HEART SUTRA

The Heart Sutra is in the Perfection of Wisdom, or Prajnaparamita, group of Mahayana Buddhist literature.  Its Sanskrit name Prajnaparamita Hrdaya literally translates as Heart of the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom.  Along with the Diamond Sutra, it is perhaps the most prominent representative of the genre, and is the most popular and best known of all Buddhist scriptures.

The sutra's date of origin is thought to be 350 AD, although some scholars believe it to be two centuries older than this.  There are versions of it in both Sanskrit and Chinese.

The Chinese version is frequently chanted by the Chan, Zen, Seon, and Thien sects in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam respectively.  It is significant as well to the Shingon Buddhist school in Japan, whose founder Kukai wrote a commentary on it, and to the various Tibetan Buddhist schools where it is studied extensively.

The sutra is about the liberation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.  This liberation comes while Avalokitesvara is meditating on prajna, wisdom.  Revealed in the meditation is the fundamental emptiness of all phenomena, including the five aggregates, skandhas, of human existence, namely form, rupa; feeling, vedana; volitions, samskara; perceptions, samjna; and consciousness, vijnana.

Avalokitesvara goes through the most fundamental Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble Truths, and explains that in emptiness none of these notions apply. This is interpreted to mean that insofar as the teachings of Buddhism are merely about reality and not reality itself, they represent relative truth only.  They are not ultimate truth, which by definition is beyond everyday comprehension.  Thus the Perfection of Transcendent Wisdom which perceives reality directly without conceptual attachment. 

It is unusual for Avalokitesvara to be the central figure in a Prajnaparamita text.  Early Prajnaparamita texts, such as the Diamond Sutra, involve the Buddha and his disciple Subhuti.  This is possible evidence that the text is Chinese in origin.