Re: mantra- phonetic representation with chinese characters

spjglcs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I have been listening to a recording by Anita Mui of the Heart Sutra
(Cantonese reading) http://geocities.com/heart_sutera/anita.mp3
This text, dating from the 7th century AD in
its Chinese version, ends with the mantra, pronounced in Sanskrit
gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā. This is reproduced
phonetically in the Chinese text as follows
(from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herz-Sutra)
揭諦揭諦，波羅揭諦，波羅僧揭諦，菩提薩婆訶。
(pinyin)
jiē dì jiē dì bō luó jiē dì, bō luó sēng jiē dì, pú tí
sà pó hē
(Japanese- Hepburn)
gya-tei gya-tei ha-ra gya-tei ha-ra sō gya-tei bo ji so wa ka.

As sung by Anita Mui, it's instantly recognisable from the Sanskrit
transliteration above. As you can see from the pinyin, the Mandarin
reading would come out rather different.

I'm wondering if the pronunciation used by Anita Mui is the usual
Cantonese reading of these characters, or whether the pronunciation
is 'corrected'. Similarly, what does it sound like when Mandarin
speakers recite the sutra?

Leo


A short answer would be that the sounds of Cantonese are much closer to the Chinese that was spoken when the Buddhist texts were translated from Sanskrit. Cantonese has retained many features of that language that have been lost in Mandarin.
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