Sara H wrote:Huifeng wrote:Sara H wrote:
"Going on, Going on, always Going on, Always Becoming Buddha, Hail, Hail, Hail!"
In Gassho,
Sara H.
Is this some rendition of the Hrdaya mantra?
~~ Huifeng
It's from the Heart Sutra.
The Japanese version is Gyate Gyate Hara Gyate Hara Sō Gyate Bodhi Sowaka!
In Gassho,
Sara H.
It is rather, shall we say, a creative rendition. The Japanese, as the Chinese, is just a transliteration. The Sanskrit that we have is as follows:
[tadyathā oṃ] gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā.
Conze has a nice break down of it:
Conze wrote: Gone—the ending – in gate, etc., can, grammatically, have two meanings: It may denote a feminine vocative—‘O, she (i.e. the Prajñāpāramitā), who is gone, etc!’ the mantra would then resume the initial invocation (no 1). Or It may be a masculine or feminine locative—‘in him, or in her who is gone, etc., there is enlightenment’. Then it states, as I have shown in some detail SS pp 22-4, what must be done to get to enlightenment. The locative can in Sanskrit be used as an absolute case, and the meaning then would be—‘he is gone’, or ‘she is gone’, etc. the mantra therefore represents a dialogue with an invisible force, or with oneself.
Beyond, pāra, occurs, as we saw at no. 5, in the very name of the Prajñā pāram ita, as a technical term it is opposed to a Not-Beyond, which comprises:
1. Suffering,
2. its basis, i.e. the round of births,
3. The place where suffering takes place, i.e. that skandhas, and
4. its cause, i.e. craving and other bad habits. The unwholesome states are compared to a flood, or to a river in full spate. We are on the hither shore, beset with fears and dangers. Security can be found only on the other shore, beyond flood, which has to be crossed by means of the ship, or raft, of the Dharma.
Awakening, equals enlightenment (of no. 48), wisdom, emptiness and Nirvāṇa (no. 44).
All hail, Svāhā only imperfectly reproduced by ‘all hail’, is a term of blessing used traditionally by the Brahmin priests in their ritual. It is an ecstatic shout of joy, expressive of a feeling of complete release, just as Io triumpe was in Latin, Hailly in Mexican, or Axie Taure in Dionysian ritual. In the Tantric system svāhā is reserved for mantras addressed to feminine deities.
The six words. Of the mantra correspond to sections III to VIII respectively. This is quite obvious for bodhi, which takes up the ‘enlightenment’ of section VII. After the two initial steps of sections III and IV we come to V at the pāragate, which is the traditional term for the plunge into the Unconditioned. In pāra-saṃ-gate, the sam- has the meaning of completeness, as with saṃ-bodhi in 48. Readers can work out the further details for themselves.
In short, there is no way to read it as "Going on, Going on, always Going on, Always Becoming Buddha, Hail, Hail, Hail!", either from Chinese / Japanese, or Sanskrit. It appears to be forcing a particular type of interpretation onto it, which is rather unjustified.
Further resources in Chinese and Sanskrit available on my blog, here:
http://prajnacara.blogspot.co.uk/search ... 8Hrdaya%29
~~ Huifeng