This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

Throughout the first half of the Lotus Sutra we find descriptions of what a future Buddha world will look like.  Pūrṇa’s future Buddha world in Chapter 8 is a good example. The differences between English translations of Kumārajīva’s Chinese Lotus Sutra and H. Kern’s English translation of an 11th century Sanskrit Lotus Sutra are instructive.

Using Murano’s translation of Kumārajīva we begin with the prediction for Pūrṇa:

He will perform the Way of Bodhisattvas step by step for innumerable, asaṃkhya kalpas, and then attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi in this world. He will be called Dharma-Brightness, the Tathāgata, the Deserver of Offerings, the Perfectly Enlightened One, the Man of Wisdom and Practice, the Well-Gone, the Knower of the World, the Unsurpassed Man, the Controller of Men, the Teacher of Gods and Men, the Buddha, the World-Honored One.

Kern renders this:

After completing such a Bodhisattva-course, at the end of innumerable, incalculable Æons, he shall reach supreme and perfect enlightenment; he shall in the world be the Tathāgata called Dharmaprabhāsa, an Arhat, &c., endowed with science and conduct, a Sugata, &c. He shall appear in this very Buddha field.

Note that they agree that Śākyamuni says Pūrṇa’s Buddha world will be “in this world,” or as Kern emphasizes, “in this very Buddha field.” What are we to make of “this world” becoming Pūrṇa’s pure land?

Murano describes the world:

The world of that Buddha will be composed of one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, that is, as many Sumeru-worlds as there are sands in the River Ganges. The ground [of that world] will be made of the seven treasures. It will be as even as the palm of a hand. There will be no mountains nor ravines nor ditches. Tall buildings adorned with the seven treasures will be seen everywhere in that world, and the palaces of gods of that world will hang so low in the sky that gods and men will be able to see each other.

In Kern’s telling we get this version:

Further, monks, at that time the Buddha-field spoken of will look as if formed by thousands of spheres similar to the sands of the river Ganges. It will be even, like the palm of the hand, consist of seven precious substances, be without hills, and filled with high edifices of seven precious substances. There will be cars of the gods stationed in the sky; the gods will behold men, and men will behold the gods.

Again we get the palaces of the gods imagined as flying cars.

The description of the inhabitants and their environment is consistent. Murano offers:

There will be no evil regions nor women. The living beings of that world will be born without any medium. They will have no sexual desire. They will have great supernatural powers, emit light from their bodies, and fly about at will. They will be resolute in mind, strenuous, and wise. They will be golden in color, and adorned with the thirty-two marks. They will feed on two things: the delight in the Dharma, and the delight in dhyāna.

Kern explains:

Moreover, monks, at that time that Buddha-field shall be exempt from places of punishment and from womankind, as all beings shall be born by apparitional birth. They shall lead a spiritual life, have ideal bodies, be self-lighting, magical, moving in the firmament, strenuous, of good memory, wise, possessed of gold-colored bodies, and adorned with the thirty-two characteristics of a great man. And at that time, monks, the beings in that Buddha-field will have two things to feed upon, viz. the delight in the law and the delight in meditation.

I would argue that Kern’s translation lessens the negative connotation about women contained in Murano’s translation. In fact, Kern’s version is not unlike the Modern Rissho Kosei-Kai translation of the Lotus Sutra, which goes to great lengths to eliminate gender stereotypes.

“In that land, there will be no gender distinction, for all living beings there will come into existence by transformation, free of carnal desire.”

As for the occupants of this world, Murano offers:

There will be innumerable, asaṃkhya Bodhisattvas, that is, thousands of billions of nayutas of Bodhisattvas. They will have great supernatural powers and the four kinds of unhindered eloquence. They will teach the living beings of that world. There will also be uncountable Śrāvakas there. They will have the six supernatural powers including the three major supernatural powers, and the eight emancipations. The world of that Buddha will be adorned with those innumerable merits. The kalpa [in which Pūrṇa will become that Buddha] will be called Treasure­Brightness; and his world, Good-Purity. The duration of the life of that Buddha will be innumerable, asaṃkhya kalpas, and his teachings will be preserved for a long time. After his extinction, stupas of the seven treasures will be erected [in his honor] throughout that world.”

