Diamond Sutra

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Frontispiece of a Chinese edition of the Diamond Sūtra, circa 868 CE.

The Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Skt.), commonly known in English at the Diamond Sūtra, is one of the most famous and widely commented upon Mahayana sutras. Along with the Heart Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, it is one of the most influential sutras in East Asian Buddhism.

In the sutra, the arhat Subhūti asks the Buddha about the practice of the bodhisattva.

The Buddha says that a bodhisattva must vow to lead all beings in the universe into nirvāṇa, while fully recognizing that there are in fact no beings to be led into nirvāṇa. “If, Subhūti, a bodhisattva were to have the (mis)perception (saṃjñā) of a self (ātman), a being (sattva), a living entity (jīva), or a person (pudgala), he is not to be called ‘a bodhisattva.’” This is one of many famous statements in the sūtra, regarded by commentators as setting forth the doctrine of emptiness (although the technical term śūnyatā does not appear in the sūtra), i.e., that all phenomena are falsely imagined to have a self, a soul, and an “own-being,” qualities that they, in fact, lack.

Hence, the meritorious actions of a bodhisattva are performed without conceptualizing the three spheres of subject, objection and action. For example, when a bodhisattva performs an act of giving, there is "no conception of there being a donor, recipient, or gift." This kind of giving, without the conceptualization of the three spheres, produces immeasurable merit.

This exchange is followed by a series of questions and responses in which the Buddha probes Subhūti's understanding of the non-conceptual nature of reality.

According to the Princeton Dictionary:

The sūtra is not simply a radical challenge to the ordinary conception of the world, of language, and of thought; it is also a polemical Mahāyāna sūtra, seeking, like other such sūtras, to declare its supremacy and to promise rewards to those who exalt it.

Among Mahayana sutras, this sutra is categorized as belonging to Prajñāpāramitā ('perfection of wisdom') genre.

Title

Meaning of the Sanskrit title

File:Soyambhu Kathmandu Nepal (5112575694).jpg

A Nepalese sculpture of a vajra.

The Sanskrit title for the sūtra is Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā, which is typically divided into two components: vajracchedikā and prajñāpāramitā.

The second component, prajñāpāramitā ("perfection of wisdom"), refers to the highest form of wisdom (prajñā) which is non-discriminatory in nature, and sees things as they are.

The first component of the title consists of two words: vajra and cchedikā. The term vajra is commonly translated as "diamond." However, according to Gregory Schopen (2004), the term vajra "is an almost untranslatable Sanskrit term referring to a kind of divine and dreadful weapon, like a discus or thunderbolt, and only by secondary association applied to the hard, cutting properties of a diamond."

Sam van Schaik states:

The significance of the vajra (translated here as ‘diamond’) is that it is the hardest and strongest of all substances, which can cut through any other. As such, it is like the doctrine of emptiness, which cuts through all substantialist concepts.

The term cchedikā means "to cut", "to sunder", etc.

Hence, according to Hajime Nakamura, the phrase vajracchedikā means

to 'cut like a diamond' or to 'sunder like a thunderbolt' where 'diamond' or 'thunderbolt' is used metaphorically to designate the power of severing all doubts and attachments from the cognitive activity of the human being.

Hence, the full title might be translated as "The Perfection of Wisdom Text that Cuts Like a Thunderbolt". Here, the vajra is seen as a metaphor for the wisdom (prajñā) that cuts through doubts and wrong views.

Title variations

In Sanskrit:

• Vajracchedikā
• Vajracchedikā prajñāpāramitā
• Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra
• Ārya-vajracchedikā bhagavatī prajñāpāramitā
• Triśatikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra ("300 lines Perfection of Wisdom Sutra")

In Chinese:

• Jingang borepoluomiduo jing 金剛般若波羅蜜多經 (Kumarajiva's title)
• Jingang jing 金剛經 (abbreviated title)
• Jingang nengduan bore boluomi jing 金剛能斷般若波羅蜜經
• Nengduan jingang bore boluomi jing 能斷金剛般若波羅密經,

Other East Asian languages:

• Japanese: 金剛般若波羅蜜多経, Kongō hannya haramita kyō, shortened to 金剛経, Kongō-kyō
• Korean: 금강반야바라밀경, geumgang banyabaramil gyeong, shortened to 금강경, geumgang gyeong

In Tibetan:

• Short title: shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa rdo rje gcod pa, ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་རྡོ་རྗེ་གཅོད་པ།
• Full title: 'phags pa shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa rdo rje gcod pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo, འཕགས་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་རྡོ་རྗེ་གཅོད་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།

In English:

• Short title:
  • Diamond Sūtra (a translation of the popular abbreviated Chinese title Jingang jing)
  • Vajra Sūtra
  • Vajra Cutter Sūtra
  • etc.
• Full title:
  • "Vajra Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra"
  • "The Perfection of Wisdom Text that Cuts Like a Thunderbolt" (Schopen)
  • "The Perfection of Wisdom Text that Cuts Like a Diamond/Thunderbolt" (Princeton Dictionary)
  • etc.

