This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.
As with last week’s chapter, there is no substantive difference between Senchu Murano’s English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chapter 20, Never-Despising Bodhisattva, and H. Kern’s English translation of Chapter 19, Sadāparibhūta from an 11th century Nepalese Sanskrit document
For example, Murano has:
When he was about to pass away, he heard [from a voice] in the sky the twenty thousand billion gāthās of the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, which had been expounded by the Powerful-Voice-King Buddha. Having kept all these gāthās, he was able to have his eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind purified as previously stated. Having his six sense-organs purified, he was able to prolong his life for two hundred billion nayuta more years.
Kern has:
Under those circumstances, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sadāparibhūta happened to hear this Dharmaparyāya of the Lotus of the True Law when the end of his life was impending, and the moment of dying drawing near. It was the Lord Bhīṣhmagargitasvararāja, the Tathāgata, &c., who expounded this Dharmaparyāya in twenty times twenty hundred thousand myriads of koṭis of stanzas, which the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sadāparibhūta heard from a voice in the sky, when the time of his death was near at hand. On hearing that voice from the sky, without there appearing a person speaking, he grasped this Dharmaparyāya and obtained the perfections already mentioned: the perfection of sight, hearing, smell, taste, body, and mind. With the attainment of these perfections he at the same time made a vow to prolong his life for twenty hundred thousand myriads of koṭis of years, and promulgated this Dharmaparyāya of the Lotus of the True Law.
Vowing to attain a long life after purification and receiving it as a consequence of his purification is an interesting point to consider.
What’s of more interest to me is a difference between the prose section of the chapter and the gāthās that is in both Kumārajīva’s Chinese text and Kern’s Sanskrit.
Murano offers this about those who abused Never-Despising Bodhisattva:
“Great-Power-Obtainer! The four kinds of devotees: the bhikṣus, bhikṣunīs, upāsakās, and upāsikās at that time failed to meet the Buddha, hear the Dharma, and see the Saṃgha for twenty thousand million kalpas because they abused me with anger. They suffered much in the Avici Hell for one thousand kalpas. Having expiated their sin in this way, they met [me, who was] Never-Despising Bodhisattva again, and were led into the Way to Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.
In Kern’s telling:
As to the hundreds of monks, nuns, male and female lay devotees, Mahāsthāmaprāpta, to whom under that Lord the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Sadāparibhūta promulgated this Dharmaparyāya by saying: I do not contemn you; you all observe the course of duty of Bodhisattvas; you are to become Tathāgatas, &c., and in whom awoke a feeling of malignity towards that Bodhisattva, they in twenty hundred thousand myriads of koṭis of Æons never saw a Tathāgata, nor heard the call of the law, nor the call of the assembly, and for ten thousand Æons they suffered terrible pain in the great hell Avīci. Thereafter released from the ban, they by the instrumentality of that Bodhisattva Mahāsattva were all brought to full ripeness for supreme, perfect enlightenment.
This distinction of “expiating” sins as opposed to the vague “release from a ban” is present in the other English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese. The Modern Risshō Kōsei-kai translation has “When their recompense was complete…”, and Burton Watson has “After they finished paying for their offenses…”.
More important, however, is a switch in the focus of this expiation in the gāthās.
In telling the story of how Never-Despising Bodhisattva earned his name in the gāthās, Murano has:
Never-Despising Bodhisattva
Went to them,
And said,
“I do not despise you
Because you will practice the Way
And become Buddhas.”When they heard this,
They spoke ill of him and abused him.
But Never-Despising Bodhisattva
Endured all this.Thus he expiated his sin.
When he was about to pass away,
He heard this sūtra,
And had his six sense-organs purified.
This is absent entirely from Kern:
3. Other monks and nuns who did not believe but in what they saw, he would approach (and say): I never am to contemn you, for you observe the course leading to supreme enlightenment.
4. It was his wont always to utter those words, which brought him but abuse and taunts from their part. At the time when his death was impending he heard this Sūtra.
This “expiation” of Never-Despising’s sins is consistent among the translations of Kumārajīva.
The BDK English Tripiṭaka translation has:
As he neared the time of his death,
When he had expiated his past errors,
He was able to hear this sutra,
And his six sense faculties became pure.
Gene Reeves offers:
When he had been cleansed of his sins
And his life was coming to an end,
He heard this sutra
And his six faculties were purified.
Interestingly, Murano explicitly rejects this interpretation of the gāthās in a footnote following the line “Thus he expiated his sin.”
The expiation of sin is referred to in connection with those who abused the Bodhisattva, not with the Bodhisattva, on p. 294.
One assumes Murano blames Kumārajīva for this misinterpretation. Nichiren disagreed. See Expiating His Past Errors