Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra / Edition 1 available in Paperback, eBook
Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra / Edition 1
- ISBN-10:
- 069100188X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780691001883
- Pub. Date:
- 11/08/1998
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 069100188X
- ISBN-13:
- 9780691001883
- Pub. Date:
- 11/08/1998
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra / Edition 1
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Overview
Included here are full translations of the eight extant Indian commentaries. Interspersed with the translations are six essays that examine the unusual roles the Heart Sutra has played: it has been used as a mantra, an exorcism text, a tantric meditation guide, and as the material for comparative philosophy. Taken together, the translations and essays that form Elaborations on Emptiness demonstrate why commentary is as central to modern scholarship on Buddhism as it was for ancient Buddhists. Lopez reveals unexpected points of instability and contradiction in the Heart Sutra, which, in the end, turns out to be the most malleable of texts, where the logic of commentary serves as a tool of both tradition and transgression.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691001883 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 11/08/1998 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 280 |
| Product dimensions: | 7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Religions of India in Practice, and Religions of Tibet in Practice.
Read an Excerpt
Elaborations On Emptiness
Uses of The Heart Sutra
By Donald S. Lopez Jr.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1996 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-02732-6
CHAPTER 1
Who Heard the Heart Sutra?
By being transmitted via so many spokesmen, the Saddharma ran the greatest of dangers.
From the beginning, it should have been enclosed in a code of authentic writings, recognised by all the members of the Community unanimously; however, the Buddhists only belatedly perceived the necessity of a codification of the Dharma; moreover, the oral transmission of the Doctrine rendered such a task, if not impossible, at least very difficult.
— Étienne Lamotte
It may seem surprising that as late as the eleventh century Indian commentators still felt compelled to discuss the referent of the "I" of "Thus did I hear" (evam maya srutam) at the beginning of Mahayana Sutras. Perhaps they were simply performing their roles as commentators in explaining the meaning of every word. Still, one might expect that by that date there would at least have been some agreement among them. But a survey of the Pala Dynasty commentaries on the Heart Sutra displays a wide range of opinion on the issue. Some of the commentators make a remark only in passing as they gloss the terms of the Sutra, but others, notably Vimalamitra and Atisa, dwell on the question of the qualifications of the samgitikartr and on what it means to have heard (sruta). The term samgitikartr is perhaps best rendered as rapporteur. Sa?giti most often means "song" or anything that is sung or chanted in chorus. In Buddhist texts, it can be a pronouncement of the Buddha or the rehearsal by others of such a pronouncement. But it can also mean a council of monks, gathered to settle questions of doctrine and establish the text of a Sutra. The kartr is the "maker" or agent of any of these activities. Hence, samgitikartr carries a range of connotations, from the maker of the Buddha's word, to the leader of its public recitation, to the convener of a council to determine its content, that is, from speaker, to reciter, to redactor. It was rendered in Tibetan as bka' sdud pa po, the gatherer of the Buddha's word.
