THE SMALLER
PRAGŃĀ-PĀRAMITĀ-
HRIDAYA-SŪTRA.
Translated
by F. Max Muller
Modified by Antihubris.com
ADORATION
TO THE OMNISCIENT!
The
venerable Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara,
performing his study in the deep Pragńāpāramitā
(perfection of wisdom), thought thus: 'There are the five
Skandhas, and these he considered as by their nature empty
(phenomenal).'
'O Sāriputra,'
he said, 'form here is emptiness, and emptiness indeed is
form. Emptiness is not different from form, form is not
different from emptiness. What is form that is emptiness,
what is emptiness that is form.'
'The same applies to perception, name,
conception, and knowledge.'
'Here, O Sāriputra,
all things have the character of emptiness, they have no
beginning, no end, they are faultless and not faultless,
they are not imperfect and not perfect. Therefore, O
Sāriputra,
in this emptiness there is no form, no perception, no name,
no concepts, no knowledge. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body,
mind. No form, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects.'
'There is no eye,' &c., till we come
to 'there is no mind.'
{p. 154}
(What is left out here are the eighteen
Dhātus or aggregates, viz. eye, form, vision; ear, sound,
hearing; nose, odour, smelling; tongue, flavour, tasting;
body, touch, feeling; mind, objects, thought.)
'There is no knowledge, no ignorance, no
destruction of knowledge, no destruction of ignorance,'
&c., till we come to 'there is no decay and death, no
destruction of decay and death; there are not (the four
truths, viz. that there) is pain, origin of pain, stoppage
of pain, and the path to it. There is no knowledge, no
obtaining (of Nirvāna).'
'A man who has approached the
Pragńāpāramitā
of the Bodhisattva dwells enveloped in consciousness[1].
But when the envelopment of consciousness has been
annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the
reach of change, enjoying final Nirvāna.'
'All Buddhas of the past, present, and
future, after approaching the Pragńāpāramitā,
have awoke to the highest perfect knowledge.'
'Therefore one ought to know the great
verse of the Pragńāpāramitā,
the verse of the great wisdom, the unsurpassed verse, the
peerless verse, which appeases all pain--it is truth,
because it is not false-the verse proclaimed in the
Pragńāpāramitā:
"O wisdom, gone, gone, gone to the other shore. landed at
the other shore, Svāhā!"'
Thus ends the heart of the
Pragńāpāramitā.
[1. See
Childers, s.v. kittam.]