Chapter 4. The history of sūtra translation and Xuanzang¶

The preceding three chapters centered on three groups of figures: An Shigao and Lokakṣema, representing the early transmission; Dao'an, the first systematic organizer; and Kumārajīva and Sengzhao, marking the end of matching concepts and the foundations of the Three Treatise school. Here the view widens to trace the whole history of Buddhist translation in China, before turning to the last great translator, Xuanzang (602 to 664).

1. The broad course of Buddhist translation in China¶

From An Shigao and Lokakṣema's arrival in Luoyang in the second century CE to Yijing's return to Chang'an at the end of the seventh, Buddhist translation in China spanned some 560 years. These five centuries fall roughly into periods of exploration, Kumārajīva's work, and the work of Xuanzang and Yijing.

First period: exploration, c.148 to 401

From An Shigao in 148 to the eve of Kumārajīva's arrival, Chinese Buddhist translation was finding its way. Translators varied in ability, used different source texts, and had differing levels of Sanskrit or Central Asian language proficiency; there was no uniform standard of method. Texts accumulated in quantity, but their quality was uneven and misreadings through matching concepts were widespread. Dharmarakṣa (239 to 316) was an important translator of this period. Before Kumārajīva, he produced the first Chinese Lotus Sūtra and many Prajñāpāramitā and Pure Land texts.

Second period: Kumārajīva, 401 to 413

Translation made a leap in quality under Kumārajīva. His command of both Sanskrit and Chinese gave China its first great bilingual translator in the full sense. Within these twelve years, Madhyamaka treatises were accurately translated, the textual foundations of the Three Treatise school were laid, and Sengzhao and others began thinking in a truly Madhyamaka way. The influence of these years exceeded that of the several decades on either side.

Third period: Xuanzang and Yijing, 645 to 713

Translation became more precise and systematic under Xuanzang and Yijing. They translated directly from Sanskrit originals, no longer through intermediate Central Asian languages, and used more systematic methods. The systematic translation of consciousness-only treatises was this period's most important contribution. No subsequent large-scale activity translating original texts could rival these three periods; Chinese Buddhism entered an age dominated by works composed in China.

1.2. A comparative table of major translators¶

The table lists the most influential translators in Chinese Buddhist translation history in chronological order.

Scholars commonly regard the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, translated by Paramārtha, as a Chinese apocryphon (see Chapter 10.7). Yijing's later translation work continued until 713. "Years active" means the period of translation in China, not birth and death dates.

2. Dharmarakṣa: an important translator of the first period¶

Dharmarakṣa (239 to 316), a descendant of the Yuezhi, knew several Central Asian languages and held a major place in Chinese Buddhist translation history before Kumārajīva.

His most important contribution was the Zheng fahua jing of 286, the first Chinese translation of the Lotus Sūtra, preceding Kumārajīva's. It gave Chinese readers their first access to the teaching of the "one vehicle" and skillful means. He also translated many Prajñāpāramitā texts; the Guangzan jing is an early translation of the larger Prajñāpāramitā scripture.

Dharmarakṣa's importance lies in the many texts he brought into China. Before Kumārajīva arrived, Chinese readers had already encountered the basic content of Mahāyāna corpora such as the Lotus, Pure Land, and Avataṃsaka traditions. He prepared the ground through the quantity of texts he translated, without yet producing a leap in quality.¹

3. Paramārtha: an early consciousness-only voice in Northern and Southern Dynasties translation¶

Between Kumārajīva and Xuanzang, Paramārtha (499 to 569) was one of the most important figures in Chinese Buddhist translation history. Chapter 6.1 has already introduced him from the perspective of consciousness-only philosophy; here we turn to his place in translation history.

Life

Paramārtha, also named Kulanātha, came from Ujjayinī in western India. He reached Nanhai in 546, spent two years stopping along the way, and arrived in Jiankang only in the intercalary eighth month of 548. He then spent more than twenty unsettled years in the Southern Dynasties, amid Hou Jing's rebellion at the end of the Liang. His travels took him through Fuchun, Jiankang, Yuzhang, Xinwu, Shixing, Nankang, Linchuan, Jin'an, Liang'an, and Guangzhou. The course of his life almost matched that of the political upheavals in China at the time, and his translation work was repeatedly interrupted. In the twenty-three years from Emperor Wu of Liang's final years to Emperor Xuan of Chen's accession, he produced sixty-four works in 278 fascicles, comprising sūtras, treatises, records, and biographies.²¹

Principal translations and interpretive character

Paramārtha's most important translations comprised a series of consciousness-only works, including Asaṅga's Compendium of the Great Vehicle, Vasubandhu's Twenty Verses on Consciousness Only, and parts of the Abhidharmakośa.

