This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

H. Kern’s English translation of the 11th century Nepalese Sanskrit Lotus Sutra offers interesting variation in the telling of parables compared to English translations of Kumārajīva’s fifth century Chinese Lotus Sutra.  The first example of this comes in Chapter 4 in what Kern describes as a parable “exemplifying the skill of the wise father in leading a child that has gone astray and lost all self-respect back to a feeling of his innate nobility and to happiness.”

Let’s begin with Senchu Murano’s version. After introducing the father and the missing son and their current situations, we are told the son becomes frightened and runs away after the father dispatches a messenger to bring him to the father:

“The messenger pulled him by force. The poor son thought, ‘I am caught though I am not guilty. I shall be killed.’ More and more frightened, the poor son fainted and fell to the ground. Seeing all this in the distance, the father said to the messenger, ‘I do not want him any more. Do not bring him forcibly! Pour cold water on his face and bring him to himself! Do not talk with him any more!’

“The father said this because he had realized that his son was too base and mean to meet a noble man [like his father]. He knew that the man was his son, but expediently refrained from telling to others that that was his son. [The messenger poured water on the son. The son was brought to himself.] The messenger said to him, ‘Now you are released. You can go anywhere you like.’

“The poor son had the greatest joy that he had ever had. He stood up and went to a village of the poor to get food and clothing.

Compare that with Kern’s telling:

At the same time, moment, and instant, Lord, he dispatches couriers, to whom he says: Go, sirs, and quickly fetch me that man. The fellows thereon all run forth in full speed and overtake the poor man, who, frightened, terrified, alarmed, seized with a feeling of horripilation all over his body, agitated in mind, utters a lamentable cry of distress, screams, and exclaims: I have given you no offence. But the fellows drag the poor man, however lamenting, violently with them. He, frightened, terrified, alarmed, seized with a feeling of horripilation all over his body, and agitated in mind, thinks by himself: I fear lest I shall be punished with capital punishment; I am lost. He faints away, and falls on the earth. His father dismayed and near despondency says to those fellows: Do not carry the man in that manner. With these words he sprinkles him with cold water without addressing him any further. For that householder knows the poor man’s humble disposition and his own elevated position; yet he feels that the man is his son.

The householder, Lord, skillfully conceals from everyone that it is his son. He calls one of his servants and says to him: Go, sirrah, and tell that poor man: Go, sirrah, whither thou likest; thou art free. The servant obeys, approaches the poor man and tells him: Go, sirrah, whither thou likest; thou art free. The poor man is astonished and amazed at hearing these words; he leaves that spot and wanders to the street of the poor in search of food and clothing.

Kern’s version offers a much clearer explanation of why the son was frightened. And the detail that the father sprinkled his son with cold water after he fainted without addressing him any further enhances our understanding of the depth of the father’s feelings for his son. This detail is dropped from the gāthās.

The details of the expedient used by the father to attract his son are significantly different.

Murano offers:

Thereupon the rich man thought of an expedient to persuade his son to come to him. He [wished to] dispatch messengers in secret. He said to two men looking worn-out, powerless and virtueless, ‘Go and gently tell the poor man that he will be employed here for a double day’s pay. If he agrees with you, bring him here and have him work. If he asks you what work he should do, tell him that he should clear dirt and that you two also will work with him.’

“The two messengers looked for the poor son. Having found him, they told him what they had been ordered to tell. The poor son [came back with them,] drew his pay in advance, and cleared dirt with them.

Kern expands this, offering:

In order to attract him the householder practices an able device. He employs for it two men ill-favored and of little splendor. Go, says he, go to the man you saw in this place; hire him in your own name for a double daily fee, and order him to do work here in my house. And if he asks: What work shall I have to do? tell him: Help us in clearing the heap of dirt. The two fellows go and seek the poor man and engage him for such work as mentioned. Thereupon the two fellows conjointly with the poor man clear the heap of dirt in the house for the daily pay they receive from the rich man, while they take up their abode in a hovel of straw in the neighborhood of the rich man’s dwelling.

Again, this detail is dropped from the gāthās.

At this point, it is Murano who adds details to clarify the timeline.

Kern says:

And that rich man beholds through a window his own son clearing the heap of dirt, at which sight he is anew struck with wonder and astonishment.

While Murano adds:

Seeing him, the father had compassion towards him, and wondered [why he was so base and mean]. Some days later he saw his son in the distance from the window. The son was weak, thin, worn-out, and defiled with dirt and dust.

As for the father taking up a disguise in order to chat with his son, and the son advancing until he takes over the household and the final revelation of the son’s inheritance, the differences in the two versions are more a product of Kern’s 19th century English vocabulary than the substance of the story.

In the gāthās Kern offers some curious added details. The boy is said to have run away because he was “seduced by foolish people.” And in describing the work the son will do, the rich man points out that the dirt is “replete with feces and urine.” But on a whole, the story in gāthās is even closer between versions than the prose.

Next: Disposition to Understanding by Faith

This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

Many of the variations between H. Kern’s translation of the 11th century Nepalese Sanskrit document and Kumārajīva’s fifth century translation fall into a category I call, “Now that’s interesting, but what does it mean?”

Consider the Parable of the Burning House. In the gāthās re-telling, Kern states:

62. In such a state is that awful house, where thousands of flames are breaking out on every side. But the man who is the master of the house looks on from without.

63. And he hears his own children, whose minds are engaged in playing with their toys, in their fondness of which they amuse themselves, as fools do in their ignorance.

64. And as he hears them he quickly steps in to save his children, lest his ignorant children might perish in the flames.

But Senchu Murano’s translation of Kumārajīva offers this:

The house was so dreadful.
[In that house] there were
Poisonings, killings and burnings.
There were many dangers, not just one.

At that time the house-owner
Was standing outside the gate.
He heard a man say to him:
“Some time ago
Your children entered this house to play.
They are young and ignorant.
They are engrossed in playing.”
Hearing this,
The rich man was frightened.
He rushed into the burning house.

All of the English translations of Kumārajīva include this point, but what is added to the meaning of the story to have someone telling the father his children are inside versus the father hearing his children inside?

Further down in the gāthās, Kern says:

105. This, Śāriputra, is the closing word of my law which now at the last time I pronounce for the weal of the world including the gods. Preach it in all quarters.

But Murano adds a caution:

Śāriputra!
I expound this seal of the Dharma
In order to benefit
[All living beings] of the world.
Do not propagate it carelessly
At the place where you are!

Again, the “do not propagate it carelessly” is unique to Kumārajīva, but why has it been added? Does Kumārajīva want to presage the later warnings about teaching to those who won’t benefit? Both Kern and Kumārajīva caution future preachers.

Kern:

111. But do not speak of this matter to haughty persons, nor to conceited ones, nor to Yogins who are not self-restrained; for the fools, always reveling in sensual pleasures, might in their blindness scorn the law manifested.

112. Now hear the dire results when one scorns my skillfulness and the Buddha-rules for ever fixed in the world; when one, with sullen brow, scorns the vehicle.

Murano:

Śāriputra
Do not expound this sūtra
To those who are arrogant and idle,
And who think that the self exists!

Do not expound it to men of little wisdom!
They would not be able to understand it
Even if they heard it
Because they are deeply attached to the five desires.

Those who do not believe this sūtra
But slander it,
Will destroy the seeds of Buddhahood
Of all living beings of the world.

Some will scowl at this sūtra
And doubt it.
Listen! I will tell you
How they will be punished.

I expect to have many more of these “Now that’s interesting, but what does it mean?” discussions.

Next: Comparing and Contrasting a Parable

This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

Before I leave the topic of 10 suchnesses and their absence in H. Kern’s 1884 translation, I want to digress for a moment to discuss the difference between the English translation of the Lotus Sutra published by Leon Hurvitz and other English language translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese Lotus Sutra. Hurvitz translated both Kumārajīva’s Chinese and the Sanskrit, at times merging the two.

Hurvitz’s Sanskrit document was not the same as the Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript written on palm leaves and dated C.E. 1039 that Kern used. Instead, Hurvitz incorporated a later Sanskrit document compiled by Kern and Bunyiu Nanijio.

Unless otherwise noted, the Skt. Quotations are from H. Kern and Bunyiu Nanjio, eds., Saddharmapuṇḍarika, Bibliotheca Buddhica, vol. 10 (St. Petersburg: Académie Impériale des Sciences, 1912), and the translations are made from the same text.

First published in 1908, Kern and Bunyiu Nanijio combined multiple manuscripts in order to create one Sanskrit Lotus Sutra. From the book’s  “Preliminary Notice”:

The text of the for Saddharmapuṇḍarika, is now published for the first time, based upon the following MSS.:
A.: MS. of the Royal Asiatic Society, London.
B.: MS. of the British Museum, London.
Ca.: Add. MS. 1682 of University Library, Cambridge.
Cb.: Add. MS. 1683 of University Library, Cambridge.
K.: MS. in the possession of Mr. Ekai Kawaguchi, acquired in Nepal.
W.: MS. in the possession of Mr. Watters, formerly British Consul in Formosa.
O.: Indicates readings found in sundry fragments of MSS., all from Kashgar, now in possession of Mr. N.F. Petrovskij, and deposed by him in the Asiatic Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. The fragments, though belonging to different MSS., show all of them the same peculiarities and evidently belong to the same family of texts.
P.: The lithographic text in Nāgarī published by Ph. Ed. Foucaux in his work Parobole de l’Enfant égaré (Paris, 1854).

A more detailed account will be given in the Preface after the completion of the whole work.
The Editors

The text includes extensive footnotes pointing out which manuscripts contain or don’t contain material. Here is a screenshot from the end of the prose section of Chapter 2 and beginning of the gāthās:

Note 3, which appears where the 10 suchnesses would be found, says this part is only found in three of the manuscripts used in this compilation.

There is a significant difference between Kern’s translation of Chapter 2 and the translation of the same portion by Hurvitz.

Kern concludes the initial prose section of Chapter 2 with:

Enough, Śāriputra, let it suffice to say, that the Tathāgatas, &c., have something extremely wonderful, Śāriputra. None but a Tathāgata, Śāriputra, can impart to a Tathāgata those laws which the Tathāgata knows. And all laws, Śāriputra, are taught by the Tathāgata, and by him alone; no one but he knows all laws, what they are, how they are, like what they are, of what characteristics and of what nature they are.

As pointed out last week, this is a far cry from Kumārajīva’s 10 suchnesses:

No more, Śāriputra, will I say because the Dharma attained by the Buddhas is the highest Truth, rare [to hear] and difficult to understand. Only the Buddhas attained [the highest Truth, that is,] the reality of all things’ in regard to their appearances as such, their natures as such, their entities as such, their powers as such, their activities as such, their primary causes as such, their environmental causes as such, their effects as such, their rewards and retributions as such, and their equality as such [despite these differences].

When Hurvitz translated the Sanskrit version of the Lotus Sutra compiled by Kern and Nanijio, he found something closer Kumārajīva:

Enough, Śāriputra! Let this statement, at least, stand: the Thus Gone Ones, the Worthy Ones, the Properly and Fully Enlightened Ones, have arrived at the supremely wonderful, Śāriputra. Therefore let it be the Thus Gone One, Śāriputra, who shall teach the dharma of the Thus Gone One, what dharmas the Thus Gone One knows. All the dharmas, every one of them, Śāriputra, does the Thus Gone One himself teach. All the dharmas, every one of them, Śāriputra, does the Thus Gone One himself know. Which the dharmas are, how the dharmas are, what the dharmas are like, of what appearance the dharmas are, and of what essence the dharmas are: which and how and like what and of what appearance and of what essence the dharmas are, indeed it is the Thus Gone One who is the manifest eyewitness of these dharmas.

In this case, Hurvitz put this translation of the Sanskrit in his notes at the back. However, in other places he incorporates the unique content of the Sanskrit to create a translation of the Lotus Sutra that blends Kumārajīva’s Chinese with elements of the Sanskrit.

For example, in Murano’s translation of Kumārajīva, Chapter 3 concludes:

[Expound it to those]
Who receive [this sūtra]
And put it on their heads,
And who do not seek
Any other sūtra
Or think of the books of heresy!

(The Buddha said to Śāriputra:)
Those who seek the enlightenment of the Buddha
Are as various as previously stated.
A kalpa will not be long enough
To describe the variety of them.
They will be able to understand [this sūtra] by faith.
Expound to them
The Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma!

Kern contains additional material:

146. And he who keeps (in memory) the great Sūtras, while he never shows any liking for other books, nor even knows a single stanza from another work; to all of them thou mayst expound this sublime Sūtra.

147. He who seeks such an excellent Sūtra as this, and after obtaining it devoutly worships it, is like the man who wears a relic of the Tathāgata he has eagerly sought for.

148. Never mind other Sūtras nor other books in which a profane philosophy is taught; such books are fit for the foolish; avoid them and preach this Sūtra.

149. During a full Æon, Śāriputra, I could speak of thousands of koṭis of (connected) points, (but this suffices); thou mayst reveal this Sūtra to all who are striving after the highest supreme enlightenment.

In Hurvitz’s translation, we get a blended conclusion:

If there is a bhikṣu
Who for the sake of all-knowledge
Seeks the dharma in all four directions,
With joined palms receiving it on the crown of his head,
Desiring merely to receive and keep
The scriptures of the great vehicle,
Not accepting so much
As a single gāthā from the other scriptures,
For men like him,
And only for them, may you preach.
As a man wholeheartedly
Seeks the buddhaśarīra,
So may one seek the scriptures
And, having found them, receive them on the crown of one’s head,
Such a person shall never again
Wish to seek other scriptures,
Nor has he ever before thought
Of the books of the unbelievers.
For men like him,
And only for them, may you preach.
I say to you, Śāriputra,
That I, in telling of this sort
Of seekers of the buddha path,
Could spend a whole kalpa and still not finish.
If they are men of this sort,
Then they can believe and understand,
And for their sakes you may
Preach the Scripture of the Fine Dharma Flower.

Something to consider when Hurvitz’s translation is used in comparing English translations of the Lotus Sutra.

One last point: The order of chapters is different between Kern’s original English translation and the later compilation that Hurwitz’s used in his translation.

Notes

1

Both Chapter 7 and Chapter 25 have the same title in Kern’s translation. return

2

In the Preface to the Revised Edition of Hurvitz’s Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, a comparison of chapter titles between Kumārajīva and the Kern and Bunyiu Nanijio compilation lists the final chapter numbers as 21. Magic formulas, 25. The former connection of Śubhavyūharāja, and 26. The encouragements of Samantabhadra. return

Next: The Problem with Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas