https://terebess.hu/zen/szoto/Heart-Sutra-Jan-Nattier.pdf
To further incorporate into our explanation the exact correlation in wording between the Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Heart Sutra, we would have to concoct a hypothesis that goes something like this: Sometime after the completion of Kumarajiva's translation of the Large Sutra into Chinese, the Heart Sutra was translated into Chinese by Hsiian-tsang.
At this point a Chinese editor noticed a certain similarity between the core of the Heart Sutra and a passage in the Large Sutra. In order to make the two texts match, he altered one of the two (either the Chinese Large Sutra of Kumarajiva or the Heart Sutra attributed to Hsiian-tsang) to bring it into conformity with the other. No similar emendation was made, however, in the text of the earlier translations of the Large Sutra. Such a hypothesis is, however, intolerably convoluted... I would suggest, therefore, that we discard this assumption and begin again at the beginning, taking the earliest texts as our starting point.
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So far, then, we have succeeded in establishing the sequence
Sanskrit Large Sutra -> Chinese Large Sutra -> Chinese Heart Sutra,
with no step of this process offering any difficulty. But how are we to fit the Sanskrit Heart Sutra into this scheme? The answer is as compelling as it is startling: the Sanskrit Heart Sutra is a translation from the Chinese.
Such a seemingly heretical assertion requires strong supporting evidence. Such evidence, however, is readily available. We may approach the problem from two angles: first, the evidence for this direction of transmission found within the texts themselves; and second, the historical possibility (and plausibility) of such a transaction.
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(Welcome link) (ewkwho?) note: I don't know if anyone cares, or if this contributes to any conversation we've had here, or whatever.
Submitted June 07, 2020 at 09:56PM by ewk https://ift.tt/3f3ENjL
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