His interpretation of consciousness-only was clearly colored by tathāgatagarbha. He tended to identify the pure aspect of the storehouse consciousness, the immaculate consciousness, with tathāgatagarbha, and introduced the innovative concept of a "ninth consciousness," amala-vijñāna, or immaculate consciousness. Xuanzang later regarded this interpretation as "unfaithful to the original texts." He brought back a stricter consciousness-only position from Dharmapāla's lineage, explicitly rejecting Paramārtha's synthesis of tathāgatagarbha and consciousness-only. Their disagreement gave rise to one of China's most important doctrinal disputes.

4. Xuanzang: from Chang'an to Nālandā¶

Early life and entry into the saṅgha

Xuanzang (602 to 664), whose family name was Chen, came from Goushi in Henan. Born into a Confucian family, he showed exceptional memory and learning ability from childhood. After becoming a monk, he traveled widely to study and grew deeply dissatisfied with the uneven quality of teaching in different places. He increasingly recognized that these differences arose from the disparate sources and poor translations of Buddhist texts in China. The true Dharma had to be sought in the Indian originals.³

Traveling west in defiance of the ban

In 629, or 628 according to another account, the recently established Tang dynasty maintained strict border controls and prohibited unauthorized departure. Without the court's approval of his request to travel west, Xuanzang left Chang'an alone along the overland Silk Road. His journey lasted some sixteen years, crossing the Pamirs and Central Asia to northern India. He traveled widely and eventually studied consciousness-only systematically at Nālandā, around 631 to 643, under its abbot Śīlabhadra (529 to 645), becoming a direct heir to Dharmapāla's lineage.

Chapter 8.5 has described Xuanzang's visit from Nālandā's perspective. He went to India with a very clear purpose. He sought to correct Chinese misunderstandings, obtain reliable Sanskrit originals, and receive direct transmission of what was then India's most authoritative philosophical tradition, the consciousness-only of Dharmapāla and Śīlabhadra. He returned to China with 657 Sanskrit works and more than a decade of deep firsthand immersion in Indian philosophy.

Return and translation career

In 645, Xuanzang returned to Chang'an and received a grand welcome from Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin. Taizong asked him to write the Great Tang Record of the Western Regions, dictated by Xuanzang and written down by his disciple Bianji. The travel record later became a valuable historical source on seventh-century Central Asian and Indian geography and history. It also provided the historical foundation of Journey to the West, although its fictional "Tang Monk" differs greatly from the historical Xuanzang.

Taizong provided Daci'en Temple in Chang'an as Xuanzang's translation base and built the Great Wild Goose Pagoda to store the Sanskrit manuscripts he had brought back. Xuanzang devoted almost all his remaining life, 645 to 664, to translation.

The political dimension: surveying the Western Regions and repeated refusals

Taizong's interest in Xuanzang had a political background that is often overlooked. Xuanzang brought back not only scriptures but also detailed firsthand intelligence on the states of the Western Regions. The Great Tang Record of the Western Regions was produced at Taizong's explicit commission, with Bianji recording it. It describes 138 countries, 110 personally visited and the rest known through reports. Its subjects include geographical conditions, products, military strength, political structures, and popular allegiances. Any military strategist would prize such an intelligence document. The early Tang was conducting a series of campaigns against the Eastern Turks and states of the Western Regions; their terrain, garrisons, and political conditions had direct value for court decisions.⁴

The political background explains why, beyond religious honors, Taizong repeatedly made political requests of Xuanzang. According to the Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery, Taizong invited him to accompany the army on a campaign in Liaodong. Xuanzang politely declined, saying, "This is not the work I have trained in; I fear I would be of no use with the army." Taizong also repeatedly urged him to leave monastic life and take office. Xuanzang refused each time, wishing "to serve the Dharma to the end and remain steadfast in keeping the precepts." After Emperor Gaozong, Li Zhi, succeeded, he made similar approaches and received the same courteous refusals. Xuanzang's resolve was real. His sense of urgency about translation left him no room to be diverted into politics. Religion thus accounted for only part of his importance to Taizong.

