Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
microbodhi
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Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by microbodhi »

Hi,

This is my first post here.

I would like to know the best commentary and translation and if possible for Śūraṅgama Sūtra, a copy with word for word translation of the Sanskrit would be a bonus.

Warm Thanks in advance
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

microbodhi wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:40 am Hi,

This is my first post here.

I would like to know the best commentary and translation and if possible for Śūraṅgama Sūtra, a copy with word for word translation of the Sanskrit would be a bonus.

Warm Thanks in advance
None from Sanskrit now, but from Chinese. The one by Master Hsuan Hua may be the only one in English.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Nicholas Weeks wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 1:18 am
microbodhi wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:40 am Hi,

This is my first post here.

I would like to know the best commentary and translation and if possible for Śūraṅgama Sūtra, a copy with word for word translation of the Sanskrit would be a bonus.

Warm Thanks in advance
None from Sanskrit now, but from Chinese. The one by Master Hsuan Hua may be the only one in English.
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
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khandha
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by khandha »

In addition to the already mentioned master Hsuan Hua's translation, there is the translation by Charles Luk which includes the commentary of the 16th century Chan master Hanshan, in it's footnotes.
Tenma
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Tenma »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:46 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 1:18 am
microbodhi wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:40 am Hi,

This is my first post here.

I would like to know the best commentary and translation and if possible for Śūraṅgama Sūtra, a copy with word for word translation of the Sanskrit would be a bonus.

Warm Thanks in advance
None from Sanskrit now, but from Chinese. The one by Master Hsuan Hua may be the only one in English.
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
Would using reconstructed Sanskrit work?
http://www.dharmabliss.org/audio/sur-te ... skt-ch.htm
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Tenma wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 5:45 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:46 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 1:18 am

None from Sanskrit now, but from Chinese. The one by Master Hsuan Hua may be the only one in English.
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
Would using reconstructed Sanskrit work?
http://www.dharmabliss.org/audio/sur-te ... skt-ch.htm
While it’s possible to translate Chinese into Sanskrit, the problem is that, with any language translation process, concepts and meanings are sometimes lost or distorted along the way. Consider how in English the term “emptiness” is used to translate “sunyata”, or “suffering” for “dukkha”. Those two words have a lot of definitions in English which do not reflect the meanings of the Sanskrit words.
The sutra in Chinese as it stands now may be a 90-99% full and accurate translation from Sanskrit, but translated back it might only be 80-90% close to what the original Sanskrit was.
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Malcolm
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:46 am
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
There never was a Sanskrit edition.
khandha
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by khandha »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:11 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:46 am
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
There never was a Sanskrit edition.
I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

khandha wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:27 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:11 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 2:46 am
I’m just finishing reading that edition now.
My understanding is that there are no surviving Sanskrit editions.
There never was a Sanskrit edition.
I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
This is the consensus of most scholars on the issue.
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Svalaksana
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Svalaksana »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:08 pm
khandha wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:27 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:11 pm

There never was a Sanskrit edition.
I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
This is the consensus of most scholars on the issue.
I recall hearing Khenpo Sodargye's lectures on the Surangama Sutra (available on Youtube), in which he states that a sanskrit version had been found some time ago. I assume there are doubts in regards to this?

I've also found this on another article:
Henan Nanyang Bodhi Temple originally had one Sanskrit language manuscript sutra, consisting in total 226 leaves, of which 6 were missing… according to the introduction, it contains the Śūraṅgama Sūtra and is most probably the only extant Sanskrit manuscript dating from the Tang Dynasty. The letters are roundish and belongs to a type used in South India and has been recognized by the country as a Category 1 cultural artifact. It is now located in the Peng Xuefeng Memorial Museum.
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Malcolm
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

Manjushri wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:30 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:08 pm
khandha wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:27 pm

I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
This is the consensus of most scholars on the issue.
I recall hearing Khenpo Sodargye's lectures on the Surangama Sutra (available on Youtube), in which he states that a sanskrit version had been found some time ago. I assume there are doubts in regards to this?

I've also found this on another article:
Henan Nanyang Bodhi Temple originally had one Sanskrit language manuscript sutra, consisting in total 226 leaves, of which 6 were missing… according to the introduction, it contains the Śūraṅgama Sūtra and is most probably the only extant Sanskrit manuscript dating from the Tang Dynasty. The letters are roundish and belongs to a type used in South India and has been recognized by the country as a Category 1 cultural artifact. It is now located in the Peng Xuefeng Memorial Museum.
I don’t think this manuscript has ever been examined. So until it has, I don’t think this counts as evidence.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:08 pm
khandha wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:27 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:11 pm

There never was a Sanskrit edition.
I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
This is the consensus of most scholars on the issue.
... but not all:

https://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/authenticity.htm
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Malcolm
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:40 am
Malcolm wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 11:08 pm
khandha wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:27 pm

I am interested to hear some reasons for this conclusion. I will also try to search some of the older threads on this sutra that may touch on the reasons why this sutra is not from India.
This is the consensus of most scholars on the issue.
... but not all:

https://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/authenticity.htm
I said most. Epstein has a sectarian commitment to the issue given his affiliation with City of 10,000 Buddhas.
microbodhi
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by microbodhi »

Thank you all for your answers thus far

I was also thinking that there was no Sanskrit but i came upon the Shurangama Mantra which is in Sanskrit, is there any connection.
Malcolm
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

microbodhi wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 4:51 am Thank you all for your answers thus far

I was also thinking that there was no Sanskrit but i came upon the Shurangama Mantra which is in Sanskrit, is there any connection.
The mantra is a well known dharani.
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Malcolm »

On Monday, March 1, Dr. James Benn of McMaster University is giving the lecture “Meditation in the Apocryphal Śūraṃgama Sutra” at Harvard. He notes, “In the later Chinese Buddhist tradition [this] text above all others has been extolled for the profundity of its ideas, the beauty of its language, and its insight into the practice of meditation.”

