The Heart Sutra Explained - Hardcover

Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8170302382 ISBN 13: 9788170302384

Publisher: South Asia Books, 1990

Synopsis

Language: English
Pages: 245

About the Book
Reknowned for its terse declaration of the perfection of wisdom, the Heart Sutra is the most famous of Buddhist scriptures. The author draws on previously unexamined commentaries, preserved only in Tibetan, to investigate the meanings derived from and invested into the Sutra during the later period of Indian Buddhism.
The Heart Sutra Explained offers new insights of "emptiness and form", and on the mantra, "gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha", and on the synthesis of Madhyamika, Yogacara, and tantric thought that characterized the final period of Buddhism in India. It also includes complete translations of two nineteenth-century Tibetan commentaries demonstrating the selective appropriation of Indian sources.
"It makes a major contribution to Buddhist studies by bringing forth new and important material to contextualize one of the most beloved and wellknown Buddhist texts, the Heart sutra. It does so in a manner that is both scholarly and readable.
Introduction
The Heart Sutra is perhaps the most famous Buddhist scripture.' Its cryptic delineation of the meaning of emptiness and its radical economy of expression have exercised a fascination over the minds of Buddhist thinkers in India, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Central Asia. Over seventy manuscripts of the sutra were unearthed at Tunhuang. The Heart Sutra has evoked commentaries from many of the pivotal figures in the history of Buddhist thought, including Kamalasila, Atisa, Fa-tsang, K'uei-chi, Kukai, and Hakuin Zenji.
The Heart Sutra exists in two versions, the more extensive adding a prologue and epilogue to the briefer form. But even in its extensive version, the Heart Sutra is the shortest of the major Buddhist sutras, and this brevity accounts in part

About this title

Review:

"It makes a major contribution to Buddhist studies by bringing forth new and important material to contextualize one of the most beloved and well-known Buddhist texts, the Heart Sutra. It does so in a manner that is both scholarly and readable." -- Anne C. Klein, Stanford University

About this edition

• Publisher: South Asia Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 8170302382
• ISBN 13: 9788170302384
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 230