Heart Sutra Reconsidered

10/03/2009
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 nonperceived. 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 valorisation
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
sequestered 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 focussed 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 chitta 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.