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).