Only the author of the single tantric commentary on the Sutra, the mahamudra master Vajrapani, remains above the fray, transliterating rather than translating evam maya, calling those four letters (apparently drawing on the Guhyasamajatantra) "the source of the 84,000 collections of doctrine and the foundation of all success." The Madhyamika commentator Jñanamitra states unequivocally that all of the Mahayana Sutras were heard and compiled by Mañjusri, the bodhisattva of wisdom. The latest of the commentators, Srimahajana, reports that according to Dignaga, the samgitikartr was Vajrapani, the bodhisattva of power, but Vimuktasena opts for Ananda, based on the closing passages of the Astasahasrikaprajñaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Stanzas) in which the Buddha entrusts the Sutra to Ananda's care. He also mentions that in the opinion of Ratnakarasanti, the samgitikartr was Ananda "empowered by the Buddha." It is significant that Srimahajana implies a distinction between Ananda as rapporteur and Ananda empowered by the Buddha as rapporteur. This distinction seems also to be at play in the judgments of the final two commentators, Prasastrasena and Kama lasila, neither of whom names the samgitikartr; but they do provide a hint in their gloss of srutam. Prasastrasena states that the term "heard" means that the dharma was apprehended by the consciousness of an ear sense organ, noting that it only means that the dharma was heard; it does not imply that the meaning was understood. Kamalasila says nothing on the issue in his Heart Sutra commentary, but in both his commentary on the Vajracchedika (Diamond Cutter) and that on the Saptasatika (Perfection of Wisdom in 700 Stanzas), he makes the same point: "'Heard' [means] experienced by the ear consciousness; it does not mean understood because no one other than the Tathagata has the power to comprehend such a doctrine." For Prasastrasena to say and for Kamalasila to imply that the Sutra was heard without being understood (a point to which I will return later) may imply that the samgitikartr was Ananda, the traditional rapporteur of the Buddha's words, but who, as a sravaka, was unable to understand them. This is the position of Haribhadra in his Abhisamayalamkaraloka, where he reminds his readers how Ananda, through the practice of buddhanusmrti, was able to overcome his absence of introspection and say with eloquence, "Thus did I hear." In fact, Vimalamitra claims in his commentary that the grammar of the statement confirms that the words were only heard and not understood: "It says, 'I' [literally 'by me']. Therefore, the third [case ending, the instrumental,] indicates only the hearing of the sounds of the letters just as they are; because it is a consciousness arisen from hearing, it completely eliminates the possibility of it being [the rapporteur's] own realization [of the profound meaning of the Sutra: it is rather just an understanding of the words]. Otherwise, 'heard by me' would be in the sixth [case, the genitive] because of meaning ['my] understanding.' ... In order to establish his own validity, when the [rapporteur] bears witness to the place, the time, and the audience, and to having witnesses, he is saying, 'I understand that I am a valid speaker; I do not understand the great things of which I speak.'"
It is only in the commentaries of Vimalamitra and Atisa that the topic of the samgitikartr is actually engaged; the comments of the other exegetes are made more or less in passing. I will focus here on Atisa because he includes Vimalamitra's position in the course of his discussion. Atisa notes that the samgitikartr does not simply begin his recitation of a Sutra after declaring "evam maya srutam" but also provides a setting (nidana, gleng gzhi) describing where the Sutra was delivered and who was present. The purpose of such description, he says, is to establish the samgitikartr as reliable (pramanya). This, he says, is the position of Dignaga (c. C.E. 480–540), and he cites a passage from the Prajñaparamitapindartha (Condensed Meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom, also known as the Prajñaparamitasamgraha) (3–4) in which the qualifications of the samgitikartr are directly addressed: "In order to establish his validity, the samgitikartr indicates the teacher, the audience, the witness, the time, and the place as factors [causing] the faithful to enter [the teaching], just as in the world, if someone has a witness indicating the place and the time, he is authoritative." Unfortunately, neither Dignaga nor his commentator, Triratnadasa, makes any mention of what might distinguish the witness (saksin) from the audience (parsad), with Triratnadasa merely equating the two: "Because the audience is the bodhisattvas, etc., they should be understood as the witnesses."
Atisa then notes that Dignaga's assertion that the samgitikartr must have a witness to establish his validity is rejected by Vimalamitra, whose refutation of Dignaga he goes on to explain. He does not alert us to the fact that Vimalamitra does not offer his objections in his commentary to the Heart Sutra, which Atisa cites liberally on other points, but is to be found instead in Vimalamitra's commentary to the Saptasatika. In fact, Vimalamitra does not mention Dignaga by name. Instead he says: "It is said that in order for someone to prove himself to be valid, [his identification of] the place and the time are the proof [of his presence] and the audience is the witness, as in the case of a disputed contract. That is not my understanding; [the faithful] go everywhere [to hear Sutras] and if [it were necessary] to ask a witness, it would be a long [time] before those incapable of going there could determine the meaning of the Sutra. [And in the case of Sutras] in which the name of the audience is not indicated, whom should one ask?"
