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The Heart Sutra — Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

Traditional attribution

The Heart Sutra

Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya (般若心經)

Buda de pie, arte de Gandhara
bySiddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

The briefest and most recited of the Perfection of Wisdom texts: in barely three hundred words it states that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form", denies the own-existence of the aggregates and of the four noble truths and culminates in a mantra. It is chanted daily in monasteries in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Tibet.

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Editions and translations · 3

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Authorship note

A Mahayana sutra that puts its teachings in the Buddha's mouth. Scholarship regards it as a composition long after his death by anonymous authors of the Mahayana movements; it is attributed to the historical Gotama only through the formula "Thus have I heard". In it the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara speaks to Sariputra; the Buddha intervenes only, in the long version, to approve what was said. Jan Nattier (1992) argued that it was composed in Chinese and translated back into Sanskrit, a thesis still debated.

Editions and translations

Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.

English

  • The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas — Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

    The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas

    Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004

    Translation: Red Pine

    ISBN 9781593760090

  • The Larger and Smaller Pragñâ-pâramitâ-hridaya-sûtra (Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts, SBE XLIX)

    Clarendon Press, 1894

    Translation: F. Max Müller

    Dominio público.

Español

  • El sutra del corazón

    Edaf, 2018

    ISBN 9788441428201

    Traducción española de la obra de Red Pine.

Other works by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

Sources

  • Cowell, E. B., Max Müller, F. y Takakusu, J. (trads.). Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts. Sacred Books of the East, vol. XLIX. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1894 (Buddhacarita de Aśvaghoṣa; Vajracchedikā; Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya; Sukhāvatīvyūha). Dominio público.

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