Heart Sutra Reconsidered

Rameshchandra Mukhopadhyaya


We propose hereby to read the Heart Sutra from fresh standpoint. Let us at the outset explain why we are drawn to a study of the Heart Sutra. To answer that, we shall refer to Edward Conze who avows that the judgement of thirty generations of Buddhists in China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia have singled out the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra as the holiest of holy; both perhaps of the fourth century of our era , as Conze observes. In view of the fact that the Heart Sutra which has been deemed as one of the holiest of holy for thirty generations by Buddhists of different nations , we had better read it once again to see what wealth the Sutra brings to us. Why say that the Heart Sutra could be read from fresh standpoint? Well, there are commentaries of the same by such masterminds like Asanga, Vasuvandhu and Kamalasila and no less a scholar than Edward Conze have composed commentary of high watermark of the same sutra. Still, just as anyone must find out or make his own road to enlightenment, similarly everyone must read a text in his own way to find the Tao or the road. A text cannot have one and only one meaning. Or else why should there be so many interpretations of the text? The very text of the Heart Sutra avows that form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form. On one level at least every form has emptiness in it. Emptiness speaks of something which is beyond the ken of perceptions trammelled by time and space. And surely interpretations through words which are bound by time and space cannot exhaust the meaning of a text, albeit no interpretation of a text could be wide off the mark of the meaning of a text. Since words cannot exhaust the meaning of emptiness, emptiness could have meaning on numerous levels. Modern linguistics and philosophy of language point out that language cannot have one definite meaning. Any text whatever is, capable of meaning on more than one level. This is very much true of a text which is being read through the generations and is a classic. Every generation has its own unique point of view and aspirations. The text which satisfies the different aspirations of different generations must be capable of meaning on different levels. Where is the text? There could be no text without its reader apprehending some meaning. And surely there are as many texts embedded as there are readers. Because every reader decodes the text from his own standpoint. Hence the proposal to read the Heart Sutra afresh. And we propose to read the Heart Sutra on more than one level. And to that end we invoke the skill of close reading and explicatio de texte. Beardsley recommends that explicatio be used as a name for the critic’s effort to disclose implicit meanings at the lexical level of a poem such as the connotations of a word, the implications of a complex or ambiguous syntax, or possible meaning of a metaphor or other tropes (Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetics, pg 395, Princeton University Press, Princeton). Close reading method is very akin to explication. It focuses on the text itself and does not give importance to any extra- textual context. The title of the Sutra is known as the Heart Sutra. Does the Sutra reach us to the heart of the things or to the heart of the scriptures? Or did the Sutra itself spring from the heart? Or else the Sutra though explicit in the text is implicit in every heart? The Sutra opens with the invocation:
Om namo bhagavatya
Aarya- prajnaa paramitayai Prajna means wisdom. Prajnaparamita means perfection of wisdom or else it might mean wisdom and its beyond. Since gender in Sanskrit is grammatical and not natural, Bhagavati Prajnaparamita might mean the deity of the spirit of wisdom. It is not necessary to attribute any natural gender to it. Paramita might be a god or goddess or both or none. Be that as it may the addresser in the poem pays his / her
homage to Arya Prajnaparamita. Conze tells us that Arya stands for both noble and holy.
Wisdom has been deified and hence to distinguish it/ him/ her, in the contingent world the addresser attributes it / him/ her as noble and holy. Why does the addresser pay his or her homage to Wisdom? Perhaps because s/he seeks to disclose some truth hidden from the eye and which needs wisdom to encode. Aarya Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva Gambhiram prajnapaaramitaacharyaam charamaano
Vyvalokayati sma panchaskandhaascha
Svabhaavasunyaat pasyati sma
The word Arya could be derived from verb Ri and could mean moving or dynamic as well. So the Arya Avalokitesvara is one who moves from falsehood to truth. Iswara is Lord. Avalokitesvara is the Lord of Avalokana or seeing; he sees into the life of things. At the same time he is also being seen. He is Bodhisattva. In other words his essence
is awareness or enlightenment. Be that as it may, according to Buddhist mythology a Bodhisattva is one who strives to become a Buddha or the Enlightened one. This is not all. According to the Mahayana school of Buddhism, Bodhisattva is one who does not seek his own emancipation. On the contrary, a Bodhisattva seeks to emancipate everything of the world. According to Buddhist mythology, Avalokitesvara is an ideal Bodhisattva, because he refused enlightenment or emancipation. As long as the smallest particle of the existence is not emancipated, Avalokitesvara will not embrace eternal bliss or nirvana. This Arya Avalokiteswara Bodhisattva was seriously plunged in the practice of wisdom that takes one beyond the perceived and the non-perceived. In this state he looked about and found the pancaskandhas. And he found that pancaskandhas were by nature or svabhava empty. The wide wonderful world with such abundant variety was looked upon by the seer Bodhisattva as merely made of five constituents and by nature they are empty or svabhava – sunya. On the surface whatever Avalokitesvara sees is empty by nature. If everything were empty then the speaker alone pervades the existence. But the self is also made of pancaskandha and empty. So Avalokitesvara is not there and nothing is there. When neither the object nor the subject is there, there is neither the speaker nor the listener nor the speech. Here is the aesthetics of silence eloquent about suchness. This is why it has been said that despite the Tripitaka Buddha did not utter a single word. In the light of Avalokitesvara whatever is not – Avalokitesvara can see into the thingness of things, finds that all things and beings are mere appearances before a myopic eye. They exist and yet by nature they do not exist. They are like castles in the air. The word ‘sunya’ however has its antonym in purna. A thing or being could be really empty when they appear otherwise. Or else emptiness or sunya would have no meaning. ‘As a technical meaning it denotes in Buddhism the absence of self’ (Conze). The next section explicates his proposition:

Iha Saariputra rupam sunyataa
Sunyataiva rupam rupanna prithak sunyataa
Sunyataayaa na prithag rupam
Evam eva vedanna- sanjnaa-samskaara vijnam

On the surface it implies that one’s own- being and marks of the skandhas, elements and sense- fields are imagined. Since they are devoid of self – a mere agglomeration or heaps closely tied to their root cause, ignorance, karma and craving , proceeding from mutual conditioning inactive- therefore the Skandhas are also without the special and general marks. The variety of such marks is the result of fancy and they are distinguished from one another by fools and not by saints. But, no. What Avalokiteswara says does not point that all appearance is illusion. He does not claim that all appearance vanish like bubbles in the air before a discerning eye. On the contrary he posits that appearance and emptiness are identical. Appearance means emptiness and emptiness means appearance. In other words, the world of appearance neither is, nor is not. And existence is at bottom unreal. And yet it is not unreal. Avalokiteswara observes that emptiness does not differ from form. But we mortals are never focussed on the opposites simultaneously. Heisenberg’s Theory of Indeterminacy has proved that we cannot have total knowledge in this contingent world. Because if we want to measure the speed of an electron, we shall not know its location. Again if we want the location of an electron, we shall not know its speed. But Avalokitesvara’s eye can know both at the same time. He can be focussed on the opposites at the same time. Form is one of the five skandhas or five constituents that create all things in the multiverse. The other four are feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness. Earlier Avalokitesvara saw everything and every being of the existence made up of these five constituents. Now Avalokitesvara points that forms as well as other constituents are identical with emptiness and emptiness is identical with form. In other words, both appearance and reality are taken into account. The addressee of this Heart Sutra, as it has been revealed here is Sari Putta. This is very significant because this distinguishes the Heart Sutra from any other sutra. Any speech is determined by its addressee.Sari Putta as we know was predestined to be a Buddha. Hence his perceptions of the world and things are quite different from that of the ordinary run of men. As Conze observes, Sari Putta mastered Abhidhamma pitaka. And one wonders whether Avalokitesvara teaches him some thing which beyonds the Abhidhamma. Avalokitesvara affirms that emptiness is form and form is emptiness. This puts in one’s mind the benediction of the Isopanisada :

Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnaat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamaadaaya
Purnamevaavasishyate

This is full, that is full.
Full springs from the full
If you take away the full from the full
Fullness alone persists

