This is another in a series of weekly blog posts comparing and contrasting the Sanskrit and Chinese Lotus Sutra translations.
When I first read H. Kern’s 1884 English translation from Sanskrit of Chapter 9, the prediction for Ānanda and Rāhula, I was struck by something inserted here that is not found in translations from Kumārajīva’s Chinese. Kern has Ānanda and Rāhula say, “The Lord is our father and procreator, our refuge and protection.” Is this 19th century Christian bias sneaking in?
The full quote reads:
‘Let it be our turn also, O Lord; let it be our turn also, O Sugata. The Lord is our father and procreator, our refuge and protection. For in this world, including men, gods, and demons, O Lord, we are particularly distinguished, as people say: These are the Lord’s sons, the Lord’s attendants; these are the keepers of the law-treasure of the Lord. Therefore, Lord, it would seem meet, were the Lord ere long to predict our destiny to supreme and perfect enlightenment.’
Murano’s translation of Kumārajīva offers:
“World-Honored One! We think that we also are qualified to be assured [of our future Buddhahood]. Only you, the Tathāgata, are our refuge. We are known to all gods, men and asuras of the world. Ānanda always protects the store of the Dharma as your attendant. Rāhula is your son. If you assure us of our future attainment of Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi, the wishes not only of us but also of others will be fulfilled.”
The other English translations of Kumārajīva all lack the idea that the Buddha is “our father and procreator,” and all separate Ānanda’s aspect of protecting the teachings and Rāhula’s position as the Buddha’s son rather than saying, “These are the Lord’s sons, the Lord’s attendants; these are the keepers of the law-treasure of the Lord.”
Leon Hurvitz’s English translation of the Lotus Sutra, which merges both Kumārajīva’s Chinese and a composite Sanskrit text, sticks with the language of Kumārajīva and places the Sanskrit version in an endnote:
1. “Then indeed the long-lived Ānanda at that time thought: ‘Truly, may we also receive such a prophecy as this!’ Then thinking, reflecting, and praying in this way, rising from his seat and bowing down to the feet of the Blessed One, and the long-lived Rāhula also thinking, reflecting, and praying in this way, and bowing down to the feet of the Blessed One, [they] spoke as follows: (If the English of this does not parse as a sentence, it is because the Sanskrit, too, is not grammatically coherent.) ‘May our turn also come in the same way, O Blessed One! May our turn also come in the same way, O Well Gone One! For the Blessed One is our father, our progenitor, our refuge, our salvation. For we, O Blessed One, in this world with its gods, men, and asuras, have been variously depicted in such words as these: “These are the sons of the Blessed One, as well as the attendants of the Blessed One, and they carry the storehouse of the dharma of the Blessed One.” Now, O Blessed One, let that [prophecy] be right quickly matched [by you], in that the Blessed One shall prophesy to us concerning unexcelled, right, perfect, enlightened intuition.’ “
Again the Sanskrit inserts the Buddha’s position as not only the “father” but also the “progenitor,” or in the word used by Kern, “procreator.”
Why does that bother me? Śākyamuni, himself, declares in the Lotus Sutra that he is the father of all living beings. Why am I so sensitive to extending to the father a role as “progenitor”? Perhaps this is just a continuation of whatever prompts my uneasiness about Nikkyō Niwano‘s assertion that we are “caused to live by Śākyamuni.”
In any event, one can easily make the argument that this is another place that illustrates the superiority of Kumārajīva’s translation, both in content and style.