15

Roles of Ancient Chinese Translators

KUMARAJIVA WAS a monk of the fourth to fifth century from the eastern Turkistan region of Central Asia. His father, an Indian Buddhist monk, married a younger sister of the king of Kucha while he was visiting the kingdom.¹ His mother, who later became a nun, took Kumarajiva, who had been ordained at age seven, to Kashmir to study Theravada Buddhism, then to Kashgar to study Mahayana Buddhism. His reputation as a great Sanskritist and invincible debater reached northern China, even to the point of becoming a cause for war. Hejian of the small kingdom of Zou dispatched his general Lu Guang, crossing the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, to attack Kucha and capture Kumarajiva, who was thirty-two years old. Lu Guang took him to China, but the kingdom of Zou had been destroyed and the kingdom of Liang had meanwhile been established. Kumarajiva mastered Chinese while he was held there for fifteen years.

In 413, at age fifty-eight, Kumarajiva was invited to become national teacher by Yaoxing, who had established the kingdom of Later Zou, and was entrusted with the translation academy at the Xiaoyao Garden of the Ximing Villa in Chang’an. Kumarajiva gave lectures to hundreds of students and conducted the translation of Sanskrit scriptures into Chinese with a small number of assistants. During the last twelve years of his life, he was a prolific scholar, producing 73 texts in 383 fascicles. His style was so fluent and magnificent that it has captivated the widest number of readers in the ideographic world ever since; he also established a great number of Buddhist technical terms, most of which are still used. Kumarajiva educated three thousand students including eighty masters, and his translations provided the basis for the creation of the Chengshi (Satyasiddhi) and Sanlun (Three Treatises) schools.²

On the other hand, Xuanzang of the seventh century was from Luoyang, the capital of the declining Sui Dynasty, central China. These two great translators lived roughly two and a half centuries apart.

Both translators shaped the dharma and civilization of their times and ever after. Kumarajiva worked intuitively, being sensitive to his native-speaker students’ responses. His adaptational and mesmerizing renditions were an invaluable contribution to the popularization of Buddhism and its scriptures. Xuanzang delegated specific tasks to his assistants to crosscheck the translated texts against their originals. The accuracy of his translations helped to greatly elevate the academic and philosophical standard of Buddhist studies. These two master translators’ distinct ways of working remind us that a great translation is not merely a matter of interpretation and expression, but also requires an outstanding procedural system to carry out the task.

If we compare the texts that preceded the Heart Sutra (the Sanskrit 25,000-line Prajna Paramita and the Kumarajiva translation of it) with the earliest Heart Sutra texts (the α version, the Hridaya, and the Xuanzang version), we can see the steps of continual simplification. The Xuanzang version is the final point of this line of textual condensation.³

The contrast in the receptions in later times of the two Chinese versions of the Heart Sutra translations is remarkable. All commentaries on the sutra were made regarding the Xuanzang version. We see no record of any studies made on the α version, nor do we find any records of this version being recited before the emergence of the Xuanzang version. (Centuries later, the α version was included in the Chinese Buddhist canon, with Kumarajiva listed as the translator. This is how it survived and how we come to have access to it today.)

If we compare the α version and Xuanzang’s Chinese version with the corresponding section of the Maha Prajna Paramita Sutra translated by Kumarajiva, we notice a distinct and overwhelming influence of the Kumarajiva text on the other two versions. Although the α version of the Heart Sutra can no longer be regarded as Kumarajiva’s translation, his influence on these two versions is evident.

In the texts offered for comparison in appendix 1 and their analyses in Part Six, I divide each of the various versions of the Heart Sutra into forty-four segments. According to this division, twelve out of sixteen segments of the core section of Xuanzang’s Chinese sutra are identical to the corresponding part of Kumarajiva’s Maha Prajna Paramita Sutra.⁴

Recall the early biographical account stating that Xuanzang first received the sutra from a sick monk in Shu. Since Huili’s record does not indicate that what Xuanzang received was in Sanskrit, we may assume that he received it in Chinese. Indeed, it was likely the α version, since the translation Xuanzang made after his return from India is quite similar to this version, and there was no other known version of the shorter text of the sutra at that time. Xuanzang must have related intimately to the Heart Sutra he had been given, having chanted it countless times. According to the biography by Huili, Xuanzang expounded the dharma of the sutra on his way to India.

