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The Heart Sutra And Plato's Republic: A Literary Analysis

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The Heart Sutra And Plato's Republic: A Literary Analysis
All across the world, all throughout time, and expressed in many different forms of writing, is the theme of knowledge. Throughout the semester, this recurring theme has appeared in a variety of texts from The Heart Sutra, written by an unknown author, to Plato’s Republic, two texts from entirely different traditions. The former, perhaps one of the most famous Buddhist texts of all time, describes the nothingness that is human experience and was found on a palm-leaf dated back to 609 CE; the latter is a Socratic dialogue focusing on the concept of justice, written by the esteemed philosopher Plato in 309 BCE. Despite the differences in the origins of these texts, they share the theme of knowledge, a theme that is ever-changing. The Heart Sutra and Plato’s Republic uniquely utilize the dynamic theme of knowledge to benefit the world around them.
Although the general theme of knowledge has a strong presence in both The Heart Sutra and Plato’s Republic, the definition of what it means to know is a dynamic one. The Heart Sutra focuses on the concept that knowledge is the realization of non-wisdom as true wisdom; this knowledge effectuates nirvana. According to the Buddha, “there is no wisdom and there is no attainment whatsoever.” The discovery of this knowledge is a complex process. …show more content…
The dissimilarities of The Heart Sutra and Plato’s Republic do not impact the value of knowledge in both texts; knowledge is equally responsible for the lives of those impacted by the texts and is equally worth knowing. While the process of achieving knowledge and the definition of knowledge itself changes throughout the text, the theme of knowledge is equally prevalent and important. It works to benefit those reading the texts through liberation and light, and allows people to live more worthwhile
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