Origin of the text

Gregory Schopen (2004) states:

The date of its composition in Sanskrit is uncertain. Arguments have been made for the second and fourth centuries of the common era. It was first translated into Chinese at the very beginning of the fifth century, but both Vasubandhu and Asanga, two learned Indian monks who probably lived in the fourth or fifth centuries, had already written authoritative commentaries on it, and this would seem to require that it was already an important text in their day, and had therefore been in circulation for some time. Whereas for many Mahayana sutras only very recent eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sanskrit manuscripts survive, for the Diamond Sutra we have at least three much earlier manuscripts that date from the fifth to the seventh centuries and come from widely separated places. The existence of such early manuscript remains may also testify to the text’s importance, and certainly reveals, when compared with later versions and translations, how the text developed and changed its shape over time.

Translations

Chinese translations

Statue of Kumārajīva, Kizil Caves, China

The earliest translation of the Diamond Sūtra into Chinese is thought to have been made circa 403 by the famous translator Kumārajīva. The Kumārajīva translation has been particularly highly regarded over the centuries, and it is this version that appears on the 868 CE Dunhuang manuscript. It is the most widely used and chanted Chinese version.

In addition to the Kumārajīva translation, a number of later translations were made. The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism lists the following six translations:

• Kumārajīva (T 235.8.748c-752c), 403 CE
• Bodhiruci (T 236.8.752c-761c), 509 CE
• Paramārtha (T 237.8.762a-766c), 562 CE
• Dharmagupta (T 238.8.766c-771c), 605 CE; under the title Jingang nengduan bore boluomi jing 金剛能斷般若波羅蜜經
• Xuanzang (T 220[9]), 648 CE
• Yijing (T 239.8.771c-775b), 703 CE

According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism:

The Bodhiruci translation actually consists of two separate versions of the sutra, presumably either of differing Sanskrit manuscripts, or translated at different times in his career. The Kumārajīva version was the first and most popular of the translations, evidenced by the fact that it is his text that is used by later commentators. However, as is typical of Kumārajīvaʼs translations, it is somewhat freer in style compared with other Chinese renditions of the Sanskrit. Later translations, by contrast, were much more literal. Most notable is that by Dharmagupta, which breaks with Kumārajīvaʼs text entirely and translates very literally.

Tibetan translations

The text was first translated into Tibetan by Śīlendrabodhi and Nanam Yeshe De. This translation was later revised by other translators.

English translations

Due to the combination of its brevity and popularity, the Diamond Sutra has been translated into English many times, from both Chinese and Sanskrit. There are also currently at least two English translations based on Tibetan source texts. A selected list of notable translations follows.

Max Müller 1894

• "The Vagrakkhedika or Diamond-Cutter", in Buddhist Mahayana Texts (Sacred Books of the East), F. Max Muller et al. Oxford University Press.
• Translation from Sanskrit. Based on Muller's Sanskrit edition (which was the first Sanskrit edition published in the West).
• Web version, Archive version

William Gemmell 1912

• The Diamond Sutra (Chin-kang-ching), or, Prajna-paramita, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.; Project Gutenberg
• Translation from Chinese
• Project Gutenberg version, Archive version

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki 1934

• "The Kongokyo or Diamond Sutra" in Manual of Zen Buddhism, Kyoto: Eastern Buddhist Soc. (Republished by Random House, multiple editions)
• PDF version, Archive version

Edward Conze 1958

• Buddhist Wisdom: The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, republished 2001, Random House
• Translation with commentaries.
• PDF version

Gregory Schopen 1989

• "The Manuscript of the Vajracchedikā Found at Gilgit", in Studies in the Literature of the Great Vehicle: Three Mahāyāna Buddhist Texts, ed. by L. O. Gómez and J. A. Silk. Centers for South and Southeast Asia
• Translation from the Sanskrit Gilgit manuscript
• GRETIL version, Archive version