Assessing his Indian experiences: removing the mythology

Several episodes in later accounts of Xuanzang's Indian experiences require caution. The principal source is the Great Tang Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery, completed by his disciples Huili and Yancong around 688, roughly twenty-five years after his death. The work is an eminent monk's biography with a clear purpose of establishing religious authority, not a neutral historical record.

Debates at Nālandā and the Treatise Reconciling the Schools. The biography says that while at Nālandā Xuanzang wrote the Treatise Reconciling the Schools, harmonizing Madhyamaka and consciousness-only, and the Treatise Restraining Wrong Views, refuting a Brahmin who had written a Treatise Refuting Mahāyāna. Neither text survives, so their contents cannot be checked. The account describes an opponent unable to reply and an audience entirely won over. That is a standard hagiographical structure and cannot itself establish historical fact.

The Kanauj debate and the title "Mahāyāna Deva." The biography describes King Harṣa convening a Mahāyāna debate for Xuanzang at Kānyakubja, or Kanauj. It lasted eighteen days, with thousands of monks and non-Buddhists participating. No one could challenge Xuanzang's thesis. Mahāyāna adherents consequently called him "Mahāyāna Deva," or "Deva of the Great Vehicle," and those described in the biography as Hīnayāna followers "Mokṣa Deva," or "Deva of Liberation."

In this book, I am inclined to regard the passage as a biographical narrative that constructs authority, rather than an event already corroborated by independent sources. First, among the materials I have seen, surviving contemporary non-Chinese sources provide no account that corroborates this narrative. Second, "eighteen days without anyone able to debate him" has the victory structure common in eminent monks' biographies. Third, such a narrative effectively gives Xuanzang's subsequent translations the highest Indian endorsement. The Dharmapāla consciousness-only he represents is thus presented as brought back directly by the "victor in Indian debate," a highly useful claim in his doctrinal dispute with Paramārtha's tradition. The judgment concerns historical reliability and narrative function; it does not deny that the assembly may have had some historical basis.⁵

Neither the high respect Xuanzang received at Nālandā nor his scholarly ability is denied here. His more than a decade of intensive study in India was real, as were the texts he brought back and his systematic command of consciousness-only philosophy. Judgment must be suspended on the "victory narratives" constructed for particular political and doctrinal purposes.

Xuanzang's death

Xuanzang died at Yuhua Palace, near present-day Tongchuan in Shaanxi, in March 664, traditionally dated to midnight on the fifth day of the second month of the first year of Linde. The Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery records that after completing the six hundred fascicles of the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, he was urged to translate the Jewel Heap Sūtra. He tried a few lines himself, put down his brush, and said, "My strength can no longer sustain it," whereupon he stopped. On his deathbed, a disciple reportedly asked whether he was certain of rebirth in Tuṣita's inner court to see Maitreya. He replied, "I will certainly be born there." On hearing of his death, Emperor Gaozong reportedly "wept with great grief," declaring, "I have lost a treasure of the realm." He permitted public mourning within Chang'an, and more than a million people are said to have gathered to watch the funeral procession. These numbers and scenes likewise come from a religious biography and should not be accepted literally. But Gaozong's great concern at Xuanzang's death accords with his subsequent historical stature.⁶

5. Xuanzang's theory of translation: the five cases for not translating¶

Xuanzang's contribution to translation method finds its clearest expression in the principle of the "five cases for not translating." The account comes through retrospective testimony from the Song. Its earliest surviving source is Zhou Dunyi's preface to the Collection of Translated Terms and Meanings, dated to the dingchou year of Shaoxing, 1157, five hundred years after Xuanzang. Neither Xuanzang's own writings nor his Ci'en biography records it. It systematically specifies "which words must be transliterated rather than translated by meaning," marking the second major reflection on Chinese Buddhist translation theory after Dao'an's "five losses of the original and three difficulties."³⁷

The following table presents the five cases for not translating in Zhou Dunyi's preface, with explanations in modern terms. The fifth retains the label "out of respect":

The question of when to transliterate and when to translate by meaning had remained unresolved since Dao'an. The five cases gave a systematic answer, moving beyond individual cases to rules grounded in categories.

