Summary
The Transcendent State of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines is a keystone of the Prajñāpāramitā literature. It presents the Buddha’s teaching on the topic in a relatively compact text that nevertheless covers the entire range of important points he taught, and is therefore considered to be one of the six “mother” works. It has been hugely influential in Mahāyāna Buddhist thought across Asia, and gave rise to many commentaries in India and Tibet.
Acknowledgements
Translated by the Padmakara Translation Group under the direction of Pema Wangyal Rinpoche and Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche. Greg Seton translated the text, compiled extensive annotations to it from the commentaries, and wrote a preliminary version of the introduction. Charles Hastings contributed valuable editorial help during these stages.
The translation was then completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. John Canti edited the translation and annotations. He also edited and rearranged the introduction, and added further material to it. Ven. Konchog Norbu copyedited the text. Sameer Dhingra and Celso Wilkinson were in charge of the digital publication process.
The translation of this text has been made possible through the generous sponsorship of AC, AN, C, CHUCKTSOU, CM, CY, Deva-DKSPS, FEN, HCM, JFH, K, KH, LR, NIEHYUPING, NP, SF, SPTF, RW, WAC, WF, Y, YL, YS, YUANSUEN, YY, YUSHUHUI, and the other anonymous members of the Nigrodha team.
Introduction
Overview
The Transcendent State of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, hereafter Eight Thousand) is one of the most important, influential, and revolutionary Buddhist scriptures. It presents the Buddha’s second turning of the wheel of Dharma and thus some of the quintessential teachings at the core of the Mahāyāna. It may be close to the earliest textual form of the Prajñāpāramitā literature that, as it blossomed, forever transformed the Buddhist landscape in India and beyond.
The Eight Thousand is revered as one of the six “mother” Prajñāpāramitā texts, so called because they include the complete set of topics identified in the most influential of the Indian commentaries, The Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṃkāra), as comprising the full range covered by the Prajñāpāramitā teaching. But for those without the time, interest, stamina, or need to study the other, longer “mother” texts, the lesser level of detail with which the Eight Thousand covers that full range of topics makes it more accessible. The Eight Thousand seems to have been extensively read and studied in India, and was translated into Chinese and Tibetan more times than virtually any other scripture.
The Prajñāpāramitā sūtras are widely seen as presenting the Buddha’s core teaching on the emptiness of phenomena and their ultimate lack of defining characteristics. Yet as scriptures they are not easy to understand fully, and gave rise to a very large commentarial literature, starting with Nāgārjuna’s treatises and in a later period Maitreya-Asaṅga’s Ornament of Clear Realization and its many subcommentaries. Of those subcommentaries, the ones composed by Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti, from their different viewpoints, are renowned for their elucidation of the difficult points in the text, of its implicit structure, and of how its underlying themes are crucial for a full understanding of the Buddhist path in general and for the practice of a bodhisattva in particular.
This translation therefore includes substantial notes drawing on these two commentaries, in order to allow as full an appreciation as possible of the depth and breadth of the scripture itself, and to point out some of the ways in which its style and wordplay—difficult to convey in a translation—are integral to how it conveys its intended message.
There is nevertheless an established tradition, mentioned in the text itself, of simply reading or reciting the sūtra respectfully without analysis, allowing its words to bring about their subtle effect by themselves.
This English rendering, made principally from the Sanskrit but with reference to the Tibetan translation, is the first full translation of the Eight Thousand. It is presented here so that readers of all kinds may read or study it, with or without guidance from the notes, in whatever way they wish. In particular, we hope that the Eight Thousand’s own interpretable but playful use of language may amuse, intrigue, and inspire.
What follows in this introduction is a more detailed presentation of contextual and historical material, and some explanations of the approaches taken in translating the text.
Two synopses of the content, one according to the topics of The Ornament of Clear Realization and one set out chapter by chapter, can also be found at the end of the introduction. Although in many respects the Eight Thousand is less similar to the longer Prajñāpāramitā sūtras than they are to each other, it follows almost the same order as them in terms of narrative events, appearances of different interlocutors, topics discussed, and so forth. Some remarks and links to the passages paralleled in the Eighteen Thousand, Twenty-Five Thousand, and Hundred Thousand have been included so that interested readers may compare all these closely related accounts of the same material.
History, Extant Texts, and Commentaries
Place Among the Transcendent State of Wisdom Sūtras
According to tradition, when the Buddha taught the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, he entrusted their preservation to Ānanda and Vajrapāṇi, who initiated their oral transmission from an early date. But it was only centuries later, after Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–250
While the Tibetan and Chinese traditions consider the Hundred Thousand to be the source of the other twenty-two because it contains the most detailed exposition, traditional scholars in Nepal see the Eight Thousand as the original scripture. Western historians, too, based on the available philological evidence, have concluded that the Eight Thousand probably represents the earliest form of the multiplicity of Prajñāpāramitā texts. Whichever the case, since all the “mother” scriptures follow the same outline, there are many similarities between them, and not only the topics discussed and the order in which they are discussed, but also the principal narrative events, appearances of different interlocutors, and other features are clearly paralleled across the texts, even if the Eight Thousand is notably less similar to the longer sūtras than they are to each other.
