བཅམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤས་རབ་ཀྱ་ཕ་རལ་ཏ་ཕྱན་པའ་སྙང་པ intro.6

intro.6

The short version of The Heart Sūtra was first compiled—most likely as an abstract of longer Prajñāpāramitā sūtras—in China sometime in the middle of the seventh century ce.⁴ Shortly thereafter, it appears that the sūtra was translated from Chinese into Sanskrit. The material used to compile the sūtra was extracted from key passages in Prajñāpāramitā scriptures in Chinese translation, especially Kumārajīva’s (344–413 ce) translation of The Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-Five Thousand Lines (Taishō 223). These central statements were then framed by an introduction describing the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara’s role as the teacher, and then a concluding mantra, which functioned to encapsulate the blessings of the Prajñāpāramitā teachings.⁵ In this way, the short version of The Heart Sūtra combines established Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā scripture with dhāraṇī practice in an abridged format that is eminently suited for recitation. Notably, at that time in China such scriptural digests summarizing the words of the Buddha (buddhavacana) were common, and The Heart Sūtra is certainly not unique in this way.⁶ What is remarkable, however, is the immense importance and popularity the short version of The Heart Sūtra came to enjoy in China and the rest of East Asia. When viewed from the perspective of its roots in Prajñāpāramitā literature and its transformative and liberating efficacy in the perception of its many devotees, The Heart Sūtra does fulfill important criteria for being a genuine Buddhist scripture. For example, the Mahāyāna sūtra Inspiring Determination (Adhyāśayasañcodana, Toh 69) defines authentic buddhavacana as any discourse⁷ that fulfils the following four criteria: (1) it must be meaningful, (2) it has to be consistent with the Dharma, (3) it should reduce mental defilements, and (4) it should present the qualities of nirvāṇa as opposed to saṃsāra.⁸ In this sense The Heart Sūtra is perhaps not so different from many other Mahāyāna scriptures, in particular those of the Prajñāpāramitā family, that likewise were transmitted across a variety of time periods, regions, cultures, and languages—constantly in flux, yet ever encapsulating the transcendent aspects of authentic buddhavacana.