..... - . THE AWAKENING OF FAITH IN .MAHAYANA . (Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hs in lun) A STUDY OF THE UNFOLDI NG OF SINITIC MAHAYANA MOTIFS A thesis presented by Whalen Wail un Lax to The Committee on Higher Degrees in the Study of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degr ee of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of • Comparative Religion Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August, 1975 . *' . : ) } .,., . ""- ,.., _* I I , . .. ,,,. PREFACE / SRLF 1RL 7 * I ., '/ ~ ' ( ,I .C.... *: / ( China, the country traditionally ruled by * the Confucian literati, has prided herself in being moderate, rational and agnostic. So prevalent is this self-image, projected by her cultural elite and enhanced by Sinology itself, that to many, China is still the paradigm of la vie de la moderation, or, in Chinese, of chung-yung (the mean). However, historically, China did mysteriously seem to los e her sense of proportion in what may be regarded as her "medieval", or, better, Buddhist period, roughly from the fourth to the tenth centuries A.O. At that time, China showed she was capable of all the extravagance of the spirit that one , for better or for worse, still associates with the word "religious." By the twelveth or thirteenth century, during the Sung period (960-1279 A.O.), China regained her sens~ of proportion and came down to earth once more. The Sung NeeConfucian triumph was not simply due to the institutional strength of the literati alone, as has been so often argued. The same literati only a short while earlier embraced wholeheartedly the Buddhist mysteries. The Nee-Confucian triumph was due to new spiritual insights into the nature and destiny of man and the priorities of life. It is the i Nee-Confucian polemics a gains t the Buddhi s t that still cloud modern Chinese views of the Buddhist tradition. The anticlerical attitude of modern Western humanism introduced into China during the ninetee nth and twentieth centuries does not help much to correct the se long-cherished Nee-Confucian opinions . Even the more objective Sinologist still follow Dr . Hu Shih's interpretation that Buddhism was ultimately an alien plague.or anomaly that led China astray from her "predestined" hurnanism. 1 In many studies on Chinese Buddhism, the emphasis has been put on the so-called "Sinicization 11 process and on the confrontation between Chine s e and Indian "essences." For e xamp1e, emphasis has been placed on how "otherworldly" Indiã Buddhism was transformed by the Chinese "essence" o f "worldliness." The a ssumption that cultures may be described in terms of " essences" oversimplifies the complex human issues . Additionally , too strong a focus on the dynamics of 11 acculturation 11 can miscons~ue the religious elements involved . I would prefer to look at the issue from a slightly different perspective. The question I raise is 1Hu Shih, "The Indianization of China: A Case Study in Cultural Borrowings," Independence, Convergence and Borrowing in Institutions, Thought and Art (Cambridge: . Harvard Tercentenary Publication, 1937) . Kenneth Ch'en, in: his book The Chinese T'ransformation of Buddhism (Princeton: 1973) follows explicitly Hu Shih ' s approach. ii not how China was "Indianized'', as Hu Shih would put it, but how the Chines e were conve rted to the Buddhist Dharrna (Law) and came to rec ognize the truth in it. 1 Nor is it a ques~ tion of how an Indian religion was "Sinicize d" but how the Buddhist s angha (fellowship) in China underwent self-transformation, drawing upon inspirations from within the Buddhist trad ition itself. Fo r example, the turn t owards the world or the rejection of otherworldliness or, b e tter, "othershore liness" was already in the Mahayana tradition itself as in the dictum 11 Samsara is nirvana, nirvana is samsara." The Buddhist tradition is never simply "otherworldly mystical" but conta ins within itsel f a we alth o f teachings providing a whole r a nge of orientations towards the world. As the Buddhist sangha matured in China, the Chinese Buddhists mere ly developed those elements in the Mahayana tradition closest to her "native" heart. The phenomenon of "Sinitic Mahayana" should therefore be objectively analyzed as a cultural phenomenon and a lso sympathetically appreciate d in its own religious terms. Just as Christianity is considered to be a creative synthesis of the Classical and the Hebraic tradition, Sinitic Mahayana should also be seen as a proud and independent . 1see Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meanin*g and End *of Religion (New York: 1972). The Dharma is "Truth" and it is no more Indian than the Christian God is Jewish. iii offspring of the Indian and Chinese confluence . The Hebraic concept of the Messiah and the Gree k idea of the Logos merged into the Christian notion of Christ as the Word of God. Similarly, it can be shown that the mature Chinese Buddhist concept of li {principle} as it was us e d by the Hua-yen school, was a union of the Buddhist Dharma and the Chinese Tao. Li synthesized the original meanings of Dharma and Tao, both symbols for 11 Transcendence 11 , and articulated their structural interrelationship in a manner unknown before in India o r China. The Sinitic understanding of the. Mahayana Dharrna is comparable to the Christian Church's proclamation (kerygma) concerning God--it is a n e w insight into an e t ernal truth. The approach outlined above* would seem to be the natural and proper approach in the understanding of Chinese Buddhism . However, for some reasons, scholars have not yet followed such paths of investigation. I hope the thesis' attempt to combine the traditional sectarian Buddhological approach (which sees all Chinese Buddhist innovations to be solidly grounded in sacred Indian scripture's) and the modern critical historical analysis can reveal more faithfully the dynamics of the Buddhist faith in Chinese history. 1 1For a review of the limitations of sectarian scholarship, see Kamata Shigeo's critical r esume (in English) in his Chugoku Bukkyo shiso shi kenkyij (Tokyo: 1969). iv The l a rger issues mentioned i n the prefa ce here form the backdrop for the more specific s tudy of one Chinese Buddhist text in the body of the the sis. I am interested in the "emerge nce of Sinitic Mahaya na" ca. 600 A.D. in China a nd in the role the Awakening of Fa ith in Maha yana (Ta-ch' e ng ch'i-hsin lun) played in bringing it about. 1 It is not possible to repay all of one' s intellectual d e bts in thi s short prefa ce. From Dr. Wilfre d C. Smith, I l e arned to review the Chinese Buddhist tradition in terms o f a worldwide comparative and historical context. Although I have not fo llowed his s trict us e of the terms "faith" a nd "tradition", I adhere to his general orientation. To Dr. Robert N. Be llah, I owe the hypothe sis that the Chinese "medieval" e xperience s hould be s een as an integrative pa rt 2 of China's overall spiritual growth. I have benefitted 1The term "Sinitic Mahayana" is coined to designate the independe nt and mature Chinese understanding of the Dharma by the various Chinese Buddhist schools in the SuiT 'ang period and beyond. 2The t e rm "medieval" is being used as a heuristic device, and for general comparative purposes. It is significant that like the We st, a re-feudalized China under barbaric rule coincided with an age of faith; s ee Rushton Coulborn et al, Feudalism in History (Princeton: 1956). The "medieval" phase would fall within the radically otherworldly stage in Bellah's "Religious Evolution" scheme ; see his essay in Beyond B'elief (New York: 1970). In both Europe and China, the "otherworldly" period was followed by a classical renaissance which rejected the previous world-flight and monastic lifestyle. Seen from this angle, the Nee-Confucian re j ection of Buddhism wo uld be more than simply a natural v from the probing mind of Dr. Benjamin Schwartz. Dr. Masatoshi Nagatomi with his interest in the problem of intercultural encounters has guided and overseen this thesis in its entirety. Chinese rejection of things "Indian". The Sung Confucian renaissance might well be part of a historical trend begun already by Sinitic Mahayana. In fact, if Buddhism was so "essentially Indian'' as Hu Shih seems to suggest, it would be difficult to account for the virtual disappearance of this "essentially Indian" phenomenon from India herself. India , in her Hindu revival, also . learned to reject a "non-classical", heretical (nastika) tradition. Political "particularism'' seems to b e present in post-medieval (postinternational} periods. The nature of the present dissertã tion does not allow me to go into the comparative and the methodological issues in detail. The thesis hopes to provide a corrective to Max Weber's analysis of Buddhism in his The Religion of *rndian (Glencoe, Ill.: 1958) and to his thesis on China in his The Religion of China (New York: 1964). vi CONTENTS PREFACE................................... i INTRODUCTION. • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • . • . . • • • • • • • • 1 The Religious Situation in the Sixth Century A.D. in China CHAPTER ONE . . • . • . . . . • • . . • • • • • . • . . . • • . • • . • . 4 9 The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana: A Basic Summary CHAPTER TWO. • • • • • . . • • • . . • • • • . • • . • . • . . • . • . • 9 2 Ideological Roots of the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana CHAPTER THREE • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 18 9 The Theory of "Dynamic Suchness " and the Book of Changes: The Awakening of Faith as Interpreted by Fa-tsang CHAPTER FOUR . • • • • . . • . • • • • • . • . . . . • • . . • • • • • • 2 3 8 The Legacy of the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana BIBLIOGRAPHY. • • • • • • • • • • . . . • • • . • • • • • • . • . • . • 2 59 THE AWAKENING OF FAITH IN MAHAYANA (Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun) A Study -of the Unfolding of Sinitic Mahayana motifs A summary of a thesis presented by Whalen W-L Lai August, 1975 The A.wakening of Faith in nahayana (het"eafter abbreviated as A.FM) is a Buddhist treatise in Chinese. It occupies an important place within the history of Chinese Buddhism. The AFM, being a concise work sumraarizing the essentials of Mahayana faith, has always been read with the commentary written by Fa-tsang (643-712), the patriat:'ch of the Huayen school . Fa-tsang utilized the AFH to defeat the Fa-hsian£ schõl, a branch of the Indian Yogacara school in T'ang China, and he elevated the philosophy of the AFM above both Sunyavada '(viz. Madhyamika) and Yogacara. Since Madhyamika and Yogacara are the two main Indian Mahayana philosophical schools, it is intriguing to see how a Chinese Buddhist master discovered a "third" and higher tradition--the ju-laitsang (Tathagatagarbha) school. I think Fa-tsang's understanding signals a Sinitic Mahayana departure from the confines of the major Indian Mahayana trends and a beginning of China's own appreciation of the Dharma. The thesis investigates this phenomenon. Fa-tsang, commenting on the AFM , regarded the Buddhist absolute, Suchness (tathata) to be "pu-pien sui-yuan" ~ ~~ ~ , changeless yet changeable. It is fairly obvious that he was influenced in his interpre tation by the Taoist ideal of the Tao as wu wei, actively inactive. Fatsang also understood Suchness and its opposite, I gno r ance (avidya) to be t wo basic principles that interact to produce samsara and nirvana. The thesis demons trates tha t the yin-yang interaction scheme in the Book of Changes had influenced Fa-tsang' s interpretation. Fa-tsang ' s high regard for the philosophy of the AFM was based on this Sinicized understanding of a "creative or dynamic Suchness" and he defeated his opponents on this ground. Fa-tsang 's understanding is based on one cryptic line in the AFM which says that, just as Ignorance can becloud Suchness, creating illusion and s uf fering, Suchness too can in reverse "perfume" (subtly influence) I gnor ance and bri ng man to enlightenment . However, this line in the AFM and other passages in the AFM seem to have been influenced by Chinese Buddhist exegetical traditions. After reviewing the controversy over the "Chinese or Indian" authorship of the AFM, I conclude that the AFM as it stands in the influential "Liang11 version, has indeed incorporated Sinitic elements. The roots of these Sinitic elements are traced to the writings of the Nirvana school in south China in the fifth and s ixth centuries. The Nirvana school which speculated on the Buddha-nature in man (taught by the Mahaparinirvana sutra) was itself Sinicized by (I) the choice of the Yard "fo-hsing", Buddha-nature or -essence, to translate the Sanskrit original t e rms (Buddha-dha tu, -ga rbha, -gotra) which imply a more nebulous qua lity, a potentia l seed or germ, (2) the Chinese association of the Buddha-na ture with the me taphys ical principle, li, almost a s ynonym for Tao, a nd (3) the Chinese prefe rence to ground the Buddha-nature in the mind, hs in. Pao-liang (443-509) had a theory of the "pure mind" as the "Suchness Buddha-na ture". This theory might have antic ipated the doctrine of ~ priori enlightenment in the AFM- tha t the mind of sentient be ings i s immedia tely Suchness its elf. An essay of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (d. 549) is analyz~d in the thes is to show the s tructura l simila rity b e tween it and the AFM. Three pairs of Chinese conce pts are inherite d by the AFM: (1) t'i-yung, substance and function,(2) hsin-shih, mind and cons ciousne s s , and (3) shen-ming or hsin and wu-ming, the spirit or mind and ignora nce. 'Olese three pairs follow the li-s hih, noumenal-phenomenal, division and the Taoist para dox of inactive activity. The Indian contributions to Fa-tsang's thoughts are reviewed. Indian Buddhism, from an early date , had the notion of an "innately pure mind" (visuddhi cittaprakrti), and later, the notion of the "womb of the Tathagata" (ta thagatagarbha) that is "accidentally defiled." The tathagatagarbha is said to produce pure karma that ,leads to fina l enlightenment. Although a cknowledging these Indian traditions) yet it must be said tha t it was Fa-tsang who "discovered" them a s a di s crete entity or school in a retrospection guided by Sinitic inclinations for a d6ctrine of a "pure mind". The Indian notion of a "pure-yetill*.---iliiVE-.--.. --..--,.._.---Jliiiiiiiiiiiii- -.---- - - - --I ' tainted" tathagatagarbha probably suggested to Fa-tsang the idea of a "changeless yet thangeable" Suchness. However, if the Book of Changes (I Ching) influenced Fa-tsang' s interpretation of the AFM, Fa-tsang also transformed the tradition of I Ching _scholarship. (In the Sung dynasty, Chou Tun-i [1017-1073) learned to use the phrase "moving yet not moving, not moving yet moving" to describe shen, spirit:) Thrilughout the thesis, it is emphasized that Sinicization is a complicated dialectical process. The AFM emerged in China in the third quarter of the sixth century A.D. Chinese Buddhism had just experienced a tremendous growth in the preceding fifty years. The sangha (fellowship) had truly been allinclusive, but in so being, the Buddhist Dharma (teachings) had been somewhat diluted. Discontent and anxiety over the coming of the "age of the degenerated Dharma" arose prior to the persecution of the Buddhist in the north in 574-576 A.D. Although the thesis is largely a study of the doctrinal issues, it al so suggests that the AFM could be an intellectual response to the spiritual and institutiona l crisis in the sixth century A.O. in China. The AFM emerged at a time -when China finally was to leave behind the dark ages of social chaos (317589) and embark upon her high 'medieval glory in the prosperous SuiT' ang period (589-907). The AFM's career spanned this transition. Probably the AFM was "originally" a meditative text, an introvertive treatise demonstrating the author 's soul-searching synthesis of various traditions. In its monistic pathos, the AFM spe lled of a hope built poss ibly on des pair. However, in the prosperous era of the seventh century A.D.) Fa-tsang capita lize d upon the optimis tic aspects of the text as he "cosroicized" the t a thagatagarbha and "objectified" what was origina lly a philosophy of " s ubj ective idealism." The Hua-yen interpretation of the AFM repres ent s the 11 immanental panenthe istic" outlook of the T'ang Buddhist s . That outlook contrasts well with the "transcendental dualism" or genera l others horeliness of the Six Dynasties earlier. Instead of the earlier emphasis on the a ccumula tion of merits, the pa tient nurturing of the latent Buddha-see d or the g radual cultivation on a long pilgrimage to the othe rshore, the T'ang Buddhists emphasized the notion of "Buddhahood in the hereand-now. 11 The AFM 1 s idea of pen-chiieh, ~iori enlightenment, is i ndicative of this new mood. The omnipresence, omnipotence and omnis cience of the absolute seemingly was a reality. The world was c.onsecrate d. Every phenomena , shih, appeared t~ be noumenal, li. The Dharma seemed to rule the world. However, that grand vision of Fa-tsang, protege of Empress Wu, could not l ast. The medieval glory that was Buddhism ~as on the wane. The s cholastic synthesi s perfected by Hua-yen collapsed, soon to be challenged by the radical Zen tradition which was impatient with r eason, systems, hiera.t.chy., and analys is. * :.. Notes on Style The thesis contains words, phrases and sentences from Chinese , Sanskrit and Japanese. All such non-western terms have been underlined, including proper names of persons and places and names of philosophical schools. Those terms which are very fami liar to the general reader are not underlined, for example, Buddha, Kyoto and Mahayana. Diacritical marks h a ve been left out from the Romanized Sanskrit, except for two long passages. The Romanization of the Chinese characters follows the Wade-Giles system. In both Chinese and Japanese, the family name comes first and no comma follows the family name. In the bibliography, the names of non-western authors and translators are not underlined and a comma follows the family name. Information in addi tion to the place and date of publication is included only when confusion might arise otherwise. ' The only abbreviations using initials are AFM Awakening of Faith in Mahayana JIBS Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies MPNS Mahaparinirvana sutra INTRODUCTION The Religious Situation in 'the Sixth Ce ntury A.O. In China The history of the Buddhist tradition is ultimately the story of how men of faith responded to particular historical situations, guided, as they were, by their commitment to the Buddhist Dharma. The present thesis will be looking into one specific Buddhist response in the long and still living tradition of the Buddhist sangha. The locale and time of this r e sponse is China in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. Since the thesis will analyze this response both within the context of Buddhist faith that spanned India and China as well as within the historical context of Chinese society itself, a general discussion of the religious situation of China in the sixth century A.D. seems called for. The following discussion of the history of Chinese Buddhism up to the sixth century A.O. hardly claims to be exhaustive but should provide a sufficient background for the general reader with regard to the questions raised in the thesis. A more detailed analysis of the sixth century A.D. in China will * follow. The Buddhist faith came into China around the beginning of the first century A.O., but it did not become a viable cultural force until after the collapse of the Han ----Apparentlyr neither traditional Confucianism nor eve n Taoism was able to handle the problems of radical 1 evil, irreversible fate and prolonged social chaos. The anomie of the times was reflected in the infamous debaucheries among the elite in the southern court. 2 However, the teaching of Gautama Buddha, by addressing itself to the harsh realities of karmic evil and sarnsaric fate, provided an alternative to licentious selfabandonment, and held up a hope, a path out of life's sufferings {dukkha) . 1 The issues mentioned here require a study of their own. The following are some leads. On the problem of evil, see Chan Wing-tsit, "The Nee-Confucian Solution to the Problem of Evil," Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philosophy, XXVIII (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1957). On the rising fatalism since later Han, see T'ang Chun-i, Chung-kuo che-hsiieh yuan-lun, I (Hongkong: 1966), pp. 540-582. On the general anxiety over death and the inability of ritualistic Confucianism to provide fitting expression to it, see important observations by Miyakawa Hisayuki, Rikucho shuky6 shi (revised ed., Tokyo: 1974), p. 111 . 2 see Liu Kuang-hui, •*Lfanq Chin Nan-pei-ch 1 ao ti kungwei," Shih-huo, II, No. 5 {1935), pp. 36-39. Sexual mores are of ten a gauge to measure the degree of social integration, but there were other telltale signs showing the collapse of classical rational moderation recorded in the Shih-shuo hsin-yil: see Yii Ying-shih, "Han-Chin chih chi shih chih hsin-tsu-chileh yti hsin-ssu-ch~ao," Hsin-ya hslieh-pao, IV, No. 1 (1959) , pp. 25-144. More noteworthy signs are the romantic theory of music of Hsi K'ang, the indulgence in impulses among some Nee-Taoists, and a case of inunoderate mourning "unto death." 3 Indian Buddhist traditions. The Sui dynasty finally reunited the country in 589 A.D. This reunification roughly coincided with the emergence of the Sinitic Mahayana schools: T'ien-t'ai, Hua-yen, Zen (Ch'an) and Pure Land. Chinese Buddhism, as Arthur Wright puts it, had embarked upon the period of " independent growth." 1 1s ee Arthur Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (Stanford:l959), p. xi. His scheme is as follows: The used Period of Period of Pe riod of Period of preparation domestication independent growth appropriation above scheme is a historian's modern Japanese scheme, with Period of translation Period of study Period of construction Period of practice Period of inheritance ca.65 317 589 900 to to to to 317 A.D. 589 A. D. 900 A.O. 1900 A. D. modification of the some variations, of: to 385 A.D. 385 to 581 A.O. 581 to 755 A.O. 755 to 1127 A.O. 1127 to (1900)A.D. oftSee Tokiwa Daijo, Shina no* Bukky6 (Tokyo:l935), pp. 139228 . I use an implicit scheme of my own based on a modification and refinement of Bellah ' s stages in "Religious Evolution. " 200400 A.O . 400600 A.O. 600 A.D . 600 800 A.O. 800900 A.O . 900 1100 A.O . 11001900 A. O. transition from classical-imperial stage early medieval: general "othershoreliness" emergence of Sinitlc Mahayana high medieval: panentheistic imm.anentalism late medieval: crisis-faiths transition to the early modern stage Neo-Confucian puritanism See chapter four below for some clarification . The transition from the period of study into the period of independent growth is perhaps the most crucial phase in Chinese Buddhist history. However, sectarian histories of the various schools have clouded that transition with myths and legends so that it is often very difficult to know how the creative spark was lit. Yet, it is these very myths and legends that reveal the nature of the Chinese breakthrough into an independent understandi.ng of the "hidden meanings" (hsi..ian-i) of the Buddhist scriptures. No longer, fo r example, did .the patriarchs look up to Iridian translators for inspiration and legiti~ mation. Rather, it was pronounced that they stood in a unbroken spiritual lineage with transhistorical Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The well-known Zen version of its own esoteric "mind to mind" transmission of the Dharma is only one --albeit a rather late--version of the Chinese claim to have the deeper insight into the Dharma. 1 There appeared in China, around 550 A.O., a treatise known as Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (Chinese title, Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun, henceforth abbreviated with the English initials, AFM). The AFM was to become the instrument by which one key Sinitic Mahayana school, the Hua-yen 1see the introduction in The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, trans. Phillip Yampolski (New York:l967) . ...... ... 6 -----------------------.------~~~~~~~~~~- -~- school (based on the Hu a -yen or the Avatarnsaka sutra) , s eemed, in effect, to s e t itself off from "Indian Buddhism11 as it is generally known to us. As will be shown in the thesis eventual l y, the AFM might hold the key to the intriguing transition from Indi an Mahayana to Sinitic Mahayana. The AFM is traditionally ascribed to Asvaghosa, the Mahayãa poet in King Kanishka' s court in the first century A.D. in India. The AFM is supposed to have been tra nslated by the Indian master, Paramartha, somewhere in south China around 550 A.O. There was a second tr anslation 150 years later by Siksananda. 1 The first known specialist in the AFM is the monk T'an-ch'ien who was familiar with the work apparently prior to 577 A.o. 2 The AFM eventua lly became very popular among orie ntal Buddhists, attaining a position second perhaps only to the Lotus sutra (Saddharma-pundarika sutra). The AFM has been regarded as the alpha and omega of Maha yana essentials--an introductory text in the training of monks as well as the summation of the Mahayana faith. Numerous cornmentaries have been written on it down to the present. 1see Hakeda 's Introduction to his translation of Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (New York:l967l ' 2see discussion below on pp. 46-48 . 7 Being a short and terse text, the AFM had always been read with the help of the authoritative commentary by Fa-tsang, the key patriach of the Hua-yen school. Certain basic Hua-yen doctrines find justification in this text. Here we come to the intricate problem: in his commentary, Fa-tsang elevated the AFM above the text of the schools of Emptiness (Madhyamika) and Consciousness Only (Yogacara) as he knew them because of what he considered to be the " superior" teachings of the AFM. Fa-tsang in fact discovered for the first time what ever since has been regarded as the "third tradition" in Indian Mahayana, the so-called ju-lai-tsang-tsung (Tathagatagarbha or womb-of-the-Buddha school) . 