Atisa discerns two objections here. The first has to do with the function of the witness. According to Atisa's reading of Dignaga, the purpose of the samgitikartr's statement of pedigree is to inspire his audience to enter into the dharma. A witness is rarely called upon at the moment of testimony, but rather at some later date, when doubts begin to arise. Dignaga's insistence on the witness therefore is problematic because by the time the doubts arise, the witnesses may have died or gone elsewhere. To prove the peripatetic nature of those who seek the dharma, he cites an unidentified Sutra, "Those who desire to hear the jewel of the profound and limitless Sutras go everywhere for the welfare of all the worldly realms." And in some cases, like that of Mahakasvapa, who is said to reside inside a mountain, the witnesses may still be alive, but it is our ill fortune that they remain inaccessible to us.
Atisa's more intriguing gloss of Vimalamitra is what he has to say about Vimalamitra's statement above, that, if having a witness is a requirement, then those who were unable to go to the place where the Sutra is delivered could not determine the meaning of the Sutra. In Atisa's reading, these people are not ordinary persons prevented by circumstance from traveling to distant lands, but instead those who have attained the powers of clairaudience that are achieved with rddhi (magical power) and abhijña (superknowledge), which allow them to hear the words of the buddhas from extraordinary distances. What Atisa seems to take Vimalamitra to be saying is that physical presence in an audience is not required for one to qualify as a samgitikartr; there are other means available for hearing the buddhavacana.
The second objection to Dignaga discerned by Atisa is that if one insists on the presence of witnesses in order to prove that what is reported is the word of the Buddha, then Sutras in which there is no mention of the names of the members of the audience, Sutras such as the Heart Sutra in fact, could not be considered buddhavacana. The Heart Sutra, of course, mentions Avalokitesvara and Sariputra, but they, as interlocutors, seem not to count as witnesses, and none of the others in attendance are mentioned by name. Atisa seems, then, to reject Dignaga's understanding of the samgitikartr and accepts that of Vimalamitra. And in his own commentary to the Heart Sutra, Vimalamitra makes it clear that being a samgitikartr has little to do with having witnesses, but is much more the result of proper practice: The three words [evam maya srutam], "Thus ..." form the opening. What "I heard" was "thus"; not something else. Because this removes [the possibility of anything] being left out or added, it is a promise as to the accuracy of what was heard. It expresses the fact that having been heard once, what was taken in and retained is correctly and fully set forth. The correct compilation [comes about through] the ripening of roots of virtue created in relation to the Buddha by one who has the protection of a virtuous friend. These should be known to be practices such as revering the Buddha, asking properly, giving, and ethics. Otherwise, hearing the primary [expression] of the meaning of the perfection of wisdom in this way does not take place.
Thus, that Vimalamitra leaves the samgitikartr unnamed seems to imply more than a nod to Ananda. His discussion of the topic (with Atisa's gloss) suggests that anyone who has engaged in the proper practices may develop the capacity to hear a Sutra, perhaps even by magical means. But he also makes it clear that such revelation is of the words alone, to be duly recited; that the event of revelation implies no realization of the profound meaning of the words revealed, such realization remaining the exclusive possession of the absent Buddha.