Thich Nhat Hanh 1992

• The Diamond that Cuts Through Illusion, Parallax Press
• Translation from Sanskrit and Chinese texts, with commentary
• Plumb Village version (without commentary), Archive version

Mu Soeng 2000

• The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World, Wisdom Publications
• Translation based on the original Sanskrit text (Max Müller edition), as well as Chinese source texts (including the Kumarajiva translation). Commentary is also included.
• Publisher's page, PDF version

Red Pine 2001

• The Diamond Sutra: The Perfection of Wisdom; Text and Commentaries, Counterpoint
• Translation from the Sanskrit and Chinese; with selections of Indian and Chan commentary from figures such as Asanga, Vasubandhu, Huineng, Linji and Chiang Wei-nung (1871–1938).
• PDF version

Gelong Thubten Tsultrim (George Churinoff) 2002

• The Exalted Mahayana Sutra on the Wisdom Gone Beyond Called the Vajra Cutter, FMPT (reprinted 2007)
• Translated from Tibetan (the Lhasa Zhol printing)
• PDF version

Hsuan Hua 2002

• A General Explanation: The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, Buddhist Text Translation Society
• Archive version

Nan Huai-Chin 2004

• The Diamond Sutra Explained, Primodia Media

A.F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam 2005

• Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng, Shambhala Classics
• Translation of the Diamond Sūtra and Platform Sutra

Paul Harrison 2006

• "Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā: A New English Translation of the Sanskrit Text Based on Two Manuscripts from Greater Gandhāra" in Jens Braarvig, Paul Harrison, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Kazunobu Matsuda & Lore Sander, eds., Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Oslo: Hermes 2006
• Translation from the Sanskrit (compiled from Gilgit and the Schøyen collection manuscripts)
• PDF version, Bibliotheca Polyglotta version, Archive version

Burton Watson 2010

• The Diamond Sutra, The Eastern Buddhist NEW SERIES, Vol. 41, No. 1
• Translated based on the modern Japanese annotated translation by NAKAMURA Hajime 中村元 and KINO Kazuyoshi 紀野一義 ;Hannya shingyō; Kongō hannyakyō (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1960).
• JSTOR editions

Young San Seong Do 2010

• The Diamond Sutra, Angkor Verlag
• Translation based on Kumarajiva's Chinese translation
• Publisher's page, Translation (without commentary)

Lapis Lazuli Texts (date unknown)

• Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, Lapis Lazuli Texts
• Translation from Chinese sources
• Web version

Contents

File:Soutra du diamant ouvert.png

A traditional pocket-sized folding edition of the Diamond Sūtra in Chinese

According to David Kalupahana, the major themes of the Diamond Sūtra include anatman ("not-self") and śūnyatā ("emptiness") (although the term 'śūnyatā' itself does not appear in the text). In his commentary on the sutra, Hsing Yun describes the four main points from the sūtra as giving without attachment to self, liberating beings without notions of self and other, living without attachment, and cultivating without attainment. According to Shigenori Nagamoto, the major goal of the sutra is: "an existential project aiming at achieving and embodying a non-discriminatory basis for knowledge" or "the emancipation from the fundamental ignorance of not knowing how to experience reality as it is."

As the sūtra begins, the Buddha has finished his daily alms round and he sits down to rest. The elder Subhūti comes forth and asks the Buddha a question:

"How, Lord, should one who has set out on the bodhisattva path take his stand, how should he proceed, how should he control the mind?"

The Buddha responds by saying that "a bodhisattva must vow to lead all beings in the universe into nirvāṇa, while fully recognizing that there are in fact no beings to be led into nirvāṇa."

“If, Subhūti, a bodhisattva were to have the (mis)perception (saṃjñā) of a self (ātman), a being (sattva), a living entity (jīva), or a person (pudgala), he is not to be called ‘a bodhisattva.’”

The Princeton Dictionary states:

This is one of many famous statements in the sūtra, regarded by commentators as setting forth the doctrine of emptiness (although the technical term śūnyatā does not appear in the sūtra), i.e., that all phenomena are falsely imagined to have a self, a soul, and an “own-being,” qualities that they, in fact, lack.

