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra, scholar Jan Nattier has suggested that the earliest (shortest) version of the Heart
Stra was probably first composed in China in the Chinese language from a mixture material derived from the 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 stra). She
argues that the majority of the text was redacted from a Larger Sutra on the Perfection of Wisdom, which had
originated with a Sanskrit Indian original, but that the "framing" passages (the introduction and concluding passages)
were new compositions in Chinese by a Chinese author, and that the text was intended as a dharani rather than a
stra.
[8][21][22]
The Chinese version of the core (i.e. the short version) of the Heart Stra 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.
[23]
Furthermore, Nattier argues that there is no evidence (such as a
commentary) of a Sanskrit version before the 8th century CE,
[24]
and she dates the first evidence (in the form of
commentaries by Xuanzang's disciples Kuiji and Wonch'uk, and Dunhuang manuscripts) of Chinese versions to the
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Sanskrit manuscript of the Heart Stra,
written in the Siddha script. Bibliothque
nationale de France
7th century CE. She considers attributions to earlier dates "extremely problematic". In any case, the corroborating
evidence supports a Chinese version at least a century before a Sanskrit version.
[25]
This theory has gained support
amongst some other prominent scholars of Buddhism, but is by no means universally accepted.
[26]
Title [edit]
The Zhi Qian version is titled Po-jo po-lo-mi shen-chou i chuan
[27]
or PrajnaparamitaDharani;
[28]
the Kumarajiva
version is titled Mo-ho po-jo po-lo-mi shen-chou i chuan
[27]
orMaha Prajnaparamita Mahavidya Dharani. Xuanzang's
translation was the first to use Hrdaya("Heart") in the title.
[29]
Despite the common name Heart Stra, the word stra is not present in known Sanskrit manuscripts, which refer to it
simply as prajpramithdaya.
[10]
Xuanzang's translation was also the first to call the text a sutra. No extant
Sanskrit copies use this word, though it has become standard usage in Chinese and Tibetan, as well as English.
[30]
Some citations of Zhi Qian's and Kumarajiva's versions prepend moho (which would be mahain Sanskrit) to the title.
Some Tibetan editions add bhagavat, meaning "Victorious One" or "Conqueror", an epithet of Prajnaparamita as
goddess.
[31]
In the Tibetan text the title is given first in Sanskrit and then in Tibetan:
Sanskrit: Bhagavatprajpramithdaya
Tibetan: ,, Wylie: bcom ldan 'das ma shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying
po
In other languages, the title is frequently called "Heart Sutra" in common-usage:
English: Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom
Chinese: xn jng ( / )
Japanese: Han-nya Shin-gy ( / )
Korean: Panya Shimgyeong ()
Vietnamise:Bt-nh tm kinh(ting Hoa: )
Text [edit]
Various commentators divide this text into different numbers of sections.
Briefly, the sutra describes the experience of liberation of
thebodhisattva of compassion, Avalokitevara, as a result
of insight gained while engaged in deepmeditation to awaken the faculty
of praja(wisdom). The insight refers to apprehension of the
fundamental emptiness of all phenomena, known through and as the five
aggregates of human existence (skandhas): form (rpa), feeling (vedan),
volitions (samskr), perceptions (saj), and consciousness (vijna).
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 Stra is specifically a response
to Sarvastivada teachings that, in the sense "phenomena" or its
constituents, are real.
[32]
Lines 12-13 enumerate the five skandhas. Lines
14-15 list the twelve ayatanas or abodes.
[33]
Line 16 makes a reference to the eighteendhatus or elements of
consciousness, using a conventional shorthand of naming only the first (eye) and last (conceptual consciousness) of
the elements.
[34]
Lines 17-18 assert the emptiness of the Twelve Nidnas, the traditional twelve links of dependent
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origination.
[35]
Line 19 refers to the Four Noble Truths.
Avalokitevara addresses ariputra, who was, according to the scriptures and texts of the Sarvastivada and other
early Buddhist schools, the promulgator of abhidharma, having been singled out by the Buddha to receive those
teachings.
[36]
Avalokitevara famously states that, "Form is empty (nyat). Emptiness is form." and declares the
other skandhas to be equally empty that is dependently originated. Avalokitevara 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 concept ofsmaran 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 our comprehending. Thus the bodhisattva, as
the archetypal Mahyna Buddhist, relies on the perfection of wisdom, defined in the larger Perfection of
Wisdom 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 Avalokitevara to be in the central role in a Prajpramit text. Early Prajpramit texts
involve Subhuti, who is absent from both versions of the Heart Stra, and the Buddha who is only present in the
longer version.