What, then, is at stake in the identification of the samgitikartr? To claim that the samgitikartr is Vajrapani or Mañjusri or Samantabhadra, or to say it is Ananda, or to leave the samgitikartr unnamed is to add one's voice to one of the most persistent choruses in Indian Mahayana literature, the defense of the Mahayana Sutras as the word of the Buddha. We find "proofs" of the authenticity of the Mahayana in the works of major and minor sastra authors, as early as Nagarjuna in the second century in his Ratnavali (Jeweled Garland) and as late as Abhayakaragupta in the twelfth century in probably the last major Buddhist sastra composed in India, the Munimatalamkara (Ornament of the Sage's Mind). In the intervening millennium, Asanga in the Bodhisattvabhumi (The Bodhisattva Stage) lists the repudiation of the bodhisattvapitaka (the Mahayana Sutras) as one of four transgressions (parajayika) of the bodhisattva vow; much of the first chapter the Mahayanasutralamkara (Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras) is concerned with proving that the Mahayana is the word of the Buddha; and in the Tarkajvala, Bhavaviveka devotes a large portion of the fourth chapter to a defense of the Mahayana, but only after listing the charges brought against it by the sravakas: the Mahayana Sutras were not included in either the original or subsequent compilations of the tripitaka; by teaching that the Tathagata is permanent, the Mahayana contradicts the dictum that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent; because the Mahayana teaches that the tathagatagarbha (buddha-nature) is all-pervasive, it does not relinquish the belief in self; because the Mahayana teaches that the Buddha did not pass into nirvana, it suggests that nirvana is not the final state of peace; the Mahayana contains prophecies that the great sravakas will become buddhas; the Mahayana belittles the arhats; the Mahayana praises bodhisattvas above the Buddha; the Mahayana perverts the entire teaching by claiming that Sakyamuni was an emanation; the statement in the Mahayana Sutras that the Buddha was constantly in meditative absorption (samahita) is infeasible; by teaching that great sins can be completely absolved, the Mahayana teaches that actions have no effects, contradicting the law of karma. "Therefore, the Buddha did not set forth the Mahayana; it was created by beings who were certainly demonic in order to deceive the obtuse and mislead those with evil minds."
Thus, to address the question of who heard the Heart Sutra is to seek to rebut these charges, and each answer implies a different point. To say that the samgitikartr is Mañjusri or Vajrapani is to imply that the Mahayana Sutras are secret teachings not intended for sravakas and thus purposefully delivered in their absence; Ananda is not the samgitikartr because he was not there to hear the Sutras. To say that the samgitikartr was Ananda is to attempt incorporation, that just as the Nikayas were heard and reported by Sakyamuni's attendant, so also were the Mahayana Sutras. And to say that the samgitikartr was Ananda, but that he was empowered by the Buddha to perform the task and that, even then, he merely heard but did not understand what he would later report, is to attempt to have it both ways, preserving the Mahayana as the most profound of teachings, beyond the ken of sravakas, but still to be counted among the discourses heard in the physical presence of Sakyamuni. Finally, to leave the samgitikartr unnamed is to allow Sutras to be heard by anyone with the qualifications of faith, for as the Samadhiraja says, "When the Buddha, the dharmaraja, the proclaimer of all doctrines, the muni appears, the refrain that phenomena do not exist arises from the grass, bushes, trees, plants, stones, and mountains."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Elaborations On Emptiness by Donald S. Lopez Jr.. Copyright © 1996 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Technical Note and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction
1 Who Heard the Heart Sutra?
2 The Commentaries of Vimalamitra and Atisa
3 The Heart Sutra as Tantra
4 The Commentaries of Kamalasila and Srisimha
5 The Heart Sutra as Sadhana
6 The Commentaries of Jnanamitra and Prasastrasena
7 The Heart Sutra's Mantra
8 The Commentaries of Mahajana and Vajrapani
9 The Heart Sutra as Exorcism
10 Commentators Ancient and Postmodern
Index
What People are Saying About This
"This scholarly book makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the content and role of a key text. It also shows how the text has given rise to different interpretations over the centuries. It is of value for scholars and practitioners of Buddhism alike."—Sue Hamilton, Kings College, London
This scholarly book makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the content and role of a key text. It also shows how the text has given rise to different interpretations over the centuries. It is of value for scholars and practitioners of Buddhism alike.
— Sue Hamilton, Kings College, London