The view that the Eight Thousand is closest to what may have been the earliest form of the scripture, initially based on analysis of passages in the earliest Chinese translations and translation records, has been supported by the evidence of more recently discovered manuscripts, such as the Kharoṣṭhī manuscript from the Split Collection, which has been carbon-dated to between 47 and 147
Manuscript fragments found near Bamiyan in Afghanistan and dated paleographically to the second half of the third century are more closely comparable to the Eight Thousand, to a degree that could justify their description as the earliest known Sanskrit witnesses of the text. Nevertheless, the various versions of the scripture that we know today as the Eight Thousand show evidence of significant expansion and evolution over time, as can be seen by comparing the extant Chinese translations made successively between the second and tenth centuries (see below).
Whatever its provenance or its significance, the Eight Thousand stands out as one of the most revered of all Buddhist scriptures. The Eight Thousand is still extant in more ancient Indian manuscripts than virtually any other text, and may have held a central place in many Mahāyāna Buddhist shrines. It also seems to have been among the most closely studied of all Prajñāpāramitā scriptures. Its level of detail made it complete but also accessible for those without the time, interest, stamina, or need to study the longer versions. This too may be the reason why it was translated into Chinese and Tibetan more times than virtually any other scripture—a total of seven times into Chinese beginning with Lokakṣema (179
Extant Texts
Sanskrit
The complete Sanskrit text is available in three successive editions, made by Mitra (1888), Wogihara (1932–35), and Vaidya (1960), from Nepalese manuscripts. The manuscripts themselves are of relatively recent date but are based on recensions dated to the eleventh or twelfth century.
Despite this late dating, the Sanskrit matches closely the fragmentary third-century manuscripts from Bamiyan mentioned above, even if the latter show more linguistic features characteristic of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. It therefore appears to have been relatively stable over many centuries.
There are suggestions in the Tibetan accounts of the various stages by which the successive Tibetan translations reached their present form that the numerous Sanskrit manuscripts consulted by successive translators may have not only been slightly different but also fell into two broad groups: those made before and after a revision of the text to conform to The Ornament of Clear Realization. However, the extant Sanskrit versions show no evidence of belonging to more than one principal lineage.
The extant Sanskrit text was used as the principal basis for this English translation, for reasons explained below. It corresponds quite closely to the Tibetan translation.
Chinese
The seven Chinese translations, made from the second through the tenth century
The Daoxing jing (道行經) or Daoxing banruo jing (道行般若經), Taishō 224, translated by Lokakṣema and others, probably from a Gāndhāri original, and dated by its colophon to 179
ᴄᴇ .The Da mingdu jing (大明度經), Taishō 225, translated in the early third century, for the most part by Zhi Qian except for its rather different first chapter, which is thought to be the work of another translator.
The Mohebanruo chaojing (摩訶般若鈔經), Taishō 226, canonically attributed to *Dharmapriya and Zhu Fonian and dated to 382
ᴄᴇ , although this is thought doubtful by some scholars.The Mohebanruo boluomi jing (摩訶般若波羅蜜經) or Xiaopin banruo boluomi jing (小品般若波羅蜜經), Taishō 227, translated by Kumārajīva in the early fifth century.
Two of the sections or “assemblies” of the Da banruo boluomiduo jing (大般若波羅蜜多經), Taishō 220, the great compilation of Prajñāpāramitā texts translated by Xuanzang in the seventh century:
the fourth in 29 chapters (vol. VII, 763b–865a), from an original in eight thousand lines, and
the fifth in 24 chapters (vol. VII, 865c–920b), similar in content but much shorter.
The Fo shuo fomu chusheng san fazang banruoboluomi jing (佛說佛母出生三法藏般若波羅蜜多經), Taishō 228, translated by *Dānapāla in the late tenth or early eleventh century.
Tibetan
Although this translation has been made principally from the Sanskrit, many readers may wish to read it along with the Tibetan text. It would therefore be an omission not to include here some mention of the complex history of the Tibetan translation.
The colophon of the version of the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur records seven consecutive stages in its evolution from the earliest translation:
1. in the early, imperially sponsored translation period (late eighth or early ninth century), translation, revision, and verification by Śākyasena, Jñānasiddhi, and the editor-lotsāwa Dharmataśīla (Chönyi Tsültrim);
2. in the late tenth century, harmonization with “the commentary” by Subhāṣita and Rinchen Zangpo;
3. in the early eleventh century, revision, correction, and editing by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and Rinchen Zangpo on the basis of “a commentary from Magadha”;
4. verification of a passage by Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna and the translator Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné;
5. verification by Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné, twice, against three Indian manuscripts;
6. further verification of some minor points by Dromtön Gyalwai Jungné; and
7. in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, verification by Ngok Loden Sherab against a number of manuscripts from Kashmir and Magadha.
