Heng Shun
Developing Virtue Secondary School
City of 10,000 Buddhas, Talmage, California
Avalokiteshvara
Bodhisattva
The Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara is also one of the four great Bodhisattvas. He is known for his great compassion. The Universal Door Chapter of the Lotus Sutra is devoted to describing the benefits of reciting the Bodhisattvas name. This chapter is probably the most recited and memorized amongst those who follow the Mahayana teachings. The Universal Door Chapter specifically recommends that in times of crisis it is most efficacious to recite the name of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. He is also known as the "Giver of Fearlessness". This Bodhisattva of great compassion appears in three of the most important Sutras in the Mahayana: the Flower Adornment (Avatamsaka) Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and the Shurangama Sutra.
The Translation of the Buddhist Sutras
According to tradition the words of the Buddha were transmitted orally for the first three to four hundred years after his Pari-Nirvana (app. 483 B.C.). Groups of monks memorized his discourses in their vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan dialects and passed it down from generation to generation. It wasn't until the second or first century B.C. that the Sutras started to be recorded in written form. The word "Sutra" literally means a "string" or "thread". Important words or brief phrases in religious teaching strung together were thus called Sutras by analogy with the string or thread with which a garland of flowers is made. In Buddhism, Sutras are considered to be the spoken word of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas or enlightened followers sanctioned by the Buddhas or Bodhisattvas. Thus in the Buddhist context, Sutras, are the sacred word of the Buddha or other enlightened beings. The Buddhist Canon is divided up into three parts. They are the Sutras, the Vinaya and the Abhidharma or Commentarial literature (Shastras). The Vinaya refers to the massive corpus of texts specifically dealing with the rules for the monastic community or Sangha of Bhikshus and Bhikshunis. The Abhidharma is the detailed analysis of the elements of existence so to speak, such as the various types of consciousness, mental factors, and physical elements and how they inter-relate with one another. In the Pali, the Abhidharma is believed to have originated with the disciple of the Buddha who was foremost in wisdom, the Venerable Shariputra. In the Mahayana the third division of the canon consists of the commentarial literature written by great monastic and householder scholars and practitioners who lived many centuries after the Buddha. These three divisions are called the Tripitaka or the "Three Baskets", "Three Collections" or "Three Treasuries".
The Pali Canon
The Pali Canon, the main source for the Theravada traditions of present day Sri Lanka, Burma (Myamar), Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia was first recorded at the end of the first century B.C. The greatest commentator on the Pali Canon was Master Buddhagosha (5th Century) from Sri Lanka.
The Chinese Canon
The Chinese Canon began in about 67 C.E. with the translation of the Sutra in 42 Sections by two monks, Masters Kashyapa-matanga and Gobharana who brought the Sutra to China from India on a white horse (around a.d. 67). White Horse Monastery was established in Loyang by Han Ming Di, the emperor of that time (refer to link below: First Sutra Translated in Chinese). For the next few centuries great monk-translators came to China from the Indian region, like Tripitaka Master Kumarajiva (350-409), who came from Kucha, or Chinese monks like Master Fa Hsien (fl. 399-418), Tripitaka Master Hsuan Tsang (596-664), and Master I Ching (635-713) travelled to India from China and then returned with Sutras and Vinaya texts which they translated after their return to China. Most of them utlized the Silk Road on their pilgrimages in search of the sacred Buddhist texts in India. In China many monks were involved in the work of translating the Sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese. Most of this work was completed by the end of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
The Tibetan Canon
The Great Master (Acharya) Shantarakshita from Bengal, India was invited by a minister of King Khri-sron-lde-btsan (740-786) to come to Tibet. According to tradition he was the first Buddhist monk to teach the Dharma (the Buddha's teachings) in Tibet. Together with his disciple, Padmasambhava, he planned and oversaw the building of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet, called Samye Monastery. Samye literally means "inconceivable" and was completed in about 779. Samye Monastery was modeled after a famous monastery in Bihar, India called Odantapuri. As the first abbot of Samye Monastery, Master Shantarakshita ordained the first indigenous Tibetans to become monks and also established the first translation bureau in Tibet. Although the venerable acharya passed on in about 792, during the 13 years he served as abbot and the following 30 or so years thereafter, over 1200 Sutras were translated into Tibetan from Sanskrit. This formed the basis for the Tibetan Buddhist Canon, which is called the Kanjur or "Word of the Buddha". Another body of commentarial literature was translated and developed later on. This is called the Tanjur or "Translation of Teachings". In the Tibetan Canon or Tripitaka the Vinaya and Sutras (as well as Tantras) are contained in the Kanjur, whereas the third basket, or commentarial works are in the Tanjur.