Xuanzang's general approach

In contrast to Kumārajīva's beautifully free style, Xuanzang favored precise literal translation. He preferred somewhat stiff Chinese to sacrificing philosophical precision for literary effect. His critics say that his translations read "as though Sanskrit had simply been rendered word for word," lacking literary fluency. His supporters regard this as precisely their merit, holding that precision matters more than fluency in philosophical texts.

The dispute resembles the debate in biblical translation between "formal equivalence," or literal translation, and "dynamic equivalence," or translation of meaning. Both methods have their reasons and their costs.

6. Xuanzang's principal translations¶

Xuanzang translated seventy-five Buddhist works, in some 1,335 fascicles, spanning sūtra, Vinaya, and treatise literature. His most important translations are listed below.

Consciousness-only treatises: the core of his work

Prajñāpāramitā literature

The Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, in six hundred fascicles, is Xuanzang's largest translation, bringing various Prajñāpāramitā versions together in one collection. It was the final undertaking of his last years, completed shortly before his death.

The Heart Sūtra, in its most familiar version, is attributed to Xuanzang according to the standard account. It begins, "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, while practicing the profound perfection of wisdom, clearly saw that the five aggregates were all empty…" This short sūtra of only 260 Chinese characters is one of the texts most frequently recited in Chinese Buddhist daily practice.

Svātantrika Madhyamaka

The Jewel in the Hand, Bhāvaviveka's Karatalaratna, provided China with a direct textual basis for his Svātantrika Madhyamaka tradition.

7. Xuanzang's philosophical position¶

Xuanzang was not only a translator but also a thinker with a definite philosophical position. His choices of teachers, subjects of study, and texts to bring back from India all expressed that position. Philosophically, the Faxiang school he established was a transplantation of Dharmapāla's consciousness-only to China, not a neutral "synthesis of Indian Buddhism."

Transmitting Dharmapāla's consciousness-only position

Xuanzang's principal teacher at Nālandā was Śīlabhadra (529 to 645), a second-generation disciple of Dharmapāla (530 to 561). Dharmapāla represented a particular interpretive line within consciousness-only, distinct from the line represented by Sthiramati. Their central disagreement concerned the ontological status of the "seeing aspect" and "appearance aspect." Sthiramati held both to be delusive, while Dharmapāla granted the seeing aspect a certain epistemological reality. Xuanzang brought back Dharmapāla's position and used it to correct existing Chinese translations systematically, especially Paramārtha's.

The Cheng weishi lun: philosophical choices, more than translation

Xuanzang's central philosophical contribution was the compilation of the Cheng weishi lun (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra). No Sanskrit original of this treatise exists. According to Kuiji's account, Xuanzang combined ten commentaries on Vasubandhu's Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only (Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā), by Dharmapāla, Sthiramati, Guṇamati, and others, into a single Chinese treatise, with Dharmapāla's interpretation as its main line. Kuiji's account has recently been challenged on three grounds. The treatise never names the individual commentators; after the Sanskrit of Sthiramati's commentary reappeared, Kuiji's account of his views proved to differ from it in many places; and the sequence of Xuanzang's studies in his biography provides no independent corroboration of direct transmission from Dharmapāla's line. The book continues to follow Kuiji. The first two grounds alone do not overturn his account. The format of a composite translation does not name its sources item by item. The absence of names does not mean that the treatise makes no selections among positions, still less that later authors imposed those selections upon it. Differences between a reported account and the Sanskrit are also normal consequences of the choices and abridgments made in a composite translation. The third objection is solid. This book leaves it unresolved and offers no answer.⁸

Compiling the treatise involved deliberate philosophical editing. Xuanzang judged which commentary came closest to being correct and placed the other nine under Dharmapāla, rather than preserving them side by side for readers to judge. The Cheng weishi lun on which Chinese Faxiang relies thus presents Xuanzang's philosophical position; it cannot be taken as a neutral presentation of Vasubandhu's thirty verses.

The systematic rejection of Paramārtha

Paramārtha introduced into China an interpretation combining consciousness-only and tathāgatagarbha. Specifically, he identified the pure aspect of the storehouse consciousness with tathāgatagarbha and originated a "ninth consciousness," the immaculate consciousness, amala-vijñāna, to account for this pure level. Xuanzang brought back Dharmapāla's explicit opposition to such a synthesis. In Dharmapāla's framework, the storehouse consciousness contains both defilement and purity and can be transformed, but is not identical with tathāgatagarbha. The "ninth consciousness" has no textual basis in mainstream Indian consciousness-only.