In the contingent world we do not find the truth of it. If a cup spills its tea, there is no more tea in it. And yet the risi asserts that emptiness in the cup is not real. There cannot be emptiness. But fullness is a word which has its antonym in emptiness. The very notion of fullness stands in relation to emptiness; then fullness and emptiness are the same. And hence the rejoinder of Buddhism is that everything is full and yet everything is empty. What is form but a combination of our material elements in earth, water, fire and air, five sense organs, and five sense objects. Feelings are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Perception is made through six senses. Samskara is difficult to translate into English. It could be described as the a priori impulse of every man with which s/he is born. And finally there is vijnana. What is vijnana but awareness of difference. Thee world of eye and ear which we half perceive and half create exists through differences alone. The tree is different from the stone and the stone is different from the running waters. The Heart Sutra asserts that these differences do exist and yet do not exist. Impulses do exist and yet they do not exist. Perceptions do exist and do not exist. Feelings do exist and do not exist.
What could such arguments mean? The Heart Sutra does not discard the world of appearance. And yet the Heart Sutra does not deny that appearance is hollow and empty.
Such deliberations might sound strange to us locked up in the world of eye and ear. We distinguish a piece of diamond from a pale of water. We distinguish an engineer from an ayah that looks after the presently born baby. This is not all. We value the engineer more and do not pause to see how much the ayah is paid for her job. This valorization and such hierarchy is hollow sham. Who is more important, an ayah or an engineer? Surely an ayah is more important because she saves the human child from death. Men are born helpless. A child left alone in a secluded place unlike a newly born calf or kitten cannot survive even a day. So an ayah gives us life. Why is she ill- paid then, while an engineer is paid enough so that s/he can live a comfortable life? The economist will say, to produce an engineer, we have to spend a lot. So he is highly paid. Well which is more important- a pale of water or a piece of diamond ? The utility of water cannot be overemphasised. We could not live without water. Still why is diamond so costly and water is sometimes available free of cost? The economist will answer that to produce another pale of water incurs no cost whereas to produce another piece of diamond one has to spend a fortune. Fine. But who said that diamond is precious? A woman who has not learnt the value - judgement laid down by the civilization might find diamonds littered on her way to gathering mango fruits. But she will not touch a single diamond. Mangoes will cater to her taste and satisfy her hunger. It is the civilization, therefore, that has created the hierarchy where diamond is more precious and water cheap. The Heart Sutra points out that such hierarchies are hollow sham. This is not all. To a sheer all things all things are at bottom the same made of pancaskandha. It is something like the vision of a physicist who finds both a mountain and a man as made of the same fund of energy. Matter has vanished in the light of modern physicist. Well, if energy is non- metal it is non – physical also. So, reductionism does not help unless we say that difference pervades this existence or difference through which this existence is revealed is true and yet not true. The Heart Sutra or Buddhism embraces, being and non- being, self and non- self as the same. Presence and absence, momentariness and eternity, and all such dichotomies of existence dissolve at the magic touch of Buddhism. Every assertion is therefore as true as any other assertion in such a world. Hence Buddhism asserts that the existence is what it is and suchness is the truth. It cannot be analysed or described with the help of vijnana. The Heart Sutra further observes:

Iha Sariputra Sarvadharmaah
Sunyata- laksmanaa, anutpannaa
Aniruddhaa amalaa avimalaa
Anuunaa aparipurnaa