To these stages, the colophons in the Narthang and Lhasa Kangyurs add an eighth:
8. in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, further corrections by the Zhalu translator Pal Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo, who edited and verified the text from the earlier versions compared with several Tibetan and Indian manuscripts.
The colophons in two of the Kangyurs of the Themphangma line, the Stok Palace (stog pho brang) and Zhey (shel mkhar) Kangyurs, and of one version of the text in the Phukdrak (phug brag) Kangyur, add further names and details, seemingly to this same stage of editing, and date it to an Iron Tiger year (possibly 1471 or 1531).
In parallel to these details recorded in the colophons, traditional Tibetan scholarship identifies three textual traditions for the Eight Thousand, differing only in minor stylistic phrasing, but distinguished—and named—according to how they render in Tibetan the Sanskrit name of the wandering ascetic Śreṇika, who is mentioned in the first chapter (1.23) as having firm conviction in the Buddha’s teaching. The names of these three versions of the text are ’phreng ba can (pronounced “Trengwachen”), bzo sbyangs (“Zojang”), and sde can (“Dechen”). The extant Sanskrit manuscripts use only the name Śreṇika for the wandering ascetic in this passage, but one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars in Tibet, Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo, the last recorded reviser of the text (see the stage numbered 8 above), is said to have mentioned witnessing three different versions of the Sanskrit name (set out below) in different Indian manuscripts of the Eight Thousand, each corresponding to the three renderings in Tibetan. He is also said to have confirmed that between these different manuscripts there were no other variants with a significant impact on meaning. Olkha Lelung Jedrung disagrees with earlier scholars who thought that these were three entirely different names for the same person, and expresses the opinion that the three Sanskrit names mentioned by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo are in effect no more than variants of the same name.
Although the Degé Kangyur catalog seems to say that the three versions correspond to different Sanskrit source manuscripts, the most likely explanation for the existence of these three textual traditions, differing principally in this minor distinction alone, is that they represent the sequential results of specific revisions made (along with many others) over time to the original Tibetan translation. A study by Torricelli and Dudka, and another by Shōji, suggest that the earliest translation may have rendered the name as bzo sbyangs, that the name sde can may be characteristic of a revision made by Kamalaśīla and Kawa Paltsek, and that ’phreng ba can was a revision introduced at a later stage in the editorial history of the text, perhaps with the coming to Tibet of Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna. Shōji does go so far as to divide the hypothetical Sanskrit manuscript traditions into two, A and B, with the bzo sbyangs and sde can Tibetan versions derived from A, and the ’phreng ba can from B. Both of the studies mentioned assume that the commentary used by Subhāṣita and Rinchen Zangpo for their revision of the sūtra (stage 2 above) was that of Haribhadra, the Abhisamayālaṃkārāloka (see below), and the integration of the name change from the commentary may suffice to explain the origin of the B lineage. The use of all three names in the different sūtras and commentaries (see below) supports that view.
The details in the available Tibetan sources and modern studies on these three traditions can be summarized as follows:
sde can: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Seniṣka. The rarest of the three traditions, only one extant witness is known, an independent thirteenth-century manuscript in the LTWA collection. Thought to have been a version resulting first from revisions made by Kamalaśīla and Kawa Paltsek in the eighth century to the very earliest translation, and then from further revisions made to that version by Dharmaśrībhadra and Rinchen Zangpo in the early eleventh century, before Atiśa’s arrival in Tibet.
bzo sbyangs: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Śaniṣka. Witnesses of this version are found in the Toyo Bunko and the London (shel dkar) Kangyurs, as one (F 11b) of the three versions of the sūtra in the Phukdrak Kangyur, and as some independent manuscripts. One of the latter has a colophon mentioning only the names of the early translators, suggesting that this version may represent the early translation in its unrevised form.
’phreng ba can: taken by Rinchen Chökyong Zangpo to render the Sanskrit Praniṣka. This is the most widespread version of the sūtra in Tibetan and is the one witnessed in most independent versions of the text and in all Tshalpa and mixed Kangyurs, in the Stok Palace and Zhey Kangyurs among those of the Themphangma line, and the two other versions in the Phukdrak Kangyur. The two forms of the colophon found appended to such versions detail the full set of eight or more translation and revision stages, as outlined above.
It should be noted in this context that in the other Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, the name of the same wandering ascetic, Śreṇika, is rendered in Tibetan as ’phreng ba can in the Hundred Thousand (Toh 8) and the Twenty-Five Thousand (Toh 9), but as bzo sbyangs in the Eighteen Thousand (Toh 10), the Ten Thousand (Toh 11), and the Verse Summary (Toh 13). Furthermore, in the Tengyur, the Tibetan translations of Bhadanta Vimuktisena’s commentary (Toh 3788) on The Ornament of Clear Realization (see below) and of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary (Toh 3803) on the present text (much referred to in the notes to this translation) both render the name as sde can, while those of Dharmaśrī’s commentary (Toh 3802) on the Hundred Thousand and the commentary on the three long sūtras attributed to Vasubandhu or Daṃṣṭrasena (Toh 3808) both render the name as bzo sbyangs. It is therefore intriguing that the classification of Tibetan translations based on the threefold variants of this name seems only to be mentioned with regard to translations of the Eight Thousand.
