Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Diamond of the Buddha by Anonymous A Famous Verse From the . One of the most frequently quoted passages from the Mahayana Buddhist is this short verse: This common translation has been manipulated a bit so that it rhymes in English. The translator Red Pine (Bill Porter) gives us a more literal translation: In Buddhist texts, a short verse like this is called a gatha . What does this gatha signify, and who said it? This verse is found in two sutras, the Diamond Sutra and a sutra called "The Perfection of Wisdom in 500 Lines." Both these texts are part of a canon of texts called the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Prajnaparamita means "perfection of wisdom." According to scholars, most of the Prajnaparamita Sutras probably were written early in the first millennium CE, although some may date from the 1st century BCE. The verse often is attributed to the Buddha, but if the scholars are right about the date, the historical Buddha did not say this. We can only speculate about who the poet might have been. The Gatha and the Diamond Sutra. Of the two texts containing this verse, the Diamond Sutra is by far the more widely read. The Gatha is found very near the end of the sutra, and it is sometimes interpreted as the summation or explanation of the preceding text. Some English translators have "tweaked" the text a bit to emphasize the verse's role as a summary or capping verse. The verse seems to be about impermanence, so we are often told the Diamond Sutra primarily is about impermanence. The scholar-translator Red Pine (Bill Portman) disagrees. A literal reading of the Chinese and doesn't make it seem to be an explanation of the text at all, he says. Red Pine also questions whether the Gatha was in the original text, which has been lost. The same Gatha provides a summary of the Perfection of Wisdom in 500 Lines, and it fits better into that sutra. Some long-ago copyist might have thought the Diamond Sutra needed a stronger finish and tossed in his favorite verse. The Diamond Sutra is a work of great depth and subtlety. To most first-time readers, it is steeper than the Matterhorn. No doubt many have slogged through the text in a state of complete bafflement to find this little oasis of a Gatha at the end. At last, something that is understandable! What the Gatha Means. In his book, says that "created things" (see Red Pine's translation, above) or "composed things" are not what they appear to be. The scholar-translator Edward Conze gives the Sanskrit with English translation: The Gatha is not just telling us that everything is impermanent; it is telling us that everything is illusory. Things are not what they appear to be. We should not be fooled by appearance; we should not regard phantoms as "real." Thich Nhat Hanh continues: This points us to the wisdom teachings, which are the main teachings in the Prajnaparamita Sutras. The wisdom is the realization that all phenomena are empty of self-essence, and any identity we give them comes from our mental projection. The main teaching is not so much that things are impermanent; it is pointing to the nature of their impermanent existence. The Diamond Sutra, a Jewel of Mahayana . The Diamond Sutra is one of the most revered texts of Mahayana Buddhism and a jewel of the world's religious literature. The Diamond Sutra is a brief text. A typical English translation contains about 6,000 words, and an average reader could finish it in less than 30 minutes, easily. But if you were to ask ten dharma teachers what it is about, you might get ten different answers, because the Diamond defies literal interpretation. The sutra's title in Sanskrit, Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra, could be very roughly translated as the "diamond-cutting perfection of wisdom sutra." Thich Nhat Hanh says the title means "the diamond that cuts through afflictions, ignorance, illusion, or delusion." It is also sometimes called the Diamond Cutter Sutra, or the Vajra Sutra. The Prajnaparamita Sutras. The Diamond is part a large canon of early Mahayana sutras called the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Prajnaparamita means "perfection of wisdom." In Mahayana Buddhism, the perfection of wisdom is the realization or direct experience of sunyata (emptiness). The Heart Sutra also is one of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Sometimes these sutras are referred to as the "prajna" or "wisdom" literature. Mahayana Buddhist legend says that the Prajnaparamita Sutras were dictated by the historical Buddha to various disciples. They were then hidden for about 500 years and only discovered when people were ready to learn from them. However, scholars believe they were written in India beginning in the 1st century BCE and continuing for a few more centuries. For the most part, the oldest surviving versions of these texts are Chinese translations that date from the early first millennium CE. The several texts of the Prajnaparamita Sutras vary from very long to very short and are often named according to the number of lines it takes to write them. So, one is the Perfection of Wisdom in 