While Kern says:

There will be an immense, incalculable number of hundred thousands of myriads of koṭis of Bodhisattvas; all endowed with great transcendent wisdom, accomplished in the (four) distinctive qualifications of an Arhat, able in instructing creatures. He (that Buddha) will have a number of disciples, beyond all calculation, mighty in magic, powerful, masters in the meditation of the eight emancipations. So immense are the good qualities that Buddha-field will be possessed of. And that Æon shall be called Ratnāvabhāsa (i.e., radiant with gems), and that world Suviṣuddha (i.e., very pure). His lifetime shall last immense, incalculable Æons; and after the complete extinction of that Lord Dharmaprabhāsa, the Tathāgata, &c., his true law shall last long, and his world shall be full of Stūpas made of precious substances. Such inconceivable good qualities, monks, shall the Buddha-field of that Lord be possessed of.

Note that in Murano’s telling the Bodhisattvas have “great supernatural powers and the four kinds of unhindered eloquence. They will teach the living beings of that world.” Kern, on the other hand, describes these Bodhisattvas as “all endowed with great transcendent wisdom, accomplished in the (four) distinctive qualifications of an Arhat, able in instructing creatures.”

This description of Bodhisattvas as Arhats is very un-Mahayana. As the Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism explains:

As taught in early Buddhism, the Arhat attains exactly the same goal as the Buddha. Mahāyāna Buddhism, however, comes to regard Arhatship as an inferior ideal to that of Buddhahood, and portrays the Arhat (somewhat unfairly) as selfishly concerned with the goal of a ‘private nirvāṇa.’ In contrast, emphasis is placed on the great compassion (Mahākaruṇa) of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who dedicate themselves to leading all beings to salvation.

As a postscript I’m adding The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism’s definition of a Sumeru world:

[Mount Sumeru is] the central axis of the universe in Buddhist cosmology; also known as Mount Meru, Mount Sumeru stands in the middle of the world as its axis and is eight leagues (yojana) high. It is surrounded by seven mountain ranges of gold, each separated from the other by an ocean. At the foot of the seventh range, there is a great ocean, contained at the perimeter of the world by a circle of iron mountains (cakravāda). In this vast ocean, there are four island continents in the four cardinal directions, each flanked by two island subcontinents. The northern continent is square, the eastern semicircular, the southern triangular, and the western round. Although humans inhabit all four continents, the “known world” is the southern continent, named Jambudvīpa, where the current average height is four cubits and the current life span is one hundred years. The four faces of Mount Sumeru are flat and are each composed of a different precious stone: gold in the north, silver in the east, lapis lazuli in the south, and crystal in the west. The substance determines the color of the sky over each of the four continents. The sky is blue in the southern continent of Jambudvīpa because the southern face of the Mount Sumeru is made of lapis. The slopes of Sumeru are the abode of demigods (asura), and its upper reaches are the heavens of the four heavenly… . At the summit of the mountain is the heaven of the thirty-three (Trāyastriṃsá), ruled by the king of the gods, Sakra. Above Mount Sumeru are located the remaining heavens of the sensuous realm (kāmadhātu).

Next: The Buddha as Father and Procreator

This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.

At the opening of Chapter 8, The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples, we have another example of the clarity of Kumārajīva’s Chinese Lotus Sutra in comparison to H. Kern’s English translation of an 11th century Sanskrit Lotus Sutra.