In any case, the Tibetan translation found in most Kangyurs is closely aligned with the extant Sanskrit and may be read with it, as will be seen using the bilingual view in the present translation as published online, which uses the text from the Degé Kangyur. Minor variants between different Kangyurs are comparatively infrequent and have not been recorded in the notes, given that the translation is based principally on the Sanskrit. Among the many available versions of the Tibetan text, of particular note is the magnificent volume in the Lhasa (zhol) Kangyur, printed from woodblocks made in the early 1930s, with two line drawings—each depicting a notable figure in the transmission of the sūtra—on the recto of every single one of its 523 folios.
In summary, the Tibetan translation seems to have been very carefully checked, edited, revised, and verified against a number of Sanskrit manuscripts, and indeed with the help of one or more of the Indian commentaries (although there is no record of which), by many generations of scholars.
The Commentaries
Readers of this translation of the Eight Thousand will not necessarily be making use of the treatises and commentaries to help them understand how the tradition understands the esoteric meaning of the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, for much in these works can indeed be understood on its own. Nevertheless, the selected material from the commentaries that we have included in the notes is quite extensive, and it may therefore be helpful to sketch out the historical background and ongoing role of the commentarial tradition.
Commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitā Scriptures Overall
The Prajñāpāramitā scriptures themselves were much read and studied throughout the Mahāyāna Buddhist world, yet as standalone works they were almost certainly no less difficult to understand fully than we find them today.
If we extrapolate from the scriptures themselves, their intended audience includes two distinct spiritual types, namely, (a) the “faithful type” (śraddhānusārin), those who have enough faith in the Mahāyāna teachings that they can enter the path of preliminary practice through faith alone, and (b) the “intellectual type” (dharmānusārin), those who have faith in the Mahāyāna teachings but require explanations that seem true to them analytically before they enter the path of preliminary practice. For the faithful type, it is just revering or reciting the scripture—even without any understanding of the esoteric meaning—that is said to have immediate worldly benefits and to set them quickly on the path to complete awakening. For the intellectual type, on the other hand, it is studying the esoteric meaning of the scripture that is supposed to have immediate worldly benefits and to lead eventually to complete awakening. The Prajñāpāramitā scriptures are aimed at both types, since hearing or reading them is a necessary condition for awakening, but on its own is not a sufficient condition for a clear understanding of the Transcendent State of Wisdom itself or its related practices.
Those wishing to practice the teachings were explicitly said to require the guidance of a teacher and to devote themselves wholeheartedly to study. As the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras spread across the Indian subcontinent and beyond, the direct guidance of teachers does not seem to have been enough. Out of the need for more extensive guidance, the commentarial tradition was born.
The complexity of interpreting the language and meaning of these scriptures is witnessed by the large number of different commentaries and treatises composed over the centuries, and the variety of interpretive traditions. Schematically, these can be seen as arising in three phases.
First, Nāgārjuna’s treatise, The Root Verses on the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Toh 3824), clarified their explicit teachings on emptiness, and the commentary attributed to him by the Chinese tradition, Treatise on the Great Virtue of Wisdom (Dazhidu lun, *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa), unpacked their terminology and general implications.
Next, according to some traditions, the great master Asaṅga (fourth century
Finally, The Long Explanation of the Noble Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand, Twenty-Five Thousand, and Eighteen Thousand Lines (Toh 3808), attributed by some to Vasubandhu (fourth to fifth century) and by others to Daṃṣṭrasena (eighth to early ninth century), presents the structure of the larger scriptures as involving three approaches to the topic: brief, intermediate, and detailed.
Commentaries on the Eight Thousand Itself
Against this background of the Prajñāpāramitā treatises in general, Dignāga (480–540
For this reason, in the ninth century
In the eleventh century, Ratnākaraśānti composed The Quintessence of the Eight Thousand (Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāpañjikāsārottamā, hereafter Quintessence). It has been preserved in Tibetan translation in the Tengyur (Toh 3803), and incompletely in a Sanskrit edition by Padmanabh Jaini, published in 1979. As the only other commentary on the Eight Thousand, it addresses matters that Haribhadra had not covered and disputes some things that he had. But aside from unpacking the scripture, Ratnākaraśānti aimed to show—through his many commentaries—how central the Transcendent State of Wisdom is to both Mahāyāna and tantric practice, as in the concluding lines of his opening verses to The Instructions on the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitopadeśa, Toh 4079):
- “By cultivating this blessed supreme Perfection every day,
- One succeeds in the (methods of) the mantras
- And one holds the (methods of) the five transcendent states in the palm of one’s hand.”