1 The technical issues involved here will be explained in Chapters Two and Three below. The question, simply put, is this: did Fa-tsang uncover something no one, Indian or Chinese, had noticed before? Or did he invent or create this Tathagatagarbha tradition, a category that led Sinitic Mahayana beyond the known limits of Indian Mahayana (represented by Madhyamika and Yogacara)? Or did he do 1Taisho Daizokyo (Taisho Tripitaka, hereafter abbreviated as T.), 44 (viz. volume XLIV}, p. 243b. 8 both, that is , did he discover a latent "school " embedded in the overall Indian scriptural pattern and did he not bring this "school" to bold philosophical fruition with the help of Sinitic exegetical understanding? This thesis seeks to show how almost imperceptibly and naturally, the native Chinese predispositions and conceptual framework did in fact help to produce the ideological differentiation of this amorphous "third tradition ." The thesis seeks to show this by looking into the place of the AFM in the history of Chinese Buddhism, especially into the way the AFM or the commentaries on the AFM might contribute to a significant departur e from "Indian Mahayana . 11 Not unrelated to the above i ssue is the controversy regarding the authorsh ip of the AFM. Questions have been raised as to whether the AFM is an authentic Indian treatise or an ingenious Chinese fabrication . Were the AFM a Chinese fabrication, this could account for its doctrinal departures from Indian Mahayana. Were the AFM a genuine Indian work, Sinitic Mahayana would be shown to be possibly fairly solidly grounded in Indian Buddhist traditions. 1 1chapter Three will show that even if the AFM is an Indian composi.tion , the commentary on it written by Fatsang has been informed by Taoist outlooks. 9 An exhaustive summary of the history of the controversy over the issue of authorship cannot be attempted in the h . 1 t esis. The key points of contention, however , will be touched upon and critically analyzed. My general attitude is this: in lieu of a Sanskrit original (none has been found yet) and in view of the fact that there is no mention of the AFM in any Indian or Tibetan sources, it is advisable to place the authorship of the AFM under suspicion. In view also of the fact that the so-called Pararnartha translated v e rsion of the AFM is the influential version in the history of Far East Buddhism, it is advisable to take that version as it stands and measure its impact in China or Japan . I believe the re are demonstrable Sinitic influe nces in the Paramarthatranslated version . Whether these 'Sinitic' elements are results of Chinese authorship, Chinese redaction of the text, or Chinese interpolations in the translation process is really secondary to the fact that they are 1surnmaries of the controversy are available in French, German and Chinese; see Paul Demi'eville, "Sur l'authenticite du Ta Tch'ing K'i Sin Louen," Bulletin de la Maison Franco-Japonaise II, No. 2 (Tokyo ; 1929), Bruno Petzold, Das Dai Jo Kishin Ron und Seine Lehre von der Erleunchtung (Tokyo: 1942), Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Ta-ch'eng ch 'i-hsin lun k 'ao-cheng (Shanghai: 1923). 10 • there and that they exert definitive influence upon subsequent Chinese unde rstanding of the Dharma. The significance of the (Paramartha-translated) AFM lies not in who wrote it, but in what it says and how its message left an impact among the Chinese Buddhist fellowship. The prese nt thesis proceeds on that assumption. 1 The thesis is organized in the following manner: Chapter One reviews the contents of the AFM, summarizing and highlighting thos e elements in the AFM which seem to show Chinese in f luence. Chapter Two looks into the possible precede nts o f the ide as in the AFM in the exegetical expositions on the Maha parinirvana sutra by membe rs of the Nirvana school in south China during the fifth and sixth centuries. A certain continuity of concern seems to be apparent. Chapter Three looks into the commentaries on the AFM, which form an interpretative tradition in the mselve s. Fa-tsang's autnoritative 1 The problems raised by the existence of a second translation of the AFM by Siksananda will be analyzed in Chapter Three. The Siksananda-translated AFM is historically insignificant for Chinese Buddhism; only one commentary has been written on it . To speculate at the moment on a Sanskrit Urtext of the AFM which has no known impact on India or Tibet seems futile. Generally, the term AFM in the thesis refers to the Paramartha-trans.lated ve~sion. 11 interpretation of a key concept "dynamic or creative tathata" (Suchness) derived from the AFM will be given special attention. The chapter will ende avor to show how Fa-tsang developed an explanation of that concept by drawing, perhaps unconsciously , upon native Chinese thought patterns derived from Taoi s m and the Book of Changes (! Ching) . It was through such refinement of a key concept of dubious legitimacy that Fa-tsang was able to elevate the AFM above the "Consciousness Only" (Wei -shih) tradition and to uncover the superior "Tathagatagarbha tradition" in India. Modern Japanese scholars still follow Fa-tsang's authority and distinguish this third tradition that is now often referred to as the "Mind Only" tradition from the inferior "Consciousness Only" tradition . 1 The last chapter puts the doctrinal discussion of the previous two chapters into a historical and cultural perspective, closing with a discussion on the implication of Hua-yen philosophy for Zen (Ch 1 an). The main contention of the thesis may be swnrnarized as this: there are unique Chinese Buddhist exegetical 1The often uncritical acceptance of Fa-tsang's authority by some Japanese Buddhologists obscures "the historical Chinese dissociation of "Mind Only~ from "Consciousness Only" philosophy. 12 conce rns and ways of thinking that are somehow incorporated into the AFM supposedly translated by Paramartha . It is these "Sinitic" elements, legitimized by the AFM attribute d to Asvaghosa, which Fa-tsa ng expanded upon to bring mature Sinitic Mahayana closer to the native Taoist tradition of the I Ching than to Indian Mahayana as it is generally known. In so doing , Fa-tsang helped to liberate Sinitic appreciation of the Dharma as li (principle) from the tutelage of the Indian Buddhist worldvie w. Ideas are fairly autonomous. Once expressed , they seem to have a life of their own. Thus, the AFM can be considered entirely in terms of a history of ideas. The main body of the thesis (Chapters Two and Three) will be devoted to s uch ideological issues. However, ideas are often intellectual responses to concrete cultural situations. The social context of thought should also be examined. In thi s int roduction, an attempt to place the AFM in a cultural context is made, especially with reference to the insti tutional and spiritual crisis in the second half of the sixth century A.O. in China. To understand the nature of that crisis, the inner d ialectical tension of the Mahayana institution has to be acknowledged. A brief review of the origin and development of the sangha in China is included below. 13 Since 317 A.D., China was politically divided into a barbarian north and a Chinese south. In the north, the T ' o-pa group of nomads founded the Wei dynasty in 386 A.D . and brought the north into some unity by 439 A.D. The south saw a weake r series of dynasties , Sung , Ch'i , Liang and Ch'en founded respectively in 420, 479, 502 and 55 7 A.O. The style of Buddhist piety was similarly divided into north and south . The barbaric north followed what has been termed "State Budd hism," in which the king was often regarded as a living Tathagata (Buddha) . The Chinese south continued the s tyle of the NeoTaoistBuddhist encounter of the fo urth cen tury A.D. to produce the so called "Gentry Buddhism. " It is said that the north emphasized religious practices: meditation and devotion. The south was more intellectually inclined and theorized upon the doctrine of Buddha-nature . The Chinese Buddhist school s that emerged t owards the end of this period of disunity are said to have synthesized the northern tradition of "practice" and the southern tradition of "theory." This synthesis was helped in part by the persecution of the Buddhists in the north in 57 4 A.O. when eminent northern monks had to take r efuge in the south. 1 1The above is a traditional summary of the period; see Kenneth Ch' en , Buddhi sm in China (Princeton: 1964), pp. 121-209 . Southern Buddhists supplied the intellectual acumen for later Chinese Buddhist schools and their achievement definitely had its charm and appeal. However, if one takes an overall view of the institutional strength of the sangha, the north provided a better chance for the realization of the Mahayana social ideal. 1 The south harbored a certain disdain for organization, or monastic precepts ~ a legacy of the freethinking Nee Taoist dislike of rites. The following story from the biography of Tao-sheng is indicative of the iconoclasm. The king [Sung T'ai-tsu]was feasting with the monks seated on the ground. As the party went on for some time, there was some hesitation among the monks [who wondered whether the noon-hour had passed. According to monastic precepts, meals are prohibited after that hour. ] The king said ,'~aybe noon is approaching." Taosheng said,"The sun adorns the sky, being always at the zenith of heaven; it can (therefore} never pass beyond that midpoint." So saying, he went on eating and the others joined in . The people of the time admired him for his wit.2 It is not surprising to read then that later Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty had to personally remind the monks 1oespite the fact that Fa-kuo stooped to the king in the north while Hui-yuan of Lu-shan did not, the north realized the social ideal better . See the following pages below. 2 K~o-seng-chuan, T. 50, pp. 366c. 15 not to consume meat and wine, 1 or that he had to confront monks who protested about the comfort of their residence. 2 The scholarly monks of the south generally lacked interest in ascetical meditative practices. Supported by powerful gentry families, the monks gathered around the southern capital, mingled with the literati and failed to hold up an alternative lifestyle to challenge the dominant lifestyle of the upper classes. Compared with the northern Buddhists, the elite southern gentry Buddhists did little ..... to transform the greater society.~ However, under stress, the humanistic south proved to be equally susceptible to being bewitched by mystagogues. Chi-kung, a monk who strayed away from the "spiritual asylum" of the cloisters, mesmerized the capital for decades. 4 1Hung-ming-chi, T. 52, pp. 294c-30la. 2cited by T'ang Yung-t'ung, Han Wei Liang-Chin Nanpei-ch'ao Fo-chiao-shih(Shanghai:l938), pp. 479. This book by T'ang will be abbreviated as T'ang, Fo-chiaoshih. All translations from this book are done by me. 3For more detailed anal:ysis, see Miyakawa Hisayuki, Rikucho shi kenkyu : Shuky6 hen (Kyoto:l964). The author finds that in the Sung-Ch'i period, a more personal faith evolved, reaching a peak in the Liang period. Disturbances towards the end of the Liang dynasty encouraged fanatic faith in mystagogues. The representative southern Buddhist piety may be that of Yen Chih-t'ui, see Yen-shih chia-hsiin (The Family Instructions for the Yen Clan), trans. Teng Ssu-yii (Leiden: 1968), chap. on Buddhism. ~~ 4 . Kao-seng-chuan, T. 50, pp. 394a-395b. See T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 821-824. 16 In contrast, the north showed a much wider range of Buddhist lifestyles. On the one hand, there were the "libe ral" monks, hierocrats, who would compromise with secular power, stooping only to conquer. Thus, the leading monk Fa-kuo under the founding Wei ruler stooped to the king, acknowledging the ruler to be the Tathagata. Fakuo thereby wrestled from the crown important concessions which were instrumental in broade ning the basis of the Mahayana community. Thus also Tan-yao, the architect of the Buddhist revival after the 446 A .D. persecution, promoted the building of temples and cave projects in the name of the King and to the benefit of the Dharma. The liberalizing tendencies of these hierocrats helped to realize the Mahayana ideal of a great community that embraced king as well as peasant, monk as well as laymen, and to bring the number of sangha-members up to the impossible number of three million just prior to the 574 t . 1 A.O. persecu ion. 1The following 476 A.O. 512-515 A.O. 534 A.D. 550-574 A. D. statistics 79,258 2,000,000 3,000,000 give an idea of the picture: members 6,578 temples 13,727 II " 30,886 II " 40,000 II See Jacques Gernet, Les aspects econorniques du bouddhisme dans la societe. du Ve au Xe siecle (Saigon: 1956), p. 4 for clarification of the sonrces used in the tabulation. 17 .. On the other hand, the north was equally conscientious in another area: the "conservative" spiritual masters repeatedly challenged and recalled the corrununity to the "purer" ideals of Buddhism. The following story illustrates their uncompromising attitude. The Platform Sutra of.Hui-neng has it that Bodhidharma, the meditative {Zen) patriarch, told Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty that all the outward s how of temple-building (which the liberal T'an-yao would have promoted) was of no avail for the attainment of Buddhahood or enlightenment. Only endless meditation in some cave held the key to true selfrealization. It was this dialectical tension between "liberals" and "conservatives" which engineered a much more dynamic 1 Mahayana tradition in the north. In this sense, the north resembled more what western historians of the 1 Compare the statistics for the north on the last page with the statistics for the four southern dynasties: 420-479 A.D. 36,000 members 1,913 temples 479-502 A.D. 31,500 11 2,015 " 502-557 A. D. 82,700 11 2,846 JI 557-587 A.D. 32,000 n 1,232 JI J. Gernet, op.cit., p. 4 18 ...... medieval period saw as the dynamic pattern of monastic reforms in the Latin Church in medieval Europe, while the south resembled more the stagnant Greek Church in the 1 East. It is the north that supplied nearly all the founding patriarchs of the Chinese Buddhist schools . Since the sangha development in northern Wei was far more (ten times more numerically) than the southern counterpart, and since the first mention of the AFM came out of the northern Buddhist circle, I will outline an interpretntion of the Buddhist tradition in the north, showing how it might have led up to the AFM. I base my interpretation on the classical treatise on Buddhism by . h 2 Wei-s OU. 1According to Ernest Troeltsch in his The Social Teachings of the Christian Church (New York:l931) the Latin Church produced the Reformation because of a tradition of monastic reforms in the Catholic tradition. These reforms were initiated by "strict" monks leaving the established centers and founding new organizations of spiritual purity . ... until prosperity and fame almost necessarily corrupted the movement . Then another cycle of reform and secularization would begin. In the Eastern Orthodox church, the monks were more integrated into the priestly order and monasteries were found around cities and not in outlying "desolate" spots . In this sense, the southern Buddhist tradition resembled the Orthodox pattern. 2wei-shou on Buddhism and Taoism (hereafter abbreviated as Wei-shou} trans. Leon Hurvitz (Kyoto: 1956) with notes based on Ts.ukamoto Zenryu 1 s Shina Bukkyo shi kenkyu : Hokugi hen (Tokyo: 1942). 19 I ----------------------*-------------------------------...... ~~---------~--~~------From the founding days, the Wei rulers had patronized the Buddhist faith. The founding e mperor T ' ai-tsu encountered passive monks around the Yeh area where Fo-t ' u-te ng and Tao-an had worked. He was impressed by these exemplars of th e Buddhist path. Fa-kuo, whom the e mpe ror appointed to lead the community, condescended to bow to the emperor qua Tathagata . The "universalistic" Buddhist ideology probably helped the tribal leader qua empe ror to ideologically unite a segmented multi-racial society . The relationship betwe en the crown and the sangha was not as Caesaropapist as it might appear, since the emperor recognized his discipleship to the monk in the 1 ecclesiastical sphere. Scholars have viewed the two northern persecutions of the Buddhists in 446 A. O. and 574 A.D., as proofs that the sangha was under strict imperial control. The right interpretation might be the reve rse : the crown's inability to rationally supervise this "kingdom within a kingdom" was the reason for its repeated dependence on naked power, always the last political resort. Thus the role of Fa-kuo should be 1 see Wei-shou , pp. 51 53 . Tsukamoto, op.cit., pp . 57-96 . 20 \ 1 re-evaluated. By personal charisma, Fa-kuo, actually secured a certain autonomy for the sangha. Imperial patronage and special exemptions always benefit the sangha more than private citizen support. A powerful gentry family in the south could support 200 monks, but a barbarian ruler like Ya*o Hsin_g in the early fifth century A.D. could finance the whole translation project for Kurnarajiva. The strength of the northern sangha was due to such sincere and sometimes ruinous state 2 support. Under T'ai-w~, the militant ruler who unified the north, Buddhism suffered the first political set-back. 1Fa-kuo is usually criticized for violating the vinaya or monastic precepts. However, he was only following, in one sense, Tao-an's advice that "Without the dependence on the law of the land, the matters of the Dharma cannot be established,"-see T. 54, p. 366c. 2 Scholars including Tsukamoto (op.cit. , pp. 97-130) tended to read political motives involved into the state sponsorship of Buddhism. Without denying the political function of a religious ideology, I would stress that politics was not always the key concern in the actions of medieval rulers. Yao* Hsiñ, the barbarian ruler, would send large troops mainly to capture saints like Tao-an, Kumarajiva and, less successfullY, Dharrnaksema for their spiritual "worth. 1• 21 T 1 ai-wu apparently defrocked able-bodied monks in order to draft them into the army in 439 A.D . prior to a campaign against the prosperous Liang-chou frontier stronghold in the north-west. 1 The Chinese were beginning to accomodate the T ' 0 -pa conquerors into their culture . T ' ai-wu was courted by a Taoist K' ou Ch'ien-chih who saw in the emperor the "True Ruler of the Great Peace" prophesied by the T ' ai-p ' ing ching. An anti-Buddhist Confucian Ts'ui Hao supported this Taoist's claim. An incident in another military campaign in 445-6 A.O. provided Ts'ui Hao the chance to urge the des truction of the Buddhist institution . In the old city of Ch 'ang-an, the imperial troops accidentally discovered a temple armed with bows and arrows , spears and shields. Under investigation, the temple was shown to hoard much wealth 2 and practice debauchery. This incident has been rep.eatedly cited by scholars to show the corruption of the sangha . The facts might be these : Templ e estates, like any other manorial estates in the unstable medieval times, 1wei shou , p. 61. 2wei-shou , pp. 64-65; Tsukamo to , op.cit. pp. 97 130. 22 required arms to defend their property . Temple wealth was the result of the usury system, the generous lay donations and the unintended consequence of what Weberians would see as the rational organization of an ascetic corporation. 1 As to the "debauchery," the Confucian charge of "licentious rites" had been traditionally applied to any mingling of the sexes in any officially-unsanctioned cults. With some imagination, the conservative Confucian could see d ebauchery where none existed . 2 When the persecution was lifted in 452 A.D., a tremendous r evival was spearheaded by monks from the conquered Liang-chou area. Liang-chou had bee n an early Mahayana center since the fourth century A .D. and exemplified apparently a very active form of Buddhist 1 on the Buddhist temples ' contribution in leading China beyond the Han agrarian economy, see J. Gernet, op. cit., and Yang Lien-sheng, "Buddhist Monasteries and Four Money-raising Institutions in Chinese History,~ Studies in Chinese Institutional History (Cambridge, Mass .: 19 6 3) I PP . 19 8-215 . 2The tenn "licentious rites" was originally used with reference to fertility cults in classical China but has been generally extended to cover any unorthodox cults. The temple in the above incident was charged with having 11 hidden rooms" {for the purpose of 11 illicit 11 relationships). These rooms might just be typical temple cloisters for women worshippers . 23 ..... piety when contrasted with Yeh. A line in Wei-shou's treatise reads ''(In Tun-huang and Liang-choul,the monks 1 and the laity mingled well together. 11 Perhaps thi s organic tie between the clerics and the laymen was a Mahayana ideal promoted by the kind of Buddhist practice envisioned in the scriptures translated by the "res ident" monk of Liang-chou, Dharmaksema.. Unlike the more philosophical works translated by Kurnarajiva in Ch 'ang-an, Dharmaksema introduced a more practical, popular .and liturgical set of Mahayana scriptures to the people at Liang-chou. Dharmaksema translated the Sutra of the Excellent Light (Survarnaprabhasa) , a rare statement of Mahayana political ideals and a classical source for religious formulae ("magic 11 } that would defend the state. He translated the jataka tales, lay and monk vinaya rules, etc., as well as the Mahaparinirvana sutra which contains passages legitimizing the killing of those evil people ( icchantikas) 2 who defame Mahayana. Could not these works emphasizing an active participation in the world 1This line has been cut up differently by Leon Hurvitz; see Wei-shou, p. 61. I have followed T'ang Yung-t'ung's reading in his Fo-chiao-shih, p. 489. 2 • I t • • h 58 9 See Hurvitz s no es in Wei-s ou, pp. - . 24 for the sake of the Dharma explain a curious ''first" in Chinese Buddhist history, namely, that 3,000 monks took to defending the city of Liang-chou when T'ai-wu sought to take it?1 Following a barbaric practice, T'ai-wu enslaved the population and brought it back to the capital P'ing-ch' e ng. The political losers, however , became the cultural victors, for the Dharma was said to prosper as it went east . The aristocracy courted the Liang-chou 2 monks and privately housed them. After the persecution, it was these active Mahayana monks of Liang-chou who initiated t he grand revival . The architect of the revival was T'an-yao. On one hand, he appeased the kings with flattering cave-carving I " 3 projects at Ta-t ung and Yun-kang. On the other hand , he seized the opportunity in 476 A.D. to petition for the establishment of sangha-households and buddha-households. 1 The monks were said to be coerced into battle, but T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 489 cites another revolt led by a monk when the Wei army left. 2 . h Wei-s ou, p. 61. 3wei-shou, p. 72. Buddha-statues were apparently modelled on past and present emperors. See Tsukamoto, op.cit., pp. 131-164. 25 T'an-yao petitioned that the households of P'ing-ch'i and those of the people who could yearly convey sixty "hu" of grain and present them to the clerical officials constitute Samgha-households and their grain to be designated Samgha-grain, to be used in lean years to relieve the famine-stricken people. He also requested that those of the people who committed grave crimes, as well as public slaves, be constitute Buddha-households, to serve the temples as sweepers and sprinklers, and also manage the fields and transport the grain. Kao-tsu granted all these requests. Thereafter, Samgha-households and Samgha-grain and temple-households were to be found everywhere in the prefectures and garrisons.! The phenome nal growth of the members of the sangha to two million in 534 A.O. and three million on the eve of the persecution in 574 A.D. is, in my opinion, largely due to this experiment . For spiritual as well as material reasons, many would join the new sangha-community. Naturally, the three million seng {the term usually means individual "monks") could not have been tonsured celibates. A majority of them were lay converts to the seng-chia (sangha) who took on t .he designation of seng in the liberal meaning of the term, i.e., as members of the greater seng-chia (sangha) . At no other time in Chinese history, not even in T'ang, did the number of 1 . h 73 Wei-s OU, p. . "Sarngha" is "sang ha". See T*sukamoto, op.cit., pp. 165-214. 26 l seng reach the three million mark . In one sense, the sixth century A.O. in north China is the time for the boldest experiment in Mahayana conununity, a "liberal" innovation on the part of the Liang-chou monks. Na turally, the p e asant woman would not be able to follow the kind of ascetic and meditative practices of the true s e ng (monk) celibate. A follower of T'an-yao then fabricated a sutra directed precisely at the need f h 1 . 1 o t e aity. The sutra was the T'i-wei Po-li ching, named a fter the lay pair T'i-wei (Trapusa) and Poli (Bha llika) whom Gautama Buddha was supposed to have taught seve n days after his enlightenment. The sutra became the basis f or what is known as 0 j e n-t'ien-chiao," Man-Heaven Teachings, which r e fers to the cult of pious laymen who , through good works, attained rebirth in the heavens. Incidentally, "jen-t 1 ien 11 reminds one of the Han idea of Heaven-Man (t'ieñjen) Unity and in fact, the jen-t'ien-chiao reproduced that Han concern for the Heaven-Man micro-macrocosmic correspondences based on the five elements . The pancasila , five precepts in 1see Hurvitz ' s notes in Weishou, p. 35. and Tsukamoto, op.cit. pp. 293-354. 27 Buddhism, were aligned with the Confucian five virtues and endless sets of "fives" according to the Yin-yang a nd Five Elements philosophy of Han China. I would regard the jen-t 'ien-chiao to be the most liberalized lay Mahayana faith possible since it virtually "Confucianized" the Buddha-Dharma and made the Buddhist path, marga, 1 the Confucian tao of man. The "liberal" experiment here based on a clearly fabricated sutra survived beyond this period but the T'i-wei Po-li ching is, signi fican tly, lost. The sophisticated Sinitic Mahayana schools discarded this "diluted 11 simple gospel. The later learned masters declared the sutra a fabrication. They were generally what I call "conservative reformers"* who sought to introduce a more balanced and more ''orthodox" understanding of the Dharma at a time when, as we shall see, that "liberalizing'' trend generated ironically the persecution of 574 A.D. Other culture-political changes were afoot. The T'o-pa nomads were slowly being Sinicized and made to 1Perhaps the key difference is that the pancasila can be easily practiced by all whereas the Confucian virtues included an unspoken presupposition--that the person must be literate enough to know the details of li or rites. "Li does not apply to the level of plebeians as punishment does not reach up to the gens. 11 28 adopt Chinese ways. 1 Kao-tsu who approved the sanghahousehold program was an enlightened monarch, fully versed in Chinese history and literature . His posthumous title, Hsiao-wen-t'i, "the filial and cultured ruler," tells of the Confucian literati's high regard for this "fellowgentleman." Kao-tsu, however, was caught in the tragedy of the T'o-pa's cultural transformation . He approved the Buddhist sangha-household program just as he initiated the Confucian "equal field" system . He patronized Buddhism-more in the style of a gentry Buddhist monarch than of the autocratic Tathagata-king--but was keenly aware that politics at P'ing-ch'eng, the old capital near the steppes, had been hampered by the proliferation of clerics in that city. In 494 A.D ., Kao-tsu transferred the capital from the north to the old Chinese city of Loyang. It was a move welcomed by the Chinese gentry that staffed much of his bureaucratic government but a move that antagonized the proud nomads who refused to drop their nomadic heritage and cultural identity. The crown prince himself loathed reading the "stuffy" Confucian classics and loved horseriding in the open fields. Kao-tsu put his beloved son 1 See Wolfgang Eberhard, Das Tobas Reich Nord Chinas (Leiden: 1949) and his more general thesi~ in Conquerors and Rulers (Leiden: 1952). 29 gain has won their hearts and they cannot* help themselves. If such dwellers [monks] have lost the truth, the builders [doners] only injure their own merit. These are the chaff of the Sakya clan, the altar rats of the Law, whom monastic precepts would not tolerate nor royal law permit.I The indictment here is the familiar indictment of many prophets or moralists against the "secular city," a complaint against the irony that an othershorely faith, that "originally" desired to leave behind family, cities, politics, material goods, had come full circle to embrace the urban centers and the capitals. In reality, Loyang piety was nothing more than the recapitulation of something that began quite early in the Indian Buddhist tradition and blossomed under King Asoka's patronage of the faith. (The unlearned folk) added to the religion (of the monks) a ritualistic and ceremonial side unknown to the monks• avasas which had scant relation to doctrine and cult, but was undoubtedly congenial to the folk mind. To this ritualistic and ceremonial Buddhism they gave a s~ectacular embodiment in the stupa worship. The Indian scene (third century, B.C.) described above was before the rise of Mahayana (first century, B.C.), 1 ClWei-shou, p. 96. This is my translation. 2 Sukumar Dutt, The Buddha and Five After-centuries, (London: 1957), p. 165. 31 but the Chinese in the sixth century A.O. could draw on a wealth of established Mahayana liturgical traditions and artistic expressions made available to Liang-chou since the early fourth c e ntury A.O. In the glory of its temples, Loyang outranked any Asokan capital . There is little wonder that Bodhidhanna was recorded by the Loyang chieh-lan chi (Record of Loyang Temples} to have been spell-bound by the splendid temples. He had seen none like them in all his travels . 1 The Record of the Loyang Temples is the key source for understanding the new religious mood. Fantastic temple lege nds were recorded. There were wine, song, myths, page antry, miracles, battles ... all the ingredients of medieval drama and piety. Buried treasures were found, a fox-woman appea red, statues would sweat or walk, or bow or cry 'thief', pigs could talk, the dead would be 2 resurrected , and trees would breed . There were reports of dream-journeys, supernatural communications and witness to visions. It seems that the more unstable the society 1 See T. 51, No. 2092, p. lOOOb. This is the first historical account of Bodhidharma we have and he was depicted as a "Persian monk." 2Hattori Katsuhiko, Hokugi Rakuyo no shakai to bunka,II, (Kyoto : 1968}, pp. 72-140. 32 two mystagogues. Fu-ta-shih, a bizarre figure who regarded himself to be Maitreya, the future Buddha, led a large following towards a dramatic display of selfimmolation in expectation of an impending doom. 1 Lay followers of Amida in the north took to religious suicide to enter the Pure Land. The more cultured monks like I-ching had later to remind such people that "the burning of the body is unlawful," that "bystande rs are guilty" and that "such actions were not practiced by the virtues (sic) of old." 2 Moderation , however, found few adherents . Kao-tsu introduced southern gentry Buddhist learning to the north. Under translators Bodhiruci and Ratnamati, northern Buddhists also began to excel in philosophical comprehe nsion. The rise of such abstract thinkers and public lecturers was not always welcomed by the "conservatives" who insisted on religious practice. The Record of the Loyang Temples narrates the story of a monk who 1T 1 ang, Fo-chiaoshih, pp. 822 -82 3 . 2 These are chapter titles nos. 38 to 40 in I-ching, A Record of the Buddhist Religion, trans~ ~akakusu Junjiro (Oxford: 1896). 34 went down to hell in a dream and returned to report the plight of such philosophers . Whereas the meditationist and the sutra-chanters were saved, the public lecture r was, like the sponsor of temple buildings, condemned to punishment in hell . 1 This rumo r was enough to turn the tide o f Loyang piety towards med itation and chanting-or so the story goes . At a time when heavens and hells we re living realities , anxious men looked for a ny n ew means to gain one and avoid the othe r. When the Wei rulers patronized the Buddhist faith in their f ounding days, the spartan tribal leader found certain natural sympathy in the asceti c monk . A curious interdepe ndence exi s ted between the soldier who led the "active lifestyle" and the monk who purs ued the "contempla tive li fes tyle. 112 In a rather chaotic (anomic) t ime, one rep resented physical prowess or might as the other*= represented spiritual strength through humility. Earthly power and celestial authority reinforced one another. However , by the s ixth century A.O ., that honeymoon between the crown and the resident saint was nearing its end. 1cited by T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p . 777f . 2The terms "active" and contemplative" have been used by Aquinas . The juxaposition of the two is seen in the crusader , the militant monk, the pious despot or the political hierocrat in medieval societies . 35 The temples had become too prosperous, worldly and powerful. The privilege s were abused by the sangha and too much copper neede d by the government for coinage and war was used up by the making of Buddha-statues. The Confucian bureaucracy was being perfected and its ratio nality displaced a nd challenge d the old charisma of spiritual power. Temples outranked monastic cells and the oncepublic t emple s often became private , built by the wealthy in honour of certain close kin. The monks increasingly became dependents of these established institutions. Southern philosophical Buddhism enlightened minds but dimmed the earlier fascination with yogins. The many later leaders of the sangha seemed to be less brilliant. Perhaps quantity detracted the brilliance that once belonged in simpler days to a towering figure like T'anyao . The new clerical leaders appe ared too often to be officers of the state, temple residents, court monks, instead of true hierocrats . At one time, people looked up in awe to the living saints. However, with the introduction of Mahayana art objects like cosmic Buddhas a nd Bodhisattvas carved into stone, cliffs, or out of wood , people found a more powerful object of reverence. 36 The monks, dwarfed by these Buddhas, themselves were committed to the Mahayana devotionalism . 1 For a while, Loyang piety seemed to be able to hold the many contradictory (socio-religious) elements together. However , the reality of conflict was below the surface . The wealth of the nation channeled into the temples could and did support a '' catholic " enterprise uniting the upper and the lower classes in a Mahayana community. Howe ver, the elite monks, in their commitment to the glorif ication of the celestial Buddhas , easily lost sight of the people . The temple projects drained the economic resources and in the end it was the peasant masses who bore the burden . A very ominous sign was the career of the monk Senghsien who later became the leader of the sangha. Yet the Wei -na General Seng-hsien and Sengp' in on the one hand violate a n established decree, on the other turned their backs to the clerical laws. Selfish in thought, reckless in fee ling , they memorialize for compulsory services, causing crying anguish to fill the roadways . Those who have abandoned their children, killed, strangled themselv~s and drowned are more than fifty persons . 1 Mahayana itself was given an impetus by Greek art. 2wei-shou, p. 87f. 37 It was very likely that Seng-hsien was illegally channeling the sanghãgrain to the capital perhaps to build the gõgeous temple , Hsien-chu ssu. Given the e xistence of such figures in the monk hierachy , it was not surprising that there was a series of peasant revolts from the early sixth century on, many of which revolted under Mahayana 1 banners and were led sometimes by 11 unregistered " monks. The lower clerics probably aligned themselves to the people's cause against the elite monks' abuse of the Mahayana ideal. The authors of some fabricate d sutras in this period also criticized the prevalent situation. The Jen-wang ching, (Sutra of the Virtuous King) said If any of my disciples, monks or nuns, took office and acted as governmental agents, they would not be my disciples ... As long as such people exist , the Buddha-Dharma cannot last long.2 Another work, however, seems to defend the autonomy of the sangha against governmental incursion to come . See Tsukamoto, Shina Bukkyo shi Kenky~: Hokugi hen, chapter on Buddhist rebels, pp. 241-292. 2 cited by Tsukamoto, op.cit ., p. 210. 38 In the coming age, the secular officials will not believe in karmic retribution. They will rob the sangha-property, tax the sangha's animals and crops down to the last farthing, order about the servants of the "three jewels" and ride upon the cows and horses of the refuges .I Still another work, coming from the north like the last one, predicted a general chaos of greed , corruption, moral 2 decline within and without the sangha. Loyang was sacked by the nomadic T'o-pa faction in 528 A.O. and the eastern half of Wei fell to this group in 534-5 A.D. Buddhist prosperity was still very evident. In 556 A.O ., the western half of Wei, representing the Sinicized T ' o-pa faction, was renamed Chou after the Chinese Chou dynasty in classical times. In 574 A.O., Emperor Wu of the Chou dynasty declared Confucianism to be the,one and only proper state ideology and initiated the persecution against the Buddhists. Mahayana faced one of its most radical and ironic challenges from within its fold during this turbulent period. Just prior to the persecution of 574 A.D., a 1cited by T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 599. 2 Ibid . 39 monk, Wei Yua n-sung, proposed to the Chou ruler a program that would secularize the sangha and literally dismember the institution but in the name of Mahayana itself . The state will become the ecumenical body with the king acting as the living Tathagata (an old and familiar theme) and the people as the fellowship. Already we have seen earlier that the "liberal " program of T'an-yao had in e ffect created a "loose" or "open" definition of seng (sanghamember} . Wei Yuan sung seemed only to be following in the steps of that program . If indeed "samsara is nirvana" t o the enlightened minds, then this world would be the arena for Mahayana householder-bodhisattvas. If the Buddhist pancasila are nothing more than the classical Confucian five virtues, then the rule of the Buddhist Dharma would coincide with a Confucian rule of Heaven . Wei-Yuan-sung apparently carried the jen-t'ie n-chiao one step further. In this all embracing temple, there will be no difference between monk and laity, or between those who are proficient with and those ignorant of the Law. Let the temples of the walls and moats be turned into the temples of the stupas and let the Chou ruler be the Tathagata. The cities and towns will be the quarters of the monks, harmonious husbands and wives will be the holy congregation, the virtuous ones shall be the officials of the order, the elders shall be the respected abbots, the benevolent 40 and wise shall be the administrators while the brave shall serve as masters of the Law.1 In proposing this ideal, We i Yuan-sung might voice the dreams of some lay Buddhists who were critical of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the conspicuous consumption of the elite monks. A man from lowly backgrounds, Wei 2 conceivably desired some drastic change. Something else was in the air. The Buddhists had accepted the doctrine that the Dharma (teaching) would decline in time. The accepted opinion then was that the "age of the degenerate Dharma" would commence around 3 552 A.D. The religious fervour in the sixth century A.O . in China cannot be understood without recognizing T ' ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 539. 2 The most complete treatment of the various factors in,rolved in the persecution of 574 A.O. is Nomura * Yosho, Shubu honan no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1968). 3The calculation is based on the assumption that the age will begin 1,500 years after Buddha's parinirvana. Because of the Buddhist controversy with the Taoists concerning the historical priority of Buddha and Laotzu, the Chinese Buddhists regarded the parinirvana-to be an event in the tenth century B.C . (instead of the historical fifth century B.C.); see Kenneth ChBn, Buddhism in China, pp. 297-298. (The age of the degenerate Dharma will last 10, 000 years.) 41 the prevalent Gschatological mood . Wei Yuan-sung's radical program might itself be directed at the impending age . He was aware, as others were, of the failure of the traditional patronage of the faith as practiced by the pious Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty that had fallen in the south . The Chou ruler in the end dispensed with the Mahayana vocabulary in his thorough-going Confucian indictment against the sangha. When the persecution came in 574 A.D. , it was more than a human event . For the Buddhists, the last age had dawned . It was out of such dire hours that the future Chinese Buddhist schools arose . The responses to the crisis varied. There were those who obeyed the imperial order and returned to the world . Some of them perhaps were not unsympathetic with the destruction of the "physical sangha'' and embraced the Mahayana ideal of spiritual commitment to the world . 1 Others took to a more inward piety of Amida-worship, recognizing the sinfulness of their existence in the last age . Still others looked forward to the coming of Maitreya, and some even took up arms to help to bring that about . There were \-1hen the persecution ended, there were instituted "Bodhisattva monks", that is, monks in government . The ideal of innerworldly monks promoted by Wei Yiian-sung was not abandoned. Hsuan-tsang was also later invited by the T'ang emperor to take up secular offices . 42 defenders of the Dharma, martyrs who sacrificed their bodies as a means to uphold the waning teachings. 1 Most extraordinary was the Three Period sect that produced a very popular movement. It was known for its indiscriminate devotion to one and all Buddhas, its eschatological fellowship, its endless donation to the "Inexhauatable Treasure," its intolerance and its ingenious organization of vinaya-following monks leading . 2 active lay followers. There were those who withdrew from the world and rediscovered the centrality of rneditation in the Buddhist faith. There were, of course, the keen thinkers who reviewed the Buddhist tradition to create 1 rt is usually said that T'ang Buddhism was more "world-affirming" because T'ang was a more prosperous age. Chapter Four below will look into this issue. However, the generalization should be qualified. Loyang piety in the northern Wei period was more "naive 11 in desiring concrete rewards and therefore less 11 introvertive" when compared with later T•ang Buddhist piety. Hells were real and frightening to the people in Loyang, but "good works" through donations to the sangha could ease the passage to the othershore. Mature Pure Land faith in the T • ang period was more "sober, 11 "sombre,•: and more "inward." Eventually, under Zen influence, the popular concept of Heavens and Hells is that they are "of the mind." By the T'ang period, Amida also dispiaced Maitreya in popularity, producing a more "ahistorical, 11 and therefore less "political, communal" piety. 2see Yabuki Keiki, Sangaikyo no kenkyu (Kyoto: 1927). The Three Period sect was the most active and radical sect ever produced. It resembled in many ways the sects in Kamakura Japan, but it was harshly suppressed by the state and denounced by the more 11 moderate 11 Sinitic Mahayana schools. 43 an ideological unity when that unity was not available in the social realm. A person who was able to combine many of the above responses was Chih-i, the real patriarch of the first Sinitic Mahayana school to emerge, the T'ien-t'ai school. Almost singlehandedly he redefined the Buddhist tradition, building his own religious platform, ordination practices, a new reading of the vinaya rules, a model of Mahayana meditation and an understanding of the "hidden meaning" (hsuan-i) of the Lotus sutra. The charismatic break with tradition is evident in the. myth that Hui-ssu, Chih-i 1 s teacher, obtained enlightenment without a teacher i.e.~~§~~ by himself, through direct inspiration from transhistorical figures like Nagarjuna. The spiritual encounter of Hui-ssu and Chih-i was later depicted as having taken place, not in history, but in the mystical eternal timelessness at the Vulture Peak where, according to the Lotus sutra, the immortal Gautama preached forever the Dharma. It is not possible to recount all the types of Chinese response to the spiritual crisis around the l In other words, Hui-ssu and Chih-i both received the Dharma direct from the transhistorical Gautama himself. See Leon Hurvitz, 11 Chih-i, 11 Melanges Chinois et Bouddhiques XII. (Brussels: 1960-1962). 44 third quarter of the sixth century A.D ., but I would suggest that the AFM should perhaps be counted as one such response. The following account reveals in a small drama the milieu from which this text first eme rged: The persecution of the Buddhi sts began in 574 A.D. in the Chou kingdom, and in 576 A.D., it spread with the victorious Chou army to the eastern half of northern China, the conquered kingdom of Ch ' i . Hui-yuan (of Ching-yin temple, 1 not to be confused with Hui-yuan of Lu-shan in the fifth century), t he leading monk in Ch 1 i, stood up to defend the Dharma . He admitted that t he phys ical sangha migh t have its abuses, but the sangha jewel itself was sacred and inviolable . Were the king to move against the refuge, he would suffer for his evil karma in the Avici hell. Emperor Wu of Chou was angered, but this Confucianized barbarian ~nswered just as adamantly that he would suffer hell for a policy aimed at the good of his children, the people. Hui-yuan and other eminent monks had to migrate to the south to escape from the holocaust. 2 1unless specified, in the discussions to follow, "Hui-y uan" refers to this figure in the sixth century A.D. 2 .. Hsu Kao-seng-chuan, T. 50 , p. 490bc. 45 A learned monk, T'an-ch'ien , came south in 577 A.O. and he, belonging to the same school as Hui-yuan, was said to be versed in the AFM. This is the first historical record mentioning the AFM, showing that the AF~ was known in the north prior to 577 A.O. T'anch'ien was a famous mGditative master and teacher who instructed many, . 1 d. . .. 1 inc u ing Hui-yuan. Hui-yuan comme nted upon the AFM in his magnum opus, Ta-ch'eng-i-chang (On the Meaning of "Mahayana") --one of the surviving Chinese Buddhist treatises from this period speculating on the signifi 2 cance of the term "Mahayana." T 'an-yen, anothe r student of T'an-ch'ien , wrote probably the first and partially surviving commentary on the AFM . It appears that the specialists on the AFM came out of the lineage of T'anch'ien. The following diagram shows a part of the "southern branch" of the T'i-lun school 3 . 1 see his detailed biography in Hsu Kao-seng-chuan, T.50, pp. 57lb-574b. 2 rnterest in the meaning of the term "Mahayana" as a synonym for the absolute--instead of a school, a historical phenomenon like Hinayana--seems to crystal lize in this period. The AFM also speculated on the three "Great" meanings of "Mahayana". See Ocho Enichi, Chugoku Bukkyo no kenkyu, pp. 290-325. The Ta-ch'engi-chang is lengthy and is collected in T. 44, No. 1851. 3 See p. 56 below for clarifications of the "T'ilun" and its school. 46 Ratnamati (translator) Hui-kuang (468-537 A.D.) Fa-shang (495-580 A .D. ) Hui-yuan (523-592 A.D.} comments on the AFM in his Ta-ch'eng-ichang. T'an-tsun (471 576 A.D.) according to Mochizuki, the author of the AFM. T'an-ch'ien (542-607 A.D.) according to Mochizuki, the redactor of the AFM . T ' an-yen (516-588 A.D.) the first commentator on the .!:\.FM . Scholars specializing in the AFM. Mochizuki Shinko, the Japanese scholar who favoured the theory of the Chinese authorship of the AFM, pursued the "AFM lineage" looking for the possible author of the AFM. Since Hui-yuan and T'an-ch'ien seem to have inherited the AFM from a higher source, the most economic choice of an author would be T'an-tsun who died on the eve of the persecution. Mochizuki's hypothesis still seems to be the 1 most "logical" one to me. T'an-ch'ien was listed in the Kao-seng-chuan as a meditative master . He was conscious of the coming of the age of the degenerate Dharma, and wrote an essay t:'~~~~ "Terminating opposing views ", utilizing the Taoist 1 see Mochizuki Shinko, Daijo kishin ron no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1921), pp. 47 64. Mochizuki was guided in his thesis by his arch-opponent in the debate , Tokiwa Daijo; see Tokiwa•s Shina Bukky5 no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1941), II, pp. 44-49 and pp. 105-111. Because of Tokiwa's criticism, Mochizuki modified his hypothesis and added that T'anch 'ien was the "redactor 11 of an earlier AFM text;see discussions later on this issue. 47 ....... ~------------------------*style of argument of 1 Chuang-tzu. He was also a noted lecturer who instructed many. His association with the AFM is perhaps indicative of the ''originaln inte ntion of the AFM philosophy. At present, the following interpretation is suggested: The AFM is basically a short terse meditiative text, the result of keen, even passionless, intellectual integration of various motifs in Mahayana. Despite its fluent style, it is a work directe d towards a fairly well-educate d audiance. It is not a work intended for a peasant woman. There is a notable absence of magic and little emphasis on devotional faith. As such, the AFM is conceivably one of the current Chinese drives towards an integration of Mahayana ideals, a formation of a balanced program of theory and practice--perhaps even a spiritual defiance of the 1 d . 2 genera espair. In the next chapter, the place of the AFM in Chinese Buddhist history will be discussed. 1 see Yuki Reiman, "Zui seikyo zenjo dojo Shaku Dosen no kenkycr,tt Toy6 shiso ronshu {Tokyo: ;966}, pp. 708-721. 2The discussion above assumes that the AFM was to a significant extent written in China . However, even if the text was not authored in China, its career in China may be explained in terms of the relevance of its message for that particular time. 48 CHAPTER ONE The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana*:A Basic Summary The AFM made its appearance in China around 550575 A . D., a most appropriate hour. Although the AFM was to create certain tensions among Chinese Buddhists , it also held the key to the eventual Sinitic Mahayana integration. The present chapter commences with a general discussion on the place of the AFM in the history of Buddhist thought . Whe ther the AFM was authored in India or in China is debatable but few would disagree that ideologically it belonged to a late (fifth ceñury A.D . ) Mahayana tradition. The AFM is the ideological heir to the Lankavatara sutra, seeking likewise to synthesize the Madhyamika and the Yogacara philosophies. Diagram showing the two ehilosophical branches in Indian Mahayana the PrajnaNagarjuna 's paramita ~ ~adhyamili:.a sutras philosophy 100 B. C. 150 A.D. the YogaAsanga's ) cara corpus--7 Yogacara of sutras philosophy L 300 A.D. 400 A.D. 49 Lankava tara sutra 450 A.D . The Madhyamika philosophy drew its inspiration from a set of early Mahayana s utras , the e arliest stratum of which might go back as early as the s econd century B.C. The sutras are the Prajna-paramita sutras , "sutras of transcendental wisdom." They de tail e d the six pararnitas ("going-beyond").. the prerequisites for the Bodhisattva career and showed prajna, ultimate wisdom, to be sunyata, "emptiness . " The notion of "emptiness" was expre ssed in s uch statements as: "All forms are empty, and all emptiness • f 11 11 • • d • • 111 is orm, or nirvana is samsara, an samsara is nirvana. It is generally held by modern academics that these sutras were critiques of the conservative Nikava-Buddhists 1 ideal of arhantship and the scholastic presumptions of the abhidharrna system. Over against the arhant's concern for his lone pilgrimage to the other shore, nirvana , the sutras emphasized the Bodhisattvic insight that nirvana was none other than samsara. The Bodhisattva indwells the world in order to ferry sentient beings to enlightenment. Over against the detailed analysis of reality into atomlike particles called dharmas, the sutras returned to Gautama's idea of the insubstantiality or emptiness of all phenomena in their interdependent co-arising or existence. 