高王觀音經
THE HIGH KING AVALOKITESVARA (GUAN YIN) SUTRA –
A bilingual edition
This scripture is quite widely spread in China, but is seldom discussed in the west. Continuing in my series of bilingual editions, I have reproduced it here.
The Chinese text of this edition is Taisho tripitaka No. 2928; It is accessible here
http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/T85n2898_001
The "Original preface" to the sutra-- which shows how the scripture was revealed to the mortal world is translated here: https://edwardwhite123.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-original-preface-to-high-king.html In brief, a person wrongly accused of a capital offence had a dream-vision, wherein a monk revealed this Scripture to him. After chanting it a thousand times, the executioner's sword shattered to pieces, saving him. The astonished king who sentenced him to death freed him, and ordered the sutra to be promulgated.
However, it is precisely because of this revelation, that some buddhists consider it to be an apocryphal sutra偽經. The Taisho Tripitaka puts it under "doubtful sutras 疑似" . For more on this subject see this post https://edwardwhite123.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-high-king-guanyin-sutra-as.html
Despite these doubts, this sutra was fairly popular in China, as can be evidenced by the numerous editions of this text-- and indeed, one translation into the now-extinct Tangut language. Links to copies of the old sutra will be given at the end of this introduction.
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I shall feature two translations of this sutra. Both of them are anonymous. The first translation, which I shall call translation A, can be accessed here:
http://tbsn.org/english2/sutra.php?id=4&keyword=&page=0
This translation is bilingual. the Chinese being placed there in pinyin (printed in CAPITALS). This translation is here printed in blue.
The second, equally anonymous translation I shall call translation B. It is accessible here https://www.fodian.net/world/2898.html . It is printed in black.
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Some of these old woodblock editions can be seen here:
- - https://books.google.com/books?id=971RAAAAcAAJ&dq=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q&f=true (Warning: This copy is missing several pages)
- - https://books.google.com /books?id=PVpRAAAAcAAJ&dq=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&pg=PP39#v=onepage&q=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&f=false (An accordion-style format, but tragically digitized upside down! Also contains several other sutras)
- - https://books.google.com /books?id=ZDRbAAAAcAAJ&dq=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&pg=PP24#v=onepage&q=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&f=false , Tragically digitalized back to front!
- - https://archive.org/details/fojingtang/page/n4/mode/2up A more modern edition
- - A translation was made into the now extinct Tangut language. A transcription of this translation can be seen here https://wikisource.org/wiki/%F0%97%A3%9B%F0%98%9F%99%F0%97%AF%A8%F0%97%99%8F%F0%98%9D%AF%F0%97%96%B0%F0%97%9A%A9 . for more about it see https://twitter.com/BabelStone/status/1290614705942396931
- An Extensively annotated 19th century edition: https://books.google.com/books?id=kWApAAAAYAAJ&dq=%E9%AB%98%E7%8E%8B%E8%A7%80%E9%9F%B3%E7%B6%93&pg=PP6#v=onepage&q&f=false
