Śūraṅgama Sūtra

DESCRIPTION

The Śūraṅgama Sūtra 首楞嚴經 (‘Indestructible’) is an enigmatic sutra that has been especially influential on Korean and Chinese Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism. Śūraṅgama comes from means "heroic valor", "heroic progress", or "heroic march". The Śūraṅgama Sūtra (T.945) is not to be confused with the similarly titled Śūraṅgama Samadhi Sutra 首楞嚴三昧經 (T642). The complete Chinese title of the sutra, 大佛頂如來密因修證了義諸菩薩萬行首楞嚴經, means, “The Sūtra on the Śūraṅgama Mantra that is spoken from above the Crown of the Great Buddha's Head and on the Hidden Basis of the Tathagata's Myriad Bodhisattva Practices that lead to their Verifications of Ultimate Truth.” It is a sutra in ten scrolls and, according to tradition, was translated in 705 AD by an unknown Indian bhikṣu Po-la-mi-ti (which perhaps can be reconstructed as "Paramiti") and others, and then polished and edited by Empress Wu Tzu-t'ien's recently banished minister Fang Yung.

SYNOPSIS

The first part of the sutra is a question-and-answer between the Buddha and Ānanda regarding the location of the mind, first in terms of a determinate position and then vis-à-vis the eighteen sense fields and the seven elements. This is followed by a section wherein twenty-five different practitioners, including famous monks and bodhisattvas, recall their process of enlightenment, each using a different sense organ, object, consciousness, or element. That section concludes with a long section by the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (’Hearer of the World’s Sounds’). The next part of the sutra is dedicated to the Śūraṅgama mantra, which came out of the uṣṇīṣa (’crown’) of the Buddha’s head at the beginning of the sutra to protect Ānanda. This includes detailed instructions on constructing a bodhimaṇḍala (’sight for enlightenment’), and the rituals to be performed within it, which lead to having visions of buddhas. This more ‘tantric’ portion of the text, and the mantra itself, are manifestions of Sitātapatra (’White Parasol’). The text concludes with a section detailing all the many stage of the bodhisattva path, and concludes with two interesting sections on the mind-states of beings, parts of which read like a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

TRANSLATIONS

The only complete translation of this sutra in English has been that by the Buddhist Text Translation Society, first published in an eight-volume edition between 1977 and 1986. A revised edition was published between 2000 and 2005. The first partial translation into English, of only the first four of the ten rolls, was made by Samuel Beal and included in A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (London: Trubner, 1871). A very small portion of the first roll of the Sutra was translated by Reverend Joseph Edkins as the first chapter of his Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive, and Critical, 2nd ed. (London: Trubner, 1893). In 1938, in conjunction with Bhikshu Wai-tao, Dwight Godard included a rough translation of about a third of the Sutra in his A Buddhist Bible (New York: Dutton, 1938). Most of the text was translated by Lu K'uan Yü (Charles Luk) in 1966, together with an abridged translation of the commentary by Chan Master Hanshan Deqing, as The Śūraṅgama Sūtra.

📜 Samuel Beal, in A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese (London: Trubner, 1871)

📜 Dwight Goddard and Bhikshu Wai-tao, The Surangama Sutra, published in A Buddhist Bible (1932)

📜 Charles Luk, Shurangama Sutra (London: Rider, 1966)

📜 The Shurangama Sutra with commentary by Master Hsuan Hua. Buddhist Translation Society, 2nd edition (October 2003)