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:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, 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). 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)." 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). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/mahayana-sutras/buddhist-mahayana-texts-diamond-sutra-heart-sutra-sukhavativyuha-sbe-xlix.
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.
piness, surpasses (Brahman) the Creator, — who, as driving away darkness, vanquishes the sun, — and, as dispelling all burning heat, surpasses the beautiful moon. 2. There was a city, the dwelling-place1 of the great saint Kapila, having its sides surrounded by the beauty of a lofty broad table-land as by a line of clouds, and itself, with its high-soaring palaces 2, immersed in the sky. 3. By its pure and lofty system of government it, as it were, stole the splendour of the clouds of Mount KaiBsa, and while it bore the clouds which came to it through a mistake, it fulfilled the imagina¬ tion which had led them thither 3. 4. In that city, shining with the splendour of gems, darkness like poverty could find no place ; I Vastu seems used here for v&stu. They had thought that it was Kailasa. O] /IV t 3 Dhishwya. B THE BUDDHA-iTARITA OF ASVAGHOSHA. prosperity shone resplendently, as with a smile, from the joy of dwelling with such surpassingly excellent citizens. 5. With its festive arbours, its arched gateways and pinnacles 1, it was radiant with jewels in every dwelling ; and unable to find any other rival in the world, it could only feel emulation with its own houses. 6. There the sun, even although he had retired, was unable to scorn the moon-like faces of its women which put the lotuses to shame, and as if from the access of passion, hurried towards the western ocean to enter the (cooling) water. 7. ‘Yonder Indra has been utterly annihilated by the people when they saw the glories2 acquired by the •Sakyas,’— uttering this scoff, the ci