Notes on This Translation of the Eight Thousand
Sources and Approaches
Given the Eight Thousand’s significance, it is perhaps surprising that this is the first complete English translation.31 It is based primarily on the Sanskrit text (edited by Mitra in 1888 and reproduced by Vaidya and Wogihara),32 and only secondarily on the Tibetan version in the Degé Kangyur. We have nevertheless consistently consulted the Tibetan and have recorded in the footnotes all substantial inconsistencies between the Sanskrit and Tibetan, mentioning which of the two readings was translated and why it was followed. Our reasons for relying more on the extant Sanskrit than on the Tibetan stem from considerations of history, meaning, and usefulness.
From the historical perspective, Sanskrit is of course closer to the original Indic language in which the text was written. Fortunately, too, the Tibetan translation matches Mitra’s edition much more closely than is the case for Tibetan translations of some other canonical texts compared to their extant Sanskrit parallels.
Second, translating the Eight Thousand from the Sanskrit has also helped produce a more meaningful translation, because the Sanskrit terminology is more transparent in its etymology and semantic range. The Tibetan translation sometimes limits or alters the sense of original terms, inadvertently obfuscates relationships between them, and renders opaque or invisible the Eight Thousand’s Sanskrit wordplay.
Third, we hope that having a translation of the Eight Thousand made primarily from the Sanskrit will make it easier to study the text through English translations of the two Sanskrit commentaries by Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti. Without reference to the Sanskrit text, English translations of the Sanskrit commentaries would make little sense, because what they both clarify is the terminological and syntactic ambiguities of the sūtra’s original Sanskrit text, and not any ambiguities introduced by the choices made in the Tibetan translation. The extant Tibetan translation of the Eight Thousand did indeed follow Ratnākaraśānti’s and Haribhadra’s commentaries on many points, but a translation of the Sanskrit still provides a better starting point than the Tibetan for understanding the commentarial tradition.33
The primary concern in this English translation of the Eight Thousand has been to create a text that can serve as a basis for the traditional study that it deserves, while still being accessible to those who wish, as Paul Harrison puts it, “to read the English as English and make some sense of it.”34 For Sanskrit prose, the Eight Thousand is stylistically clunky and repetitive at the sentence level. But to facilitate in-depth study with Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries, which take the text sentence by sentence, the translation must match the Sanskrit and Tibetan versions sentence by sentence too, even if this has led to a style that could also be considered clunky for English prose.
A secondary concern has been to use consistent Buddhist terminology, rather than different translations of the same words, to bring out the range of meanings or to produce more elegant prose. The Eight Thousand makes use of many different rhetorical devices that require such consistency—meaningful plays on words, paradoxical statements, recoding of similar terms to challenge reader assumptions, and so on—all of which play a role in conveying the scripture’s tone and ultimate intent.
The Eight Thousand’s repetitive style, too, has been preserved. Even if repetition is less a major feature of this text than it is of the longer sūtras, it is still very evident. Repetition was clearly used for its effect on reciters and their audience, or individual readers. For instance, some chapters include multiple repetitions of long passages with only one word or phrase change. Where repetition is either the point itself or central to that point, it would be a mistake to eliminate it.
Edward Conze, in his 1958 rendering of the text in English, chose to paraphrase rather than fully translate it, with the idea that this would make it available to a wider readership. The justification he used is worth analyzing, at least to highlight the different stylistic approach of this present translation. In his own preface, Conze states:
“The Sūtra itself was meant to be memorized, the translation is meant to be read. Lengthy repetitions, stereotyped phrases, and the piling up of synonyms were of great assistance to memory, but they irritate and distract the modern reader, and obscure from him the meaning of the text.…The reproduction of the literary conventions and of the stylistic peculiarities of Buddhist Sanskrit diction was not one of my aims. It would be of little, or no, value to scholars, and it bewilders the general reader.”35
Here, Conze states several things that deserve closer scrutiny. First, he assumes that “the Sūtra was meant to be memorized, the translation is meant to be read.” Yet throughout its history, it seems quite likely that the scripture itself has been read far more than it has been memorized. Second, he assumes that “lengthy repetitions, stereotyped phrases, and the piling up of synonyms” obscure the meaning of the text. Yet the scripture’s overall meaning is not merely contained in certain individual words. It is also conveyed through those very stylistic devices, repetitions, and “piled-up” synonyms. What is valuable in this book, Conze assumes with his modern bias, cannot be what comes from the verbal performance of chanting it aloud. Finally, when Conze eliminates or paraphrases repetitions that the commentators find meaningful but he himself finds meaningless, he neglects the needs of those who might wish to read the translation along with the two main Indian commentaries.