1see Edward Conze, Thirty Years of Buddhi s t Studies {Columbia, [University of] North Carolina: 196 8) . so Expertly the sutras utilized the paradoxes of negation. Even the most sacred of Mahayana motifs was negated. The statement ".Z\ Bodhisattva ferries sentient beings across to the other shore" itself wa.s negated: there was no such independently existing being called a "Bodhisattva," no consciously directed act like "ferrying across," no "sentient beings" as distinct from oneself and no spatial otherworld called nirvana aside from sarnsara. These negative statements exoressed the fact that the truly egoless Bodhisattva, in his spiritual equanimity and compassion for one and all, never grasps onto nor discriminates between self and other, between this world and the other. To realize the phenomenon of emptiness or emptiness of all phenomena is the highest wisdom, prajna. Around 150 A.D., the "emptiness" (:;unyata) philosophy of the Prajna-earamita sutras was systematically defended by the thinker Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna's philosophy came to be known as the philosophy of Madhyamika (Middle Path) or of §unyavada (Emptiness) • Nagarjuna was able to show that all conceptualization of reality involves internal contradictions or antinornies. All discursive reasoning can be shown to move only at the level of mundane truth. Ultimate truth is ineffable and thus, can only be pointed to by means of mundane or relative truth. .This Madhvamika 51 or Sunyavada philosophy undermines all certainties in conceptual thinking and lands the reader in a kind of radical openness to reality that is "devoid of any self-nature." It instills t~at Bodhisattvic frame of mind which does not cling onto anything--nirvana included--and is receptive 1 to the all. The Prajna-paramita sutras were introduced to the Chinese in the third century A.D. and entranced the NeoTaoist gentlemen. Nagarjuna's philosophy was introduced in the early part of the fourth century by the translator Kumarajiva. Henceforth, the Sunyavada tradition found a lasting foothold among the Chinese Buddhist thinkers. Concurrently, in India, a second philosophical Mahayana tradition took shape. Around 300 A.D., a set of sutrã representing the eventual Yogacara philosophical position emerged. One representative sutra is the Samdhinirmocana sutra 1 in which the doctrine of the alayavijnana (storehouse consciousness) was presented. Eventually around 400 A.D., the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu systematized the Yogacara or Vijnanavada philosophy. Vasubandhu called its tenet Vijnaptirnatra, "ConsciousOnly" or "Mere Ideation." All phenomena are considered 1 See T. Stcherbatsky, The Conceotion of the Buddhist Nirvana ( Leningrad: 1927) . 52 ~empty" and "unreal" because they are ultimately "of the mind only.'' Western scholars have sometimes referred to this school as the Buddhist Ide~list school. Philosophical idealism can be traced to the earliest phases of the Buddhist tradition. The first verse of the ~amrnapada places strong ern?hasis on the mind as the root of good and evil. Vijnana "consciousness'' was one of the five heaps, skandhas.r that made up all existence and figured as the third member in the twelve-fold chain of causation, nidana. The abhidharroists were interested in the workings of the mind, and among the sectarian Buddhists 1 the idealistic trend can be traced to the Vibhajyada and the Sautranika. One ?Ossible root for the concept of a "storehouse-consciousness" i~ as suggested by some scholars, the early notion of a subsisting "root-consciousness," mula-vijnana. This "root-consciousness" is "deeper" than the traditior.al six consciousnesses i.e. the five senses and the mental center. In the mature Yogacara philosophy, to the six consciousnesses were added eventually the seventh ego-consciousness and the eighth storehouse consciousness (alayavijnana) • The eighth consciousness acts as a repository for all the "seeds" deposited in it from past "karmic'' sources, "good seeds," leading to 53 nirvana as well as undesirable seeds leading to perpetual involvement iti samsara. By propounding a doctrine of a kind of "core-self," the Yogacara philosophy may be regarded in part as an accomodation to the Hindu doctrine of the atman (eternal self) and in part as providing a more analytical appreciation of Madhyarnika insights. 1 The Madhyamika and the Yogacara represent the two main Buddhist ?hilosonhical traditions in India. There are s~bschools within each and lively interactions between the two. There are sutras that emerged after the brothers Asanga a nd Vasubandhu and these sutras apparently attempted to bring the two traditions together. One of these socalled late Mahaya na sutras is the Lankavatara sutra. The AFM is another late Mahayana work. 1one should remember that the philosophical traditions of Madhyamika and Yogacara were, in all probability, most representative of the secondary reflections of scholarly monks in India. This is not to say that elite ideas did not influence the people's faith or vice versa . The Ma hayana tradition itself could not have existed without the early stuoa worship and the largely lay devotion to the Buddha, yet the Mahayana tradition could not have attained doctrinal self-consciousness either without the reflections of keen minds that produced the "anti-philosophy"' of the Prajna-paramita sutras . 54 Whereas Kumarajiva, regarded a s having transmitted the .Hadhyamika philosophy o f Nagar j una to the Chi nese, b e came the main refere nc e point for Ch i nese philosophers of "emptiness " (techni c ally o f the San-lun or "Three treatise" school) , the transmission of the Yogacara -----.---tradit ion was more variega ted and f ull o f c onflic ting interpre tations. Thesamdhin:irrnocana sutra translat ed by Bodhiruci wa s a vailab l e to the Chine se in the six th c entury A. D. Bodh i ruci also intr oduced the phi losophy of ~sanga a nd Vasubandhu. The Lankavatara sutra1 was known to the Chinese in the north, and a sec t or school devoted to thi s s u t ra ex isted a bout the same time . This s o-calle d Lanka vatara (s utra} sect may have merged lat er int o the mature Zen t raditio n. Th e contribution of the Lankava tara s utra to a new idealistic phi l osophy o f t he mind wi ll be discussed l a ter i ndependen t of t he tre a tmen t below c oncerning the three ~ajor Yogacara traditions i n China . There were three lines of tra nsmiss ion o f t he Yogacara tradition i nto Chi na: 1An e ar ly t ranslat i o n o f t he Lan kava t ara sutra was made in the s o u t hern Sung dy nasty in the f ifth century A.O. Bodhiruci t ransla ted t h e vers ion with ten chapters . 55 - . 1. The T'i-lun schoo l in Loyang initiated by Bodhiruci and Ratnarna*t i who translated in 508512 A. D. Vas*ubandhu' s comrnen tary on .the Dasabhurnika sutra (Shih-t'i-ching-lun 1 from which the abbr eviatGd name T'i-lun camel , The Dasabhumika sutra {Trea tise on the "Ten Bodhisa ttvic Stages"). is a section of the Avatamsaka (Huayen) scriptural corpus. 2. Th.e She-lun school founded by Pararnartha who translated in 563 A.O. in south China the ~-1ahayana-sampar igraha (She ta-ch ' eng-lun, Compendium of ~ahayana Doctrines, from which the abbreviated name She-lun came). The She-ta-ch'eng lun, being an origina l work by Asanga and annotated by his brothe= Vasubandhu , is by far a more systematic introduction to the Yoqacara philosophy than the Shih-t'i-ching-lun, a Yogacara coromen tary on a sutra. However! the T'i lun school was founded and prospered earlier and produced more renowned masters like Hui-yuan and T'an-ch'i e n . The She -lun school was prevented from flourishing by the jealousy of the members of the Nirvana 56 school tnat monopolized the southern capital 1 and did not really flower until the last quarter of the sixth century A.D. T'an-ch'ien of the T'i-lun school came south in 577 A.D., discovered the She-tãch'eñ-lun and overjoyed , brought it back to the north in 581 A.D . His lectures on the Yogacara philosophy upon his return to the south in 587 A.D. stimulated the She-lun tradition . However, by most standards, the third transmission of the Yogacara tradition tvas t.he truly mat:ure,, full-scaled introduction -..:*~** .... school t*hat monopolized the southern capital 1 and did not really £lower until th~ last qua rter of the sixth century A.D. T'an-ch'ien of the T'i-lun school came south in 577 A. D., discovered the She-tãch ' eng-lun and overjoyed, brought it back to the north in 581 A.D. His lectures on the Yogacara philosophy upon his return to the south in 58J A.O . stimulated the She-lun tradition. However , by ~ost standards, the third trans mission of the Yogacara tradition was the truly mature, full -scaled introduction of the Yogacara philosophy. 3 . The Fa-q.siang ("Dharma-characteristics") 2 school introduced to T'ang China by the famou s pilgrim Hsuan-tsang (''Tripi taka") who returned from India in 645 A.D. Hsuan-tsang brought back the Vijnapti.matrasiddhi (Ch'eng-wei-shih-lun) of 1The monks at court petitioned Emperor Wu of the Ch'en dynasty to ignore the cumbersome ~nalytical philosophy, promagate d by Pararnartha in the south; see T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 855; T. 50 pp. 429c-43la. 2rt is a mistake to refer to this school in the Sanskrit title of Dharma-laksana, since the term "fahsiang" was a Chinese creation by this school to designate itself. The choice of the te.r:m "fa-hsiang" by the school itself was very likely due to an intentional rejection of the then-prevalent emphasis on Dharma-essence (Dharmata, fa-hsing) among Chinese Buddhists. 57 the maste r Dharmapala, 1 (53 0-5 61 A.D . ), a treat ise that "establishes the doctrine of Consciousness onl y." This third school has bee n refe rred to also as the Wei-shi h (Consciousness only) 2 school, and its philosophical discipline has been called h s ing-hsiang h~iieh (study of essence and form} . 3 Since these various designations carried ideologica l implications and may confuse the discussion, I wil l generally re fe r to the third school as the "ne w school , " a more neutral term used in the seventh century A.D. by the Chinese Buddhis ts to distinguish Fa-hsiang 1Dharmapala was an Indian master in the Yoaacara tradition who probably d eveloped the original YQaacara philosophy of Asanga and Vasubandhu in new directions . One of the key innovations, apparently, by Dharmaoala was to regard Dharmata as something totally distinct from the phenomenal appearances of the Dharmacharacteristics. 2 r will generally avoid referring to this "new school" as the Wei-shih (Consciousness only) school b e cause Wei-shih is also the g e neric term that can cover the Yogacara tradition as a whole. However, "Consciousness only" will be contrasted later with "Mind only" in a speci fic context. 3The " new school" was known to have a n analysis of reality into a hundred dharmas. This interest in dharmas was a continuation of the e arly abhidharmic tradition, except that in the new school the dha rmas were all r elated to the consciousness or mind. Because of the emphas is on analyzing these various ' forms ' (hsiang) * and their r elation with 'essence' (hsing}, the "new school" was said to teach hsing-hsiang-hsueh. 58 from the earlier traditions of transmissions. Hsuantsang 's able disciple, ~u' ei-chi (632-682 A.O.), is considered to be the true first patriarch and defender of this school. I will still refer to the "new school" " .. 1 as the new scb.001 11 of Hsuan-tsang. '!'he "new school 11 introduced by Hsuan-tsang had at first a large following but after a few genera tions, it died off and was not revived until the 19th century A.O. when its philosophical subtleties were reintroduced into China from Japan . The pre mature death of the "new school" was due to a dramatic reversal in history, in which the AFM played a decisive role. T'ang Yung-t'ung in his Fochiao-shih closes his study of Chinese Buddhism in the age of disunity with an observation that actually points to this future event: Generally speaking, the T'i-lun school was the pre decessor to the Hua-yen school. Hua-ye n was the ideological heir of T-i-lun [both being based ultimately on the Hua-yen scriptural corpus]. T'i-lun is called the "old schoo l." Now it wa s said that when Fa-tsang {643 712 A.O.) [ the Hua-yen patriarch J arrived a.t Ch 1 ang-anr[the capital,J 1 Hsiian-tsang was considered to be the '1 translatortransmi tter" and for that reason was not counted as a patriarch of the school. See following discussions on the unclear or confused role of Hsuan-tsang in the conflict between the "old school" and the "new." 59 he joined the translation project ~stablished by] 1 Hsuan-tsang [of the "new school"]. However , b e cause of differ e nces in interpre tation; Fãtsang left the project. If this account is true , the n Fa-tsang ' s departure from the translation project signalled the conflict between the "old school" f T 1 i-lun] and the "new school" [of Hsiian-tsang].2 What precipitated the difference of opinion wa s t he issue whether Suchness, ~athata, the a bsolute, could generate relative phenomena . 3 Indian Buddhists a nd logicians would gene rally give a nega tive a nswer to this question but the Chinese eventua lly replied in the rf • • 4 ar irmati.ve . This confl ic t was depicted, according to d E . h , . .. ' . h h . 1 5 Mae a un, in t e Ka1-yuan-cn1 -c iaou. In the Kaiyuan-chih-chiao-lu, the s e tting w~s given in India and Hsua n-tsa ng was said to b e defending Fa-tsang 's position . 1The tradition which said that Fa-tsang worked under Hsiia n-tsang is not trustworthy, since Fa-tsang was only 21 when Hsuan-tsang died. I make a s light correction in the passage here . 2 T' ang, op. cit., p . 878. Explanations have been added. 3For deta ils see Chapter Three below. Suchness is "reality as it trul y is." 4There is no Indian philosophical school which would acce pt this logically impossible stand that the absolute produces its opposite. See Karl Potter, Presuppositions in Indian Philosophie s (New York: 1963), p. 154. 5Maeda Eun zenshu (Tokyo: 1931), . IV, p. 142. 60 When the learned [ Hsuan-tsang] "Tripi taka" was invited to lecture in the western land [India ], every time he came to such doctrine as "che n-ju (Suchness, t'athata)* sui-yuan ( ~"/z:Dfl.._!f.~ following prat;ytya, condition, auxillary cause) and being perfumed" (vasana) [that is, that the absolute Suchness, in participating in the conditioned co-arising of phenomenal reality, lets itself be transformed into producing the world of relativity], his [Indian] audience was astonished and critical .l This phrase chen-ju sui-yuan was a key concept in Fa-tsang's commentary on the AFM. The event depicted i n the above passage had n o historical basis but was ideologi cally very probable. The Hsu Kaoseng-chuan gives the following account . Hsilan-tsang, who undertook the pilgrimage partly to resolve the discre?anc ies in the then-curre nt Yoqacara traditions in China, was said to be surprised by the fact that the AFM was no t known to t he Indians. Thereupon( he translated the Paramartha Chinese version 2 of the AFM into Sanskrit, and the Oharma flowed westward . From this account, we can see that a sector of the Chinese Buddhists in T'ang was aware of the extraordinary nature of the AFM and its alien character in the Indi a n Buddhist context. 1The passage cited by Maeda in the old kanbun (Chinese writing) style suggests that he did have a Chinese source , but the Kai-yuan-chih-chiao-lu only mentions Rsuan-tsang' s translation of the AFM into Sanskrit; T. 55, p .56lc . 2 Hsii Kao-seng-chuan 1 * T . 50, 458b. 61 In fact, in the middle of the seventh century A.D., soon after the return of Hsuan-tsang from India and about eighty years after the death of Paramartha (d. 659 A.D.), the rumour was already circulating that the AFM was not an authentic Indian treatise by Asvaghosa but a fabrication by someone in the T'i-lun school in the north during the 1 sixth century A.D. The T'i-lun school being the ~old school'' defended by Fa-tsang, seems indeed to be a likely candidate to produce the AFM. Mochizuki Shinko, the most ardent spokesman for the thesis of Chinese authorship of the AFM, actually drew upon this rumour * iD the seventh century A.O. when he formulated his hypothesis concerning AFM ' s authorship. 2 In 1921, a rediscovery in the Korean collection of sutras of a long-lost second translation of the AF~ done supposedly by Siksananda around 700 A.D . added fuel to the controversy on the authorship of the AFX. The existence of two separate Chinese translations of a same text logically point to the existence of an Indian original of the AF!*L 1see Tokiwa Daijo, Shina Bukkyo no kenkyu (Tokyo: 19 4 3) , I I , pp. 3 3-3 6. 2At this point, it might be wel l to note that critical doubt concerning the authenticity of a text is no monopoly of the modern scholar. 62 De f e nders of the thesis that t he AFM has an authentic Sa nskrit basis underline the above po int. Their opponents who favour the theory of Chin e s e a uthorship of the AFM argue that perhaps the Siksananda v e rsion was based on the Sa nskrit .text produced by Hsuan-ts a ng when Hsuan-tsang translated the AFM from the Chinese into Sanskrit . 1 Alte rnatively, it can be argued that the Siksananda version t~ied to ~oderate the radical t e achings of the Paramartha ve r s ion. 2 In Chapter Three b e low, we will touch. upon this i s sue in passing and from one specific angle. At present, we wil l focus on the influential Paramartha version and study its contents. 1Hsu Kao-seng-chuan, T. 50, 455b shows that it is not a physical impossibility for Hsiian-tsang to* render Chine se into Sanskrit. He is said to have translated the Tao-te-ching into Sanskrit, at the urging of the king. 2see Paul Demieville, Sur l'authenticite du Ta Tch'ing K'i Sin Louen, pp. 54-61. This famous French scholar favours the theory of India n authorship. 63 Contents of the AFM Treatise The }\FM is an extremely terse text "designed to embrace, in a g e neral way, the limitless meaning of the l vast and profound teachings of the Tathagata. 11 It stands in sharp contrast with a decidedly Sanskrit work of the same calibre: Asanga's Mahayana-samparigraha , 2 which was also a summation of :Mahayana essentials from a Yogacara pe rspective . The AFM is atypically reticent about mentioning sutras by name, uninterested in historical precedents and is direct and dogmatic more than discursive and logical 3 in its arguments . It is divide d into clear sections : a 1The Awaking of Faitn, trans. Yoshito Hakeda (hereafter, Hakeda , tra ns. AFM), p. 27. 2The Samparigraha is literally a "compendium" of Mahayana teachings, Yogacara in inspiration and ending with Arnidaism--just like the AFM. However, unlike the AFM, it contains gathas. followed by annotated explana tions, is interested in the roots of the concept of the alaya-vijnana, and is very logical in its arguments . See T. 31, No. 1595 and Ui Hakuju, Shooaijoron kenkyo t.fq'K.~ ~~=ii7f'~ (Tokyo: 1935). 3The AFM does have short sections of questions and answers as well as asides on the meaning of words used . There is no detailed debate with hypothetical Hinayana opponents. 64 "preface/giving the reasons for writing ,"1 a basic outline 1 the main body that interprets themes outlined and, after dis cussing the various faiths and practices, a closing encour2 agement. The more famous structure in the AFM , however, is based on the numerical resum~ of the thesis: "One Mind, Two Aspects 1 Three 'Greats', Four Faiths and Five Practices. 11 Although the use of numerical sequ ence was not alien to India , especially in the matrika tradition of the abhidharmists , 3 there are reasons to believe that this "One to Five" scheme was from a Chinese categorizing mind. The.following is a summary of this "One to Five'' s cheme . 1This might be a minor point, but the Paramarthatrans lated AFM used yin-yuan fEI #.~ to mean "reason for writing." Yin-yiian is literally hetu-pratyaya in Sanskrit. Hetu-pratyaya is never used in that sense in India. The Chinese understood yin-yuan to mean "theory of origination" or "reason for being" and applied it to "prefaces" and "temple histories . " The Siksananda translation avoided the term yin-yuan, skipped one passage and used the more proper tso-yin 1'~U3 "reason for composition " instead. See Daijo k1sh1nron, ed. Akashi Etatsu (Kyoto: 1956), pp.2-3. 2This structure might again be indebted to Chinese analysis of the structure of sutras since Tao-an's time; see Bukkyo daijiten, ed . Mochizuki Shinko (hereafter, Mochizuki ed. Bukky6 daijiten), (Tokyo: 1909-1916), p . 1646b. 3Hui-yuan in his Tach'eng-i-chang also followed a numerical sequence. It might be that the T'i-lun school had this practice . 65 1. The Issue of the One Mind The AFM is known for its monism, that is, its persistent drive to establish the essential unity of all realities. From the start, it establishes the ''factn that: The principle (of Mahayana) is "the Mind of sentient beings." This Mind includes in itself all the states of being of the phenomenal and the transcendenta l world.I Further on in the text, the AFM quotes from the Chinese translation of the Hua-yen (Avatamsaka} sutra the line "The three worlds are unreal, the creation of the One '1" d 112 _.in . This One Mind of sentient beings which is in tune with the absolute is considered to be all-encompassing and even all -creating . This idea that the mind is the basis of phenomenal and transcendental realities is not new, because the Indian Yogacara tradi tion also accepts the alayavijnana as the basis of all realities. However, the AFM clearly* distinguishes the alayavijnana from the One Mind. The alayavijnana is the abode of unenlightenment as well as enlightenment and is usually individualized in the phenomenal world. The One Mind, or the Tathagatagarbha Mind, is clearly a transcendental reality where unenlighterunent is not conceivable. 1Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 28. 2r bid . , p . 4 s . 66 2. The Issue of the* Two Aspects The One absolute Mind, however, has two aspects: the Suchness aspect and the samsara aspect. How the absolute Mind, one with Suchness , can paradoxically also have an aspect of sarnsara is not explained, but it is said: Each of these two [aspects] encompasses all realities. Each encompasses the whole in such a way that the two aspects are not separable from one another.l The logic seems to be based on the advaya (not-two} nondualistic philosophy of Madhyarnika and the Prajna-paramita corpus: "Samsara is nirvana and nirvana is sarnsara. 11 2 That logic, however 1 has never been applied to the Indian Yogaca ra's conception of the dual aspects of the alayavijnana . It is considered to be an innovation of the AFM to conside r the unity of these two aspects within the absolute Mind . 3 l My translation , see Hakeda, trans. AFM, p. 31 . 2This is precisely the reason Hakeda gives in his notes on p . 32 of op.cit. However, this logic that kles a (defilement) is bodhi (enlightenment) is perhaps too freely used by the AFM. 3The Lankavatara sutra does not so consider the two sides within the alayavijnana . The "pure" and the "impure" aspects, one leading to nirvana and the other to samsara , are discrete and separate elements. Even the Ratnogotrã vibhaga does not identify "nirmala tathata" and " sarnala tathata" (Suchness without and with impurities). This pair comes closest to the AFM idea of two aspects, see discussions in Chapter Two below. 67 3 .. The Issue of the Three "Greats" The te rm "Great" refers to the prefix Maha in the term "M3hayana'' (Great vehicle), a term u sed as a synonym for the absolute in the AFM. The thre e "Greats 11 are given in Chinese a s t'i-hsiang-yung, es~ence, form, and function. 1 The term t'i-yung, essence and function, is a uniquely Chinese pair of concepts. The AFM u sage of the terms retains very \vell the relational meaning of this Chinese pair of concepts. To render the triad back into Sanskrit as svabhava-laksana-kriya simpl y cannot r eproduce the 2 meanings intended by the Chinese terms. The Chinese terms are used by the AFM to explicate the Three Bodies (Trikaya) theory, and the pair of terms t'i-yung is implied in explain ing the relationship of the abso lute to the relative . The Three Bodies theory and the Chinese understanding of it are explained below to show the unique AFM so lution to a then-current problem in China . The Trikaya theory addresses itsel f to the problem of the relationship between the formless absolute and the manifestation of this absolute in historical or transhistorical personal forms. It has been sometimes compared 1 see Shimada Kenji, "Tai-yo no rekishi ni yosete, " Bukkyo shigaku (Kyoto : 1961), pp. 416-430. 2 See Hakeda trans. AFM, p . 28 . 68 .. *. *-. with the notion of the Trinity in the Christian tradition. The unity of the Buddha and the eternal Dharrna (cosmic law} was recognized at an early date . When Mahayana glorified the Buddha, the tendency. to expound the essential unity of the Dharrna and the Buddha grew . Nagarj una in the second century A.D . referred to a pair: (1) Dharmakaya, the lawbody representing the impersonal absolute reality and (2) the Rupakaya or the form-body which is the historical manifestation of the Buddha . Eventually a "three bodies" theory was developed by Asanqa , consist ing of the transcendental impersonal cosmic reality, the Dharmakaya, (which is perhaps comparable to the Logos in the West) and the Nirrr.anakaya or manifestation body which is the Dharma in its earthly form of an historical Buddha . In between is the Sambhogakaya, a transhistorical body of "bliss" or "recompense." The Sambhogakaya represents the Buddhas or Bodhisattvas in a kind of "luminous personality.'' The Buddha who taught the audiences in )~hayana sutras is generally regarded to be in this transmundane body or form. {The Sambhogakaya is perhaps more comparable to the "transfigured or Risen Christ" in Byzantine art than to the third person of the Christian Trinity , i.e., the Holy Spirit.) The Buddha in this transhistorical body of bliss has transcended death and is in a mode of eternal "bliss," 69 enj oy ing the "rewards" or "recompense " of his Bodhisattvic trials on earth . The Chinese in the fifth century were acquainted with the theory of Dharma'kaya and Rupakaya • . Kumaraj i va tried to e xplain it, not entirely successfully, to Huiy'iiã of Lu-shan. 1 The general tendency then in China was to graft this bipartite theory onto the notion of the Two Truths 1 so that the Dharmakaya would be regarded as the "true 11 body in nirvana and the Rupakaya the "provisional " or upaya body in samsara. The former is "substance," t'i, the latter is "trace" or "function , " yung. The southerners, because of their gnostic delight in the formless, were apparently not particularly sensitive to the i mpor tant role of the manifeste d body. Thus, Tao-sheng wrote a treatise titled, "The Buddha has no rupakaya," which, if taken literally, would eliminaie much of the personal istic elements of the Buddhist faith. 