In this way, through the efforts of Indian scholars, the Eight Thousand came to be understood as one of the foundational scriptural authorities for the practice of both the Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna. Furthermore, since each commentator attempted to prove that the scripture aligns with his own philosophical position, it slowly became the interpretive battleground for different scholastic attempts to systematize the Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist logic of practice. Despite their different philosophical perspectives, the commentaries provide excellent access to the scripture’s meaning. Yet even when a commentary explains the esoteric meaning, the relevance and application of this meaning is not always perfectly clear in the words in the scripture itself. So serious scholastic study began to focus more on individual treatises than on the actual scriptures.
From the eighth century onward, Indian scholastic study of the Transcendent State of Wisdom seems to have increasingly read the scriptures through the lens of one particular treatise, namely the Ornament. The Ornament itself is a brief independent treatise that provides a versified outline of topics within the mother Prajñāpāramitā scriptures themselves. The outline has eight chapters, which include a total of seventy main topics and twelve hundred subtopics to be realized along the path. But the Ornament neither expands on these topics, nor explains how they are to be interpolated into the Mother Prajñāpāramitā scriptures themselves. Commentaries on the Ornament are required to show where exactly the individual Ornament headings should be inserted into the scriptures and how those headings shed light on each stage of Mahāyāna practice.
Since the Ornament’s outline of topics seems to be designed for the Twenty-Five Thousand, the first commentary on the Ornament by Ārya Vimuktisena simply matched its seventy topics to that scripture. Among the twenty-one different Indian commentaries on the Ornament still extant in Tibetan translations, only two commentaries matched its seventy topics to the much shorter Eight Thousand. First, in the ninth century, Haribhadra’s Light (Ālokā) did so from the philosophical perspective of the Madhyamaka school, and in the eleventh century, Ratnākaraśānti’s Quintessence (Sāratamā) did so from the perspective of the Yogācāra school. In both these commentaries, the study of the Prajñāpāramitā is presented largely as a comparative theory of practice. That is to say, the commentaries show (a) how the Eight Thousand implicitly refers to the stages of the different paths of practice in the vehicle of bodhisattvas, and (b) how these compare to the stages of the different paths of practice in the vehicles of the disciples and solitary realizers. The comparison presents the different theories of practice in the different vehicles, in detail, from multiple perspectives, at every stage of the path. This comparison seeks not just to prove the superiority of the Mahāyāna approach to practice, but also to clarify how it differs from other approaches to practice within the different vehicles—which might seem quite similar, but actually are not.
Although the Ornament’s outline fits the Eight Thousand to some degree, on occasions Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti themselves fail to connect one or another of the seventy topics to any passage at all in the Eight Thousand. Whether or not one regards this “fit” problem as stemming from an anachronistic attempt to read later doctrines and practices into the earlier Eight Thousand, Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries still offer what is probably the best window into the Eight Thousand’s early terminology and otherwise almost inaccessible esoteric meaning.
So helpful was the guidance of these two commentators that when the seven (or eight, see above) different teams of Tibetan translators each translated or retranslated the Eight Thousand into Tibetan between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, they all based their translations on the glosses and explanations that the two commentaries provided. Later, when the Ornament became the focus of Tibetan scholastic education in the different schools and lineages of Tibet, the Tibetans made direct reference to these same two commentaries in their own subcommentaries, sub-subcommentaries, and textbooks. In this way, the Tibetan tradition absorbed the Indian Prajñāpāramitā literature into its own works and continued to expand upon the topics. Over time, the Tibetans came to focus mainly on studying the Ornament without making any reference to the scriptures themselves, since to achieve a serviceable understanding of the Ornament alone is said to take years of dedicated, single-pointed study.
From this focus on the Ornament came the notion that reading the treatise was the equivalent of reading the scriptures. This may be true in the sense that the seventy topics are indeed said to be the most relevant points made by the scriptures. However, it may lead to distortions of understanding in that (a) the scriptures themselves present the topics in a literary style and genre very different from those of the Ornament and aim to affect the reader in different ways; (b) there are many things in the scriptures not mentioned at all in the Ornament; and (c) the function of the Ornament itself is an intertextual one of illuminating the words of the scriptures, rather than of being understood on its own. Thus, anyone interested in learning more about the Prajñāpāramitā would do well to read the scriptures in conjunction with the commentarial tradition and to keep in mind that the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures have their own value.
Another reason for reading the Eight Thousand is that despite the widespread reverence for it, relatively few Buddhists outside the scholastic setting have any knowledge even of its contents, not to mention its meaning. In the Himalayas today, devoted Buddhists still occasionally perform or sponsor monastic recitations of the Eight Thousand. But a far more common practice, across the modern Mahāyāna Buddhist world, is to chant aloud daily—or occasionally write out—the one-page Heart Sūtra. Since the Heart Sūtra focuses on the topic of emptiness and is held to be a condensed version of all Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, many modern Buddhists—and even Western Buddhist Studies scholars with limited exposure to traditional scholastic studies—have erroneously come to believe that “emptiness” is the central topic of all the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures, too. In fact, emptiness is barely mentioned by name in the Eight Thousand and is not even included in the Ornament’s list of the seventy main topics or twelve hundred subtopics, which are considered so central and important to Tibetan Buddhist practice that some monastic universities focus solely on them for up to six years before turning to classical texts on philosophy, logic, and debates related to emptiness.