O Sariputra! All the Dharmas are characterized by emptiness. Dharma is a word, which could mean on many levels. It could mean physical laws of science. In that light we could say that the dharma of water is liquidity or the dharma of wind is to move to and fro. Again dharma might mean those values which hold the mankind together. It might refer to different religions as well. Avalokitesvara asserts that these dharmas do exist. And yet they are marked by emptiness. The law
of dharmas were never created. They were never repressed. They were never defiled. They were never immaculate. They were never incomplete. They were never complete. This clearly states that Buddhism does not pin its faith on fundamentalism and foundationalism. There are myriads of human communities under the sun. Each of them has its own culture or dharma which holds its followers in a system. If Heart Sutra is properly understood, it points out that no culture is superior and no culture is inferior. No culture has any root into timelessness. So no culture is to be believed. But one must treat a different culture from the standpoint of cultural relativism. Once Buddha while living at Kosambi (near Allahabad) addressed the monks and told them- This is suffering- this I have declared This is generation of suffering- this have I declared This is the path leading to suffering – this I have declared. On the surface these declarations announce the possibility of our transportation to the world of bliss from the sphere of arrow. Buddha speaks of three types of sorrow in dukkha- dukkhata, sankhara-dukkha dukkhata, and viparinama dukkhata.
Dukkha dukkhata is our everyday sorrow. We look before and after and pine for what is not. This is dukkha dukkhata. Association with unloved ones and separation from loved ones, old age, disease and death constitute dukkha- dukkhata. Sankhara dukkhata has philosophical import. Sankhara could be interpreted as an innate mode of perception with which one is born. It is because of this sankhara one cannot realize that anything under the sun that one perceives is an aggregate of five skandhas in matter, sensations, perceptions and mental formations and consciousness. They are known briefly as nama-rupa – the psycho-physical entity. They constitute a sentient being or a person. This pancaskandha are hollow in essence. But one does not perceive that viparinama dukkha results from the transitory nature of the world. Nothing is stable here. Happiness, if it comes at all, soon vanishes like snow flakes in the sun, pushing one to despair. Even the happiness attained through mediation or jhana is also annicca or transitory. And whatever is transitory causes sorrow, Yadaniccam tam dukkham And did not Buddha announce that he had shown the way out from the sphere of sorrow?

The Heart Sutra observes that when one gets at the heart of things one knows that the world of appearance is true and yet not true. Avalokiteswara observes:
Tasmaad Saariputra Sunyatayaam na rupam
Na vedanna na sanjna na samskaaraah
Na vijnanam, na chatuprotra ghraana jihvaa
Kaaya manaamsi . Na rupa sabolagandha rasa- sprastavye
Dharmah, Na chadyurdhaaturyaavan na mano
Vijnanadhaatu na avidyaa na avidyaaksayo
Yavan na jaraa- maranam , na jaraa maranaksayo
Na duhkha- samudayo- nirodha- marga na jnaanam
Na praptirnaapraaptih
Therefore O Sariputra in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind. No sight- organ element and so forth until we come to ‘No mind- conscious element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth until we come to.’ There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and deaths. There is no way out from the sufferings. There is no cognition, no attainment, and non- attainment.’ (cp. Conze’s translation) The famous French philosopher Jaques Derrida discarded the whole of western philosophy as logo centric where a particular word such as light, soul, God or consciousness is deemed as the centre. But a centre cannot have a centre. If light were the centre of a discourse, one must not forget that darkness is at the centre of light. Once we are focused on darkness we are decentred again being aware of the fact that light is at the centre of darkness. Life and existence is the text of Avalokitesvara. He interprets the same without being logo centric. Buddha promised cessation of suffering. How is that? Avalokitesvara observes that there is no suffering and no cessation of suffering. There is no attainment and no non- attainment. Commonly we understand that cessation of suffering implies the attainment of nirvana. But Avalokitesvara explicates the same as the attainment of the fact that there is no attainment and no non- attainment. What is Nirvana then? It is naiva- sanjna nasanga . It is neither consciousness nor not – consciousness. It is neither not consciousness- nor not- not- consciousness. The awareness of such a stage baffles description in truth, as Avalokitesvara points out that there is neither ignorance nor wearing out of ignorance. In common parley we posit the dichotomies like Bondage and freedom Ignorance and knowledge Sorrow and happiness We value the motifs in the right side as desirable and the motifs in the left column as undesirable. But this is logo centric and false. One cannot exist without the other. And yet if the antonyms are brought together we do not get the truth. Ignorance depends upon knowledge or cessation of ignorance. Hence neither ignorance could be real nor cessation of ignorance could be real. Once again, neither absence of ignorance is real. Thus the Heart Sutra is free from logo centrism in its legitimation and could be called Post – modern in essence. Post- modernism is a cover–term for those avant- garde ideas that discard fundamentalism, foundationalism, essentialism and reductionism. They claim that there is no absolute foundation of truth and hence there is nothing called absolute truth or universal truth. The post- moderns claim that we are in a virtual world, which is neither real, nor not – real.
But Avalokitesvara and the Heart Sutra seem to go further.