2 The northerners, because of a stronger Pure Land piety and devotion to A.mida Buddha (who was regarded finally by Shan-tao as of 1 See exchange between the two persons in Eon Kenkyu, ed. Kimura Eiichi, I. (,Tokyo: 1960) pp . 3-58. 2T 1 ang, Fo-chiao-shi, pp. 643 647 . Tao sheng thought t hat pu re land was only a prov isional means . 70 the Sambhogakaya) , were seemingly more sensitive to the intrinsic valu e of the personal a nd transmundane form . According to ~ochizuki, there is a possibil ity that the AFM synthesized the different inte rpretations of the concep t of the Trikaya in northe rn a nd southern China in the sixth century A.O. The northern school , T'i-lun, a nalyzed the concept of the Trikaya in the following way: Dharmakava ~.....---__.___ (first body) Sambhogakaya (second body) These two aspects are cons i dered to be the "real " aspects. Dharmakaya is t athata (Suchness) and Sambhogaka y a is the liberated tathagatagarbha (womb of the Tathagata ) . Rupakaya (third body) This is the "provisional" aspect. The "form-body" is visible for1 others to see . *The northern school therefore divided the "real" aspect into two (the first two bodies ) and united the "provisional" (upaya) aspects (one aspect visible to the commoners and the other aspect to the arhants) into one (third body}. The southern school, She-lun , on the other hand, united the real aspect i nto one and divided the response body 2 into two : 1 See Mochizuki, op. cit., pp. 1927 and Liang Ch'ich'ao 's summary in oo. cit. collected in Ta-ch'eng ch'ihsin lun chen-wei pien (Wu-ch ' eng: 1924) , pp . 32 33. The diagram is derived from Mochizuki's discussions. 2 rn the north, the Sarnbhogakaya was more highly evaluated. This coincided with the northern appreciation of Arnida . In the south, the Sambhogakaya was regarded as " provisional " and this coincided with the style of Taos heng and southern lovers of the "formless }' 71 Dharrnakaya consisting of the revealed Buddha-nature and the stillhidden Tathagatagarbha; these two, representing Suchness and Suchness-wisdom, are indivisible as one Dharmakaya. Response (yin) body made up of the Sambh'ogakaya visible to Bodhisattvas, andthe Nirmanakaya . visible to Arhants and commoners . Both the northern school of T'i-lun and the southern school of She-lun apparently grafted the Trikaya onto a bipartite (real/provisional) division . The AFM apparently perfected the most balanced interpretation of the Trikaya, combining elements from both the northern and the southern schools. Chinese Buddhists henceforth had recourse to the following schematic interpretation of the Trikaya, formulated from the AFM. The 'L'hree "Greats" of tr i (essence) the allpervasi ve suchness known only to Buddhas; DharMakaya. hs*iang (form) the tathagata garbha, form of Dharmakayawisdorn, replete with power and wisdop; prajnakaya. Inseparable as the First Body. yunq (function) the Sambhogakaya, visible to Bodhisa t tvas. The Second, the Nirmanakaya, visible to Arhants and commoners. Third Bodies. 2 1The place of the ta thaga tagarbha* in the above scheme should be kept in mind. A full discussion of the tathagatagarbha will come in Chapters Two and Three below. 2The diagrams on this page are derived frõ Mochizuki and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, loc. cit. 72 4. The Issue of the Four F'a iths The issue of "Faith" shou ld naturally be at the he art of the treatise , but the concept of the "Four Faiths" seems t b . . 1 o e an innovation. The "Four Faiths" refer to the Buddhist t~adition of taking refuge in the thre e jewels--the Buddha , the Dharma and the Sangha--plus a fourth seldom if ever encountered in a ny Budd hist tradition : faith in Suchness . The first faith is the faith 'in the ultimate source. Because of this taith, a rnan comes to ~editate with joy on t he principle of suchness. A possible source for the idea of a ~basic '' ground for the three jewels might b e the Ratnagotravibhaga . 3 As is e vident in the above quote, the "ba sic faith" is a "meditative faith" and not the usual lay d e votional faith. Generally speaking, faith ( s~addha) in Buddhist !?ractice means "preliminary trust" usually in the teachings of the Buddha. The s e a of Dharma is e ntered through faith but it is crossed through wisdom (prajna}. Spiritual 1 Mochizuki ed. Bukkyo daijiten lists under "four faiths" (shi shinjin) only the AFM usag e and a later Chinese and a Japanese formulation; see op . cit.,II, p. 1791. 2 Hakeda trans. AFM , p. 92. 3The three jewels are said to be rooted in the tathata; see Takasaki Jikido, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhaga (Rome: 1966), p. 186. 73 • ' J understandi~g is a prerequisite to enlightenment. The AFM does ask sentient beings to take heart in the fact that their minds are in communion with Suchness, that is / to have faith in this mystery beyond human comprehension. 1 Faith, however, is not entirely a "subjective" human act because 2 Suchness through the active agent of the tathagatagarbha brings sentient beings to spiritual maturity. Faith is therefore equally in Mahayana as it is of, that is, by the power of, Mahayana. One would expect a treatise on the "awakening of faith" to include the concept of the arousing of the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta. The term "bodhic:_itta", however, never appears in the AFM. 3 The idea of "non-backsliding" is discussed by the AFM.. The third reason [for writing] is to enable those whose capacity for goodness has attained maturity to keep firm hold upon an unretrogressive faith in the teachings of Mahayana.4 * 1see David S. Ruegg, "On the Knowability and Expressibility of Absolute Reality in Buddhism," Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies (hereafter abbreviated as JIBS) XX, No. l (1971) t pp. 489-495. 2see discussion on the gunas of the asunya aspect of the tathagatagarbha on pp.76-~ below. 3concerning the bodhicitta concept in the Mahavairocana sutra, see Yarnata Ryuj6, Daijo Bukkyo seiritsuron josetsu (Kyoto: 1959), p. 310£; see also Chapter Three below. 4 Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 25. 74 • 5. The Is sue of the Five Practices Once again, the choice of the number "five " h ere is aimed at satisfying the mathematical progression of "one to five ." The tradi tional ( Indian) six paramitas are truncated into five to fit the sche me. 1 In t erms of practice, the AFM remai ns meditatively oriented . The highest ideal is the attainmen t of the vi sion of Oneness in 2 "Suchness trance." Towards the end , however, the AFM makes a conces sion to Amida pietism , or, rathGr, meditation. "If a man meditates wholly on Amida Buddha in the world of Western Paradise and wishes to be born in that world , directing all the goodness he has cultivated (towards that goal), the n he will be reborn there ." 3 The above brief summary of the "One -to-Five" scheme raises some questions concerning that scheme. I will now turn to the main body of the AFM, tha t is, th e interpretation of mind, consciousness, Suchness and ignorance. 1 The six prerequisites for the Bodhisattvic lifestyle are: charity (dana), precepts (sila), patience (ksanti}, zeal (virya) I cessation-discernment (samatha-vipasana} a nd wisdom (pra jna ) . The AFM retains the first five and deletes the sixth . This scheme of "five" is unique to the AFM. 2 Hakeda trans. AFM, pp. 96-102. 3Thi s is supposed to be a citat ion, see ibid., p. 102 and Hakeda's note No. 54: the passage doe s not come from any Pure Land text and is like ly a precis of a common sentiment in China then. Walter Liebenthal in his "New Light on the Mahayana-sraddhotpada sastra," (T 'oung Pao, XLVI[l958], pp. 189-197 ) considers the Amida passage to be a Chinese interpolation. However, similar sentiments can be found in the Lankavatara sutra, the Ratnagotravibhaga, the Mahayanasamparigraha and other clearly Indian texts. 75 f 6. The Issue of the Positive Attributes of the Suchness Mind The One Mind has two aspects . The Hind in the Suchness as?ect is described as beyond all words and beyond all express ions. This ultimate mystery i s ineffable , all pervasive, imperishable and beyond human comprehension . Only a mind which has freed itself from all thoughts (nien ~) can ever approach it. In so describing the Suchness Mind, the .!\.F~-1 follows a Mahay ana tradition that declares its teachings to be esoteric and ''intelligible only to the Buddhas ~ The Samdhinirmocana sutra has so described its own mystery of the alayavijnana and the Srimala sutra has in the same way described the tathagatagarbha . The AFM has close affinity with the latter sutra and borrows a key pair of concepts from it . The Srimala sutra describes the tathagatagarbha as ha ving two aspects: empty (sunya} with regards to mundane dha rrnas and not-empty (~- sunya) with regards to the Buddha-dharmas. 1 The tathagat-a.crarbha is the material cause that leads sentient beings to . 2 spiritual enlighterunent. 1see Alex Wayman trans . The Liõ's Roar of Queen Srimala (New York: 1974) pp . 50-51 for a discussion on asunya and p. 99 for the actual passage in the sutra. I shall refer to the sutra as the Sriraala sutra. 2 See Chapter Two below for more detailed discussions. 76 The AFM, however, categorize s both the empty and the non-empty aspects under the mode of the Suchness Mind when Suchne ss is predicate d in words. As "empty", the Suchness Mind is d e scribed negatively as "neither this nor that, neither one thing nor its opposite." As "not-e mpty", it is positively described as "eternal, permanent, immutable, pure and self-sufficient. 111 The Chinese Buddhists. had long interpreted the "emptiness" philos ophy of Nagarjuna in terms of the Taoist notion of the ultimate "void" (wu) . 2 The 11 not-empty 11 (asunya) philosophy of the Srimala sutra \Vas "correspondingly" interpreted the n as the philosophy of the ultimate 11 real 11 (yu). Asunya, howe v e r, was used in the Srimala sutra as a qualifier meaning "not e mpty of," but the AFM uses the term as a noun implying "that which is real." The suggestion i s that Suchness (chen-ju) is in one sense real and not void. 3 1see Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 32f. 2 The use of the "sunya "-a verb me aning "devoid of" (self-nature, svabhava)-can be easily lost in the Chinese reading. See T. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana (Leningrad: 1927) for a strong statement on Sunyavada as a philosophy of ''Relativity"--a good contrast to the Chinese tendency to see Sunyavada as a philosophy of the "Absolute Void" §e;i''~. 3oavid Ruegg in his La Theorie de tathagatagarbha et du gotra (Paris: 1969) has shown that in India and in Tibet the tathagatagarbha conce9t is closely aligned with and identified with the Sunyavada position. The sunya-asunya aspects of the tathagatagarbha might conceivably, I think, suggest the Vedantin notion of saguna-nirguna Brahman . 77 We w.ill see later how Fa-tsang intekpreted the tathagatagarbha philosophy as superior to the Sunyava da philosophy b e caus e the former finds a noumenal "Reality" behind phenomenal "emptine ss." Part of the r e ason for this inte rpre tation lies with t he AFM's use of the Chine s e term "che n-j u 0 ~ "tI.O (meaning "true-such (ness) ") to render tathata, suchne ss. The •.vord "chen 11 (meaning "true" or "real")reinforces Fa-tsang's inte rpretation of "not-empty" as "(noumenal) Re ality ." 1 7. The Issue of the Suchness Mind as Supe rior to the Alayavijnana (Storehouseconsciousness} The AFM c learly c onsiders the One Mind to be superior to the alayavijnana. The Mind as phenomena (samsara) is grounded on the Tatha gata-ga rbha. What is called the Storehouse Conscious ness is that in which "neithe r birth nor death (nirvana)" diffuses harmoniously with "birth and death (samsara) ," and yet in which both are neither identical nor different. This Consciousness 1 Paramartha gene rally used the tenn " ju-ju" (meaning " s uch-such1'J to render tathata , whereas Bodhiruci preferred the term "chen-ju.'' Chinese Buddhists associate "chen-ju" with "chen-shih ju-ch' ang" ~ *ii...c~ which means "what is real and permanent . " Hui-yuan {Ching-yin) already elevated the Srimala sutra!s "positivism" above the "negativism" of the Prajna-paramita sutras in his p'an-chiao (tenet-class i fication) system. The former "reveals the Real" as the latter "destroys the (phenomenal) form " ; see Mochizuki ed . Bukkyo daijiten, I, p.602a and also T. 12, p.22lc for possible scriptural basis. On Chinese Buddhists' association of Dharmata with shih-hsiang, see Nakamura Hajime's study in Ke gon shiso, ed. Nakamura (Kyoto: 1960), pp. 97-102 . .................. ------------~ • has two aspects which embrace all sta tes of existence and create all states of existence . l 2 The passage poses c er tain problems, but there appears to be a hierarchial r elationship between the Suchne ss Mind and its close affili ate, the tathagatagarbha, and the alaya vijnana . The alayavijnana is "infer ior'' in that it is not identified with Suchnes s itself . Mochizuki suggested that the AFM synthesi zed the diverging interpretations of the alayavijnana in the sixth century A.O. in China . The diverging positions may be outlined as follows: 1. The southern branch of the T'i-lun school: ~The a layavijnana is identical with Suchness and toge ther they establ ish phenomena." 2. The northern branch of the T'i-lun school: "The alayavijnana is not identical with Suchne ss." 3. The She-lun school ~ 1 "The alayavijnana i s not pure (i.e . not identical with Suchness); the re is a ninth consciousness , 3 amalavijnana, the untainted (pure) consciousness.rt Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 36f. 2see Chapter Three below for detailed discussions . 3Mochizuki , Daijo kishin ran ho kenkyu, pp. 34-47 . The above outline is my swnmary of the three ke y positions. The most lucid study is by Stanley Weinste in, "The Concept of alayavijnana in pre-T 1 ang Chinese Buddhism," Bukkyo * shiso ronshu (Tokyo: 1964),pp. 35-50. Within the southern branch of the T'i-lun school *(see diagram on p. 47 above): Huikuang had the idea of a "pure alayavijnana" whereas Fa-shang elevated the pure Suchness above the alayavijnana and fused the alayavijnana with the adanavijnana, the ego-clinging consciousness. 79 According to Mochizuki, the AFM harmonizes all three positions. By elevating a Suchne ss Mind above the alayavijnana, the AFM agrees with the third position in seeking for a purer consciousness, and concurs with the second position in s e eing the alayavijnana as infe rior to Suchness . In arguing that the One Mind is identical with Suchness and that Suchnes s establishes, even, creates, all phenomena , the AFM side s with the first position. 1 The argument might seem ingenious, but there are proble ms. Mochizuki argues that T'an-tsun authored the AFM in the north but T'an-tsun did not even know that the She-lun school in the south existed. It was T'an-ch'ien, his student, who discove red the She-lun tradition . Realizing this problem, Mochizuki argues that T'an-ch'ien redacted the text authored byT'an-tsun. Were this the case though, T'an-ch'ien would have had to harmonize the three positions in a relatively short period of time. 2 Furthermore, the synthesis did not 3 calm the debates--the AFM only fanned the controversymore . 1 h. k' 1 . Moc izu i, oc. cit. 2see Tokiwa Daijo, Shina Bukky6 no kenkyu, II, pp. 4449, 107; see also discussions above on p. 47 and p. 57. r'an-ch~ien discovered the Shelun * school after 577 A. D. and the first commentary on the AFM was written by T'an-yen (d. 589, two years after T'an-ch'ien cãe south the second time) . 3Mochizuki assumes that the A.FM was the result of the conflicting opinions, but the AFM might be the cause of the debates themselves. 80 Despite doubts expressed over .!>1ochizuki 1 s hy;;iothesis, 1 am s~ill.syrnpathetic with his position and would suggest the following modifications of the hypothesis: It is not necessary for T'an-tsun to be acquainted with the She-lun 1 tradition to produce the so-called synthesis in the AFM. There was enough tension within the two branches of the T'ilun school to generate the AF~1's resolutioñ In fact, the drive towards a Suchness Mind, i.e. a pure core above the (impure) alayavijnana, had existed in Chinese Buddhist circles since the founding of the Nirvana school . 3 1 rn his Shina Bukkyo seishi (Tokyo: '1935}, pp. 634-685 Sakaino K6y6 challenges Mochizuki 1 s hypothesis by uncovering a variant account of the position of the northern branch of the T'i-lun school. This branch might have argued for a "double-aspected" alayavijnana (pure-and-impure or mixed consciousness, just like the She-lun school had argued) and said: "When the deluded (impure) aspect is eliminated 1 the true (pure) consciousness will manifest itself." However, Sakaino's criticism can be turned to Mochizuki's advantage. If the position of the northern branch of the T'i-lun school was similar to the She-lun school's outlook (except that the former never openly hypostasized the "pure aspect" into a "ninth" consciousness), then T'an-tsun needed not to know of the She-lun school to fashion a "synthesis". 2Actually, the main innovation in the AF.M is to elevate the tathagatagarbha and Suchness Mind above the alayavijnana. A.ny one of the three positions studied could generate the AFM's resolution. 3chapter Two below deals in detail with this problem. Taking into consideration Sakaino's study me ntioned above, all three positions can be seen as sharing a cor:unon drive to seek out a "pure mind" behind the less-than-pure {storehouse) consciousness. 81 8. The Issue of A Priori and Incipient Enlightenment The alayavijnana is the ubode of enlightenment and of nonenlighte nment . Because the mind of sentient beings is in essential unity with Suchness, there is pen-chueh, ~ oriori enligh~enrnent, or, omnipresent bodhihood. Because the mind is existe!'l.tially lost in the world of samsara, enlightenme nt also appears as shih-chueh , incipie nt enlightenment.1 It is difficult to find the Sanskrit original of this p a ir of conce pts that is skillfully used by the AFM and by later Chinese Buddhists. Although there are Indian precedents to the debate between sudden and g radual enlightenment, 2 the debate never was as he ated or as crystal clear as it was in the Chines e Buddhist tradition. The pair of conce pts, ?en-chueh and shih-ch~eh, in the AFM seems to be part of this Chinese Buddhist concern. It is interesting to note that the debate in the early fifth century A.D. between subitists and gr adualists wa s apparently revived in the sixth century 1Hakeda trans. AFM, pp. 36-46. On p . 46, the AFM even suggests that enlightenment and nonenlightenment are the same, citing a scriptural source which Hakeda cannot trace. 2see Fuse Kogaku, Nehanshu no kenk~ (Tokyo : 1937}, II, P?* 139-170. Fuse gives a very detailed analysis of this issue in India as well as in the Nirvana school. 82 A.D. in the south. The T'i-lun school in the north also t a lke d then of li-fo-hsing :r!il~ 't~ a nd hsing-fo-hsing frf,'t.p.t. 1 ''principle and action Buddha-nature." Principle and action, li-hs ing, could possibly sugge st the pen-shih distinction. 9. The Issue of Ignorance as the Ne cessarl Evil The AFH insists on the immutability of the Suchness Mind as the base for ~priori enlighte nment . However, in s o a rguing for the subsistence of the enlightened inner self, the AFM might have inadve rtently suggested a radical theme : that ignorance (avidya) has a role to play in the creativ e d rama of the One Mind. All modes of human mind and consciousness are due to ignorance. Yet the f orm (hsiang) of ignorance does not exist apart from the essence (hsing) of enlightenment. The form [furthermore] cannot be destroyed nor not be destroyed.2 The AFM uses the now-famous metaphor of "water-and-wave" to e xplain the above paradox. Ignorance is compared to the wind that agitates the water or s ea of the mind to produce t he waves of phenomenal realities. The essence of enlight1see T 1 ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 716-717. The north might be influenced by the southern interest in sudden enlightenment and/or by the Ratnagotravibhaga; see Chapter Two below. Bodhidharma, the Zen patriarch affiliated with * "subitism:• also might have speculated on "principle'1 as a path (hsing); see T. 50, p. 55lb. 2 Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 41, gives a slightly different translation from mine here. 83 enment is compared with the "wetness" of the water which subsists unchanged . The phenom~na (the "waves") cannot be destroyed because in essence they are none other than the water . Yet they should "formal ly" be destroyed , because they ar.e d e luding phenomena created by ignorance . This seminal metaphor carries cer tain implications: (1) The phe nomenal world comes into existence when the Suchness Mind (water) comes into contact with ignorance (wind} . This suggests that the mind creates the phenomena out of itself . Water generates the waves. (2) Since the waves are considered to be in essence water, both being "wet;• it means that ignorance is existentia lly evil but ontologically necessary for the existence of the phenomenal world. * (3) The AFM seems to suggest that the phenom~nal realm does not essentially vary with "levels of spir itua l perception." Reality remains the same--only human cognition changes ( chi.ieh-i ching-t 1 unq ~ ~ :t~J~ ) • 1 (4) Since all waves are ''wet ," there is a homogeneity of all phenomena. Taoist pan-animism might have influenced the AFM ' s use of the "water-and-wave" metaphor borrowed from the Lankavatara 2 sutra. 1 cornpare this Hua-yen formulation with the expression in the "new school", san-hsing san-wu-hsing =.. 't'!.. :::..~ tt 2see Chapter Three for a detailed contrast between the original metaphor and the AFM 's transformation of it. 84 10. The Issue of the Absence of Theories Concerning the ../.?/ d".$~Z'...ff./R.P" c..?d'z' 6:7e ~~f.7:'->- .#:?/./ a-..L'/J.~.~~ .Ce #~c&~' .c?/.?c? .t7o./llog-eneous,,. c"'7e AR./" .b_.;;:.oasses a p..ro£1./eg CB/7C..Ld'./ co .t.-1& .ICJ(?'c?- !'.:£a ~o.17 ..z'./osqo/if. .rhe qc.0 .. l"'C'C" ./eve./s of c.ruc/*~ ,, <J. ~./,. C.dac .LS,, cfie fncc.L'ons made b et:wee.n (..l) '..! , ..1 ..tllso.ry coascJous.ness, (2) t:.ializi11g consciousness and (3) direct intuition o f issue discussed by the AFM . 1 . ss , J..S not an The 1~.FM "'"-~~ ~~~"\. ~'\. '-"O..."-~~' \..~~~~~"-\..'llC."\..'\_ ,- "-..'t'I.~ ~~'\!\. c;:.o..~ c:::::i~"\..'l ~"'C.~~c:i~~~ L. a tne.Ol:'i of. an e.sse.nt 1...a.1. 'IJ.."C\'l. t'j \" a.1. \. ..,:i~"\:.") cf. "t."n.e. 't."n.l:e.~. 1 These three "perspectives" can be illustrat.ed in the following way: ll) the illusory consc ious ness is that which mistakes a rope in the dark for a snake, (2) the conceptual izing consciousness is the everyday mind that sees a rope as a rope on the assumption that the re is such a thing as "rope-ness" (svabhava), and (3) the highest consciousness, parinispanna, is when insight is gained into the insubstantia l nature of the rope and all phenomena, that is, sunyata, e mptiness. At this highest consciousness , Suchness or reality-as-it-is, i.e. empty , interdependent, impermanent, is recognize d. The all pervasiveness of the Dhannakaya is "seen.'' 2The Huayen school did produce its own ver s ion of the "three levels of truth" , but, fo llowing the T 'ien-t'ai school, regarded the three to be harmonious. See Yamada Ryoken, "Nyoraizo en9'i shu ni tsuite ," Indogaku Bukkyogaku ronshu {Kyoto : 1955), pp. 251-252. 85 10. The Issue of the Absence of Theories Concerning the Various Levels of Truth In assuming that the waves will always be watery and homogeneous, the AFM bypasses a problem central to the Yoqacara philosophy. The "three l e vels of truth :' that is, the distinctions made b e tween (l} illusory consciousness, (2) conceptualiziHg consciousness and (3} direct intuition of Suchness~ is not an issue discussed by the AFM. The AFM makes no mention of the "two truths" of Nagarjuna's philosophy either. In apparently assuming that illusory pheno- ~ena, particularized objects and the essence of reality are analogous to "moving water," "particular waves 11 and "the body of water" respectively,* the AFM can only propound 2 a theory of an essential unity (''all wet") of the three. 1 These three "perspe ctive s" can be illustrated in the following way: (1) the illusory consciousness is that which mistakes a rope in the dark for a snake, (2) the conceptualizing consciousness is the everyday mind that sees a rope as a rope on the assumption that there is such a thing as "rope-ness" (svabhava), and (3) the highest consciousness, parinispanna, is when insight is gained into the insubstantial nature of the rope and all phenomena, that is, sunyata, emptiness. At this highest consciousness, Suchness or reality-as-it-is, i.e. empty, interdependent, impermanent, is recognized. The all pervasiveness of the Dharmakaya is "seen." 2 The Hua-yen school did produce its own version of the 11 three levels of truth", but, following the T'ien-t'ai school, regarded the three to be harmonious. See Yamada Ry6ken, "Nyoraizo eñi shu ni tsuite," Indogaku Bukkyogaku ronshu (Kyoto: 1955), pp. 251-252. 85 ' 11. The Issue of the Mind Emanating into Consciousness The AFM also ma kes no explicit mention of the structureof the eight consciousnes ses. Any attempt to correlate the terms ~s in (mind), i (intention), and i-shih (consciousness ) u s ed by the AFM with the Yogaca ra categories of alayavijnana (citta, for hsin), manas (for i) and the six consciousnes ses i.e... .the five s ense s and the mental center, manosvi j nana (togethe r for i-shih) will run up against . t d. . 