Style and Themes
Given the sūtra’s seminal role in the development of Mahāyāna Buddhism outlined above, modern readers eager to explore the Eight Thousand may be surprised to learn that it does not seek to convey the “wisdom” mentioned in its title in the manner that they might expect from works belonging to other well-known literary or religious genres—including the Pali Buddhist suttas. Instead, it is the way the very words of the Eight Thousand are crafted that is designed to provide, to those who revere, recite, and study them, a performative and provocative means for achieving complete, perfect awakening.
Some of the scripture’s Mahāyāna themes—such as how a bodhisattva transcends cyclic existence through engendering a mindset of awakening “free of duality and free from creating duality”—will certainly be familiar to many readers; these themes will be summarized chapter by chapter below. But the way that the scripture communicates these subjects may come as a surprise. That is to say, the meaning is often communicated only indirectly through the repartee of the dialogues, the negations of opposites, elusive implications, paradoxical statements, esoteric references to unspecified practices, play on words, and the use of heuristic etymologies.
Furthermore, the reason for which this literature is primarily studied in the Indian and Tibetan scholastic traditions is the understanding it brings not so much of the emptiness with which the Prajñāpāramitā is often associated, but rather of the framework it sets out for the “path,” the implicit meaning behind the texts’ explicit statements.
Modern-Day Translations of the Eight Thousand
The few translations of the Eight Thousand into modern languages that have been made are mostly incomplete and not readily available. The first and most complete was a French translation made by Eugène Burnouf between 1837 and 1839 from two of the manuscripts sent from Nepal by B. H. Hodgson. Burnouf lamented that he had been unable to consult any commentarial works, but nevertheless produced a painstaking and remarkable translation, comparing his manuscripts with others of the Twenty-Five Thousand and Hundred Thousand-Line sūtras and with the Tibetan text. Of the Eight Thousand’s thirty-two chapters, he completed the first twenty-seven and most of the twenty-eighth, but apart from a few extracts his translation remained unpublished until recently.
Eleven chapters were translated into German by Max Walleser in 1914, and a number of single chapters or other short excerpts in French and German were published in the first half of the twentieth century. A complete translation of the Sanskrit into Japanese by Kajiyama and Teruyoshi was published in 1974.
Meanwhile, in 1958, the great pioneer of Prajñāpāramitā studies in English, Edward Conze, first published his influential and widely read translation of the text. Although it is complete in the sense that it covers all thirty-two chapters, Conze chose to omit or paraphrase much of the repetitive detail that is characteristic of the original, but that he considered would be an impediment to modern readers. As we shall discuss further below, in this respect, valuable though it has been, his translation is significantly less than a complete one.
Notes on This Translation of the Eight Thousand
Sources and Approaches
Given the Eight Thousand’s significance, it is perhaps surprising that this is the first complete English translation. It is based primarily on the Sanskrit text (edited by Mitra in 1888 and reproduced by Vaidya and Wogihara), and only secondarily on the Tibetan version in the Degé Kangyur. We have nevertheless consistently consulted the Tibetan and have recorded in the footnotes all substantial inconsistencies between the Sanskrit and Tibetan, mentioning which of the two readings was translated and why it was followed. Our reasons for relying more on the extant Sanskrit than on the Tibetan stem from considerations of history, meaning, and usefulness.
From the historical perspective, Sanskrit is of course closer to the original Indic language in which the text was written. Fortunately, too, the Tibetan translation matches Mitra’s edition much more closely than is the case for Tibetan translations of some other canonical texts compared to their extant Sanskrit parallels.
Second, translating the Eight Thousand from the Sanskrit has also helped produce a more meaningful translation, because the Sanskrit terminology is more transparent in its etymology and semantic range. The Tibetan translation sometimes limits or alters the sense of original terms, inadvertently obfuscates relationships between them, and renders opaque or invisible the Eight Thousand’s Sanskrit wordplay.
Third, we hope that having a translation of the Eight Thousand made primarily from the Sanskrit will make it easier to study the text through English translations of the two Sanskrit commentaries by Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti. Without reference to the Sanskrit text, English translations of the Sanskrit commentaries would make little sense, because what they both clarify is the terminological and syntactic ambiguities of the sūtra’s original Sanskrit text, and not any ambiguities introduced by the choices made in the Tibetan translation. The extant Tibetan translation of the Eight Thousand did indeed follow Ratnākaraśānti’s and Haribhadra’s commentaries on many points, but a translation of the Sanskrit still provides a better starting point than the Tibetan for understanding the commentarial tradition.
The primary concern in this English translation of the Eight Thousand has been to create a text that can serve as a basis for the traditional study that it deserves, while still being accessible to those who wish, as Paul Harrison puts it, “to read the English as English and make some sense of it.” For Sanskrit prose, the Eight Thousand is stylistically clunky and repetitive at the sentence level. But to facilitate in-depth study with Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries, which take the text sentence by sentence, the translation must match the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions sentence by sentence too, even if this has led to a style that could also be considered clunky for English prose.