Conclusion
It is due to the arduous work of these great monastic scholars and practitioners of the past, that we today are able to read the words of the Buddha and his enlightened disciples. Indeed, the Sutras that were originally in Sanskrit are all but lost, and for the most part only survive in the Chinese and Tibetan Tripitakas.
Articles
Sutra in 42 Sections
The First Sutra Translated in China, 67 A.D.
The Story
of Great Master Hsuan Tsang & His Pilgrimage to India
Links
The International Dunhuang Project has these links on Buddhism and the Silk Road, under the following headings. This information is quite good for both middle school and high school students.
Buddhism
on the Silk Road
The
History of Buddhism
Buddhism
of the Kushana Empire
The
Buddhism of Khotan
Chinese
Buddhism on the Silk Road
Tibetan
and Mongolian Buddhism on the Silk Road
Other
Followers of Buddhism on the Silk Road
Buddhist
Travelers and Pilgrims on the Silk Road
International Dunhuang Project (Home Page)
The International Dunhuang project also has an excellent link that explains the different kinds of Chinese bookbinding found at Dunhuang.
Another good source on Buddhism and the Silk Road
Books to Buy
There's a wonderful book that describes the whole process of how the Chinese Buddhist Canon was compiled entitled Buddhist Sutras: Origin, Development and Transmission by Kogen Mizuno.
The following are translations of the biographies or travelogues of some of the great monastic pilgrims who went to India from China in quest for works in the Buddhist Tripitaka in Sanskrit.
The
Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions
By Tripitaka Master Hsuan Tsang, Translated by Li Rongxi
The record of his travels and experience in India
A
Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien
of His Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in Search of the Buddhist
Books of Discipline, by Master Faxian, Translated by James Legge.
Also, published by Dover Books. This is an old translation of the record
of Master Fa Hsien's travels to India at that time in search of texts
on the Vinaya.
A
Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the
Great Tang Dynasty. Translated by Li Rongxi
Biography of Tripitaka Master Hsuan Tsang from the Chinese Buddhist Canon
written by one of his disciples.
This volume contains biographies of three great Mahayana masters, sixty-five Chinese nuns from the fourth to sixth centuries, and an account of the life and travels in south Asia of the fifth century Chinese monk, Faxian (Master Fa Hsien). The texts included are "The Life of Ashvaghosha Bodhisattva;" "The Life of Nagarjuna Bodhisattva;" "Biography of D Vasubandhu Bodhisattva;" "Biographies of Buddhist Nuns;" & "The Journey of the Eminent Monk Faxian." (Taisho #2046; 2047; 2049; 2063 & 2085) [Ch: Ma-ming-p'u-sa-ch'uan; Lung-shu-p'u-sa-ch'uan; P'o-sou-p'an-tou-fa-shih-ch'uan; Pi-ch'iu-ni-ch'uan; Kao-seng-fa-hsien-ch'uan) (Jp: Me-myo-bo-satsu-den; Ryu-ju-bo-satsu-den; Ba-so-han-zu-ho-shi-den;Bi-ku-ni-den; Ko-so-hok-ken-den)
This site was created by Heng Shun at the NEH Summer Institute "Cultures and Religions of the Himalayan Region," held at the College of the Holy Cross, Summer 2004