The dispute goes beyond translation to the fundamental disagreement about "what consciousness-only is saying." Paramārtha tended to connect its final destination with a pure condition of "being originally so," close to tathāgatagarbha. Xuanzang insisted that consciousness-only analyzes cognitive activity without presupposing any "originally pure" ultimate substance. The latter is closer to the position of Dharmapāla's original texts.

Xuanzang in the debate between Madhyamaka and consciousness-only

Xuanzang's actual philosophical orientation took Dharmapāla's consciousness-only as orthodox and Madhyamaka as an auxiliary method. His lost Treatise Reconciling the Schools, written at Nālandā, reportedly sought to harmonize the two. Yet the direction of his translations after his return and the writings of his disciple Kuiji show that this harmony gave priority to one over the other. Chapter 10.7, "1. Why Xuanzang Chose Consciousness Only," offers a dedicated philosophical analysis of why he chose consciousness-only over Madhyamaka and Dharmapāla over Sthiramati; it will not be repeated here.

The five spiritual lineages: philosophical consequences

The doctrine of "five spiritual lineages" (pañcagotrā) upheld by Xuanzang and Faxiang is the philosophical claim with the deepest consequences in Dharmapāla's consciousness-only. Beings classed as icchantikas can in theory never become buddhas because they lack "undefiled seeds," anāsrava-bīja, the pure potential for buddhahood. This directly conflicts with "all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature," which Chinese Buddhism had already accepted from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and tathāgatagarbha tradition.

Philosophically, the conflict between the "five spiritual lineages" and universal Buddha-nature is a conflict between two theories of "human nature." One holds that people's spiritual potential differs structurally, something like a theory of spiritual aptitude; the other holds that all sentient beings share, at the deepest level, the same possibility of buddhahood. Xuanzang maintained the former. Faxiang's failure to take root comfortably in China thus has profound philosophical causes, beyond cultural preference alone.

Overall assessment

Xuanzang was the most philosophically explicit and uncompromising translator in Chinese Buddhist history. His contribution lay chiefly in precision rather than synthesis. He transplanted the specific position of India's Dharmapāla consciousness-only tradition to China with the highest textual quality. The price of this precision was a fundamental conflict with China's existing tathāgatagarbha traditions, those of Paramārtha and the Awakening of Faith. The rise and decline of Faxiang resulted from this conflict.

8. Faxiang: Xuanzang's philosophical legacy and its fate¶

The establishment of Faxiang

Xuanzang's disciple Kuiji (632 to 682) systematically organized the Dharmapāla consciousness-only that his teacher had brought back, forming the Faxiang school, also called the Consciousness-Only school. Chapter 6.1 has discussed its philosophy and fate in detail from the perspective of consciousness-only thought; here they are briefly summarized from that of Chinese Buddhist history.

Conflict with "all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature"

Faxiang upheld the doctrine of five spiritual lineages (pañcagotrā), according to which beings of the class without a spiritual lineage can never become buddhas and people of different capacities can reach different highest levels of attainment. Its position directly contradicted the already deeply rooted teaching that "all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature," from the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, long advocated by Daosheng.

In China's cultural soil, the universal declaration that "all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature" resonated more strongly than Faxiang's "capacities differ and attainment has limits." It better matched the egalitarian spirit of "everyone can become a Yao or Shun" and Mahāyāna's great vow to liberate all beings.

Faxiang's decline

After Xuanzang and Kuiji, Faxiang had a rather weak succession of able teachers. Combined with its doctrinal difficulty adapting to China, this meant it had largely declined by the late Tang. After the Huichang persecution of 845, Faxiang scarcely reappeared as an independent school. True Faxiang scholars did, however, maintain a fairly active tradition in Japan, where the Nara Hossō school still preserves specialized transmission today.

Reassessing Xuanzang's historical significance

A common claim holds that Xuanzang's overall influence on Chinese Buddhism was less than Kumārajīva's. Kumārajīva's translations are still recited, whereas Xuanzang's, apart from the Heart Sūtra, have chiefly become objects of scholarly research and seldom the basis of devotees' practice. The claim has some truth, but is incomplete.

Xuanzang's most important contributions to Chinese Buddhism extend beyond founding a particular school. He accurately introduced a large body of Indian Buddhist originals, giving later Chinese Buddhist scholars a more reliable textual foundation. His Great Tang Record of the Western Regions is also an irreplaceable historical source on the geography and cultures of seventh-century Central Asia and India. Before archaeological excavation in India, his records made it possible to locate many vanished Buddhist sacred sites again.

