This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.
In Chapter 10, The Teacher of the Dharma – or as H. Kern entitles it simply “The Preacher” – we get an interesting example of Kumārajīva’s brevity vs. the 11th century Sanskrit’s clarity.
Senchu Murano’s translation of Kumārajīva offers this at the conclusion of the initial prose section of Chapter 10:
“Medicine-King! An evil man who speaks ill of me in my presence with evil intent for as long as a kalpa is not as sinful as the person who reproaches laymen or monks with even a single word of abuse for their reading and reciting the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma.
“Medicine-King! Anyone who reads and recites the Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma, know this, will be adorned just as I am. I will shoulder him. Wherever he may be, bow to him! Join your hands together towards him with all your heart, respect him, make offerings to him, honor him, and praise him! Offer him flowers, incense, necklaces, incense powder, incense applicable to the skin, incense to burn, canopies, banners, streamers, garments, food and various kinds of music! Make him the best offerings that you can obtain in the world of men! Strew the treasures of heaven to him! Offer him heaps of the treasures of heaven! Why is that? It is because, while he is expounding the Dharma with joy, if you hear it even for a moment, you will immediately be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.”
Note that there is no specific explanation of why it is worse to slander the preacher of the Dharma than the Buddha. It simply is.
Kern’s translation of the Sanskrit, however, is very specific about this:
Again, Bhaiṣajyarāja, if some creature vicious, wicked, and cruel-minded should in the (current) Age speak something injurious in the face of the Tathāgata, and if some should utter a single harsh word, founded or unfounded, to those irreproachable preachers of the law and keepers of this Sūtrānta, whether lay devotees or clergymen, I declare that the latter sin is the graver. For, Bhaiṣajyarāja, such a young man or young lady of good family must be held to be adorned with the apparel of the Tathāgata. He carries the Tathāgata on his shoulder, Bhaiṣajyarāja, who after having copied this Dharmaparyāya and made a volume of it, carries it on his shoulder. Such a one, wherever he goes, must be saluted by all beings with joined hands, must be honored, respected, worshipped, venerated, revered by gods and men with flowers, incense, perfumed garlands, ointment, powder, clothes, umbrellas, flags, banners, musical instruments, with food, soft and hard, with nourishment and drink, with vehicles, with heaps of choice and gorgeous jewels. That preacher of the law must be honored by heaps of gorgeous jewels being presented to that preacher of the law. For it may be that by his expounding this Dharmaparyāya, were it only once, innumerable, incalculable beings who hear it shall soon become accomplished in supreme and perfect enlightenment.
Also note who carries whom? Kumārajīva has the Buddha supporting the preacher; “I will shoulder him.” Kern’s translation has the preacher carrying the Buddha because he carries the Lotus Sutra. Kern’s translation actually sets the stage for when we learn later in the chapter that the sutra, not the śarīras of the Buddha, should be enshrined in a stupa and honored.
Here’s Murano:
“Medicine-King! Erect a stupa of the seven treasures in any place where this sūtra is expounded, read, recited or copied, or in any place where a copy of this sūtra exists! The stupa should be tall, spacious and adorned. You need not enshrine my śarīras in the stupa. Why not? It is because it will contain my perfect body.
Kern offers:
Again, Bhaiṣajyarāja, on any spot of the earth where this Dharmaparyāya is expounded, preached, written, studied, or recited in chorus, on that spot, Bhaiṣajyarāja, one should build a Tathāgata shrine, magnificent, consisting of precious substances, high, and spacious; but it is not necessary to depose in it relics of the Tathāgata. For the body of the Tathāgata is, so to say, collectively deposited there.
The awkwardness of Kern’s translation underscores why Kumārajīva is so beloved, even if it lacks some of Kern’s details.
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