1 inne r c o n ra ictions. The writer of the AFM is apparently inte rested in how the world of illusion (samsara) arise out of the mind itself. Taking a cue from the Lankavatara sutra, the following " e volution,, of realities is depicted: 2 First, the mind is agitated by igno rance (the first c ause of illusion). The cognizing ego then eme rges (becoming the second cause). With the ego, comes the objective world (the third cause). With the subject-object dichotomy being esta bli s hed, the discriminatory mind makes its appearance (the fourth cause) . The desire for a lasting object by the desiring mind cre ates a f alse 3ense of continuity (the fifth cause). Karma and suffering are inevitable when vain 1 see Hakeda's note in Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 47. The commentaries by Hui-yuan, Wonhyo and Fa-tsang did try to correlate the AFM' s theory of mind with the* theory of the eight consciousness. The lack of a consensus shows the inadvisability of pursuing such an enterprise . 2see D. T. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (London: 1930}, pp. 189-191. 86 speculations on names and concepts conjure up the illusory nominal reality, in a blind attachment to desired objects. 1 The mind goes through a corresponding series of metamorphosis. There are, in the descending order, the 11 activati.ng :'.l.ind;" the "evolving mind," the "reproducing mind, a the "analytical rnind, 11 and the "continuing mind. 112 The lowest of these, the "continuing mind" or the "perpetuating mind*, 11 the "mind-continuum," is identified by the AFM as h .h . 3 ~, consciousness. Although the AFM does not explicitly identify this shih with storehouse-consciousness, yet Fatsang criticism against the "new school" (Wei-shih, Consciousness Only) was influenced by the AFM's depreciation of shih (consciousness) . The AFM has considered the alayavijnana to be inferior to the Suchness Hind. It also regards shih (vijnana) to be something emanated from the hsin (mind) . r suspect that this peculiar relationship between hsin and shih follows the traditional Chinese understanding of hsing (nature) and ching (emotion) . 1see Hakeda trans. AFM, pp. 44-45. There the nine 1'causes 11 are given in sets of three 11 inner 11 and six "outer" "causes," attachment, speculations. karma and suffering making up the last four "causes". In my summary. I have stopped listing the causes after the fifth. The fifth cause --the aspect of 11 continuity 11 --corresponds to the "continuing mind," 2 Hakeda trans. AFM, pp. 47-48. p. 49. 87 12. The Issue of the Mind that Creates Reality The description of the mental proces s give n by the AFM closes with a line cited by the AFM from the Hua-yen (Avatamsaka) sutra: '1The three worlds a.re unreal, the creation (tso i"F ) of the mind. " 1 The '.>lord "create" was a Chinese interpolation in the translation process and was not intended by the Sanskrit original. 2 The AFM, however, takes it in a literal sense, for in another passage it states , "The essence of Suchness is provided with suprarational powers and the nature to create (tso) 3 phenomena." The ViSo\I that the mind can conjure up reality expressed in these two passages is consistent with the "water-and-wave" metaphor's idea of the mind as the sea or water from out of which the waves (phenomena) are produced. However, as we will see, this notion of a "creative Suchness" might be unique to the AFM and Sinitic Mahayana as represented by Hua-yen . 1 Cf. Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 48 and see note s, p. 49. Chapter Two below will look into the Sanskrit original and the style of Chinese translation involved here. 2 See Hakeda, ibid. Hakeda prudently avoids the word "creation". 3 Cf. Hakeda, ibid, p. 59. Hakeda prudently corrects the line and makes it read " ..• and the nature to manifest itself." See his notes on p. 60. T'an-yen and other commentators on the AFM including Fa-tsang took the word "tso" literally. 88 13. The Issue of the "Sudden Thought'' as the First Cause If ignorance is the cause of all phenomenal reality, where does ignorance itself come from? The AFM gives a unique answer to that question. It says, "Sudde nly (hu-jan ;~ ~ ) a t hought ari s es and [that J is ignorance .''1 Many Chine se Buddhists have speculated on the significance of this 2 notion. of "suddenly." Hakeda in his translation feel s the need of quali f ying the "a thought" with " [a deluded J thought . " I belie ve, howeve r, that thought, carries certa in connotations in Chinese Buddhis t thought. The AfM emphasizes that Suchness is only known when the mind is n fre e f rom thought" (wu nien ~ $ ) or "detached from (a ll) ' h II ( 1 • • ..._ .(..:.. /."""- ) 3 tnoug t l. ni.en ~,z. ..;::.- . Nie n has, as I will demonstrate in Chapter Two, close a ssociation with "momentariness" a nd with "phenomenal consc i ousness" (shih), all of which--~, momentariness, shih--are regarded as the curse that prevents the mind (hsin) from rejoining the permanent, the ineffa ble Suchness. I also be lieve the notion of "hu-jan" was probably indebted to the Nee-Taoist philosophy of Kuo Hsiang. 1 See Hakeda trans. AFM, pp.50-51. 2Ibid. 3Ibid,, pp. 33-35 . Hakeda qualifies "thought" often with the adjective "deluded" or similar devices . 89 Kuo Hsiang had rejected Wang Pi's theory that "9eing (yu) comes from Non-being (wu} ." Kuo Hsiang said instead that things simply suddenly (ku 'aijan) materialized by themselves "t'.i7J :z. ii.~ * ~ 7i-.:t~ ~ ~ §t_ . Nature (tzu-jan) just "is" ( tzu j an} , and things are jus t "self-born" ( tzu1 sheng) . It is very possible that the ~PM associates this Nee-Taoist tradition of nature being "self-born" with the Buddhist notion of the Unborn . 2 Suchness, li~e nature, just "is" (~). 14. The Issue of suchness Perfuming Ignorance If a sudden thought arises and ignorance produces all sufferings , what power delivers man from the sad state? The AFM suggests that it is the power of Suchness itself . The tathagatagarbha is not-empty of marvelous effects that can induce enl ightenment in man. Just as ignorance beclouds the Suchness Mind, Suchness itself produces subtle effects or pure karma to "perfume'1 ignorance. 1see Feng Yu-l an tran& Chuang Tzu (Shanghã 193 3) , p. 45, commentary notes from Kuo Hsiang. Kuo Hsiang played on the double entendre of the Chinese word for "Nature," tzu-jan, which literally means "self be" and which is almost a synonym to "ju"--the word used to translate tathata (Suchness, things-as-they-are). 2Technically speaking, Buddhist philosophies in India denied the validity of satkaryavada ("the effect pre-exis ts in the cause") and therefore any theory of "self-born." Nagarjuna had, in his Madhyamika-karika, dismissed as a fallacy the theory of "self-born " along with theories of "other-born," "together-born," and "non-born." 90 The term "perf uming" (vasana) has a long history in Buddhis t thought. It i s used to explain how defilements come about. The tathagatagarbha is said to be tainted, perfumed, defilep by inpurities, but it also produces liberating elements. The AFM foll ows this tradition in 1 speaking of Suchness perfuming ignora nce and vice versa. Mahayana has accepted the "fact" that Buddhas a nd Bodhisattvas, through skilful means , can induce enlightenment in man . However, there might be, as we will see in Chapte r Three below , some questions about the l\.F~' s view on this crucial issue . The above is a short surrunary of key issues in the AFM and a preliminary survey of the problem areas to be studied in the thesis . In the next chapter, I will look into the possible precede nts to some of these i ssues and problems. Chapter Three will look into the last issue-- "Suchness perfuming Ignorance''--and the genesis of Fa-tsang's philosophy of "Creative Suchness." See Hakeda trans. AFM, pp. 58-64, 76-78; see also entries in Mochizuki ed. Bukkyo daijiten, I. p. 721; II, p. 1570a; III, pp. 249lc-2493a . 91 CHAPTER TWO Ideological Roots of The Awakening of Faith in ~1ahayana In the last chapter, it was suggested that the AFM may have incorporated certain "Chinese" elements. The present chapter will seek to trace the ideological roots of these "Chinese" elements. It would ãpear that these elements cab. best be traced back to native "exegetical"1 modes of thought in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. in China. Of special importance is the exegetical speculations on the notion of the Buddha-nature within the Nirvana school in southern China. a school that specialized in the ~1ahaparinirvana sutra (hereafter abbreviated as MPNS). The first two sections of this chapter will look into the similarity between the Nirvana school and the A.PM. The first section deals with the Nirvana school in general. The second section analyzes an essay within this school by Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty. The AFM, however, cannot be considered as a mere extension of the Chinese exegetical tradition of the Nirvana school. There are in the AF.M unique departures from that 1 To distinguish between the textual explanatory "notes" written during the Six Dynasties period and the more philosophical 11 essays 11 (based on the "hidden meanings" of texts) by Chinese Buddhist patriarchs in the Sui-T'ang period, I have chosen the words "exegesis" to signify the former and "corrunentary" the latter. 92 tradition. The last two sections of this chapter will look into two issues. The third section analyzes in what way the AFM can be said to be '1 superior" to the Nirvana school . The fourth section raises the question whether important Indian contributions, direct or indirect, might not lie behind the "Chinese" elements. In order to lend some clarity to my argument which weaves in and out of the Chinese and the Indian Bucdhist traditions, the following structure will be followed. Sections 1. The a . b. c. d. e. f. g. Nirvana School as a Prelude to the AFM The basic link: Buddha-nature (MPNS) and Suchness Hind (AFM) A brief history of the Nirvana school The message of the MPNS The choice of the Chinese term '1 fo-hsing" (Buddha-nature) to translate the Sanskrit original terms Chinese proclivity for fo-hsing as defined by a metaphysical li (p~inciple) Chinese proclivity for fo-hsing as mind Summary: mind as Buddha-nature and mind as Suchness 2. An Essay by Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty as a Paradigm for the AFM - * * a. The basic issue: structural similarity b. A brief note on the background of the essay c. T'i-yung (substance and function) d. Wu-ming ( ''dark", nonenlightenment) and shen-ming (spirit, spiritual illumination) e . Hsin (noumenal mind) and shih (phenomenal consciousness) f. The Taoist concept of hsin (mind) g. Summary: Chinese idealism in Emperor Wu and in the AFM 3. The AFM as 11Superior11 to the Nirvana School a. The basic difference: latency and reality b. Wonhyo on the partial understanding of the Nirvana school c. Wonhyo on the totalistic understanding of the AFM d. Sumi:nary : Buddha-nature and tathagatagarbha 93 4. The a. b. c. d. e. f. g. Problem of Indian Scriptures as Preludes to the A:r.1 The tathagatagarbha tradition: A basic mystery The concept of the innately pure mind The Avatamsaka sutra The Srimala sutra The Ratnagotravibhaga The Lankavatara sutra Summary: A bold suggestion 1. The Nirvana School as a Prelude to the AFM a. The basic link: Buddha-nature (MPNS) and Suchness Mind (AF::-1) The AFM asserts that the mind of sentient beings is in tune to the absolute, Suchness, and that this unity of mind with Suchness is the base of man's a priori enlightenment. At first glance, the AFM 1 s assertion reminds one of the doctrine of atman-Brahman identity in the Upanisads. That a Buddhist text, the AFM, should lean so heavily toward a Hindu position might evoke doubts as to the authenticity of the AFM. Buddhists, however, might not find this similarity upsetting. The doctrine of the universality of the Buddhanature has been accepted by all living Buddhist schools in the Far East. The AFM only affirmed in the sixth century A.D. what was already known in the fifth century A.O. to the Chinese, when the MPNS was made available to the southern Buddhists. The MPNS preached the universality of the Buddha-nature and the southern Buddhists developed a "Nirvana school" specializing in this text and this key doctrine. The AFM therefore inherited a long-cherished 94 tradition since Suchness Mind in the AFM is considered to be synonymous with the Buddha-nature in the ~PNS . In actual fact, however , the AFM strangely contains no refer e nce to the term "f*o*-hs*ing" (Buddha nature) . The absence of the term 11*fo-hsing" in the AFM raises a set of questions involving not only the AFM but also the Nirvana school. b. A brief history of the Nirvana schoo! 1 The Nirvana school was the dominant school in the south during the 420-589 A.D. period. The school developed out of intere st in the MPNS that was translated by Dharmaksema in Liang-chou in 421 A.D. The MPNS teaches the doctrine of the universality of the Buddha-nature even for the icchantika, a person without the "seed of enlightenment," and the doctrine of the four positive attributes of the "great nirvana": permanence, selfhood, purity and bliss. The Chinese at that time had just digested the Madhyamika (viz . s*unyavada) line of thought that negates the existence of the eternal self as well as eternal elements (dharmas) that constitute phenomenal particulars. The new doctrines of the MPNS which seemingly reversed the anatmavada (no-self) philosophy were 1The term "s.chool" (t sung ) when applied to the Nirvana specialists means only an amorphous group of Buddhist scholars whose interest was predominantly the MPNS. The Nirvana school did not have the lineage-consciousness that typifies the mature Sinitic Mahayana schools. Lineage-consciousness began in Sui and lineages were sometimes projected back into history. 95 not received without some initial opposition . Chinese Sanlun masters (specialists on the "Three Treatises") expounding the Madhyarnika philosophy apparently rejected the new doctrines and it was not until mas ter Fa-lang (506 -581 A.D.) of She-shan that the Buddha-nature doctrine was incorporated into Chinese San*-lun philosophy. 1 However, the more dramatic controversy surrounded the icchantika issue. In the earl ier section of the MPNS, the icchantika being destitute of the "seed of enlightenment" was condemned to eternal ignorance. Tao-sheng (ca . 360-434 A.D.), the founder of the Nirvana school, however, intuited the eventual acceptance of the icchantika by the later section of the MPNS . For daring to preach universal enlightenment when the scriptural base for that was not available, Tao-sheng was for a while exiled from the community of monks at the southern capital. He was eventually vindicated by the full MPNS text. Arguing that if the Buddha-nature was already in man, then enlightenment into Buddha-hood would by nature be "sudden" instead of "gradual," Tao-sheng also precipitated the controversy on ''sudden versus gradual" enlightenment , and 1 The career o f Madhiamika i n China is more complicated than as presented. NagarJuna was actually overshadowed for a long while by Harivarman who authored the Ch'eng-shih-lun Ji( 1~~ the treatise that "establishes the 'Real '.11 Sanlun was revived only ca . 550 A.D. by accepting the "positive" doctrine of Bu9dhanature. See T'ang, Fo-chiaoshih, pp. 718765; Sakaino Kayo, Shina Bukkyo shi no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1930), pp . 2 9 6 3 2 3 . 96 offered a precedent for later Zen Buddhists. 1 Interest in the MPNS took root in the south and overshadowed all other interests. The southerners edited the MPNS translated by Dharmaksema and for the next 150 years speculated upon the doctrine of the Buddha-nature in an atmosphere fairly isolatedfrom further intellectual stimulation from Indian Buddhisrn. 2 The Nirvana school reached its peak of influence in the Liang dynasty and sought jealously to guard its own independence but slowly, by the Ch'en dynasty, it merged into the rising new schools. In the end, having seen its basic doctrines absorbed by all the Sinitic Mahayana schools, especially by T'ien-t'ai, the Nirvana school as an entity faded from Chinese Buddhist history. 3 c. The message of the MPNS The MPNS is a Mahayana sutra of Indian origin that retells the passing away (parinirvana} of the Buddha within a Mahayana framework. The earlier portion of the MPNS is thought to have come from north-west India, around the present Kashmir, about 300 A.D. North-west India was a prosperous 1see Kao-senq-chuan, T.50, p. 366, and T'ang, Fo-chiao- ~, pp. 601-676, for the life and thought of Tao-sheng. 2Two important works were translated in the south: the Avatamsaka sutra and the Srimala sutra. 3 See Fuse Kogaku, Nehanshu no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1932), II. 97 Mahayana center in the first century A.O. Due to international disturbances, that prosperity was declining in the third century A.D. An eschatological mood was in the air, as the MPNS speculated on the coming of the age of the degenerate Dharma in 80 years, or 700 years after Buddha's parinirvana. 1 Despair apparently evoked only a deeper trust in the omnipotence of the Buddha-jewel and a more interiorized faith in the omnipresence of the seed of enlightenment (Buddha-nature) . The MPNS was regarded by the southern Buddhists as the final teaching of the Buddha. 2 Given the tradition of anatman (no-self) in the Buddhist tradition, nirvana is usually described in "passive" terms as a state in which the self, along with the passions of existence , is "blown out" like the flame of a candle. "~egative" terms were preferred: nirvana was "uncreated" (ak:rita), "uncompounded" (asaroskrita) and "unborn" (ajata) . The Buddhists also held that the four attributes of "permanence, purity, selfhood and bliss" favoured by the atmavada tradition were un-Buddhist . The most remarkable characteristics of 1see the introduction by Tokiwa Daijo to the Japanese translation of the MPNS in the Kokuyaku. Issaiky6, XXXIX, (Tokyo: 1929), p. 20bf. 2The MPNS was considered to have a more perfect doctrine of the eternal Dha.rrnakaya (in timeless terms as over against the "time-bound" eternity of the same doctrine in the Lotus sutra) and a more positive message. Chih-i reversed this judgement; see Ocho Enichi, Hokke shiso no kenkyU (Kyoto: 1971}, pp. 231-264. 98 the MPNS is that these four attributes were associated with nirvana. 1 Because of this "positive" element in the HPNS, the MPNS is considered to show tendencies towards Hinduization. The MPNS also accepted the icchantika into the scheme of final enlightenment for all in the spirit of Mahayana universalism. This generosity was not attained without an inner struggle . The issue of the icchantika, a person destitute of the seed of enlightenment (comparable, in that sense, with the sudra caste which is without the "sacred thread 11 ) appeared actually for the first time in the MPNS . The icchantika is almost inevitably the one who breaks the vinaya i.e. monastic ?rece?ts, and disrupts the sangha, fellowship (the basic~si~' in early monastic Buddhism) and who degrades or defames Mahayana (a familiar charge ever since the Lotus sutra dismissed its deriders as "chaff''~. In the first ten chapters of the standard (Dharmaksema) translation, the 3 icchantika is vehemently attacked. The next ten chapters 1 rssaikY.o, XXXIX, p . 2cf; see T. 12, pp. 502b, 59la and 593b for the scriptural passages. 2 see Saddharrna-pundarika sutra, trans. * Hendrik Kern (New York: 1963), p.39 . Universal religions often cannot tolerate those who challenge their claim to universalism. 3 These first ten chapters belong to the pre-300 A.D. stratum in which the prediction of the coming of the age of the degenerated Dharma is made. 99 show a curious ambivalence . On one hand it i s said, fo r example in chapter sixteen, that it is no sin to kill an icchantika--a clear violation of the "non-in jury to life" (ahirnsa) doctrine. On the othe r hand, as in chapters fifteen, sixteen and t wenty , there are compassionate and growing concessions made to allow perhaps some icchantikas in some future transmigration the ability to attain enlight1 enrnent. However, only i n the last twenty chapters, do we find a full and unconditional acceptance of these enemies of Mahayana. Even the icc hantika has the Buddha-nature, that i s, the seed to attain enlightenment in time . 2 This final verdict regarding universal Buddha-nature wa s accepted by the Chine se Buddhi s ts as definitive. No truly "Mahayana " school would deny that verdict. The "new school" of Hsuan-tsang, for adhering to a different, discriminative tradition which sees five grades of people with varying spiritual endowments, has b een henceforth dismissed 3 as not fully {Sinitic) Mahayana. Yet the discriminative l * k Sb Issai yo, XXXIX, p. c. 2 Ibid, p. 6a; see T. 12, p . 524b. 3see Tokiwa Daijo, Bussho no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1944), pp. 1-35; 'Tokiwa gives a survey of the whole tradition, from India to China, related to the doctrine of Buddha-nature. The lowest of the five grades (pancagotrani) is agotra, "destitute of the seed (gotra) ," and therefore is not eligible for enlightenment. 100 tradition is clearly one strand in Indian Mahayana. 1 The Chinese dismissal of the "new school" should be seen as a unique Sinitic Mahayana judgement and as a development that came out of the preeminence of the MPNS in the Chinese Buddhist worldview. 2 One can argue that Nencian humanism which admits all men to be potentially "sagesK has influenced the Chinese Buddhist appreciation of the doctrine of universal 3 Buddha-nature. 1rmportant Indian Mahayana works like the Lankavatara sutra, the Yogacara-bhumi sutra and the Mahayana-sutralankara have accepted the pancagotrani doctrine; see oo. cit, pp. 36ff. 2~lthough the MPNS was cited by other Indian Mahayana works, there is no known ''great" interest in India shown towards the ?-1PNS conP.arable to the interest in China. Two commentaries on the MPNS or portions of it are supposed to be translated from Sanskrit originals. One is a commentary translated in northern Wei by Dharmabodhi and the other is a commentary on one famous gatha .in the MPNS ("Originally there is no [self]; now there is [Buddha-nature]") translated by Paramartha. Both are suspected to be forgeries. See Sussho kaisetsu daijiten, ed. Ono Genmyo (Tokyo: 1934), VII, p. 424r and ~ochizuki ed. Bukkyo daijiten, IV, p. 3358a. 3 The fallacy of this argwnent is that of reading NeoConfucian humanism into the Six Dynasties. Mencius was not in the main stream of Han Confucian thought. Hierarchial thinking dominated and grades of ~en were accepted. The "nine grades" of offices ( fLJfi'r::z r:f7 .iE.. )--established by Ts'ao Tsao to tap talent from below but used by the Ssu-ma rulers to monopolize offices for the upper gentry--beca.P.!.e the "nine grades" of man in the Kuan-ching ~ ~'§::(' Arnida-dhyana sutra11 T. 12, No. 340.) Apparently, the Indian tripartite scheme (Triyana} was expanded into the "nine grades•= (based on the two sets of upper-middle-lower and birth-rank) . This Chineseexpanded hierarchy worked against the eventual Pure Land doctrine of "universal salvation through the vow of Amida." Shan-tao (613-681 A.D.) finally collapsed the hierarchy by declaring all men to be pitifully of "low birth and low rank." 101 t d. The choice of the Chinese term "fo-hsing" (Buddha-nature)_ to translate the Sanskrit original terms The choice of "fo-hsing"f.;f.111£: by Dharrnaksema to designate "Buddha-nature" contributed, I think, to the popularity of the doctrine of the "Buddha-nature ." At first flance, one would assume that the original Sanskrit would be buddhata or buddhatva. 1 The Sanskrit suffix 11 -ta" a!'.'ld "-tva" would 2 correspond to the Chinese term "hsing", essence, -ness. However, the issue is more complicate. In fact, this is where we find an important key to our study of the Sinicization of the MPNS within the translation process and of how this might have influenced the AFM. The point most essential to the present discussion has been raised by Ogawa Ichijo who has traced the original Sanskrit terms for fo -hsing. 3 The original terms turn out to be buddha-dhatu (buddha-realrnr fo-chiehmv,f would be the proper literal translation) or buddha-garbha (buddha-wornb, -store, -matrix; fo-tsang1~~ is the standard choice ). Had Dharmaksema chosen fo-chieh 1ttochizuki ed. Bukky6 daijiten, V, pp. 4454-4456 actually considers buddhata to be the Sanskrit original. 2For example, fa-hsing corresponds to Dharmata although Dharmata is also translated ã chu-fa shih-hsiang i:t1=~~~B. 3 See Ogawa Ichijo, Nyoraizo, Bussho no kenkyu (Kyoto: 19 6 9) I pp• 4 3 -6 8 • 102 I or fo-tsang in his translation, the interest in "Buddhanature" might have been inhibited. This is because the term fo-hsing evoked among the Chinese readers the many nuances of the classical debate between Mencius and Hsun-tzu. Mencius argued that human nature (hsing) is good; Hsun-tzu argued that it is evil. Dharmaksema's choice of the word hsing permitted the Chinese to articulate a matrix of concepts and meanings. The HPNS te.xt, in describing the role of the Buddhanature in the scheme of enlightenme.nt, sees the Buddha-nature as the "seed (gotra) of enlightenment" or the "seed leading to Buddha-hood." 1 The icchantika is the person without this seed. The term "hsing'' (like the word "nature'' in English) d 11 d t . d 2 oes not usua_ y eno e a germi.nal see • The original meaning of gotra would perhaps be best preserved by the Chinese term "chung" (seed) or hchung-hsing" (seed-nature 1.? Had Dharmaksema chosen ~chung-hsing," the doctrine of Buddhanature might also have been less welcome. Tokiwa Daijo 1see T. 12, p. 538cf and passim. 2Hsing suggests "essence"--an unchangipg characteristic; see discussions on the etymology of "hsing 11 bel?w .. "Nature" in English has comparable roots. Latin "natura" is related to "natio": birth, race, nation. 3 The standard translation for gotra is chung-hsing; panca-gotrani is in Chinese wu chung-hsing:O..~~:£., see Mochizuki ea. Bukkyo daijitei1; I, p. 1212b, II, p. 2469a. These two entries are clearly separated by Mochizuki from the entry for fo-h~ing {buddhata [siaj ); seep. 102 above. 103 in his study of the doctrine of Buddha-nature dissociates the "hsing" from the "chung" traditions. 