A secondary concern has been to use consistent Buddhist terminology, rather than different translations of the same words, to bring out the range of meanings or to produce more elegant prose. The Eight Thousand makes use of many different rhetorical devices that require such consistency—meaningful plays on words, paradoxical statements, recoding of similar terms to challenge reader assumptions, and so on—all of which play a role in conveying the scripture’s tone and ultimate intent.
The Eight Thousand’s repetitive style, too, has been preserved. Even if repetition is less a major feature of this text than it is of the longer sūtras, it is still very evident. Repetition was clearly used for its effect on reciters and their audience, or individual readers. For instance, some chapters include multiple repetitions of long passages with only one word or phrase change. Where repetition is either the point itself or central to that point, it would be a mistake to eliminate it.
Edward Conze, in his 1958 rendering of the text in English, chose to paraphrase rather than fully translate it, with the idea that this would make it available to a wider readership. The justification he used is worth analyzing, at least to highlight the different stylistic approach of this present translation. In his own preface, Conze states:
“The Sūtra itself was meant to be memorized, the translation is meant to be read. Lengthy repetitions, stereotyped phrases, and the piling up of synonyms were of great assistance to memory, but they irritate and distract the modern reader, and obscure from him the meaning of the text.…The reproduction of the literary conventions and of the stylistic peculiarities of Buddhist Sanskrit diction was not one of my aims. It would be of little, or no, value to scholars, and it bewilders the general reader.”
Here, Conze states several things that deserve closer scrutiny. First, he assumes that “the Sūtra was meant to be memorized, the translation is meant to be read.” Yet throughout its history, it seems quite likely that the scripture itself has been read far more than it has been memorized. Second, he assumes that “lengthy repetitions, stereotyped phrases, and the piling up of synonyms” obscure the meaning of the text. Yet the scripture’s overall meaning is not merely contained in certain individual words. It is also conveyed through those very stylistic devices, repetitions, and “piled-up” synonyms. What is valuable in this book, Conze assumes with his modern bias, cannot be what comes from the verbal performance of chanting it aloud. Finally, when Conze eliminates or paraphrases repetitions that the commentators find meaningful but he himself finds meaningless, he neglects the needs of those who might wish to read the translation along with the two main Indian commentaries.
Since no one would feel equipped to draw firm conclusions about the scripture without the full text or a traditional commentary on its meaning, a new English translation of both the scripture and its commentaries should help correct the historical, philosophical, and religious misunderstandings that have inadvertently arisen from Conze’s translation style and comments about the scripture. To illustrate this point simply, it may be helpful to give a brief example where Conze’s assumptions and his paraphrase obfuscate both the literal meaning and the traditional interpretation of even just a single passage. At the conclusion of a meaningful passage, Conze’s translation reads:
“A Bodhisattva who does not become afraid when this deep and perfect wisdom is being taught should be recognized as not lacking in perfect wisdom.”
Consider now how much more meaning might be found in a literal translation that would read as follows:
“O Blessed One, when this profound transcendent state of wisdom is being discussed, taught, and expounded in this way, if a bodhisattva great being’s mindset does not become deflated, depressed, dejected, or sunk in despondency, and his or her mental attitude does not become discouraged, shattered, frightened, terrified, or stricken with terror, then that bodhisattva great being has firm conviction with an altruistic disposition. Hence, one should recognize him or her to be never lacking the transcendent state of wisdom.”
It is easy to see that Conze’s paraphrases were not merely eliminating words that “irritate and distract the modern reader, and obscure from him the meaning of the text.” Conze’s paraphrase is also missing many words that Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary refers to. For instance, consider Ratnākaraśānti’s comments on the above literal translation:
“These sentences (in the above passage) accord with the way that the meditative object and meditative perspective are explained. Here, the word ‘profound’ means difficult to understand. This ‘transcendent state of wisdom’ refers to [a bodhisattva’s knowing on the path of preliminary practice] in the intermediate and advanced stages of warming up. First, ‘discussed’ concerns the words; then, ‘taught’ and ‘expounded’ concern the meaning. By understanding that meaning (in practice), the bodhisattva develops tranquility (śamatha; zhi gnas). The [nine] words beginning with ‘does not become deflated’ and so on [correspond to nine emotional difficulties that are progressively overcome through the nine stages of meditation practice aimed at tranquility,] as explained previously. The ‘altruistic disposition’ refers to a bodhisattva’s motivation [for practice], which indicates single-pointed determination [to awaken through practice]. ‘Firm conviction’ is generated by force of the tranquility meditation and the insight meditation. The phrase ‘never separate’ means that, through this [meditation], a bodhisattva’s transcendent state of wisdom will only increase.”