Kern offers:

On hearing from the Lord that display of skillfulness and the instruction by means of mysterious speech; on hearing the announcement of the future destiny of the great Disciples, as well as the foregoing tale concerning ancient devotion and the leadership of the Lord, the venerable Pūrṇa, son of Maitrāyanī, was filled with wonder and amazement, thrilled with pure-heartedness, a feeling of delight and joy. He rose from his seat, full of delight and joy, full of great respect for the law, and while prostrating himself before the Lord’s feet, made within himself the following reflection: Wonderful, O Lord; wonderful, O Sugata; it is an extremely difficult thing that the Tathāgatas, &c., perform, the conforming to this world, composed of so many elements, and preaching the law to all creatures with many proofs of their skillfulness, and skillfully releasing them when attached to this or that. What could we do, O Lord, in such a case? None but the Tathāgata knows our inclination and our ancient course. Then, after saluting with his head the Lord’s feet, Pūrṇa went and stood apart, gazing up to the Lord with unmoved eyes and so showing his veneration.

Senchu Murano’s English translation of Kumārajīva presents the same scene in this way:

Thereupon Pūrṇa, the son of Maitrāyanī having heard from the Buddha the Dharma expounded with expedients by the wisdom [of the Buddha] according to the capacities of all living beings, and having heard that [the Buddha] had assured the great disciples of their future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, and also having heard of the previous life of the Buddha, and also having heard of the great, unhindered, supernatural powers of the Buddhas, had the greatest joy that he had ever had, became pure in heart, and felt like dancing [with joy]. He rose from his seat, came to the Buddha, and worshipped him at his feet with his head. Then he retired to one side of the place, looked up at the honorable face with unblenching eyes, and thought:
‘The World-Honored One is extraordinary. What he does is exceptional. He expounds the Dharma with expedients by his insight according to the various natures of all living beings of the world, and saves them from various attachments. The merits of the Buddha are beyond the expression of our words. Only the Buddha, only the World-Honored One, knows the wishes we have deep in our minds.’

The other English translations have comparable descriptions and Leon Hurvitz, who melded  Kumārajīva and a compilation of extant Sanskrit Lotus Sutras in his English translation, follows Kumārajīva and offers a note with the Sanskrit variation.

While lack of clarity in Kern’s translation can be considered in part a biproduct of his 19th century environment, one wonders what to make of additional information introduced by Kern in his translation.

In discussing Pūrṇa experience in past lives, Murano offers:

“Bhikṣus! Pūrṇa was the most excellent expounder of the Dharma under the seven Buddhas.

But Kern has Śākyamuni add a little extra explanation:

He was also, monks, the foremost among the preachers of the law under the seven Tathāgatas, the first of whom is Vipasyin and the seventh myself.

When I first read this I checked the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism authored by Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., my go-to source of Buddhist minutiae.

Under the entry for Vipaśyin, the dictionary offers: “Sanskrit proper name of the sixth of the seven Buddhas of antiquity, not the first. But when you check the dictionary entry for Saptatathāgata, the seven buddhas of antiquity, you discover that Vipaśyin is the first of the six:

[Saptatathāgata] include Śākyamuni and the six buddhas who preceded him, i.e., Vipaśyin (P. Vipassin), Śikhin (P. Sikhī), Viśvabhū (P. Vessabhū), Krakucchanda (P. Kondañña), Kanakamuni (P. Konāgamana) and Kāśyapa (P. Kassapa).”

If you just Google “seven buddhas of antiquity” you find everyone agrees with Kern that Vipasyin was the first and Śākyamuni the seventh.

1. Vipassī (lived ninety-one kalpas ago)
2. Sikhī (lived thirty-one kalpas ago)
3. Vessabhū (lived thirty-one kalpas ago in the same kalpa as Sikhī)
4. Kakusandha (the first Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
5. Koṇāgamana (the second Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
6. Kassapa (the third Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)
7. Gautama (the fourth and present Buddha of the current bhadrakalpa)

I’m not a fan of Donald S. Lopez Jr. and this confusion over Vipaśyin’s place among the seven buddhas of antiquity makes me less likely to take as gospel anything I read in The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism.

Next: Imagining Buddha Lands