Evam maya srutam Thus I have heard...

--By Sramanerika Heng

Hsien

Mastering this Sanskrit lesson will enable you to pick up

any Buddhist sutra and begin to read. Why? Every sutra spoken by

the Buddha begins with the words Thus I have heard.

Fine, you think, but isnt there a contradiction in

those words? The last lesson explained the Sutras

invocation. Namah Sarvajnaya, Homage to (the

Buddha) the one who knows all. If the Buddha is all-knowing,

how can he say; Ive heard?

Quite right. The Buddha indeed:

Is omniscient (sarvajna) and self-taught,

Follows no one elses system, plans or path

Speaks Dharma never having heard it spoken.

Only the Buddha is beyond instruction, because there is not one

thing he doesnt know. Therefore the Buddha would not begin a

sutra by saying, So Ive heard.

But its not the Buddha who says the words ,

its Ananda, the Buddhas cousin and disciple, who

speaks them. After the Buddha entered Nirvana, the disciples met

to assemble the Buddhas teachings, and because Ananda could

remember every word the Buddha had said, it was he who recited

the sutras for the assembly. At the beginning of each sutra

Ananda said, Thus I have heard.

The Sanskrit, which says this somewhat differently from

English, reads literally, Thus by me it was heard.

Evam means thus, in this manner, in this way,

so, such. In translating Sanskrit dont think

theres just one English word to match each single

Sanskrit word.

The meaning of the Sanskrit can often be conveyed by several

different English words or phrases. Moreover its frequently the

case that one single Sanskrit word is more loaded with meanings

than any one corresponding English word. Giving several English

translations suggests the range of meaning of the Sanskrit word.

Maya stands for by me. In English we need two

words to say by someone or by me. In Sanskrit

the by is represented by the a in maya.

The ending a is a function marker; the word in a functions as

the person or thing by which the main action of the phrase is

done. The hearing was done by me, and me refers to Ananda.

Srutam translates 'it was heard'. The

syllable sru is written . Although the

letter r written in full has the form , in

combination with another consonant it takes one of

two shortened forms:

(1)

written above a consonant which follows

it, as

in sarvajna, and

(2)

attached below a consonant which comes

before it, as in srutam.

When r and another consonant come together to form a cluster

with no vowel in between, use form (1) if the r comes first; and

if the r is second, use form (2). Notice that in figuring out

how to pronounce consonant clusters, the order is :

left before right,

above before below.

The letter written first, either because it's on the left or

because it's placed above, is the one that's pronounced

first.4 srutam, a single word, gives all the information

of the English, 'it was heard', much of which is contained in

the ending. We'll learn more about the mysteries of Sanskrit

word endings as we go along.

What Ananda heard and now recites is the Buddha Speaks of

Amitabha Sutra, the Sutra which tells of Amitabha Buddha's

Western Paradise, the Land of Ultimate Bliss. Can you write its

name in Sanskrit?

____________________________________________

Words to figure out:

_________________________________________

NOTES:

1 C.F. L. de la Vallee Poussin's translation into French of the

Mahaprajnaparamitasatra, by the Bodhisattva Nagarjuna,

called Le

Traite de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse, Louvain (1944), vol.I,

p.80 ff.

2 "Thus I have heard" will be discussed in Vajra Bodhi Sea in

Dharma Master Heng Ching's translation of the Earth Sore

Bodhisattva Sutra and commentary by the Venerable Tripitaka

Master Hsuan Hua.

3 Don't get attached: not every final -a is this ending, nor is

every 'instrumental' market with -1. If Sanskrit were easy,

everyone would know it!

4 In the case of evam, the . which represents m does not

mean

the nasalization comes before va; rather, the whole sound

va is given a nasal flavor by the m, so m doesn't really

come

either before or after . Originally m was the full letter

m, and the word was evam. But when you say

evam +maya, you really don't fully pronounce the

first m before the second one, in Sanskrit or in any language.

Sanskrit therefore has a separate letter for the shortened m

you end up saying, and writes it as this dot.