The Buddha continues his exposition with similar statements which use negation to point out the emptiness of phenomena, merit, the Dharma (Buddha's teaching), the stages of enlightenment and the Buddha himself. Japanese Buddhologist, Hajime Nakamura, calls this negation the 'logic of not' (Sanskrit: na prthak). Further examples of the Diamond sutra's via negativa include statements such as:

• As far as ‘all dharmas’ are concerned, Subhuti, all of them are dharma-less. That is why they are called ‘all dharmas.’
• Those so-called ‘streams of thought,’ Subhuti, have been preached by the Tathagata as streamless. That is why they are called ‘streams of thought.’
• ‘All beings,’ Subhuti, have been preached by the Tathagata as beingless. That is why they are called ‘all beings.’

The Buddha is generally thought to be trying to help Subhūti unlearn his preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality. Emphasizing that all phenomena are ultimately illusory, he teaches that true enlightenment cannot be grasped until one has set aside attachment to them in any form.

Another reason why the Buddha makes use of negation is that language reifies concepts and this can lead to attachment to those concepts, but true wisdom is seeing that nothing is fixed or stable, hence according to the Diamond Sūtra thoughts such as "I have obtained the state of an Arhat" or "I will bring living beings to nirvana" do not even occur in an enlightened one's mind because this would be "seizing upon a self ... seizing upon a living being, seizing upon a soul, seizing upon a person".

The sutra goes on to state that anyone who says such things should not be called a bodhisattva. According to David Kalupahana the goal of the Diamond sutra is "one colossal attempt to avoid the extremist use of language, that is, to eliminate any ontological commitment to concepts while at the same time retaining their pragmatic value, so as not to render them totally empty of meaning." Kalupahana explains the negation of the Diamond sutra by seeing an initial statement as an erroneous affirmation of substance or selfhood, which is then critiqued ("'all dharmas' are dharmaless"), and then finally reconstructed ("that is why they are called 'all dharmas'") as being conventional and dependently originated. Kalupahana explains this final reconstruction as meaning: "that each concept, instead of either representing a unique entity or being an empty term, is a substitute for a human experience which is conditioned by a variety of factors. As such, it has pragmatic meaning and communicative power without being absolute in any way." According to Paul Harrison the Diamond sutra's central argument here is that "all dharmas lack a self or essence, or to put it in other words, they have no core ontologically, they only appear to exist separately and independently by the power of conventional language, even though they are in fact dependently originated."

The mind of someone who practices the Prajñāpāramitā or 'perfection of wisdom' is then a mind free from fixed substantialist or 'self' concepts:

"However, Lord, the idea of a self will not occur to them, nor will the idea of a living being, the idea of a soul, or the idea of a person occur. Why is that? Any such idea of a self is indeed idealess, any idea of a living being, idea of a soul, or idea of a person is indeed idealess. Why is that? Because the Buddhas and Lords are free of all ideas."

Throughout the teaching, the Buddha repeats that successful memorization and elucidation of even a four-line extract of it is of incalculable merit, better than giving an entire world system filled with gifts and can bring about enlightenment. Section 26 also ends with a four-line gatha:

All conditioned phenomena Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, Like dew or a flash of lightning;

Thus we shall perceive them.”

Paul Harrison's translation states:

"A shooting star, a clouding of the sight, a lamp, An illusion, a drop of dew, a bubble, A dream, a lightning's flash, a thunder cloud—

This is the way one should see the conditioned.

Influence

Sutra veneration

The Diamond Sūtra gave rise to a culture of artwork, sūtra veneration, and commentaries in East Asian Buddhism. Copying and recitation of the Diamond Sutra was a widespread devotional practice, and stories attributing miraculous powers to these acts are recorded in Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Mongolian sources.

Commentaries

By the end of the Tang Dynasty (907) in China there were over 80 commentaries written on the Diamond Sutra (only 32 survive), such as those by prominent Chinese Buddhists like Sengzhao, Xie Lingyun, Zhiyi, Jizang, Kuiji and Guifeng Zongmi.

One of the best known commentaries is the Exegesis on the Diamond Sutra by Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School. The Diamond Sutra features prominently in the Platform Sutra, the religious biography of Huineng, where hearing its recitation is supposed to have triggered the enlightening insight that led Huineng to abandon his life as a woodcutter to become a Buddhist monk.

The Chinese canon also includes translations of authoritative commentaries by both Vasubandhu and Asanga. Both commentaries share the same title in Chinese. See Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitopadeśa.

Early manuscripts

Gregory Schopen (2004) states:

Whereas for many Mahayana sutras only very recent eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sanskrit manuscripts survive, for the Diamond Sutra we have at least three much earlier manuscripts that date from the fifth to the seventh centuries and come from widely separated places. The existence of such early manuscript remains may also testify to the text’s importance, and certainly reveals, when compared with later versions and translations, how the text developed and changed its shape over time.

