The first two characters in the Heart Sutra are 摩訶, which is the Chinese transliteration of महा (mahā́), which in English means “great”. The third and fourth characters are 般若, which is the Chinese transliteration of प्रज्ञा (prajñā), which in English means, more or less, “wisdom”. But actually it’s best not to assume that prajñā […]
Category: sutra copying
寫經 (Sutra Copying)
寫經 (pinyin: xiě-jīng) literally means “copy sutra”. Koreans pronounce it as sagyeong (사경). In Japanese Buddhism it is pronounced shakyo. And to keep us on our toes, the Japanese use two different Chinese characters: 写経 (don’t ask me why – but the first character, 写, is the cursive form of 寫, and the second character, […]