Heart Sutra

Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas

Text Publishing

Otago Daily Times, July 22nd 2023

The titular sutra of Yan Lianke’s 18^th novel refers to the traditional Buddhist scripture on the mutual reflection of inner and outer belief, a teaching that, in his hands, is transformed into a meditation on the movement from the sacred to the profane.

As with all his novels, Heart Sutra is complex and multilayered; simultaneously a love story, a commentary on contemporary China, and a satire that pokes fun at religious institutions without mocking the faithful.

The novel is set in the School of Spirituality and Faith, an advanced religious research program’for religious masters from the five main faiths – Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism – spend a year living and studying together as decreed by the Party edict ‘All Belief is for the Sake of the People and Society’.

Here, Yahui, an 18-year-old Buddhist nun auditing the School for her shifu (religious mentor), meets the Daoist master Gu Mingzhen. Both of unknown parentage and much younger than their fellow students, they soon become involved and decide to leave their respective orders so they can be together. Like any good romance, complications soon arise – Mingzhen becomes obsessed with finding his father, whom he believes to be a high-ranking political or military official, whilst Yahui desperately seeks money to buy an apartment in Beijing – and each is soon captured in their own personal nightmare, emerging into secularity damaged but wiser in the ways of both the gods and the world.

My favourite aspect of the book is the School itself, a fascinating creation that, oddly enough, put me in mind of Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse. Ostensibly an educational institution promoting inter-faith harmony, the central focus of the curriculum is the athletics programme, particularly the compulsory inter-sect tests of physical strength. Instituted by the school’s senior official, Director Gao, as a source of data for his ‘Synthetic Treatise on Tug-of-War and the Contradictions between Religions’, these see elderly, high-ranking religious officials clad only in unclothes and sneakers facing off against one other with almost irreligious fervour.

Determined to promote the school from a bureau to a department, Gao also sends out an eponymously nameless envoy to extort money from religious leaders.  Such venality is contrasted by the religious masters themselves who, although flawed, act with dignity and integrity that inspires respect rather than ridicule.

Despite a dark underpinning (which includes brief descriptions of self-mutilation and rape), Heart Sutra is a far from depressing read. Lianke’s writing is lush, surreal, and not afraid to laugh at the absurdity of existence. He excels in creating a highly sensual world in which weather, food, and surroundings have a life of their own and divine beings may appear at any moment.  The text is further enhanced by a series of beautiful papercuts illustrating a fictional romance between the Bodhisattva Guanyin and the Daoist immortal Laozi that echoes that of Yahui and Mingzhen.

Heart Sutra is not a novel that will appeal to everyone, but for fans of Lianke’s previous work, it is well worth seeking out.