In Chapter 24 of the Lotus Sutra we are introduced to a bodhisattva. Rissho Kosei-kai’s 1975 translation calls this bodhisattva Wonder Sound, Leon Hurvitz names him Fine Sound and Senchu Murano calls him Wonderful-Voice Bodhisattva. We are told that this bodhisattva has accumulated more samādhis than there are sands in the River Ganges. Of all those samādhis, 16 are listed at the opening of the chapter in the Rissho Kosei-kai and Hurvitz translations, but only 14 are listed in Murano’s translation.
| 1975 Rissho Kosei-kai | 2012 Murano Third Edition | 2009 Hurvitz Revised Edition |
| the contemplation of the wonderful banner sign, | the samadhi as wonderful as the banner of a general, | the samādhi of the Fine Standard (dhvajāgrakeyūrasamādhilabdhaḥ), |
| the contemplation of the Law-Flower, | the samādhi of the Dharma Blossom (saddharmapuṇḍarīka), | |
| the contemplation of pure virtue, | the samādhi of Pure Excellence (vimaladatta), | |
| the contemplation of the Constellation King’s sport, | the samadhi for the traveling of the king of the stars, | the samādhi of the Sport of the King of Constellations (Nakṣhatrarājavikrīḍita), |
| the contemplation of causelessness, | the samadhi for freedom from causality, | the samādhi of No Objects (anilambha), |
| the contemplation of the knowledge seal, | the samadhi for the seal of wisdom, | the samādhi of the Seal of Knowledge (jñānamudrā), |
| the contemplation of interpreting the utterances of all beings, | the samadhi by which one could understand the words of all living beings, | the samādhi that Enables One to Understand the Speech of All Living Beings (sarvarutakaśalya), |
| the contemplation of collection of all merits, | the samadhi by which one could collect all merits, | the samādhi that Collects All Merits (sarvapuṇyasamuccaya), |
| the contemplation of purity, | the samadhi for purity, | the Pure samādhi (prasādavatī), |
| the contemplation of supernatural sport, | the samadhi for exhibiting supernatural powers, | the samādhi of the Play of Magical Powers (ṛddhivikrīḍita), |
| the contemplation of wisdom torch, | the samadhi for the torch of wisdom, | the samādhi of the Lamp of Knowledge (jñānolkā), |
| the contemplation of the king of adornment, | the samadhi for the Adornment-King, | the samādhi of the King of Adornments (vyūharāja), |
| the contemplation of pure luster, | the samadhi for pure light, | the samādhi of Pure Glow (vimalaprabhāsa), |
| the contemplation of the pure treasury, | the samadhi for pure store, | the samādhi of the Pure Womb (vimalagarbha), |
| the contemplation of the unique, | the samadhi for special teachings, | the Unshared samādhi (apkṛtsna), |
| the contemplation of sun revolution; | the samadhi for the revolution of the sun. | the samādhi that Turns to the Sun (sūryāvarta) |
I discovered this discrepancy when I was reviewing Nikkyō Niwano’s discussion of Chapter 24 for the Rissho Kosei-kai in North America (RKINA) advanced course on the Threefold Lotus Sutra that I’ve been attending this year. You can see what prompted this in my essay on Lesson 28.
Since each of these translations is based on Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation, they should all agree. And when I checked my other English translations of Kumārajīva’s translation I found they all agreed. Only Murano’s Third Edition lacked the second and third samādhis. Even H. Kern’s 1884 translation from the 11th century Nepalese Sanskrit document lists 16 samādhis.
At the time, I did not possess a copy of the first or second editions of Murano’s translation, but I did know the email address for Rev. Shinkyo Warner, the editor of the Third Edition. I contacted Rev. Shinkyo Warner and he responded that apparently the two samādhis, which are present in the second edition, were inadvertently dropped during the editing for the third edition.
A few days later I was at the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church meeting with workmen who were estimating the cost of repairs needed to Rev. Igarashi’s home, and I asked Rev. Igarashi if he had a copy of the second edition of Murano’s translation. Later, after the workmen had departed, Rev. Igarashi presented me with copies of both the second and the first editions of Murano’s translation. The second edition was autographed by Senchu Murano. Apparently, when the second edition came out in 1991, Murano signed a bunch of the books and shipped them to Rev. Igarashi, who at the time had been the head priest of the Sacramento Nichiren Buddhist Church for just two years. He still has several of these autographed books.
Missing from the third edition are the samādhi for the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Dharma and the samādhi for pure virtue. I’ve restored those to my online edition. Rev. Shinkyo Warner says the third edition is no longer pre-printed and therefore the text can be easily updated. I passed on to him a number of other small typos I’ve noticed during my 32 Days of the Lotus Sutra practice. I have no idea when the “print-on-demand” text will be updated to restore the missing samādhis. On July 1, 2023, Rev. Shinkyo Warner emailed me to announced he had released an update to the printed version of the third edition of Bishop Murano’s translation of the Lotus Sutra. “This includes the corrections you found along with several others,” he said. “I’m still working on the ePub version.”