1 The choice of the term "fo-hsing " is therefore questionable . The link between the Chinese word and the Sanskrit terms seems to be missing: fo-hsing 1~r.E Buddha-nature, implying an "essence" .J.. buddhata, buddhatva are direct counterparts fo-chieh, -tsang 1~ ~ *,.:;«. are direct counterparts However, when one considers the etymology of the word ''hsing", the choice seems justified and even ingenious. "Hsing" is rooted in the word " s heng" ~ (life, birth) . In ea rly oracle-bone writings, "she ng" covered the meaning of "hsing". In the book of Mencius, Kao-tzu recalls this old tradition when he is given at] birth defines "[Human] nature (hsing) is [what 2 (pheng) ." Kao-tzu's earthly line--"Food and sex are human nature (hsing)"--troubles many Neo-Confucians3, but what the line means is simply that food and sex "pertains to life . " The Book of Rites, Li chi, affirms the 1Tokiwa Daij_Q, Bussho no kenkyu, pp . 27 35, makes the neat distinction between the "discriminative" chungschool and the "universalistic" hsing-school . The former excludes the icchantika while the latter accepts all into the Ekayana (one vehicle). 2Mencius , Chap.6.A.1-4. 3Neo-Confucians regard hsing to be the "ought", the moral norm above physical needs. 104 etymological relationship of "she ng" and 11hsing 11 : Human nature by birth (.s.heng) is quiescent this is his heaven-endowed nature (hsing) . In contact with external things , [human nature] becomes active; this is its desiring aspect. 1 Emotions are generated out of "hsing" as man comes to know 2 of the external world. By a coincidence, Dharmaksema translated the term "se ntient beings" with the Chinese "sheng (beings)", that is "living beings"':£ . The oft-quoted line "All living (s h e ng) beings have Buddha-nature" r e affirms the classical ! ' s h enq-hsing" association. Since "sheng" means "what is alive, living, growing ,~ it comes close to the Sanskrit term "gotra", seed. Both "she nq" and "g~" share importand etymological relations with the words for clan, species. When one takes into consideration the intermediate links, the choice of "fo-hsing" in the translation can be explained. buddha-garbha or -dhatu f o-hsing as what is defined as the gotra given to sentient or (seed) to enlightenment, living beings; Buddha i.e. cuddha-gotra. -nature. ~ ..,. gotra: seed, clan sheng: birth, life, species. ~what grows in time. 1 Li chi, Chap. 19. 1 (On Music). 2rn Nee-Confucian thought, hsing is relegated to the metaphysical (hsing-erh-shang) and emotions , especially, P.rivate desires, belong to the 'physical' (hsing-erh-hsia). 105 "Fo-hsing" can imply a Buddha-seed, given to the living sentient being, a "nature" that will flower in time into enlightenment . The reason that modern Chinese looking at the term "fo-hsing'' fail to associate "hsing" with a geminating seed-ele~ent is because Nee-Confucian thought has taught the Chinese to associate "hsing", not with a life (sheng) process, but with an eternal norm or principle 1 . 1 l. • However , the persons who first made a significant link between "hsinq" and 11 li" and spoke of an unchanging ''principle nature" (li-hsing) were probably the Buddhists. 1The history of the conce!Jt '1 hsing" in Chinese thought requires a study in itself. The above brief observation draws upon Yu-t'ung, Chung-kuo che-hsueh wen-t'i-shih (Hongkong: 1968), pp. 199-263, and T'ang Chuni, Chung-kuo chehsueh yuan lun, II, Yuan "Hsing" lun (Hongkong: 1957}. My argument is that the terms "sheng" and "hsing", at one time "synonymous'' , were slowly differentiated and grafted to a dualistic philosophy. Sheng is associated with the physical life while hsing represents then the metaphysical moral principle. The diagram below suggests the historical process of differentiation: (immutable) sheng ~ 1-$'t~: l.~ fo-hsing; li qua ---hsing it:t Early identity ~=~ sheng-mieh (life-death) samsara Buddhist dualistic philosophy 106 'f~it-'t. li-hsing hsing-shang if~ .C - ------------------hs ing-hs ia ?ft i: "!: ~ sheng-chi Neo-Confucian dualistic philosophy e. Chinese proclivity for fo-hsing as defined by a rne~aphysical li (princi.ple) The Indian Buddhists, like all Indian philosophers, were interested in causality . Good roots (kusalamula) are to be accumulated because they would be conducive to enlightenment. The MPI-JS follows this tradition and sees the Buddhanature as a seed (gotra) or as a cause (hetu) leading to enlightenment. Auxiliary causes (pratyaya), time and energy are usually required to produce the final result (phala) -Buddha-hood . The Chinese were generally impatient with such detailed analyses and had no word for "cause" and 11 effect'1 until the Buddhist tradition initiated them into such ideas . 1 Even before Tao-sheng, the gentry monk Chih-tun argued that enlightenment was sudden : If the ultimate princi~le (li) is One, it would not tolerate any piecemeal or "cause-effect" proces s in attaining it . 2 Tao-shenq followed this tradition of Chih Tun and argued for sudden enlightenment . 3 The gradual 4 ists, being more patient and realistic, won in the end. 1 The Chinese used the words meaning originally "base" "rim or alongside" and "fruit" to render the Sanskrit terms hetu, pratyaya and phala . China, being more informed by a "biogenerative" outlook, had no concept for "mechanical" cause-effect relationships. See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, II (Cambridge, England: 1956), p. S54f. 2T 1 ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 651-657 . 3 Ibid., P.P. 6 5 7 6 6 9 . 4rbid.,pp. 669 676 . Huikuan, a gradualist, subsumed "sudden teaching" within his tenet-classification system . 107 A causative and "gradualist" scheme was given by the MPNS itself: Buddha-nature is the seed leading to enlightenment and the "cause is the twelve nidanas (chains of causation), the c a use of cause is prajna (wisdom), the result is samvaksambodhi (highest enlightenment) and the result of result is the mahãarinirvana (great final liberation) . 111 Following this scheme, Pao-liang (444-509 A.D.), the foremost master in the Nirvana school, classified the Buddha-nature into four aspects: Basic cause Buddha-nature Auxiliary cause Bucdha-nature Result cause Buddha-nature Result of result Buddha-nature the pure mind meritor ious deeds enlightenment parinirvana Chih-tsang (458-552 A.O . ) had five aspects in his scheme: Basic cause Buddha-nature Auxiliary cause Buddha-nature End cause Buddha-nature Result Buddha-nature Result of result Buddha-nature the rrtind twelve nidanas P.raj_M bodhi 2 mahaparinirvana ~~--~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 T. 12, p. 524a. 2 Few of the writings of the Nirvana school have survived except for a collected work, Ta-pan. nieh-p'an-ching chi-chieh (T. 37, No. 1763}, supposedly compiled by Pao-liang under the auspicies of Emperor Jig of the Liang dynasty. On the textual problems involved, see Fuse Kogaku, Qp. cit., pp. 48-72 . The above diagrams are based on the collected work, T. 37 , pp. 547b-548a. The contribution of Pao liang to the theory of Buddha-nature is discussed in Tokiwa, QP * cit ., pp. 189-192, and that of Chihtsang, ibid., p. 190. Pao-liang and Chihtsang in their approach as cited above represent the "causative or gradualist" understanding of the Buddha-nature. 108 There was, however, another group of monks who went beyond the scripture in their speculation on the Buddhanature. Most noteworthy was fa-yao (d . 473-476) who utilized the concept of li that was favoured by the subit ists Taosheng and Chih Tun earlier . Fa-yao defined the Buddha-nature as the "principle (li) by which sent ient beings become enlightened . 111 Fa-vao came after the "sudden versus gradual" enlightenment debate between Tao-sheng and Hui-kuan . In associating Buddha-nature with li, the One absolute, he drew upon the tradition of the subitists . In underlining the idea 11 become 11 , he endorsed the position of Hui-kuan. Fa-yao synthesized both extre mes and was possibly influenced by 2 the Srimala sutra. He articulated a theory of the Buddhanature that is uniquely Chinese: Sentient beings have the principle by which to become enlightened . The Buddha-nature's principle will ultimately be used {yung, functioned) by the mind, despite the fact that (the mind) is being hidden by defilements. People who receive the teaching hear of the doctrine of the Buddha-nature and attain faith-understanding [adhimuktiJ. This is because there is already this superior principle inside them which allows them to attain extraordinary insight. See T ' ang, Fochiao-shih, p. 679 . Fa-yao 's position on the Buddha-nature was important enough to be counted as a third main school. See also Fuse Kogaku, op. cit., p. 34. 2Fa-yao was one of the first to comment on the Srimala sutra, a short but important tathagatagarbha treatise (T. 12, No. 353); see section 4d below in this chapter, pp. 177-178 . 109 The permanent principle being manifes ted, one knows the meaning of the teaching previously r e vealea. 1 A grand-disciple of fa-yao , Seng-tsung , gave even more radical ex?ression to the relationship between li and the Buddhanature in man: The Buddha-nature is li, principle. The essence-principle (hsing-li , nature-principle) never varies; it only differs in the degree of manifestation. To be one with the principle is the d harma that transcends the world . The principle of the Buddha-nature lies at the heart of all transformations and is beyond life ãd death (sheng-mieh , sarnsara) itself. The esse nce-principle is permanent 1 and it is . only hidden beca use s e ntient beings are d e luded. Not part of rnãter : the principle is beyond all form or color. In most of the passages cited above, the word "Tao" can easily be substituted fo r "li". Like the Tao, li is the absolute principle behind , in or above phenomenal changes. The Buddha-nature defined in terms of li is therefore a n essential, transcendent entity, and, unlike the Sanskrit gotra or hetu, ~ priori perfec t and complete. 1Gleaned from the writings of Fa-yao in the "collected work,. cited on p. 108 above by T'an_g in his Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 687-688. 2sirnilarly gleaned and cited by T''ang:, ibid., p. 688. 110 Chi-tsang (549-623 A.D.} of the San-lan school was . alert to this innovative use of the term li by Seng-tsung. This interpretation [by Seng-tsung that identifies Buddha-nature with the principle] is most ingenious but it is not based on proper lineage transmission . It is important that all doctrines have traceable roots. I would like to know on what sutra and on whose authority is the theory that "the Buddha-principle is the basic-cause Buddha-nature" based?l T'ang Yung-t'ung commented on Chi-tsang's observation: This passage [from Chi-tsang] is most noteworthy. This is because the Chou I (I Ching, Book of Changes ) had the idea of "exhausting the principle {li} and fulfilling one's nature (hsing) ." In the Chin period, the. philosophers based themselves on this tradition and used the word "li" to desianate a _, thing's essence . . Z>unong the Buddhist scholars like Tao-sheng, the term was also appropiated. With Fa-vao, the use of the term was develope d and quite a few followed in his tradition . ... This development is extremely significant in the history of Chinese thought and demands investigation.2 The association of li and hsing by Fa-yao and Senq-tsung anticipated the Nee-Confucian "hsina-li" philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130-1200 A.D.). 1cited by T'ang from Chi-tsang's Ta-ch'eng hsiian lun in T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 689f. Chi-tsana* was "Ji.!:!" (Parthian) on his father's side, and his criticism reflects the new concern for 11 lineage-transrnissions." 2T 1ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p . 690. The history of the idea "li" is a complicated one; for the mature Nee-Confucian usage of the term, see A. c . Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers (London: 1958), a study of the Cheng brothers. Li is an ontological concept, dealing with "P.en-t'i" (essence) . Tao has cosmogonic functions; see Lao-tzu, Chap. 42--the Tao gIV'es birth to the One, the Two, the Three and myriad things. 111 Towards the end of the sixth century A.O., the T'i-lun school spoke often of a "li-fo-hsing" , principle Buddhanature as distinct from ''hsing-fo-hsing", action Buddha-nature . 1 The implication is that the former is ~ priori, non-causative while the latte r is incipient and requires nurturing. Hui-yuan (523-592 A.D.) formulated the Buddha-nature in the following manner , different from Pao-liang and Chih-tsang: Neither cause nor effect Buddha-nature Cause Buddhanature Cause of Cause Buddha-nature :lesult Result of result Suchness twelve nidanas bodhi path mahabodhi 2 mahanirvana The li-fo-hsing would be the ''neither cause nor effect Buddha-nature, " for the principle or Suchness is above causative impermanence . The hsing-fo-hsing would correspond to the four modes of cause and result . By so aligning fo-hsing with li, the Chinese Buddhists elevated the Buddha-nature--originally the "seed'! or "cause" leading to enlig~tenment in the future- above samsara, life and death (sheng-mieh}, into the timeless realm of the absolute Suchness itself. 1T 1 ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 716f. This period just prior to Sui was also the time in which past theories of the Buddhana ture were recategorized under the headings of "de facto !3uddhana ture" and ''de j ure Buddha-nature"; see* ibid / * p . 6 3 6 f. 2Tokiwa Daij5, Bussh6 no kenkyii, p. 190. 112 f. Chinese proclivity for fo-hsing as mind If ~encius' influence on the choice of the term for Budcha-nat.ure, fo-hsing, existed, then !.!encian association of hsing (human nature) and hsin (mind) might also elucidate i~portant develop~ents in Chinese Buddhist thought . ~'lencius' idea of the innate goodness of man is based on his appreciation of humanity .(jen, virtue) as rooted in the :1 compassion*ate mind." The mind is the locus of the principle of heaven and the true nature of man; to exhaust the mind (chin hsin "ff.*~*} is to see one's nature. 1 In the sixth century A. D., the conflue nce of the Chinese appreciation of the ~ind and the Indian Buddhist exploration of the citta (mind) seemed to reinforce one another to produce eventually the equally Buddhist and equally Chinese Ze~ sentiments later of chien hsing ch ' eng-fo ( 11 See your nature and becor:ie a Buddha"~ i+'::£:/i\.'°i~ ) and chi-hsin chi-fo ("Your mind is Buddha" ~p1w~l§!.1" 1ft;i ). This hsin-hsing or ~ind-~ature association antici?ated the Nee-Confucian p hi losophy of Wana Yang-ming (1 473-1529 A.O.) , Within the Nirvana school, the hsing-hsin identity was accepted by the following figures: Pao-liang located the Buddha-nature in the innately pure mind (visuddhi cittaprakrti} or the tathagatagarbha. Emperor Wu located it in 1 See Mencius, Chap. 7 . A . l; see also Arthur Wright, Three Wavs of Thought in Ancient China (London : 1939), pp. 115-118. 113 . ~ the luminous spirit (shen-rnin9) and in the mind (hsin). Fa-yun regarded the impulse in the t athagatagarbha to desire bliss and avoid suffering to be the Buddha nature. Fa-an emphasized the indestructable mind that transmigrates . The T'i-lun school placed the Suddha-nature in the alayavijnana (storehouse consciousness ) g ua pure mind . The She-lun school placed it in the amalavijnana (untainted consciousness, the ninth conscious ness) . 1 The interest in the mind was a lso shared by the emerging Chinese Buddhist schools. Chih-i of the T'ient'ai school freely took a line in the Ta-chih-tu-lun to mean his theory of "The three wisdoms are of one mind . 112 The Hua-yen school explored the significance of the line in the Hua-yen ~utra: "The three worlds are of one mind." The Zen tradition had long seen associated with the philosophy of "Mind Only." The Pure ~and school gave a Chinese twist * to the Sanskrit phrase, ttekacitta prasanna ," which means* "the composed one mind " (in Chinese rendered as 1 The above six interpretations of the Buddhanature are summarized from T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 698-699, 705-712, 699-702, 710-712, 681 and 681 respectively. 2The oft-quoted line ~ ~ r~J - '~' is not directly from the Ta-chih-tu-lun (Commentary on the larger Prajnaparamita sutra attributed to Nagarjuna) but is inferred from it; see Leon Hurvitz, Chih-i, p . 274 footnote 2 and p. 315 and Mochizuki ed . Bukkyo daijiten, I, p. 144a. 114 l-nien hsin-hsin --$°I~''-'~ which can rGad "faith in one Buddha-name recitation'') . 1 What is remarkable is the fact that hsin {mind) was at the heart of every school's concern and that all the schools with little hesitation identified the mind with the Buddha-nature. The Chinese proclivity for a doctrine of the mind in the understanding of the Buddha-nature was probably responsible for such developments . The notion of a "mind in harmony with Suchness'' in the AFM is very likely due in part to this Mencian-Nirvana school heritage. g . Summary: mind as Buddha-nature and mind as Suchness In this first section, I have attempted to show how the Indian tradition of the MPNS was gradually Sinicized. The choice of words in translating Sanskrit into Chinese effected the first subtle metamorphosis . The Chinese association of fo-hsing (Buddha-nature) with an ontological li (principle) took that metamorphosis a step further . Pao-liang used the phrase "Suchness Buddha-nature" chenju fo-hsing. 2 Finally, the Chinese association of (fo) hsing with hsin (mind) and chen-ju {Suchness) seems to lead up to the AFM's idea of a "Suchness Mind." 1see Fujita Kotatsu, Genshi jodo shiso no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1970), PP*576-618. 2see T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 680, 698-699. 115 However, the absence of the term fo-'hsing in the AFM is rather bewildering . Assuming the AFM to be largely a Chinese-edited , redacted or authored text, I wou l d venture to suggest the following: The omission .of "fo-hsing" may be explained by these hypotheses: (1) the work emerged in the north within a circle not influenced by t he southern speculation on Buddha-nature, (2) the likely circle would be that of Ratnamati and Bodhiruci who seemed to prefer the term "chung-hsing " to render the Sanskrit gotra, and (3) the AFM followed the Lankavatara sutra's style in stressing the alayavijnana, the tathagatagarbha, and much less so the theory of " universal Buddha-nature." We have looked into the elements of similarity between the Nirvana school and the AFM in terms of general ideas shared by both . In the next section, we look more deeply into a sp~cific,concrete case : an essay from the Nirvana school. 2. An Essay by Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty as a Paradigm for the AFM a. The basic issue: structural similari ty Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (502-549 A.D.) during the heyday of the Nirvana school wrote an essay identifying 116 • Buddha-nature with the i mmortal soul (shen}. 1 In this section I hope to show the structural simi larity between th is essay and the AFM. Isolated ideas or concepts can be inadvertently incorporated in the translation process from one l anguage into another, but it i s fa irly difficult to inte rpolate a whole matrix of ideas into a translated text without destroying the organic unity of the original . One s t rong case for the theory of Chinese authorship of the AFM is the fact that there s eems to be an inherent "Chinese " structure to the text . The three "Gr ea ts, 11 of sub s tance, for m, and function (t ' i-hsiang-yung}, strongly suggest Chinese philosophical influence on the AFM . In addition , such influence does not seem to be "accidental" but rather "basic " to the AFM. In th is section , I will e xplore three sets of Chinese conce pts that are shared by the AFM and the essay by Emperor Wu. The three sets are: t'i-yung (substance and function), wu-ming (avidya, ignorance) and its opposite shen-miñ (spirit , in the eraperor 1 s essay) or Suchness (in the AFM), and hsin (mind) a nd shih (consciousness) . * 1 The essay, "Li shen-ming ch' engfo i chi" .:b. :f!fla'Afi\i~fi_n. has been collected in chapter 9 of the Hung-ming-chi; see T. 52, No . 2102, p. 54bc. 117 b. A brief note on the background of the essay Emperor Wu was the King Asoka of China in the Six Dynasties p eriod. 1 He was a religious Taoist before he was converted to the Buddhist Dharma and became a member of* the Nirvana school . The religious Taoists, long before t h e Buddhist tradition wa s firmly es tablished in China, believed in the immortality of the s hen, spirit. Early Chinese Buddhists had also erroneous ly accepted the doctrine of immortality of the self , which contradicted the ana tman ("no-self") doctrine. The introduction of Naga rjuna's ? hilosophy by Klli~arajiva apparently alerted the more philosophical Buddhists in China that the exi s t e nce of the eternal self as well as eternal elements (dharmas) should be negated . Strictly speaking, the Buddhist Dharma teaches the absence of an iromortal spirit. 2 Howeve r, the doctrine of immortality was not abandoned by the Buddhist l aymen, the a pologist, nor even by 1 The most complete study is Mori Mikisaburo , Ryo no butei (Kyoto: 1956). 2see Walter Liebenthal, "The Immortality of the Soul in Chinese Thought," Monumenta Nipponica, VIII (1932), pp . 327-394, and Feng Yu-lan , A Hi$tory of Chinese Philosphy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: 1952-53 ) , II, pp. 284292. 118 elite thinkers . If there is transmigration, sarnsara, and if karma produces effects that visit upon the "person," it would be natural for many to assume that there is a "continuing entity" or "self" that transmigrates . The Buddhist laymen believed in the transmigration of his "self 11 ; the Buddhist mass for the dead and the Buddhist teachings of "heavens" and "pure lands" strengthened this belief. The apologist tried to mediate between sophisticated doctrines and native ways of thought. Hui-yuan of Lushan,for example, avoided the topic of the "irrunortal soul" in his communications with Kumarajiva but expertly defended the autonomy of the monk and the theory of karmic retribution with recourse to the doctrine of the "transcendental spirit. 111 In fact, Hui-yuan ingeniously wov.e two different but related meanings of the word "shen": {1) as the individual "spirit" that transmigrates and (2) as the cosmic "spirit" or Geist, i.e . , a luminous, transcendental 2 entity that is prior to yin and yang. Of course, this ambiguity created some confusion. 1see Kimura Eiichi ed ., Eon Kenkyu , I , pp . 88-90 . . 2r Chin1J, Appendix 3 . A. 5. "When y:in and yang cannot be differ en ti.a ted, ( it] is called sh en (~~:;r~E.l;.j~~ ~ ~Efl ) • " See Chapter Three below, pp . 226-2 27 for furthe r discussions. 119 . ._ . When the MPNS became known to the southerners, the popular notion of an immortal soul was indirectly l egitimized by the text. The popularity of the doctrine of the "Buddha-nature" itself was, I think, partly due to the mome ntum of this e arly int e rest in the immortal soul . In fact , since the individual "spirit" (shen) was considered to be one with the cosmic "spirit" or Geist (shen) ,or with the Tao, 1 it was p ossible to argue that the Buddhanature (fo-hsing) is one with the li, the metaphysical principle . I think the impact Fa-yao had on the Nirvana school's understanding of hsing and li is derived again in part from this pre-Buddhist concern for the oneness of shen and Tao. However, Tao-sheng perhaps gave the ingenious definition of what the Buddha-nature is and what it is not . Confronted with the discrepancy of the anatman doctrine of old and the new Buddha-nature theory, he said: There is not the self of life and death (samsara) but there is the self of Buddhanature . 2 1The practice of "nurturing the breath" in religious Taoism is aimed at refining the spirit in men until the microcosmic spirit becomes as sublime as theprimordial or macrocosrnic ether itself. See Ko Hung in Alchemy, Medicine, Religion in the China of A.D. 300. Trans . James R. Ware , (Cambridge, Mass .: 1967) , pp . 47, 49. 2 Tao-sheng commenting on the Vimalakirti-nirdesa as cited by T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 635. 120 In other words, phenomenally considered, there is no self (anatman); noumenally considered, there is the Buddha-nature. The doctrine of the immortal shen was still regarded as "superstitious" by rational Confucians. The Confucian rationalist Wang Ch'ung (ca. 27-100 A.D.) had launched an attack on religious Taoist and popular "superstition" in the Han. Later Confucians directed the same attack against the new heretics, the Buddhists. The history of the debates between Confucians, Buddhists and Taoists over the immortality or the mortality of the spirit requires a study in itself. 1 The opposing sides of the debate differed with regard to their approach to the reality of the world. For example, the Buddhists emphasized a spiritual individualism that denied the reality of the world of men and nature, while the Confucians stood by the classical ideal of homo politicus and defended the reality of the world of men and nature.2 These two different approaches 1 see Tsuda Sokichi, Shina Bukkyo no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1957), chap. on this debate, pp. 93-262 . 2 The contrast made here is based on generalizations. 121 to the reality of the world dete~mined two different meanings of the same term shen . 1 '.i"he Buddhist used the term " shGn " to mean "pneuma," i.e., a transcendental spirit desiring liberation from the socio-cosmic fate. The Confucian generally used the term "shen" to mean "anima , " that animating force in and of the body, a force that disintegrates at death 2 or merges with the pan-animistic universe once more . The controversy over mortality or immortality was rekindled in the Liang dynasty. Fan Chen, a rationalist, attacked the Buddhists in a treatise. The Emperor and others replied . 3 To that debate we owe the essay by 1 A work which might enable scholars to understand the controversy over the above issue of immortality in a new light is Hans Jonas ' The Gnostic Religion (Boston: 1958). The gnostics referred to the pneuma, the transcendental spirit which was different from the anima, the animating spirit , or the psyche, the rational soul . The reference to the pneuma perhaps explains the world-denying lifestyle at the gnostics. The Buddhists in China may be using the old term shen in a new religious context in a way comparable to the gnostics' use of the term "pneuma" in the West . 2Thus, in citing Buddhist or Chinese classics on how shen and atman should be understood, one must keep in mind that the same term may be used with different meanings according to the point of view or intent of the one who uses the term. 3see Hung-mingchi , chap. 9 in T . 