Kern, LS32, Blog

Comparing H. Kern’s translation of the Lotus Sutra to Senchu Murano’s

As readers of this blog will no doubt recognize, I am a big fan of Senchu Murano’s translation of the Lotus Sutra. As of July 2022, I’ve now read it aloud as part of my daily practice more than 65 times. There are differences in style and phrasing when compared with the other English translations that I’ve used in my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice – two Rissho Kosei-Kai translations, Soka Gakkai’s translation, Gene Reeves’ translation and the BDK English Tripiṭaka translation – but the substance is the same since all are based on Kumārajīva’s fifth-century Chinese translation of the original Sanskrit.

But that’s not what I find when I compare Senchu Murano’s translation to that of Jan Hendrik Kern, known simply as H. Kern, who published the first English-language translation of the Lotus Sutra in 1884. Kern’s translation is based upon a Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript written on palm leaves and dated C.E. 1039.

I’ve taken Kern’s translation and made the full text available here. As I did with Masaharu Anesaki’s Nichiren: The Buddhist Prophet, I’ve made some style changes – converting British English to American English – and made some other changes I felt helpful. For example, Kern spells words with the letter g that today would be spelled with the letter j. For example, raga for raja. He also uses Gina for Jina, a Sanskrit word that means “conqueror” or “victor,” one of the epithets of a buddha. These have been changed in the text here. I’m eventually going to substitute Murano’s names for Buddhas in place of the Sanskrit names Kern uses. Who wouldn’t prefer to read Cloud-Thunderpeal-Star-King-Flower-Wisdom rather than Jaladharagarjitaghoṣhasusvaranakṣhatrarājasaṃkusumitābhijña? In essence, I’ve made the text available here my version in order to make comparisons more accessible. For people who prefer the unaltered text, a full PDF copy of the book is available for download and also copies of individual chapters. I should also point out that I’ve somewhat abbreviated Kern’s introduction. Ellipses mark where material has been dropped. Again, the original is available for download.

The purpose here is to compare and contrast Kern’s and Murano’s translation and, more to the point, the Nepalese Sanskrit with Kumārajīva’s presentation of the Lotus Sutra. In a series of weekly blog posts I will explore some of the differences I’ve noticed. My ambition is to examine how my view of the sutra and its practice might have changed if I had relied on Kern’s English translation.

 

Kumārajīva vs. Kern Organization

 

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