25,000 Lines. Another is the Perfection of Wisdom in 20,000 Lines, and then 8,000 lines, and so on. The Diamond is The Perfection of Wisdom in 300 Lines. It is often taught within Buddhism that the shorter Prajnaparamita sutras are distillations of the longer ones and that the brief and highly distilled Diamond and Heart sutras were written last. But many scholars suspect the shorter sutras are the older ones, and the longer sutras are elaborations. History of the Diamond Sutra. Scholars believe the original text of the Diamond Sutra was written in India some time in the 2nd century CE. Kumarajiva is believed to have made the first translation into Chinese in 401 CE, and the Kumarajiva text seems to be the one most often translated into English. Prince Chao-Ming (501-531), a son of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, divided the Diamond Sutra into 32 chapters and gave each chapter a title. This chapter division has been preserved to this day, although translators do not always use Prince Chao-Ming's titles. The Diamond Sutra played an important role in the life of Huineng (638-713), the Sixth Patriarch of Chan (). It is recorded in Huineng's autobiography that when he was an adolescent selling firewood in a marketplace, he heard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra and immediately became enlightened. It is believed the Diamond Sutra was translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan in the late 8th or early 9th century. The translation is attributed to a disciple of Padmasambhava named Yeshe De and an Indian scholar named Silendrabodhi. An even older manuscript of the Diamond Sutra was discovered in the ruins of a Buddhist monastery in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, written in a language of Gandhara. The World's Oldest Dated Book. A complete woodblock printed scroll of the Diamond Sutra, dated 868 CE, was among several texts preserved in a sealed cave near Dunhuang, in Gansu Province, China. In 1900 a Chinese monk, Abbot Wang Yuanlu, discovered the sealed door to the cave, and in 1907 a Hungarian- British explorer named Marc Aurel Stein was allowed to see inside the cave. Stein chose some scrolls randomly and purchased them from Abbot Wang. Eventually, these scrolls were taken to London and given to the British Library. It would be a few years before European scholars recognized the significance of the Diamond Sutra scroll and realized how old it was. It was printed nearly 600 years before Gutenberg printed his first Bible. What the Sutra Is About. The text describes the Buddha dwelling in Anathapindika's grove with 1,250 monks. Most of the text takes the form of a dialogue between the Buddha and a disciple named Subhuti. There is a common view that the Diamond Sutra primarily is about impermanence. This is because of a short verse in the last chapter that seems to be about impermanence and which often is mistaken as an explanation of the 31 enigmatic chapters that preceded it. To say that the Diamond Sutra is only about impermanence, however, does not do it justice. The verses in the Diamond Sutra address the nature of reality and the activity of bodhisattvas. Throughout the sutra, the Buddha instructs us to not be bound by concepts, even concepts of "Buddha" and "dharma." This is a deep and subtle text, not meant to be read like a textbook or instruction manual. Although Huineng may have realized enlightenment when he first heard the sutra, other great teachers have said the text revealed itself to them slowly. The late John Daido Loori Roshi said that when he first tried to read the Diamond Sutra, "It drove me crazy. Then I started to read it the way the translator suggested it, a little at a time, not trying to understand it, just reading it. I did that for about two years. Every night before I went to bed I would read one section. It was so boring it would put me right to sleep. But after a while, it started to make sense." However, the "sense" was not intellectual or conceptual. If you want to explore the Diamond Sutra, the guidance of a teacher is recommended. You can find a number of translations of varying quality online. For a more in-depth look at the Diamond Sutra, see "The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion" by Thich Nhat Hanh; and "The Diamond Sutra" by Red Pine. Lotus Sutra. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Lotus Sutra , Sanskrit Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra , (“Lotus of the Good Law [or True Doctrine] Sutra”), one of the earlier Mahāyāna Buddhist texts venerated as the quintessence of truth by the Japanese Tendai (Chinese T’ien-t’ai) and Nichiren sects. The Lotus Sutra is regarded by many others as a religious classic of great beauty and power and one of the most important and most popular works in the Mahāyāna tradition, the form of Buddhism predominant in East Asia. In China it is called the Miao-fa lien-hua ching or Fa-hua Ching and in Japan, Myōhō renge kyō or Hokekyō . In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha has become the divine eternal Buddha, who attained perfect Enlightenment endless eons ago. His nature as the supreme