Since no one would feel equipped to draw firm conclusions about the scripture without the full text or a traditional commentary on its meaning, a new English translation of both the scripture and its commentaries should help correct the historical, philosophical, and religious misunderstandings that have inadvertently arisen from Conze’s translation style and comments about the scripture. To illustrate this point simply, it may be helpful to give a brief example where Conze’s assumptions and his paraphrase obfuscate both the literal meaning and the traditional interpretation of even just a single passage. At the conclusion of a meaningful passage, Conze’s translation reads:
“A Bodhisattva who does not become afraid when this deep and perfect wisdom is being taught should be recognized as not lacking in perfect wisdom.”36
Consider now how much more meaning might be found in a literal translation that would read as follows:
“O Blessed One, when this profound transcendent state of wisdom is being discussed, taught, and expounded in this way, if a bodhisattva great being’s mindset does not become deflated, depressed, dejected, or sunk in despondency, and his or her mental attitude does not become discouraged, shattered, frightened, terrified, or stricken with terror, then that bodhisattva great being has firm conviction with an altruistic disposition. Hence, one should recognize him or her to be never lacking the transcendent state of wisdom.”37
It is easy to see that Conze’s paraphrases were not merely eliminating words that “irritate and distract the modern reader, and obscure from him the meaning of the text.” Conze’s paraphrase is also missing many words that Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary refers to. For instance, consider Ratnākaraśānti’s comments on the above literal translation:
“These sentences (in the above passage) accord with the way that the meditative object and meditative perspective are explained. Here, the word ‘profound’ means difficult to understand. This ‘transcendent state of wisdom’ refers to [a bodhisattva’s knowing on the path of preliminary practice] in the intermediate and advanced stages of warming up. First, ‘discussed’ concerns the words; then, ‘taught’ and ‘expounded’ concern the meaning. By understanding that meaning (in practice), the bodhisattva develops tranquility (śamatha; zhi gnas). The [nine] words beginning with ‘does not become deflated’ and so on [correspond to nine emotional difficulties that are progressively overcome through the nine stages of meditation practice aimed at tranquility,] as explained previously. The ‘altruistic disposition’ refers to a bodhisattva’s motivation [for practice], which indicates single-pointed determination [to awaken through practice]. ‘Firm conviction’ is generated by force of the tranquility meditation and the insight meditation. The phrase ‘never separate’ means that, through this [meditation], a bodhisattva’s transcendent state of wisdom will only increase.”38
The words Conze omits in his paraphrase are thus ones that the commentarial tradition holds to be meaningful. Omitting them forecloses the possibility that in English translation Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary could clarify the scripture’s esoteric meaning according to the received tradition. Where Ratnākaraśānti comments on the nine experiences (i.e., “deflated,” “depressed,” and so on, up to “stricken with terror”), Conze saw nothing but a “repetition” or “piling up of synonyms,” and abbreviated them all into the single word “afraid.” Yet according to Ratnākaraśānti these nine words correspond to nine emotional difficulties progressively overcome through the nine stages of meditation practice. Furthermore, Ratnākaraśānti situates the particular degree of tranquility and insight achieved here with a specific stage and level of the bodhisattva’s path.39
This is just one example of how Conze’s mixture of translation and paraphrase, pioneering though it was, distorts the meaning to be gleaned from certain esoteric passages, misrepresents the scripture’s use of language, and cannot be read alongside Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary. Among many other such instances, his rendering of chapter 5 omits the multiple repetitions of very long refrains, completely altering the nature of the chapter and its performative effect on a reader.40 Needless to say, general readers, Buddhist practitioners, and scholars who unwittingly rely on Conze’s paraphrases—as though they are full translations—are being misled.
