The focus on correct pronunciation here has always bothered me in a particular way: the Heart Sutra ends in a Sanskrit mantra -- "gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā", or "gone, gone, far gone, awakening, svaha".

But in each of the languages that inherited the Chinese rendering of the Heart Sutra -- Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and others -- the mantra is pronounced completely differently, by the principles of sound change over the centuries!

In fact, the Japanese rendering is "gyatei gyatei haragyatei harasōgyatei boji sowaka", while the Korean rendering is "aje aje bara-aje baraseung-aje moji sabaha". Each of these is in turn the Sino-Xenic reading of the same Chinese transliteration of the mantra: 揭諦揭諦波羅揭諦波羅僧揭諦菩提薩婆訶.

So I wonder, if you believe in the power of the sound symbolism of the mantra, why was it ever acceptable to transliterate the Sanskrit into Chinese, and from there into a multitude of other languages?