Diamonds!

Page from Diamond Sutra, 868 CE, British Library, London, via Wikipedia.org

I like Rhianna, but had never really dug into her music in any serious way. Maybe it’s partly because she’s such a young artist – she only hit the world stage about 20 years ago, after all – but I think it’s probably more because the song “Umbrella” was overplayed (in my opinion) to an incredible degree. I don’t particularly like the “-ella, -ella, -ella...” refrain, and it really gets on my nerves after about a thousand plays...

Still, it’s hard to deny that she’s popular. With nine Grammy awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, thirteen American Music Awards, estimated sales of over 250 million records, and (at least according to one source I found, but did not thoroughly vet) in excess of 50 billion streams on Spotify. in excess of 20 billion streams on YouTube, and so on and so on.

I’d have to say that my favourite song is Diamonds. I love it, and can listen to it multiple times in a row, and still want more.

Which brings us to Buddhism.

The Diamond Sutra is a well-known Buddhist text from the Mahayana tradition. While the exact date of composition is thought to have been between the 2^nd and 5^th centuries CE, well-known commentaries on the work have been dated to the 4^th and 5^th centuries CE, which suggest the earlier part of the range. The earliest Chinese translation dates to the early 5^th century, while the version pictured above is dated to 868 CE and is often considered to be the oldest extant printed book. The Project Gutenberg translation can be found here.

The Sanskrit version of the title is “Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra”, which is usually shortened in English to the “Diamond Sutra” or the “Vajra Sutra”. The “vajra” is a legendary tool which combines the properties of a diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force), and refers to the idea of cutting through illusions to reach ultimate reality.

While I have read a bit of Hindu scripture, I found all of this far more reminiscent of Zen, with which I am more familiar due to its immense influence on Japanese martial arts and culture. This should not be surprising, as Zen is derived from Chan Buddhism, which is, essentially, a Chinese blend of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism.

The text focuses on a dialogue between the Buddha, who has just finished his daily walk to gather food offerings, and Subhuti, known as one of his principle disciples. Subhuti asks the Buddha how to navigate the “bodhisattva path”, and the response is very reminiscent of Yoda: “You must unlearn what you have learned”

But this raises the real question. Why, after so many years, was I reading Buddhist scripture again?

This is where we come to public domain and the idea of intellectual property. This is a large and complex field, touching on things ranging from copyright and patents to fair use and the balance between individual and societal good.

In general, copyright expires at some point (often on the order of 70 years after the death of the last living author), and varies by country. There are differences between books, music, film, and other works, and complexities include the concept of “fair use”, failure to claim copyright, and the overlap between copyright and trademark.

This last one represents enormous amounts of money – consider Mickey Mouse and similar characters. While the earliest designs of Mickey Mouse are now public domain, they are still considered trademarks owned by Disney, and will be so long as they are still used commercially by the company. This is due, in part, to extensive lobbying by Disney, so they can continue making money from the character for as long as possible.

There’s also the case of the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead, which is public domain because its theatrical distributor failed to place a copyright indication on the prints, as was required to obtain a copyright at that time. While it’s wonderful that this work is public domain, it also represents an enormous amount of lost income for the producers of the film.

Now consider the idea of open source software, which is deliberately released under a license which grants users rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and source code. An excellent example of this is the Linux operating system, about which I have written before. This is not public domain, but is certainly part of the complex ecosystem covering intellectual property.

Or think of the items covered by Creative Commons licensing (like this blog post), where people are making material publicly available, requiring only that attribution is given when content is shared.

But wait! What has any of this to do with a book that was printed over a thousand years ago, and was already hundreds of years old at that time?

Though copyright law was only introduced in the early 18^th century, and the term “public domain” did not appear until a few decades later, the Roman legal terms “res nullius” (ie, things not yet owned, such as wild animals, or abandoned property), “res communis” (ie, things which are common to all, such as the air), and “res publica” (ie, things which are shared by all citizens) seem to establish the concept reasonably well.

And yet, the Diamond Sutra includes a colophon (a brief statement containing information about the publication of a work), which reads “Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 15^th day of the 4^th month of the 9^th year of [emperor] Xiantong”, which dates the work to 11-May-868.

This sounds a lot like a declaration that the author is placing the work into the public domain, centuries before that was really even a thing.

Which, in terms of value, brings us full-circle.

Shine bright, like a diamond!

Cheers!