Introduction
The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, the Blessed Mother,1 which today is popularly known simply as The Heart Sūtra,2 has been cherished, read, and recited by Mahāyāna Buddhists in East and Central Asia for well over a millennium. Over the centuries, scholars and practitioners have continued to find deep meaning in this short scripture and vigorously debated its purpose and practice—and even whether to classify it as a sūtra or a tantra. Still today, The Heart Sūtra continues to be recited around the world in monasteries, temples, and meditation centers in a variety of Buddhist traditions. As a result of its popularity, in more recent times the sūtra has been translated into a wide variety of modern languages that are available in print and online.
The sūtra takes place on Vulture Peak Mountain near Rājagṛha. Here the Buddha inspires his senior monk Śāriputra to request instructions from the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara regarding the practice of the perfection of wisdom.3 Prompted in this way, Avalokiteśvara describes how an aspiring practitioner of the perfection of wisdom must first understand that all phenomena lack an intrinsic nature and therefore are empty. To manifest this realization in the practitioner, Avalokiteśvara reveals a brief mantra to be recited: tadyathā gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā. Following Avalokiteśvara’s teaching, the Buddha offers his endorsement of what has been said and confirms that this is indeed the foremost way to practice the perfection of wisdom.
In English we speak of The Heart Sūtra in the singular, but this obscures the fact that—more than most Buddhist canonical scriptures—this short teaching exists in a variety of versions, recensions, and redactions in multiple canonical languages. Most importantly, The Heart Sūtra exists in both a short and a long version (although the long version is also very brief) in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. In East Asia the shorter version, which is also the older one in terms of textual history, became the most popular, while in Tibet the longer version was favored.