object of faith and devotion is expressed partly through the language of wondrous powers ( e.g., his suddenly making visible thousands of worlds in all directions, each with its own Buddha). In keeping with this exalted Buddhology, the Hīnayāna goals of emancipation and sainthood are reduced to inferior expedients: here all beings are invited to become no less than fully enlightened Buddhas through the grace of innumerable bodhisattvas (“Buddhas-to-be”). The sutra, composed largely in verse, has a total of 28 chapters and contains many charms and mantras (sacred chants). It was first translated into Chinese in the 3rd century ad and became extremely popular in China and Japan, where common belief held that the simple act of chanting it would bring salvation. The 25th chapter, which describes the glory and special powers of the great bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokitiśvara (Chinese Kuan-yin; Japanese Kannon), has had an important separate life under the name of Kuan-yin Ching (Japanese Kannon-gyō ). Diamond Sutra. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Diamond Sutra , Sanskrit Vajraccedika-sutra (“Diamond Cutter Sutra”) , brief and very popular Mahayana Buddhist text widely used in East Asia and perhaps the best known of the 18 smaller “Wisdom” texts that together with their commentaries are known as the Prajnaparamita (“Perfection of Wisdom”). It takes the form of a dialogue in the presence of a company of monks and bodhisattvas (“Buddhas-to-be”) between the Buddha as teacher and a disciple as questioner. The Chinese translation, Jingang jing (“Diamond Sutra”), appeared about 400 ce . The Diamond Sutra expresses the Prajnaparamita emphasis upon the illusory nature of phenomena in these words: “Just as, in the vast ethereal sphere, stars and darkness, light and mirage, dew, foam, lightning, and clouds emerge, become visible, and vanish again, like the features of a dream—so everything endowed with an individual shape is to be regarded.” As with most of the shorter (and later) Prajnaparamita texts, the ideas are not argued or explained but boldly stated, often in striking paradoxes, including frequent identification of things with their opposites. Thus, the form of presentation underlines the text’s thesis that spiritual realization depends upon transcending rational categories. Partly for this reason the Diamond Sutra is considered the Sanskrit work closest in spirit to the philosophy of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. This article was most recently revised and updated by Matt Stefon, Assistant Editor. The Diamond Sutra of the Buddha by Anonymous. Since at least the fifth century, generations of Buddhists have memorized and chanted the Diamond Sutra, a short Mahayana Buddhist scripture. The work, which offers meditations on illusion and perception, was originally written in Sanskrit and first translated into Chinese in 402 A.D. Despite the text’s longevity, Stanford religious studies professor Paul Harrison’s latest research suggests that previous translations may have incorrectly interpreted certain words in a way that affects the entire meaning of the text. For the last seven years Prof. Harrison has been working on re-editing and re-translating the Diamond Sutra. Though he is a professor of religious studies his translation work falls squarely in the field of philology. Harrison is often surrounded by a large semicircle of previous translations and dictionaries that he consults as he combs through the sutra one word at a time. The Diamond Sutra is one of the most historically important texts in the Buddhist faith, in part because a copy of it is the oldest surviving dated printed book in the world (868 A.D.). Also known by its Sanskrit title Vajracchedika, the Diamond Sutra posits that something is what it is only because of what it is not. The text challenges the common belief that inside each and every one of us is an immovable core, or soul—in favor of a more fluid and relational view of existence. Negative, or seemingly paradoxical statements by the Buddha abound in the text, such as “The very Perfection of Insight which the Buddha has preached is itself perfection-less.” Professor Harrison elaborated, “I think the Diamond Sutra is undermining our perception that there are essential properties in the objects of our experience. “For example, people assume that they have “selves.” If that is the case then change would be impossible or it would be illusory.” said Harrison. “You would indeed be the same person that you were yesterday. This would be a horrifying thing. If souls or “selves” did not change, then you would be stuck in the same place and be as you were when you were, say, two [years old], which if you think about it, is ridiculous.” Questioning Meaning and Identity. Harrison’s familiarity with previous translations has not stopped him from making his own amendments to the text. His mission is to correct, in his view, a flaw that has been propagated in the many translations of the Diamond Sutra, something that he only became aware of by spending so much time with the text and struggling with the puzzle its logic presents. Most