[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 64

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 29 November 2006 13:43, Elihu Smith wrote:

> There is a similar theory regarding the source of the
> Heart Sutra (which you might exclude as apocrypha but
> the wide spread nature of the Heart Sutra makes the
> theory interesting): see Jan Nattier "The Heart Sutra:
> A Chinese Apocryphal Text?" Journal of the
> International Association of Buddhist Studies, 1992,
> pp.153 -223.

I lack the linguistic and historiographical skills necessary to do a proper 
evaluation of Nattier's hypothesis, but I found her arguments quite 
convincing. Robert Buswell has also uncovered at least one important 
apocryphal text in Korea. Such discoveries are deeply unsettling to me, since 
they make me fear that some scholarly hotshot, in eagerness to get tenure, 
may try to show that the Smokey the Bear Sutra may not be Buddha-vacana.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes