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