Stylistically, the present new, complete English translation may not match the tastes of modern readers seeking concision. On the contrary, it preserves all sentence-level repetitions, piling up of synonyms, stock phrases, and so on, so that the traditional commentaries can easily be linked to it in the future, and so that an appreciation of the tradition can inform conclusions about the scripture itself. However, it makes no attempt to translate one word with only one word or to preserve syntactical relations between words. Many long sentences have been cut into shorter ones, adding words without brackets wherever necessary for clarity. The stylistic repetitions of words within a particular sentence have been eliminated only when it would make the English text too clumsy or difficult to understand. Thus, all language has been translated in a simple, straightforward way with a few key notes to make the scripture relatively accessible.
Selections from the Commentaries as Notes
The Eight Thousand can be fruitfully read even with less than a full understanding of its content. The scripture itself often states that simply by reading it the faithful will gain inconceivable merit. To read the scripture alone—without the Ornament’s table of contents or the explanations of the commentaries—may thus offer readers much to explore. But for those with the time and interest it can be explored far more deeply by reading it with the aid of the Ornament and its explanatory commentaries. Complete translations of the commentaries are not yet available, but to provide some help for difficult passages, arcane metaphors, esoteric passages, and ambiguous words, we have provisionally included in the notes some translations of selected key comments from Haribhadra’s Light (abbreviated “Hari”) and Ratnākaraśānti’s Quintessence (abbreviated “Ratnākara” or “RK”).
To get the most use out of these notes and not feel overwhelmed by the commentarial detail, readers would do well to understand what purposes the commentator’s comments aim to serve, the types of comments that have been selected for inclusion, and how the comments have been translated.
Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries generally aim to provide five services:
to clarify ambiguous Sanskrit word divisions (padaccheda);
to paraphrase the meaning of ambiguous words and syntactical relations (padārthokti);
to present etymological and grammatical analysis (vigraha) of ambiguous Sanskrit terms;
to interpret the meaning of ambiguous sentences (vākyayojanā); and
to address possible confusion or doubts about the intended meaning of the text (ākṣepasamādhāna).
The first four mostly concern issues in the Sanskrit that the English translation already accounts for. Some of these comments contain tidbits that would be interesting to the average English reader but are submerged in points that only a Sanskrit reader would understand or care about.
The fifth service concerns the logic and meaning behind the theory and practice implied in the text. To this end, Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries are centered on demonstrating, section by section, the correlations between the Eight Thousand and the Ornament, and they seek to provide enough philosophical, religious, and historical context so that an uninformed reader can understand the meaning of both texts. But comments of this type can be long and written in a style that requires additional explanation, so it is not always easy to extract the most relevant parts to include in a note. The notes to this translation therefore include no more than a minuscule portion of all the material held by Indo-Tibetan tradition as the theoretical underpinning of the text.41 Many of the comments that are included require, at least, a working knowledge of the stages of the five Mahāyāna paths that would normally be explained orally by a teacher. In selecting comments for the notes, our main aim was to provide Haribhadra’s or Ratnākaraśānti’s briefer comments where the scripture is difficult to understand on its own. The notes thus focus on the most easily extractable comments whose purposes fall under the second, fourth, and fifth categories listed above. The selection process was inevitably idiosyncratic, but was influenced by several further limiting factors.
First, comments that might be relevant to the interests of readers of any of several possible kinds—Buddhists, non-Buddhists, or academics of various disciplines—were included. In this regard, some footnotes might be interesting only to some readers.
Second, wherever a choice was necessary for brevity or clarity, Ratnākaraśānti’s comments, which have never been translated before, took precedence over Haribhadra’s comments, because an English translation of Haribhadra’s commentary already exists and can be independently consulted.42 But when Ratnākaraśānti’s comments are extant only in Tibetan translation rather than in Sanskrit,43 Haribhadra’s commentary is often provided, since the Tibetan translation of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentary systematically excludes information concerning Sanskrit grammar and etymologies that are helpful for understanding his overall comments.
Third, many comments that required further context or explanation were excluded. Although Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti explain the entire scripture with systematic reference to the Ornament’s versified outline of the seventy topics, their comments connected to the Ornament were generally excluded—despite their importance for serious study of the complex soteriological structure of the scripture—because too much context would have to be supplied to make them comprehensible. Nevertheless, in some cases where otherwise the meaning would be completely opaque, certain comments connected with topics from the Ornament are included. For instance, when the scripture is obliquely referencing the thirty-six conceptualizations of grasping subjects and grasped objects, Ratnākaraśānti’s comments on all thirty-six are to be found in the notes, even though they are connected to the Ornament.
Finally, the notes do not include philosophical digressions, because Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti—who adhere to the two different philosophical positions of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, respectively—are implicitly claiming authority for their own position by showing that various aspects of the scripture should be interpreted from the perspective of their own schools. Their philosophical comments that digress from explaining the scripture have generally not been included, but when their philosophical statements overlap with their exegesis, we have added notes about how the two commentators diverge without explaining or trying to resolve those differences. For instance, notes point out that Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti disagree about the main referent of the term prajñāpāramitā in the title and as a topic, which they define in divergent ways.44 But these notes stop short of fully explaining these interpretive differences and their underlying philosophical reasons.
Many of Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s comments were designed to eliminate specific ambiguities in the Sanskrit language that do not exist in English and are already addressed in the English translation. Since any English translation of these requires some betrayal of the commentarial intentions, the following conventions should be noted with respect to how the comments are translated:
Words and phrases quoted from the main text are placed within quotation marks and their glosses are represented in English in the clearest possible way irrespective of syntax or Sanskrit convention, while irrelevant Sanskrit text, markers, or lemmas are often simply left untranslated. Words implied by the Sanskrit are freely interpolated into the translation, but words necessary for contextualization are added in parentheses.
Immediately after each English translation, the Sanskrit or Tibetan text has been provided, the Sanskrit or Tibetan words corresponding to the quoted English words in bold.45
When the comments of Hari or Ratnākara are both translated in a single note, each of their comments is immediately followed by its own Sanskrit or Tibetan text, meaning that a reader interested only in the English must scroll past the Sanskrit or Tibetan text to see the second set of comments translated into English.
Where the commentaries give paraphrases of Sanskrit words or phrases to exclude other possible interpretations of the Sanskrit, the English translation sometimes presents the two words or phrases—glossed and glossing—as virtual synonyms based on etymologies of the different words. Naturally, this communicates something slightly different to English and Sanskrit readers.
When Sanskrit grammatical analysis or other information relevant only to Sanskrit readers cannot be easily excluded from the note because it appears in between two sentences relevant to English readers, these comments are translated in such a manner as to convey to an English reader only a small part of the information that a reader of Sanskrit would understand. Most of the untranslated information would not be useful to English readers and the rest of it will have to wait for a full translation of the commentaries, in which contextual annotations to the commentary itself can be provided.
Translating Terminology
Translating terminology well, given the gulf between modern English usage and the multiple ranges of meanings and connotations carried by the words of this ancient text, is already hard enough. But it is even more difficult to make the English translation of certain important terms accessible to both Haribhadra’s and Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries—since their divergent philosophical perspectives often led them to define key terms in diametrically opposite ways.
As specific examples, it may therefore be helpful to focus here on some key terms: “the transcendent state of wisdom” and its near synonyms (at least in this scripture) the “mindset of awakening” and “complete knowing.” These terms are used, in different contexts within the scripture, to refer either to aspects of the knowing of bodhisattvas on the path, or aspects of the knowing of buddhas who have achieved the goal. The basic debate between Haribhadra and Ratnākaraśānti is whether their main referent is the goal and only figuratively the path, or vice versa. Such a controversy may seem purely scholastic to some, but its upshot concerns the very nature of the path to awakening and what it means to be awakened as a buddha, the stated goal of all Mahāyāna practitioners.