Buddhist Mahayana Texts: Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Sukhavativyuha (SBE XLIX)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Anonymous or composite
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 691 passages
Cite this work
- APADiamond Sutra. (n.d.). Buddhist Mahayana Texts: Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Sukhavativyuha (SBE XLIX). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahayana-sutras/buddhist-mahayana-texts-diamond-sutra-heart-sutra-sukhavativyuha-sbe-xlix
- MLADiamond Sutra. Buddhist Mahayana Texts: Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Sukhavativyuha (SBE XLIX). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahayana-sutras/buddhist-mahayana-texts-diamond-sutra-heart-sutra-sukhavativyuha-sbe-xlix.
- ChicagoDiamond Sutra. Buddhist Mahayana Texts: Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Sukhavativyuha (SBE XLIX). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahayana-sutras/buddhist-mahayana-texts-diamond-sutra-heart-sutra-sukhavativyuha-sbe-xlix.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Volume XLIX of the 'Sacred Books of the East', gathering three capital Mahayana texts: the Diamond Sutra, the Heart Sutra and the two Sukhavativyuha.
Context and history
These are three very different things within one volume. The first two belong to the 'perfection of wisdom' literature: the Diamond Sutra is a short dialogue in which the Buddha undoes one by one the categories with which the disciple tries to take hold of the teaching, and the Heart Sutra is shorter still — some two hundred and fifty words in Sanskrit — containing the formula 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form', probably the most recited Buddhist text in the world. The Sukhavativyuha belong to another tradition: they describe Amitabha's Pure Land and the vow that sustains it, and they are the basis of Pure Land Buddhism, the most widespread form in East Asia. The translations are by Max Müller and Takakusu, of 1894.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
22. Miyi also, holding him in her womb, like a line of clouds holding a lightning-flash, relieved the people around her from the sufferings of poverty by raining showers of gifts. 23. Then one day by the king’s permission the queen, having a great longing in her mind, went with the inmates of the gynaeceum into the garden Lumbini. 24. As the queen supported herself by a bough which hung laden with a weight of flowers, the Bodhisattva suddenly came forth, cleaving open her womb. 25. 1 At that time the constellation Pushya was auspicious, and from the side of the queen, who was purified by her vow, her son was born for the welfare of the world, without pain and without illness. 26. Like the sun bursting from a cloud in the morning, — so he too, when he was born from his mother’s womb, made the world bright like gold, bursting forth with his rays which dispelled the darkness. 27. As soon as he was born the thousand-eyed (Indra) well-pleased took him gently, bright like a golden pillar ; and two pure streams of water fell down from heaven upon his head with piles of Man dira flowers. 28. Carried about by the chief suras, and delighting them with the rays that streamed from his body, he 1 From this point the Tibetan and Chinese versions agree more or less closely with the Sanskrit text. THE BUDDHA-KARITA OF ASVAGHOSHA. surpassed in beauty the new moon as it rests on a mass of evening clouds. 29. As was Aurva’s birth from the thigh x, and Przthu’s from the hand1 2, and Mandhatrz’s, who was like Indra himself, from the forehead 3, and Kakshivat’s from the upper end of the arm 4 5, — thus too was his birth (miraculous). 30.…