No wonder it was one of the Manchu Qianlong Emperor’s favorite texts. Because this sutra did not exist in Tibetan, one of the major translation projects undertaken by Qianlong and his Imperial Preceptor Changkya Rolpai Dorje was its translation from Chinese into Tibetan, as well as Mongolian and Manchu. Our library holds a copy of this Tibetan translation published in Beijing in 1779, and readers can see that it contains a preface from the Emperor himself. As it turns out, Professor Benn notes that scholars have concluded that Śūraṃgama is an apocryphal sutra fabricated in Chinese in the eighth century, with no Indic original.

The sutra begins with the seduction of the Buddha’s disciple Ānanda by a courtesan. On the brink of breaking his vow of celibacy, he is rescued by the Buddha’s recitation of the Śūraṃgama mantra. Mortified at his failing, Ananda makes a request for this teaching, the basis of the sutra, which can be said to be about Buddhist theories of consciousness. The Buddha says to Ānanda citing the benefits of the Śūraṃgama sutra and the Śūraṃgama mantra: “Ānanda, even in an infinite number of eons I could not fully describe the benefit that beings will gain from reciting this Sutra and from holding this mantra in their minds. By relying on this teaching that I have given you, and by practicing just as I have instructed you, you will go directly to full awakening without creating any more karma that would lead to entanglement in the demonic.”
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/harvard ... AC2HuXx5Ls
mabw
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by mabw »

Malcolm wrote: Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:49 pm The mantra is a well known dharani.
So the same mantra is also present in other more established canonical texts? Can you give me some examples? Thank you.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Having recently finished reading it through (the edition with commentary by Hsuan Hua) I’m reading it again but skipping over the commentary.
While no original Indian version is known to exist I think at this sutra may be more or less a compilation based on other sutra sources.

There are at least two well-known analogies presented in it which are at least so well integrated into Mahayana teachings that come to mind: the ‘finger pointing at the moon’ and the ‘water whose original nature remains pure even though it may be clouded by silt’.

Whether these analogies originated with this sutra, who knows?

Who knows what human first used friction to produce fire? Yet, if anyone also does that, isn’t it still genuine fire? Is it fake fire?

There are some who assert that most of the Mahayana sutras were composed during the reign of King Asoka. Indeed, even the words in the Pali scriptures weren’t written down until a century after they were spoken, some 5,000 miles away from where they were spoken, and written in a language the Buddha didn’t use.

Not to mention the Vajrayana traditions who trace their origins not to Shakyamuni, but from ‘celestial Buddhas’ transmitted to meditating yogis.

Furthermore, some would have to argue that before the senses come into contact with the teachings, since they are objects of awareness, none of them can be shown to even exist!
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Aemilius
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Aemilius »

"During the First Buddhist Council, thirty years after the parinibbana of Gautama Buddha in Rajgir, Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka, and Upali recited the Vinaya Pitaka. The Arhats present accepted the recitations and henceforth the teachings were preserved orally by the Sangha. The Tipitaka that was transmitted to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Asoka were initially preserved orally and were later written down during the Fourth Buddhist Council in 29 BCE, approximately 454 years after the death of Gautama Buddha. So when we say that the texts were “spoken by the Buddha”, we mean it in this non-literal sense.

As we learn from the well-known references to the existence of the bhanaka (oral recitation) tradition existing until later periods and from several other sources, oral tradition continued to exist side by side with written scriptures for many centuries to come. This, the so-called writing down of the scriptures was only the beginning of a new form of tradition, and the innovation was probably opposed by the more conservative monks. As with many other innovations, it was only after some time that it was generally accepted. Therefore, it was much later that the records of this event were transformed into an account of a "council" (sangayana or sangiti) which was held under the patronage of King Vattagamani.

Textual fragments of similar teachings have been found in the agama of other major Buddhist schools in India. They were however written down in various Prakrits other than Pali as well as Sanskrit. Some of those were later translated into Chinese (earliest dating to the late 4th century CE). The surviving Sri Lankan version is the most complete, but one that was extensively redacted about 1,000 years after Buddha's death, in the 5th or 6th century CE. The earliest textual fragments of canonical Pali were found in the Pyu city-states in Burma dating only to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE."
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Re: Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Post by Kim O'Hara »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 4:18 pm Having recently finished reading it through (the edition with commentary by Hsuan Hua) I’m reading it again but skipping over the commentary.
While no original Indian version is known to exist I think at this sutra may be more or less a compilation based on other sutra sources.

There are at least two well-known analogies presented in it which are at least so well integrated into Mahayana teachings that come to mind: the ‘finger pointing at the moon’ and the ‘water whose original nature remains pure even though it may be clouded by silt’.

Whether these analogies originated with this sutra, who knows?

Who knows what human first used friction to produce fire? Yet, if anyone also does that, isn’t it still genuine fire? Is it fake fire?
As you imply, exact histories of texts (and parts of them) are impossible to ascertain.
Fortunately for our peace of mind, there is a canonical way of resolving our doubts. "What can we consider to be the word of the Buddha?" was the question and the answer was, "If it agrees with other things I've said, it's fine," or words to that effect. (I'm too lazy to look it up right now. :-) )

:namaste:
Kim
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