9. Yijing: another route in search of the Dharma¶

Yijing (635 to 713), from Yangzhou in present-day Jiangsu, was the Tang's most important monk seeking the Dharma and translating sūtras after Xuanzang. He chose a different route, traveling south by sea. He left Guangzhou in 671, studied Sanskrit in Śrīvijaya, in present-day Sumatra, and reached Nālandā around 681. He studied there and at other Indian monasteries for about ten years and returned to China in 695.

Yijing's translation priorities

Yijing's priorities differed markedly from Xuanzang's. Xuanzang concentrated on consciousness-only treatises and comprehensive major sūtras; Yijing focused on Vinaya texts. His most important contribution was the translation of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, the disciplinary code commonly used in India's large monasteries during its latest Buddhist period, including Nālandā. No complete Chinese translation had previously existed.

Two important authored works

Yijing also wrote two works of great value. The Record of Buddhist Practices Sent Home from the Southern Seas describes the actual monastic life he observed in the Southern Seas and India and is an important historical source on Indian and Southeast Asian Buddhism in the late seventh century. The Great Tang Biographies of Eminent Monks Who Sought the Dharma in the Western Regions records the stories of some fifty-six Tang monks known to him who went to India in search of the Dharma. Many died on the way, and few returned successfully; his record preserves much historical information that might otherwise have vanished.

10. The overall significance of Chinese Buddhist translation history¶

Scale and historical standing

From An Shigao in 148 to Yijing in 713, the Chinese Buddhist translation movement lasted some 560 years. Most of the translated Buddhist texts in the Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka, compiled in 1924 to 1934, come from this period. Few enterprises in the premodern history of religious translation match this scale.

How translation shaped Chinese Buddhism

Translation itself is a form of philosophical creation. Every translation negotiates between two frameworks of thought, deciding which concepts should retain their original sounds, which can be translated by meaning, and which require new words. The negotiations are philosophical as well as linguistic. They determine where Chinese readers understand Buddhism through Chinese frameworks and where they accept Indian ones.

Translation in the age of matching concepts forced Buddhism into a Daoist framework. The resulting misreading was also the beginning of dialogue. Kumārajīva's translations advanced the understanding of Madhyamaka while preserving the beauty of Chinese. Xuanzang's made precision the highest aim; they were precise, but not popular.

Chinese Buddhism ultimately moved neither toward the excessive Sinicization of the age of matching concepts nor toward Xuanzang's primacy of Indian originals. It moved toward a creative synthesis. Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan developed, after assimilating Indian texts, into philosophical systems of real Chinese originality. Their achievements will be the subject of the next few sections.

Appendix: investigating the Heart Sūtra's origins¶

The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, or Heart Sūtra, is the scripture most frequently recited in Chinese Buddhist daily practice. Its entire text consists of 260 Chinese characters, and almost everyone who has encountered Chinese Buddhism can recite its opening lines. It is attributed to Xuanzang and has both a widely circulating myth and a question of provenance that has generated serious scholarly debate in recent years. Both are treated here within the history of translation.

The traditional myth: Xuanzang receives the sūtra before his journey

The Great Tang Biography of the Tripiṭaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery records that before setting out west, Xuanzang met a sick monk at a monastery in Sichuan, or Shu. He cared for him attentively. After recovering, the monk taught him the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra and then transformed and vanished. This ending suggests that he was a manifestation of Avalokiteśvara. During the dangerous westward journey that followed, Xuanzang recited the sūtra whenever threatened and repeatedly escaped danger.

The story contains an internal contradiction that the biographical narrative never directly addresses. Xuanzang set out around 628 or 629, having "received the sūtra" beforehand. Yet the Chinese canon formally records its translation in 649, the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, four years after his return. If he already had it before leaving, what was "translated" in 649? Was an oral text he had long known formally written down? Was an existing Chinese text rearranged? The biography is silent. The contradiction itself is already a clue.