Tasmaachhariputra apraaptitvaad bodhisattvasya
Prajnaapaaramitaam aapritya viharati
Achitavaranah Chittaavarana- nasti
Tvaad atrasto viparyaas- atikraanto nistah
Nirvaana- praaptah

“Therefore O Sariputra, it is because of his non- attainment ness that a Bodhisatta though having relied on perfection of wisdom dwells without thought–coverings. In the absence of thought- covering he has not been made to tremble he has overcome what can upset and in the end he attains Nirvana” (translation Conze)
If one seeks the path he misses it. If one seeks knowledge, he loses it. In other word, since nothing could be affirmed or negated in the existence, one’s thoughts vanish. Once, thoughts vanish, the mind is not there. Patanjali posited that yogascittavritti- nirodha. Yoga implies the wearing out of thought. Avalokitesvara reaches our mind to a thoughtless or no mind state. In fact thought always perceives half- truths. It cannot see the world steadily and as a whole. Thought reads the world in fragments and it fragments the world. Truly speaking the world or existence is neither complete nor incomplete. Since a Bodhisattva gets rid of thought- coverings, he has no fear. He has overcome what could upset him. And thereby he attains nirvana. The phrase acittavaranam might also mean devoid of coverings that shroud the citta or awareness when karma-avarana. Klesa-avarana and jneya- avarana are peeled off, there is awareness withal and the world turns into awareness of Bodhisattva or else Bodhicitta is all pervasive. This attendant of Bodhicitta is nirvana. If there were nothing else than Bodhicitta, Bodhicitta wouldn’t be there. And hence nirvana does not mean any attainment of any kind. Thus nirvana does not necessarily mean a journey to a different sphere. Bodhisatta may tread on the very earth where we move about. But he looks upon the earth from a different perspective that language fails to describe and thus Bodhisatta attains nirvana. An ontological change in the existence takes place. The next sentence reads

Tryadhvaavyavsthitah Sarva- buddhah Prajnaapaaramitaam asritye
Anuttaram Samyate Sambodhim abhi- sambuddha

‘All those who appear as Buddha in the three periods of time, fully awake to the utmost right and perfect enlightenment because they have relied on the perfection of wisdom.’ (Tr. Conze). So what Bodhisattvas learn and attain nirvana is also learnt by Buddhas. What do they learn? They learnt that nothing is to be learnt. That is the perfection of wisdom. The last sentence clinches the sutra eulogising Prajnaparomita mantra or a mantra embodying highest wisdom. The sutra ends with the chant of that mantra Gate Gate Paaram gate Paarasam gate Bodhi svaaha Conze translates the mantra as Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. O what an awakening, all hail! Who is gone? The self is gone and the non- self is gone. Beyond what have they gone? They have gone beyond the world lorn with dichotomies. Language belongs to the made up of the stuff of difference. Language pervades the world made up of the stuff of difference. The world made up of the stuff of difference is the vast chasm to cross. That which has crossed the chasm cannot be described. The realm beyond the chasm cannot be described. So one must avail oneself of the mantra which surpasses language. Chanting of the mantra will rescue us from thought- covering. Those who cross the chasm of dichotomy–lorn contingent world attain the right understanding which is no understanding at all. Since like Buddhism, Post- Modernism also does not pin its faith on anything as fundamental or essential in the existence, the critics of Postmodernism often posit that such philosophies cannot have any ethics and the human society cannot run on such nihilistic legitimations.
One asks whether it is possible
That without serious pleasures life could be endurable That without faith in immortality man could be moral That without any help from an external agency man could march towards righteousness
That without rites and rituals man could remain religious
That without beliefs and emotion man could be religious
That without having any fear in the mind man could be virtuous
Heart Sutra seems to be a fitting reply to such queries