Bamiyan manuscript (6th century)

A fragment of a birchbark manuscript of the Vajracchedikā, dated from the 6th century, was discovered in the caves at Bamiyan, along with fragments of other Mahāyāna sūtras.

These manuscripts are now part of the Schøyen Collection.

The Vajracchedikā manuscript was written in the Sanskrit language, in Karosthi script. This manuscript also contains the Medicine Buddha Sūtra (Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabhārāja Sūtra).

Dunhuang manuscript (9th century)

File:Subhuti diamond sutra detail retouched.jpeg

Elder Subhūti addresses the Buddha. Detail from the Dunhuang block print

A woodblock-printed copy of the Diamond Sūtra, dating from approximately 868 during the Tang dynasty, was included among the Dunhuang manuscripts discovered in Central Asia in the early 1900s.

Mu Soeng states:

Among the manuscripts discovered in the Dunhuang caves was a copy of the Diamond Sutra, which was printed from a series of woodblocks, each reproducing an unalterable image of an entire page. The sheets were glued side-to-side and rolled into a scroll sixteen feet long. The title page shows a serene Buddha on a lotus throne guarded by angels and lions. The colophon says it was completed on the equivalent of May 11, 868 C.E., making it the world’s oldest printed book, dated some seven hundred years before Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.

This manuscript is included in the Stein Collection of the British Library. Although not the earliest example of "wood-block" printing, is the earliest example which bears an actual date.

The manuscript copy is in the form of a scroll about 5 meters (16 ft) long. The colophon (at the end of the text) reads:

Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [11 May 868].

Hence, this manuscript is cited as the first known creative work with an explicit public domain dedication.

View online:

• Printed copy of the Vajracchedika (Diamond Sutra), International Dunhuang Programme

Sources

• Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald S. (2014), The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University 
• Gelong Thubten Tsultrim (George Churinoff) (2002), The Exalted Mahayana Sutra on the Wisdom Gone Beyond Called the Vajra Cutter, FMPT . PDF version
• Hsing Yun (2012), Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha's Diamond Sūtra, Buddha's Light Publishing 
• Harrison, Paul (2006), "Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā: A New English Translation of the Sanskrit Text Based on Two Manuscripts from Greater Gandhāra", in Jens Braarvig; Paul Harrison; Jens-Uwe Hartmann; Kazunobu Matsuda; Lore Sander, Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Oslo: Hermes . PDF version, Archive version
• Kalupahana, David J. (2006) [1992], A History of Buddhist Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidass . Archive version
• Nagatomo, Shigenori (2000), "The Logic of the Diamond Sutra: A is not A, therefore it is A", Asian Philosophy, 10 (3): 217–244 . PDF version
• Schopen, Gregory (2004), "Diamond Sutra", in Buswell, Robert E., Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 227–28 
• Soeng, Mu (2000), The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World, Wisdom Publications . Publisher's page, PDF version
• van Schaik, Sam (2011), "The Diamond Sutra: History and Transmission", IDP News, International Dunhuang Programme, Winter 2011-12 (138) . Archive version
• Yongyou Shi (2010), The Diamond Sūtra in Chinese Culture, Los Angeles: Buddha's Light Publishing 

Further reading

• Cole, Alan (2005). Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature, Berkeley: U Cal Press, pp. 160–196. For a close reading of the text's rhetoric, see chapter 4, entitled "Be All You Can't Be, and Other Gainful Losses in the Diamond Sutra."
• Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters (2011). Journeys on the Silk Road: a desert explorer, Buddha’s secret library, and the unearthing of the world’s oldest printed book, Picador Australia.
• Agócs, Tamás (2000). The Diamondness of the Diamond Sutra. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53, (1/2), 65-77
• Paul Harrison and Shōgo Watanabe. 2006. "Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā." In J. Braarvig (Ed.), Buddhist Manuscripts Vol. III (Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection). Archive version

External links

• Media related to Diamond Sutra at Wikimedia Commons
• Diamond Sutra, Wikipedia
• Diamond_Cutter_Sutra, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• Vajra Cutter Sutra, Rigpa Shedra Wiki
• Conserving the Diamond Sutra, International Dunhuang Programme (2013) on YouTube
• The world's earliest dated printed book: The Diamond Sutra, Cabinet