Nattier's argument: the Heart Sūtra may have been composed in China

In 1992, the scholar Jan Nattier published a widely discussed paper, “The Heart Sūtra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?”, proposing a hypothesis directly opposed to the traditional account: the current version of the Heart Sūtra known as Xuanzang’s translation was not translated into Chinese from a Sanskrit original. It may have been compiled in China from Kumārajīva’s translation of the Larger Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā), and then translated back into Sanskrit. On this view, the Sanskrit Heart Sūtra is a derivative of the Chinese Heart Sūtra, rather than its source.⁹

Nattier's principal evidence concerns the precise correspondence of the wording, traces of Chinese influence in the Sanskrit, and the introductory section.

First, the wording corresponds too precisely. The core of the Heart Sūtra matches a passage in Kumārajīva's Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the larger Prajñāpāramitā scripture corresponding to the Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-five Thousand Lines, almost word for word. This degree of agreement exceeds the normal variation between two translators independently translating the same Sanskrit source. If the Heart Sūtra were truly a translation of a separate Sanskrit original, some differences from Kumārajīva's version would be expected. Instead, its Chinese reads as if cut directly from his passage. The correspondence is the pivot of the entire argument. Nattier uses it as evidence against Xuanzang having translated this version precisely because it matches Kumārajīva rather than Xuanzang's own style.

Second, the Sanskrit version bears traces of Chinese influence. Several expressions in the surviving Sanskrit Heart Sūtra are grammatically unnatural but become intelligible as the products of translating Chinese constructions back into Sanskrit. The Sanskrit shows traces characteristic of back-translation from Chinese, lacking the character expected of an independently composed Sanskrit text.

Third, there is the problem of the introductory section. The Sanskrit Heart Sūtra exists in a "long" and a "short" version. The long version has an introduction beginning "Thus have I heard… At that time the Blessed One…," while the short one does not. Scholars generally regard the short version as older and the long one as a later expansion. Nattier identifies an anomaly here. Chinese apocryphal scriptures ordinarily make every effort to reproduce the Indian sūtra form, from the "Thus have I heard" introduction to a proper conclusion. Yet the short Heart Sūtra has neither, conforming neither to Indian sūtra form nor to the usual practices of apocryphal composition. She explains that it was originally intended for recitation, as a text of the dhāraṇī type, and did not circulate as a sūtra. The conventional sūtra form was added later in a Chinese setting and entered the long Sanskrit version through back-translation.

Scholarly responses

Nattier's article prompted continuing discussion. Some scholars have used her approach to reread crucial phrases, as Huifeng has done; others, such as Silk, have reconsidered manuscript evidence in a dhāraṇī context. The Xuanzang component has been challenged by Lusthaus, Ishii Kōsei, and others. "The short text formed in China and then entered the Sanskrit tradition" remains an influential explanation, but Xuanzang's role and the formation of the textual layers remain substantially disputed and cannot be presented as settled. The Sanskrit short text at Hōryūji was once said to have reached Japan in 609 and was cited as evidence of the sūtra's early circulation in India. The claim comes from a nineteenth-century temple chronicle and is unreliable. Modern scholars usually date the manuscript to the ninth or tenth century; even whether it is written on palm leaves has been questioned.¹⁰

This book's position

Nattier’s evidence, especially the nearly word-for-word correspondence, is difficult to explain as two translators independently producing exactly the same wording from the same Sanskrit original. This book holds that the available evidence makes it more likely that the Heart Sūtra was composed in China than that it was translated directly from a Sanskrit original. The Sanskrit text was a later back-translation, giving the Chinese text the authoritative guise of an “Indian original.”

If this judgment is correct, the myth of Xuanzang "receiving the sūtra" before his journey admits another reading. It confers retrospective religious recognition on a scripture born in China, using Xuanzang's name and legendary journey to give it the highest possible endorsement. As for the version formerly attributed to "Kumārajīva as translator," some 270 characters long and with a preface, scholars almost unanimously regard the attribution as spurious. It was most likely also composed in China, but assigned to an earlier and more authoritative translator.

Its significance for the history of translation as a whole

The Heart Sūtra is an extreme and clear case within Chinese Buddhist translation history, revealing a process usually operating less visibly behind the scenes. Chinese Buddhists did more than passively receive Indian originals; they actively participated in creating scriptures, legitimizing that creation through narratives of "translation" or "receiving a sūtra" that assigned it an Indian source. The process occurred not only with the Heart Sūtra, but with the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Brahmā's Net Sūtra, and many other apocrypha that scholars judge to have been composed in China. In a sense, a substantial part of Chinese Buddhism's creativity lies hidden in these "counterfeit translations." This recognition is indispensable to understanding its history.

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