We do not know whether Xuanzang was aware at the time that the version he had received from the sick monk was the text attributed to Kumarajiva. However, when Xuanzang translated the Hridaya into Chinese, there is no doubt that he referred to the α version, which he might have believed to be the Kumarajiva translation. It is likely that he and his translation team also referred to the Maha Prajna Paramita Sutra in the Kumarajiva translation. Otherwise there is no explanation for the word-for-word adaptation of the passage “Shunyata does not differ from form, form does not differ from shunyata,” which existed only in the Maha Prajna Paramita Sutra before Xuanzang.⁵

The changes Xuanzang made to the α version are indeed small. He retitled it, called Avalokiteshvara by a new Chinese name, substituted a few words, and left out some lines.⁶ The α version already had a beautiful rhythm suitable for chanting. Xuanzang strengthened the style by adding an ideograph here and there.

Let us compare some of the forty-four segments in the Xuanzang versions with those of the α version: Twenty-three of them are identical.⁷ In four other segments, the commonly shared words are represented by different ideographs.⁸ In four other segments, the word paramita is transliterated differently.⁹ From the α version, Xuanzang eliminated fifty-one characters and added eight.¹⁰ Xuanzang’s artistry lay in the fact that he changed the earlier version as little as possible, making the text clearer and more concise.

Significantly, the first known Chinese title of this sutra was not Bore boluomida xin jing (Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra), but Mohe bore boluomi da mingzhong jing (Maha Prajna Paramita Great Dharani Sutra.)¹¹ Clearly, this short text was primarily used for magical incantation. Xuanzang translated the word hridaya in the title as “heart” rather than using the word “dharani” (magical spell), so that he left it open for interpretation, to be understood as either “essential point” or “dharani.”¹² His poetic ambiguity has likely contributed to the later popularity of the sutra.

In the modern sense, Xuanzang’s contribution to the Chinese text of the Heart Sutra may be regarded as a moderate revision of the earlier Chinese text, a form not deserving to be categorized as a “translation.” However, the broad adaptation of terms that are found in Xuanzang’s text is not an isolated case. If we compare the longer text of the Heart Sutra in the eighth-century translation by Prajna, Liyan, and others (Taisho, no. 253) with Xuanzang’s Chinese text, there are notable overlaps: out of forty-two segments in the corresponding parts, thirty-four segments are identical and three contain the same words with different ideographs.¹³ Today, this kind of adaptation would be seen as theft or plagiarism.

How do we explain such consistent similarity among these Chinese texts? Here is my suggestion: When we look at works by Xuanzang as well as those by later translators, it seems that the translators’ intentions were not to create a unique or new text, but to maintain the expressions of earlier texts — to ensure that they be both faithful to the original and workable as texts. The translators introduced new renditions only of those passages that they felt were in need of change. They operated with the Buddhist principle of selflessness rather than self-expression. What they aimed for was not to express their individuality but rather to revere and authenticate the work of their predecessors in order to secure the continuous heritage of passing down sacred texts. This made translation a very sacred act.

The practice of making minimal changes to an earlier version of a text may also have had to do with the fact that people often chanted sutras together, in addition to reading them individually. Important passages were embedded in their consciousness, and it would not have been easy — or even appropriate — to make any all-encompassing changes.

We can find an important insight in a term used to describe translations: In the early Chinese catalogs of scriptures, second or third translations were listed as chongyi. Yi means “translation,” and chong means “added,” “repeated,” or “overlapped.” Thus, the later works were regarded as “overlapped” translations, rather than “new” translations.

Although he worked with a larger team than any translator of Buddhist texts before his time, Xuanzang made minimal changes to the Heart Sutra, one of the smallest texts. By doing so, he gave us a gift that still inspires us thirteen hundred years later.