existing translations feature negative statements saying things like “a bookcase is not a bookcase, therefore it’s called a bookcase,” to use an example from our own experience. According to Harrison though, this simple negation does not pay enough attention to the original Sanskrit. As he explains, it ignores another possible interpretation of two-term compounds (words such as bookcase or lighthouse which are comprised of two distinct words) in favor of a more convenient—but possibly incorrect—reading. “The standard reading often ignores the fact that there are two terms in each compound which the text takes up, and that only the second term is negated, and it construes the negation as one of identity rather than of possession,” said Harrison, who has been teaching at Stanford’s Religious Studies department since 2007. “You’re left with a kind of negation which says AB is not AB—or not B, if the translator is being more careful—therefore it is AB.” “It seems to come out as a simple denial of identity, which to my mind doesn’t make good sense, and therefore people are left thinking that the Diamond Sutra is engaging in a mystical subversion of ordinary language. But in my view, that doesn’t make sense.” Beyond Mysticism. Harrison believes that the Vajracchedika is more than just a mysterious and opaque text; it follows the rules of sense and logic, and this is part of what he is hoping to reestablish in his translations of the text. What makes more sense to Harrison is that a bookcase has no case—a case is not essential to a bookcase’s identity—and that is precisely why a bookcase is able to be what it is. To him, the distinction between “is not,” (what nearly all past translations have opted for) and “lacks”—what his translation says—makes all the difference. In his terms, one could say that AB lacks B, therefore it is AB. Harrison thinks that this linguistic interpretation helps express the meaning of the Diamond Sutra in a more nuanced and sensible way. “There’s no ‘case’ apart from its substantiation in various forms,” Harrison further explained. “Like a suitcase or a briefcase, for example. The objects of our experiences are actually fluid and relationally constructed--when you look around here there’s no essence of cases. If you took the book part away, you wouldn’t be left with a case.” Scholars Work to Improve Buddhist Manuscript Research. Translating the Diamond Sutra is just one of Harrison’s projects and responsibilities these days. Aside from his on-campus teaching responsibilities, Harrison serves as an editor for the series Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, and as co-director of the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford. In June, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford hosted the "Indic Buddhist Manuscripts: The State of the Field" conference, which Harrison organized. Participants discussed the latest trends and technologies relating to deciphering, identifying and editing Buddhist manuscripts. Harrison attended another recent conference on Buddhist translations in Los Angeles, which brought together over 30 translators and editors of Buddhist texts from around the world. A focus of discussion was the unique challenge that scholars face when translating a language like Sanskrit into English. This type of work is a quite different from, and more difficult than doing the same with modern languages like French or German. “It’s not regarded by some people as really academic work,” Harrison said. “They think that translating a Buddhist text is something like translating a French novel into English. But this is an entirely different kind of thing, because it involves so many more mental operations.” Harrison sees himself as someone who has a chance to help improve the current state of Buddhist translations, with which he has a few bones to pick. The first is stylistic: “This is a general problem with translations of sacred Buddhist texts. A kind of dialect has developed that we call Buddhist Hybrid English. We’re so used to the style that it’s very hard for people who do Buddhist translations to break away from it.” The second deals with uncovering the meaning of texts more accurately: “The challenge is to actually reverse some of the existing misunderstandings of texts. Some of them result from simple mis-readings of the Sanskrit, but then there’s the more difficult question of the philosophical import of the text.” Changing Ideas. Harrison hopes that his work on the Diamond Sutra, which is set for publication in 2010, will avoid some of the problems often found in the translation of Buddhist texts. From the reviews he has gotten from Buddhist philosophers who have seen preliminary versions of his translation, it looks like he may be on to something. “I’m happy to say that so far they have reacted very positively to this new way of approaching the Diamond Sutra, which rescues it from negative mysticism and tries to think more about the doctrinal program that underlies the text,” Harrison said. “They tell me that this way of translating it makes more sense, so I’m encouraged by that. I’m going to continue with this way of reading it.”