The words Conze omits in his paraphrase are thus ones that the commentarial tradition holds to be meaningful. Omitting them forecloses the possibility that in English translation Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary could clarify the scripture’s esoteric meaning according to the received tradition. Where Ratnākaraśānti comments on the nine experiences (i.e., “deflated,” “depressed,” and so on, up to “stricken with terror”), Conze saw nothing but a “repetition” or “piling up of synonyms,” and abbreviated them all into the single word “afraid.” Yet according to Ratnākaraśānti these nine words correspond to nine emotional difficulties progressively overcome through the nine stages of meditation practice. Furthermore, Ratnākaraśānti situates the particular degree of tranquility and insight achieved here with a specific stage and level of the bodhisattva’s path.
This is just one example of how Conze’s mixture of translation and paraphrase, pioneering though it was, distorts the meaning to be gleaned from certain esoteric passages, misrepresents the scripture’s use of language, and cannot be read alongside Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary. Among many other such instances, his rendering of chapter 5 omits the multiple repetitions of very long refrains, completely altering the nature of the chapter and its performative effect on a reader. Needless to say, general readers, Buddhist practitioners, and scholars who unwittingly rely on Conze’s paraphrases—as though they are full translations—are being misled.
Stylistically, the present new, complete English translation may not match the tastes of modern readers seeking concision. On the contrary, it preserves all sentence-level repetitions, piling up of synonyms, stock phrases, and so on, so that the traditional commentaries can easily be linked to it in the future, and so that an appreciation of the tradition can inform conclusions about the scripture itself. However, it makes no attempt to translate one word with only one word or to preserve syntactical relations between words. Many long sentences have been cut into shorter ones, adding words without brackets wherever necessary for clarity. The stylistic repetitions of words within a particular sentence have been eliminated only when it would make the English text too clumsy or difficult to understand. Thus, all language has been translated in a simple, straightforward way with a few key notes to make the scripture relatively accessible.
Selections from the Commentaries as Notes
The Eight Thousand can be fruitfully read even with less than a full understanding of its content. The scripture itself often states that simply by reading it the faithful will gain inconceivable merit. To read the scripture alone—without the Ornament’s table of contents or the explanations of the commentaries—may thus offer readers much to explore. But for those with the time and interest it can be explored far more deeply by reading it with the aid of the Ornament and its explanatory commentaries. Complete translations of the commentaries are not yet available, but to provide some help for difficult passages, arcane metaphors, esoteric passages, and ambiguous words, we have provisionally included in the notes some translations of selected key comments from Haribhadra’s Light (abbreviated “Hari”) and Ratnākaraśānti’s Quintessence (abbreviated “Ratnākara” or “RK”).
To get the most use out of these notes and not feel overwhelmed by the commentarial detail, readers would do well to understand what purposes the commentator’s comments aim to serve, the types of comments that have been selected for inclusion, and how the comments have been translated.
Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries generally aim to provide five services:
to clarify ambiguous Sanskrit word divisions (padaccheda);
to paraphrase the meaning of ambiguous words and syntactical relations (padārthokti);
to present etymological and grammatical analysis (vigraha) of ambiguous Sanskrit terms;
to interpret the meaning of ambiguous sentences (vākyayojanā); and
to address possible confusion or doubts about the intended meaning of the text (ākṣepasamādhāna).
The first four mostly concern issues in the Sanskrit that the English translation already accounts for. Some of these comments contain tidbits that would be interesting to the average English reader but are submerged in points that only a Sanskrit reader would understand or care about.
The fifth service concerns the logic and meaning behind the theory and practice implied in the text. To this end, Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries are centered on demonstrating, section by section, the correlations between the Eight Thousand and the Ornament, and they seek to provide enough philosophical, religious, and historical context so that an uninformed reader can understand the meaning of both texts. But comments of this type can be long and written in a style that requires additional explanation, so it is not always easy to extract the most relevant parts to include in a note. The notes to this translation therefore include no more than a minuscule portion of all the material held by Indo-Tibetan tradition as the theoretical underpinning of the text. Many of the comments that are included require, at least, a working knowledge of the stages of the five Mahāyāna paths that would normally be explained orally by a teacher. In selecting comments for the notes, our main aim was to provide Haribhadra’s or Ratnākaraśānti’s briefer comments where the scripture is difficult to understand on its own. The notes thus focus on the most easily extractable comments whose purposes fall under the second, fourth, and fifth categories listed above. The selection process was inevitably idiosyncratic, but was influenced by several further limiting factors.
First, comments that might be relevant to the interests of readers of any of several possible kinds—Buddhists, non-Buddhists, or academics of various disciplines—were included. In this regard, some footnotes might be interesting only to some readers.
Second, wherever a choice was necessary for brevity or clarity, Ratnākaraśānti’s comments, which have never been translated before, took precedence over Haribhadra’s comments, because an English translation of Haribhadra’s commentary already exists and can be independently consulted. But when Ratnākaraśānti’s comments are extant only in Tibetan translation rather than in Sanskrit, Haribhadra’s commentary is often provided, since the Tibetan translation of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary systematically excludes information concerning Sanskrit grammar and etymologies that are helpful for understanding his overall comments.