[37]
This could be considered evidence that the text is Chinese in origin.
[8]
Mantra [edit]
Jan Nattier points out in her article on the origins of the Heart Stra that this mantra in several variations is present in
the Chinese Tripiaka associated with several different Prajpramit texts.
[8]
The version in the Heart Stra runs:
Sanskrit IAST: gate gate pragate prasagate bodhi svh
Sanskrit Devangar:
Sanskrit IPA: te te pate paste bod saa
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: /
Chinese Pinyin: Jid, jid, blu jid, blusng jid, pt suph
Vietnamese: Yt , yt , Ba la yt , Ba la tng yt , B tt b ha
Japanese: /
(Romanisation: Gyatei Gyatei Haragyatei Harasgyatei Boji Sowaka)
Korean: (Romanisation: Aje aje bara-aje baraseung-aje moji
sabaha)
Tibetan: ;

Chinese exegesis [edit]

In the traditions of Chinese Buddhism in East Asia, it is said that the Indian masters who came to China to translate
Sanskrit texts never translated mantras into Chinese because they knew this could not be done. They also held that
it was impossible to explain the esoteric meanings of the mantras in words.
[38]
It is said that when a devotee
succeeds in realizing singleness of mind (samdhi) by repeating a mantra, then its profound meaning will be clearly
revealed to him or her.
[38]
Tibetan exegesis [edit]
Each Buddhist tradition with an interest in the Heart Stra seems to have its own interpretation of the stra, and
therefore of the mantra. As Alex Wayman commented:
One feature of these commentaries [in Tibetan] on the Heart Stra struck me quite forcibly: each
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commentary seemed so different to the others, and yet they all seemed to show in greater or lesser
degree the influence of the Mdhyamika school of Buddhist philosophy.
[39]
Donald Lopez goes further to suggest:
The question still remains of the exact function of the mantra within the sutra, because the sutra
provides no such explanation and the sadhanas make only perfunctory references to the mantra.
[40]
Tibetan exegesis of the mantra tends to look back on it from a Tantric point of view. For instance seeing it as
representing 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 part of the first bhumi (path of insight pragate),
through the second part of the first to the tenth bhumi (path of meditation Prasamgate), and to the eleventh bhumi
(stage of no more learning bodhi svh). As Geshe Kelsang Gyatso explains in The New Heart of Wisdom:
This mantra, retained in the original Sanskrit, explains in very condensed form the practice of the
five Mahayana paths, which we attain and complete in dependence upon the perfection of wisdom.
[41]
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 fourgo's) as in the previous paragraph.
Translation [edit]
Edward Conze attempted to render the mantra into English as: "gone gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O
what an awakening, all hail!" There are several approaches to translating the mantra, most of which assume that the
mantra obeys the rules of Classical Sanskrit. However, the string of words resists analysis and, like most mantras, is
not a grammatical sentence.
Recordings [edit]
The Heart Stra has been set to music a number of times.
[42]
Many singers solo this sutra.
[43]
The Buddhist Audio
Visual Production Centre () produced an album of recordings of the Heart Stra 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 () to raise money to rebuild the Chi Lin Nunnery.
[44]
Other Hong Kong pop singers, such as
the Four Heavenly Kings sang the Heart Stra to raise money for relief efforts related to the 1999 Chichi
earthquake.
[45]
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 sutra, recited by American beat poet Allen
Ginsberg. A slightly edited version is used as the lyrics for Yoshimitsu's theme in the PlayStation 2game Tekken Tag
Tournament. An Indian styled version was also created by Bombay Jayashri title named - Ji Project.
Popular culture [edit]
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 Sutraarose, of particular note being the Journey to the
West
[46]
(16th century/Ming dynasty). In chapter nineteen of Journey to the West, the fictitious Xuanzang learns by
heart the Heart Sutra 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 Sutrais quoted in this fictional account.
The mantra of the Heart Sutra was used as the lyrics for the opening theme song of the 2011 Chinese television
series Journey to the West.
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Western philosophy [edit]
Schopenhauer, in the final words of his main work, compared his doctrine to the nyat of the Heart Sutra. 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."
[47]
To this, he appended the following note: "This is also the PrajnaParamita of the Buddhists, the 'beyond
all knowledge,' in other words, the point where subject and object no longer exist. (See I. J. Schmidt, 'ber das
Mahajana und PradschnaParamita'.)"
[48]