This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.
Traditionally, the entrustment section of a Mahayana sutra, in which the Buddha transfers the teaching to the Bodhisattvas in the audience, is at the conclusion. This is where H. Kern’s English translation of the 11th century Nepalese Sanskrit Lotus Sutra places it. Kern titles the chapter, The Period.
Kumārajīva’s Chinese Lotus Sutra places this entrustment following Chapter 21, The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas, in which the Buddha celebrates the vow of the Bodhisattvas from underground to keep the sūtra after the Buddha’s extinction. Even the extant Sanskrit compilation used by Leon Hurvitz has the Entrustment chapter following the chapter detailing the supernatural powers of the Tathāgatas.
Placing the “Transmission” following “The Supernatural Powers of the Tathāgatas” sets up the understanding that the Lotus Sutra includes not one, but two entrustments. As explained in Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side:
Among Chinese exegetes, Zhiyi was the first to identify both Chapters 21 and 22 as describing Śākyamuni’s transmission to the future. Nichiren built upon Zhiyi’s reading to claim that there had been two transmissions: a specific transmission to Viśiṣṭacaritra and the other bodhisattvas who had emerged from beneath the earth, which occurs in the “Transcendent Powers” chapter, beginning from “Thereupon the Buddha addressed the great assembly of bodhisattvas, beginning with Viśiṣṭacaritra …”), and a general transmission, which occurs in the “Entrustment” chapter, to all the bodhisattvas, including those from other worlds and those instructed by Śākyamuni when he was still in his provisional guise as the historical Buddha, as he is represented in the trace teaching, as well as to persons of the two vehicles and others in the Lotus assembly.
Two Buddhas, p217-218
Beyond the location of the chapter, other differences are found when comparing Kern’s Sanskrit against Kumārajīva Chinese translation.
Kern begins his final chapter with this description:
Thereupon the Lord Śākyamuni, the Tathāgata, &c., rose from his pulpit, collected the Bodhisattvas, took their right hands with his own right hand, which had become strong by the exercise of magic, and spoke on that occasion as follows: Into your hands, young men of good family, I transfer and transmit, entrust and deposit this supreme and perfect enlightenment arrived at by me after hundred thousands of myriads of koṭis of incalculable Æons. Ye, young men of good family, do your best that it may grow and spread.
Senchu Murano’s English translation of Kumārajīva Chinese text opens with:
Thereupon Śākyamuni Buddha rose from the seat of the Dharma, and by his great supernatural powers, put his right hand on the heads of the innumerable Bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, and said:
“For many hundreds of thousands of billions of asaṃkhyas of kalpas, I studied and practiced the Dharma difficult to obtain, and [finally attained] Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi. Now I will transmit the Dharma to you. Propagate it with all your hearts, and make it known far and wide!”
All of the other English translations of Kumārajīva have the Buddha making contact with the assembled Bodhisattvas heads, not their hands.
The BDK English Tripiṭaka has “Śākyamuni Buddha caressed the heads of the innumerable bodhisattva mahāsattvas…”
Gene Reeves has the Buddha “Laying his right hand on the heads of the innumerable bodhisattvas.”
More interesting, is that Kern’s Sanskrit translation does not include Kumārajīva’s instruction of what to do if someone rejects the Lotus Sutra.
Murano has this:
I am the great almsgiver to all living beings. Follow me, and study my teachings without begrudging efforts! In the future, when you see good men or women who believe in the wisdom of the Tathāgata, you should expound this Sūtra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma to them, and cause them to hear and know [this sūtra] so that they may be able to obtain the wisdom of the Buddha. When you see anyone who does not receive [this sūtra] by faith, you should show him some other profound teachings of mine, teach him, benefit him, and cause him to rejoice. When you do all this, you will be able to repay the favors given to you by the Buddhas.
Kern doesn’t include this exception:
I am a bountiful giver, young men of good family, and ye, young men of good family, follow my example; imitate me in liberally showing this knowledge of the Tathāgata, and in skillfulness, and preach this Dharmaparyāya to the young men and young ladies of good family who successively shall gather round you. And as to unbelieving persons, rouse them to accept this law. By so doing, young men of good family, you will acquit your debt to the Tathāgatas.
All of the English translations of Kumārajīva include this exception when meeting someone who rejects the Lotus Sutra.
The Modern Risshō Kōsei-kai translation offers:
For those living beings who do not believe in and accept it, you should show and teach them other profound teachings of the Tathagata, thereby benefiting and delighting them. If you can do so, you will have responded in kind to the generosity of the buddhas.
Burton Watson’s translation offers:
If there are living beings who do not believe and accept it, you should use some of the other profound doctrines of the Thus Come One to teach, benefit and bring joy to them. If you do all this, then you will have repaid the debt of gratitude that you owe to the Buddhas.
One imagines that Nichiren would have preferred Kern’s admonition to “rouse them to accept this law,” to Kumārajīva encouragement to tolerate dissent.