The Heart Sutra in Tibetan: a Critical Edition of the Two Recensions Contained in the Kanjur.

• Author: Tatz, Mark
• Position: Book Review

By JONATHAN A. SILK. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, vol. 34. Vienna: ARBEITSKREIS FUR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN, UNIVERSITAT WIEN, 1994. Pp. 205. 21.80 [euro].

According to Silk, seeking the ur-text of a given item of Indian literature, most probably oral to begin with and later reduced to writing in different scripts and even dialects, is an impossible enterprise: like the banana tree, the text tradition "has no core." In this respect, the classical text-critical search for the correct and original version is inappropriate. Rather, one should limit oneself to a single canonical language, in this case Tibetan, and take a historical approach, publishing the oldest known text with annotations indicating stages and layers of later development. One should give a full picture with copyist errors, variations in usage and spelling, and variants for scholars with different interests, especially for the Indologist--such as Silk himself--who seeks to "read" the Indic text behind the Tibetan translation. All this, Silk accomplishes for this brief (three folio) text. His reporting is so detailed as to note corrections made by editors to the wooden printing blocks.

For Tibetan translations, according to Silk, one may hypothesize an ur-text reaching back to the original translators. But occasional contamination by later emendations from a different Indic manuscript makes reconstruction of such an ur-text for practical purposes impossible. Nonetheless, it should be sought by thorough examination of the textual witnesses, including not only the major Kanjurs, but also local ones, as well as Tun-huang manuscripts and citations in other works. This last source, not germane to the text under investigation, Silk does not sufficiently emphasize: Tibetan hermeneutic discussions sometimes turn upon translations not incorporated in the sacred canon and eventually discarded--for example, a now lost translation of the Siksasamuccaya quoted by Tsong-kha-pa in his Byang-chub-gzhung-lam.

The study of Kanjur (bka' gyur) filiations in Silk's introduction proposes two recensions, confirming the hypothesis of others that there are two major recensions of the Kanjur: "a so-called Western or Them spangs ma line and a so-called Eastern or Tshal pa line." Some editions of Kanjur contain both--one in the Prajnaparamita section, the other in the Tantra section. However, Silk cannot establish an oldest version of either recension. Shared readings...