བཅམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤས་རབ་ཀྱ་ཕ་རལ་ཏ་ཕྱན་པའ་སྙང་པ intro.4
The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother intro.4
- Language
- English
intro.4
In English we speak of The Heart Sūtra in the singular, but this obscures the fact that—more than most Buddhist canonical scriptures—this short teaching exists in a variety of versions, recensions, and redactions in multiple canonical languages. Most importantly, The Heart Sūtra exists in both a short and a long version (although the long version is also very brief) in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. In East Asia the shorter version, which is also the older one in terms of textual history, became the most popular, while in Tibet the longer version was favored.