The Heart Sutra

The Heart Sutra, along with  The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom  (also available translated by Red Pine), are arguably the two most popular works of the Prajnaparamita group of Sutras. Indeed they are among the most popular Sutras within the Mahayana cannon as a whole.Red Pine (an award winning translator) always seems to take great care and give a good deal of thought to all his translations. I certainly value all the works of his that I own. I don't think that any translation of a text can be considered definitive but I think this one may come as close as any translation can.Not only do I like the translation of the core text but I find the introduction and commentaries extremely helpful/interesting too. The commentary draws on the work of a number of buddhist commentators on the Sutra. Among the commentators quoted are Chen-k'o (1543-1603) who is considered one of the four great monks of the Ming Dynasty. Speaking of the Heart Sutra He said:"This Sutra is the principal thread that runs through the entire Tripitaka (the Buddhist Cannon). Although a person's body includes many organs and bones, the heart is the most important"Another quoted commentator is Fa-tsang (643-712). Perhaps best Known as the principal patriarch of the Hua-yen (Avatamsaka) school of Chinese Buddhism, Fa-tsang's commentary, composed in 702, became so popular that is was, itself, the object of commentaries. speaking of the Heart Sutra he said:"The Heart Sutra is a great torch that lights the darkest road, a swift boat that ferries us across the sea of suffering."An excellent work. Thank you Red Pine.

At present, I am probably the most active scholar in the world with respect to this text. See recent issues of the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (see also Huifeng's article in the same journal). A few more of my articles will appear in 2017 and 2018. So when I comment on it, I am commenting as someone who has forensically examined the text in Sanskrit and Chinese and had my views published in a quality peer-reviewed journal (associated with Oxford University).One of the crucial facts about this and other purported translations from Sanskrit, is that Conze made a number of simple grammatical errors (See e.g. JOCBS 2015) which rendered the text unreadable and untranslatable. For example, a word is in the wrong case in the first sentence of Conze's edition which destroys the meaning of the sentence as a whole. And yet translators like Pine did not notice such simple errors and produced translations of sentences that they could possibly have understood without first fixing the Sanskrit text. Pine is not the first to commit such intellectual fraud, and probably will not be the last, but he should be publicly censured for it.Red Pine completely misunderstands Jan Nattier's argument that the text was composed in Chinese and makes up his own story about the history of it, based on a non-existent recension in a different Sanskrit idiom that he has invented for this purpose. The irony is that on p.137 when he cannot understand the text (due to another error on Conze's part - a full stop in the wrong place) Pine ignores Sanskrit grammar and translates the Chinese text (T251) instead. Clearly in practice he takes the Chinese text as authoritative, no matter what he says about the Sanskrit text.His first Sanskrit blunder comes on the first page of the translation (p.29) where Pine tells us that prajñā is cognate with prognosis and thus means 'foreknowledge'. It does not. It is cognate, but here pra is acting as an intensive (based on the metaphor of forward motion). Prajñā, as any dictionary could have told him, means "understanding, knowledge" and in a Buddhist context "insight into the nature of experience". On p.31 the etymology of paramitā suggests that param is an accusative with a past participle in ita, but this is based on a folk etymology which sees the meaning as 'gone beyond' (Edward Conze has a lot to answer for). The word is an abstract noun meaning 'perfection' and thus the tā is the usual abstract noun suffix with parami, from parama 'the higest, the furthest'.One of the more egregious errors comes on p.94 where he seems to have failed to even consult a Sanskrit dictionary (one suspects he's really working from the Chinese here). Pine fails to correctly parse "anūnā aparipūrṇā", i.e. an-ūna 'not deficient' (where ūna means 'deficient) and a-paripūrṇa 'not fulfilled'. Pine seems to think there is a word "nuna", but as any Sanskrit dictionary could have told him, there is not. What is worse he seems confused about which word has which meaning, he cites "not complete (nuna)... not deficient (paripurna)" - and it comes as no surprise to learn that the words are this way round in the Chinese text. .Errors in Pine's understanding of Sanskrit appear on almost every page. Evidence that he is, in fact, relying on the Chinese text on every other page. The reader is being cheated.Red Pine is folksie writer who is clearly popular. However he is strongly biased towards a Japanese Zen reading of the text which is anachronistic at best. He is also prone to stating that he has made something up and then treating it as a fact (i.e. he is a fantasist). His grasp of Sanskrit morphology and etymology is weak. He has a tendency to prefer Buddhist mythology over philology where there is a conflict; and to prioritise the Chinese text over the Sanskrit when the Sanskrit is confused (as it often is because of mistakes introduced by Conze and the original translator).Ultimately this is a facile book about modern Japanese Zen, it is *not* a serious book about the Heart Sutra. The trouble is that almost every other book is as bad if not worse.

Red pines works are truly my favorite, his translations make it so easy for the western person to understand, very deep, and a book I will go back and read many times, the book is not a intellectual pursuit, for me it is a support as I travel my chosen path of Taoism.

I had decided that I was Buddhist about 18 months ago, I began learning Chinese about 8 months ago, and I decided that I would like to translate the Heart Sutra from the original Chinese characters into English to see whether I could gain a better understanding of the Sutra. I was about 80% successful, but some of the characters seemed to have changed their meaning since they were first used.This book is full of erudite learning and offers a translation based on both Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the Heart Sutra.For anyone who wants to understand some of the background to the sutra and the reason why certain phrases were chosen in its constitution, this book is a must.

Over the last two years I must have read this book four or five times, not because it's exciting or a gripping read, no, but because it is the heart, the root of all Buddhism. Inside these covers are pearls, jewels of reality as we understand it. If Buddhists the world over truly understood the Heart sutra then Buddhism would vanish in one or two generations. Read this book...and other translations too. This is the heart of the Way.

Came in high quality and written very well.

Line by line commentary on the sutra, and good to have the original Chinese. Excellent service from Books etc

This was a fairly rigorous exploration and translation which displayed an intensive and academically well researched exploration of the Sutra. I also purchased the Dalai Lama's book on the Heart Sutra and found that they complimented each other well. Red Pine's version is more direct and comprehensive but the Dalai Lama's account seemed to engage the heart more than the head - both approaches seemed relevant.