52, p . 54ff . Fan chen's position is incorporated in a refutation on p.-SSb. 122 Emperor Wu . T'ang Yung-t'ung regarded the Emperor's thesis to be a weak one that shows a confusion of the (transcendental) Buddha-nature with the (transmigrating, samsaric) spiri t and elsewhere even with the common 1 phenomenon of "ghosts." However , the Emperor 's thesis can be analyzed in anothe r way: the essay seems to anticipate the arguments of the AFM. The essay ' s a rgument subtly blends Taoist and Buddhist understandings . The following is a surrunary of the essay : Faith requires affirmation, 2 an awareness that the spirit (shen-ming) is permanent and transce ndental. Yet the spirit cannot help being involved in impermanence, that is, the changing phenomenal world . A question is then raised about whether the mind (hsin) would not disintegrate naturally with the momentary consciousness (shih) . The 1s ee T'ang 's opinion in T'~ng, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 709-710. T ' ang is correct in his analysis of the contents of the Emperor 's thesis. However, I am more interested in the structure of the thesis. 2rt is significant that faith is an issue here as it is in the AFM . The Chinese word for " faith ," hsin, was originally related to interpersonal trust and was the last of the five Confucian virtues. In the Buddhist period, hsin became a central concept. T'ang Yung-tung considers the essay by *Ernperor Wu to be apologetic in nature, see T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih,-pp. 706 708. 123 Emperor answered that the mind, being the one basi3 (~) remains unchanged and it is only its function (yung) which seemingly changes. The one basis, however, is a para doxical unity of dark ignorance (wu-ming) and its opposite, the spirit (~hen-ming). Forgetting the mind's original basis, man lured by objects becomes blind or ignorant. It is this forgetfulness or ignorance that causes man to be drawn into the transient reality of the many. Thus, it indeed appears that the divine mind would vanish along with the vanishing phenomena . Therefore it is necessary to remind man of the permanent basis behind phenomena, and furthermore that wu ming is shen ming and that shen ming never changes. Only by having this permanent core can karmic retribution work. What is permanent is the mind (hsin); what is going along with changes is the consciousness (shih) . The two are basically one, but two in their responses to the world. The mind as substance, ti, tends toward enlightenment; the consciousness as function, yung explains why man is in sãsara. __, c. T'i-yung (substance and function) T'i-yung is an important pair of Chinese concepts. The "terr:ts" t'i and yung were first used in conjunction 124 with one another by the ~eo-Taoist philosopher Wang pi, 1 and their nuances were explored by the Chinese Buddhists in the fifth and sixth centuries A.O. They were ably applied by the Hua-yen school in the T'ang dynasty and later inherited by the Neo-Confucians . In the AFM, the expression t'i-yung appears explicitly within the three 11 Greats" t'i-nsiang-yung and implicitly in the "water-and2 wave" metaphor . Water is substance (t'i); waves are its function (yurig)--but the waves are nonetheless the water. I will enumerate the characteristics of this conceptua l pair: (1) T'i-yung is an ontological pair. T ' i, substance, subsists as a permanent basis to changing phenomena . Both the AFM and Emperor Wu utilize t'i to demonstrate the per~ancnce of the sher. (spirit) , hsin (mind} or the Suchness mind (the innately pure mind, tathagatagarbha etc.) (2) T'i-yung is not a causative pair. T I• __ l, substance , does not cause yung, function, to come into existence . l . Chan Wing-tsit,ed. Sourcebook of Chinese Philosophy (princeton: 1963) 1 p. 323. 2see Shimada Kenj i, ''Tai yo no rekishi ni yosete , " Bukkyo shigaku ronshu (volume presented to Prof . Tsukamoto Zenryii), (Kyoto : 1961), pp . 416 430 . 125 T'i evolves into vung. Water becomes waves. Both the --AFM and Emperor Wu substitute the t'i-yung paradi~n for the Indian causation scheme of hetu-pratyaya-phala (cause, auxiliary condition, effect). In fact, what the Indian Buddhist.s regard as "caused", i.e. , life and death, samsara is considered by the Chinese as yung or "functional." As a corrolary, (3) t'i-yung is a harmonious pair . In the AFM, suchness (water) and phenomenal particulars (waves) fuse with one another and inte~penetrate harmoniously . Although the end-result may be described by the Indian Mahayana formula of '' samsara is nirvana," the meaning of the Chinese expression ti-yung is based on "fluidity" and not on a philosophy of dialectical negation or a theory of interdependence . In fact, the Chinese identity-harmony is based on a theory of substance (t'i} instead of emptiness , on a "host-client" relationship of unequal dependence 1 instead of pratitva-samutpada (conditioned co-arising) (4) T 1 i-yung, being non-causative, is a timeless pair. The water is immediately the wave, the wave immediately the water . In the Hua-yen formulation of this relationship, 1 This "hostclient" or "superior-inferior" relation ship is natural to t'i-yung, since Chinese paired concepts often follow the yang-yin (male female) pattern. In Han thought, the "male" is depicted as the "host" on which the "female" depends. 126 spontaneity was brought to the forefront . Although this spontaneity is less evident in the essay by Emperor Wu and only implicit in the AFM, t 'i-yung is essential to the Chinese idea of sudden enlightenment . T'i is in tune with li or Tao since t'i is the absolute basis. 1 (5) *r' i-yung is a Sini tic pseudo-"non-dualistic" pair . T • iyung is a paradoxical pair that can imitate the negative nondualistic dialectics of advaya (not-two) . Emperor Wu characterized the relationship between mind and consciousness as one in basis but two in that consciousness goes 2 along with change but the mind remains unperturbed. T 1 i-yung is not two ( in substance) nor is it one ( in function) . {6) T'i-yung has other assoc iations that draw on the Han yin-yang tradition. T ' i is usually passive; y ung is active. T'i is pen (basis, origin} whereas yung is~ (end, tip). The more mature use of t'i-yung, however, collapses the "sequential" overtones involved in the above sets which argue that originally the t'i was quiet and not 1The word "t'i" can also be used as a verb meaning "to embody," "to be in tune to." Thus it is said that the "shen-jen t 'i-tao ," the l<lan of spirit embodies, is in tune with or is one with the Tao . 2 T. 52, p. 54b. 127 -- ----- **----moving but in the end activity evolved. Emperor Wu actually leaned closer to the Han yin-yang tradition, and although what we call the t'i-yung logic was u sed by him, in actual expr ess ion, he used the synonymous though cruder pair pen-yung. In the following discussion, I will trace the Ha n roots of the emperor's thinking and demonstrate his contributions to the maturing of the t'i-yung pair. Emperor Wu drew consciously upon the Book of Rites for inspiration as he tried to understand the Buddhist teachings. In another essay, he said: The Li (Ch i) says: "Man is by birth (sheng) quiesceñ This is his heaven-endowed nature (hsing). In responding to things, he becomes active. That constitutes the desiring aspect of his nature." [Therefore], it is activity which brings defilements upon the mind and inactivity which purifies it . When external actions cease, then the inner mind will be lit up (ming) . Then man comes to r e cognize the truth and evil can no longer be born.l Implied in the scheme drawn from the Li Chi is this: the heave n-endowed nature of man is originally quiet until in contact with objects man becomes emotionally and actively involved. Selfish desire is produced and evil is born. By returning to the original passive source through understanding, man can terminate the active evils*. 1 Passage cited from the emperor 's Ching-yeh-fu ( =~ ~ &it ) collected within the Kuang Hung-ming-chi, T. 52, p. 335. 128 T'ang Yung-t'ung also noted that a Confucian text which we ll d epicted thi s p s ychological corruption of man is the Doctrine of the Mean (Chung-yung ~11" ), T 'ang Yung t 'ung suggeste d that the emperor borrowed the h s ing-yung {another proto type of t'i-yung) from the Book of Rites a nd applied it to the defen s e of the immo rtality of the . . 1 spirit. He noted that the Err.peror himself wrote a commenta ry, now lost, on the Doctrine of the Mean. 2 However, the immediate "t' *i-yung" precedent that Emperor Wu drew on was probably from the writing of Fan Chen. Fan Chen used the pair "chih-yung" '1J. )"f] (matter and ., function) ,J another proto-type of t'i-yung, in his argument for the destructability of the soul. Spirit (shen, anima) is form (hsing), and form is spirit. If form exists, then spirit exists. If form withe rs, so withers spirit. Form is the matter (chih) to spirit, while 1 T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 706 . Hsing-yung , essence and function, refers to the fact that the essence (hsing) of man, though passive in nature, evolves into the activity of using (use, yung} objects . 2 Ibid., p. 707. According to T 1 ang, the emperor was one of the few early conunentators on the Chung-yung, which later became a key "scripture" used by Nee-Confucians to c riticize and displace Buddhism. 3chih is almost synonymous with t'i; matter is substance. 129 • spirit is the function (yung) o f form . Form is substant ive as spiri t is functional . Form and spirit cannot be two . Spirit is to form like sharpness is to a knife . Form to spirit is like a kni fe to sharpness. The term "sha rpness" is not about the [substance of the] knife [per se] nor does the name "knife" describe [ the attribute of ] sharpnes s itse lf . However, if one forsake sharpness there will be no knife . If one eliminate the aspect of "knife," there will be no sha rpness . Now, who hears of sharpness remaining when the knife is destroyed? How then can one argue that the spirit continues when the body decays?! According to Fan Chen the s~irit animates the body, but the body is the "host" on which spirit depends. When physical l ife ceases , animation ceases. There cannot be anima (spirit) without soma (body) . Like "sharpness," "spiritedness" i s only an attribute to a substance , a function to 2 an essence. Attributes cannot exist independently of the items to which they are originally related . 1cited by T'ang, Fo-chiao -shih, p. 471 from the Nan Shih ; see al so Hsiao Tan's jit~ direct refutation (T . 52, p . SSab). The words "anima," "substance" and "attribute 11 have been interpolated. The word "form'' m (hsing) implies physical form, body . The phrase "hsingerh-shang," above-form, is later used by Nee-Confucians to designate the realm of principle ' (li), which is i mmate rial in nature. In Fan Chen, that sharp dualism of immaterial spirit and material body is absent . "Spirit is form; form is spirit." 2The discussion here draws on Western parall els.' Anima (shen) cannot exist without the soma, body, it animates. Emperor Wu, in contrast, used the terrn-;-Sfien, not in the sense of""""inirna but of pneurna. Pneurna transcends the body. Also brought into discussion are the classical Western philosophical terms "attribute" and "substance," "essence." 130 . i i Emperor ~u did not really reply to the challenge of Fa Chen's rational critique. Instead, he used his own idealistic t'i-yung philosophy to prove the subsistence of the spirit or mind. The Emperor said: [Shen ming, the luminous spirit ] has as its essence the denial of discontinuity [ i.e., it is eternal ] . The spirit will event ua lly lead to the mysterious ultimate . The ultimate substance {t'i) of this mysterious goal [ i.e. nirvana with the four positive attributes ] is that it is eternal. However, the spirit cannot help being involved in the world of impermanence.l Implied in the above is the idea that the ultimate spirit has an eternal, unchanging substance (t'i) but that it also acts {functions , yung) in the phenomenal world. This interpretation of Buddha-nature (fo hsing) as being both inactive and active or actively inactive (wu-wei} had long been followed by members of the Nirvana school. 2 Whereas Fan C.hen considered the body-form to be the essence and spiritedness to be an attribute (thus, secondary), Emperor Wu made the spirit the essence and phenomenal 1 T. 52, p. 54b. Explanatory notes added in brackets. 2The theme of paradox had been utilized to explain the mystery of the teaching of the MPNS ever since the earliest writing on the MPNS. See Tao-lang's preface to the MPNS in T. 37, p. 377 . 131 reality secondary~ Pondecing upon how there could be a lasting entity if reality was, as the Buddhists say , only a succession of discrete moments with no link, he answered: Basing myself [on the MPNS ] , I discovered that the mind (hsin) is the basis (pen) to its (me ntal] functions (yung). The basis is one, but the functions participate in the many. What is many naturally goes through life and death (samsara), but the nature of this unitary basis (i-pen) is that it cannot suffer change . l The t'i-yung pattern was set in this pen-yung (basis and function) metaphor . The mind is the permanent substance which nevertheless acts through its mental agent (consciousness, shih 2 ) in the world of the many. The One implies passivity. Multiplicity, growing out of interactions of opposites, implies the "rise and fall" or life and death of samsaric existence . 3 The Emperor suggested two usages of the term 11 t 'i 11 : (1) The spiritual substance (t'i) cannot help being caught up in the process of thought-functions in the process of 1 T. 52, p. 54c . 2see discussion below on hsin-shih {mind and consciousness~ pp. 146-149. 3 The One recalls the notion of the great ultimate and the many the myriad things generated out of the dynamic alternationof ~in and yang; see Chapter Three below, pp . 207£. 132 which life and d e ath (samsara) arise. ( 2) "Upon the substance {t'i) of unenlightenment (wu-ming) is life and death." 1 The Emperor had rephrased the Buddhist insight that avidya (ignorance) is the cause of all sufferings in samsara in terms of ignorance a s substance (t'i) and life and death as its manifestation. The substitution of a t'i-yung scheme for a cause-effe ct scheme means attributing to ignorance or unenl ightenment an ontological status. In a subtle way, the AFM follows this Sinicized understanding, and in Fa-tsang's commentary on the AFM , ignorance as the negative element was conceived unconsciously in terms of the yin (the feminine) in a yin-yang scheme. 2 In a cruder form, Emperor Wu also anticipated this development as he speculated upon the paradoxical relationship between wu-ming and shen-rning: :'f$B}J ~a.f\ • d. Wu-ming ( "dark;' non-enlightenment) and shen-ming (spirit , spiritual illumination) The eternally subsisting entity, says Emperor Wu, is the shen or shen-ming, spirit, which nevertheless participates in impermanence or change. The mind is the 1 T. 52, p. 54c. 2see Chapter Three below. especially p. 211. 133 one bãis (pen) to the many functions (yung) . In other words, shen (spirit) or hsin (mind) is the substance. 1 However, the emperor also says that life and death is based on the substance of wu-ming (ignorance). How are these two substances, shen-ming and wu-ming, both said to be basic, reconciled? The Emperor suggests this paradox in a cryptic passage: The one basis is the wu-ming shen-ming. Wu-ming (ignorance) is not like the big void. Earth and stones have no feelings . Is this to say that 2 earth and stones are wuming (ignorant)? The phrase "wu-rning shen-ming" would normally read "the spirit which is unenlightened" or "the ignorant spirit." However, there is double entendre involved in the Chinese language. Wu-ming, the term usually used to render avidya, means "un-lit" i.e., "not enlightened," but what is "unlit" implies what is ''dark." The imagery of "darkness," however, carries in the Taoist frame of mind the implication of the "mysterious . " For example, Neo-Taoism is, in Chinese, '£~ hsi.ian-hsi.ieh, 11 dark learnings" or "learning of the (three) 1 The emperor apparently regards shen and hsin to be fairly synonymous . The word hsin, mina,means "mind" or "heart" and both are affiliated with spirit. In a similar way in English, the word "psyche" means soul as well as mind. 2 T. 52, p. 54bc. 134 mysteries--Lao-tzu , Chuang-tzu and I Ching." The phrase "wu-ming shen-ming .. can mean therefore either the ''unenlightened spirit" or the"mysterious spirit." To comp licate the matter further, the term "shen-ming," normally a synony~ of shen , spirit, actually includes the same character "ming ," light, enlightened. Literally , "shenming" reads "luminous spirit."1 However, "shen" can be ~~ an adjective , i . e. spirited, spiritual , and "ming" can be a noun "recognition, knowledge, gnosis, bodhi, enlightenment." Thus, "shen-ming" can mea n "spirited understanding" or "spiritual enlighterunent . 11 The first line of the above quote can therefore mean one or more or al l of the following. The "one basis" is the (1) ignorant spirit, (2) mysterious spirit, (3) conjunction of ignora nce and enlightenment or (4) mysterious understanding . The four connotations are al l included in the phrase "wu-ming/shen-ming." The one basis is a paradoxical union of avidya (wu-ming ) and bodhi (shenming)- -the "dark , mysterious, ignorant, yet all knowing spirit ." The association of light (lumen} with the divine (nu.men) is fairly common. The Chinese character for shen may include the pictograph of "light streaming from t~ clouds" and "l ightning." Shen-ming is commonly used to designate spirit or gods . 135 The rest of the cited passage also poses problems. The running commentary to the Emperor's essay , written by an admiring courtier, provides one possible interpreta- . f . 1 tion o it. The spirit is by nature dark . It require s ignorance (wu ming) as a cause. The [ human] ability to distinguish good and evil can function only because of the mind. The [human] ability to judge right and wrong depends on feeling. The big void [the primordial chaos ] has no feeling , therefore, it is said to be wu-ming , dark and ignorant . Earth and stones have no mind, therefore they can never resolve doubts, [ i.e. never be enlightened ) . From the above observations, we can conclude that the ability to resolve problems resides with the mind (hsin) . Primitive or crude intelligence is based only on consciousness (shih) . 2 Earth and stones , [ being of low intelligence ] , are therefore said to be without ming, enlightenment . Therefore , t~e importance of having a mind is established . 1The running commentary is included within the essay; see T. 52, p. 54bc. The Chinese practice is to include the comments in small characters between sentences. 2The idea expressed here that only higher beings have mind, while lower beings of crude iñelligence--possibly referring to animals but ~erhaps including earth and stones-have only consciousness, seems innovative in interpretation. 3T . 52, p. 54bc. Explanations found in brackets have been inserted to clarify the argument . J.36 The above interpretation seems logical. It underlines the centrality of the mind as a prerequisite for enlightenment. Things without mind, like plants and stones or impersonal reality like the primordial vo id, cannot be enlightened. T'ang Yung-~ung follow s this line of argument as he SQmmarizes Emperor Wu's position: In investigating what is designated by wuming, it is known that wu-ming does notbelong to the category of the big void, i.e. ignorance is deluded knowledge; it is not without the mind; it is not like the [mindless] big void. Earth and stones have no feelings. They too are not what can be designated as ignorant itemS:-i.e., earth and stones have 1 no mind, therefore they have no Buddha-nature. However, unless there is corruption in the text itself, Emperor Wu's rhetorical question--"Is this to say that [feeling-less] earth and stones are unenlightened (wu-ming)?" --implies that he thinks that, to the contrary, inorganic, non-sentient, things ~ be enlightened. Originally, Indian Buddhism limits enlightenment to sentient beings , beings with feelings. 2 The MPNS itself also limits the Buddha-nature to sentient beings. However, 1T 1 ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 707. The portions following the "i.e. 11 are explanations inserted by T 'ang in small characters between the sentences . The word "not'' in the last sentence defies the interpretation provided by T'ang in smaller characters. 2 Only sentient beings suffer and require liberation from it . 137 by the Sui-T'ang period, Chinese Buddhism developed the theory that 11 insentient [grass and trees t oo] have [the Buddha)-na ture, wu-ch'ing yu-hsing ." It is generally recognized that this innovat ion is due to Taoist pan-animist ic influence and Taoist admiration for the impersonality of nature (tzu-jan} . 1 Tao-sheng actually anticipated this later development for he said: All things that receive ether (ch ' i) and yin-yang to be what they are are "basic cause" [Buddha-seeds ] on the pa th to nirvana . The various things of the three worlds receive li~e as a result of delusion . The icchantika is another life-possessing being . Why should he not have the Buddha nature also?2 Tao-shenq shifted the Indian emphasis on sentiency to the Chinese emphasis on "life." Since according to Han cosmology, everything organic or inorganic is derived from a p~imordial ether and that the whole universe is one process of endless change ("life giving birth to life") , 3 it follows that Tao-sheng already argued for the availability of the Buddha-nature to even mountains and streams. 1see Karnata Shigeo, Chugoku Bukkyo shi kenkyu (Tokyo: 19 69) , pp . _ i1.:..4 6, on the " hijo buss ho ~F lt*f(L\ 111:. ." 2 cited by T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 649 . 3 This is the traditional definition of i, change, in the I Ching . ~'.±..~§% ~ .. ~rii~l: (Appendix 3. A:5 ). 138 i h . . . d b 1 C inese consider mountains an streams to e full of ether. Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, being at one time a Taoist , could not have been ignorant of this pan-animistic tradition and his argument, as stated above , shows his sympathy with this Taoist adoration of "earth and stones ." He also plainly says: "Wu-ming is not like the big void ." The running corrunentary to Emperor Wu's essay which says "The big void is without feeling (necessary for human judgment of right and wrong ] , therefore, it is not enl ightened " is, in my opinion, probably misguided. The comrnentatõ , probably a Confucian humanist, seems to give too much credit to human feeling and judgment. In both the Buddhist a nd the Taoist tradition, the opposite evaluat ion often holds true . Only sentient beings suffer , says the Buddhist, because they cling onto what they desire. In a similar vein, Lao-tzu finds discriminative judgment of good and evil, right and wrong, to be the fall of man into arti f icial distinctions . 2 Han mystical thought in general accepted the dictum that the true sage is "without feeling" (wu-ch 1 ing) . . 1This "dynamic" cally appreciated , or secured by geomancy . vein of thi dragon in In being above emotions, the sage quality of nature may be philosophicaptured in Chinese painting or For example, geornancy looks for the the landscape. 2Lao-tzu, chap. 2. 139 models himself after the impassivity of heaven itself. 1 HeavGn by virtue of its public (kung) or open, not selfish character is impartial. The pursuit of the heaven-like state is therefore actually to attain wu-hsin (no mind) / that is, absence of a discriminative mind. 2 That the primordial void is often said to be without feeling (wuch' ing) actually shows an appreciation of the impersonal impartiality of the great void prior to the differentiation into yin-yang. Therefore, it is conceivable that Emperor Wu intended the line "Wu-ming is not like the big void" to mean "Ignorance, being discriminative, cannot be compared to the big void." The human ability to judge good and evil by an innate feeling for the good may be a Mencian virtue but it is or can be according to the Buddhist and the Taoist a sentient vice. 3 wu-ch'ing yu-hsing 1 ~1i'A"~~~ "(things) insentient (nevertheless) hãe (Buddha)-nature" only makes good sense. 1The source of the impassive sage-ideal is from Chuangtzu chap. 5. Wang Pi, the Neo-Taoist, is supposed to have suggested the reverse: Confucius the sage who cried when his disciple died demonstrated the sage's ability to have feelings without being burdened by them. See the commentary section in the biography of Chung Hui in San-kuo-chih (chap. 28.37). 2 It should be noted that T'ung Chung-shu did speak of a mind of heaven. Confucians generally prefer a more 11 personal 11 Heaven with volition, intention, or will. 3 Nirvana in one sense resembles the "divine impassivity" some Byzantine monks strove after, i.e. the cessation of sentiency. 140 The running commentary to the essay by Emperor Wu provides , however, a very necessary insight. It says that the spirit is by nature dark and that it requires ~gnorance (wu-ming) as a cause. The refer e nce to the "dark, mysterious spirit" pinpoints a subtle dia l ec tic involved in the argument of Emperor Wu . The Chinese consider the spirit, or the mind, to be dark and mysterious, like the primordial void . This dark spirit is "pre-cognitive," happy in its divine ignorance, abiding in its own absoluteness (perhaps like the Hegelian Geist prior to its historic self-al ienation or self-dissociation and reintegration ). This dark spirit is neither conscious of itself as a subject any more than it is conscious of something other than itself as an object . It is antecedent to the subject-object dichotomy that haunts all phenome na in what the Chinese call "post-heaven:' that is, after the cosmic differentiation. This dark, pre-cognitive spirit is none other than the inactive heaven-endowed hsing, (human) nature, discussed earlier . Emperor Wu elaborated on the ideas set down by the Book of Rites in his essay on "pure karma": In observing the heaven-given nature in man, it would seem that this nature embraces the sublime ether in order to be "clear " ["luminous" J Thi s nature feels for objects outside and becomes actively involved in the world. The 141 - .• desiring mind overreaches itself and becomes blind [to its own innate. essence] This blindness (or ignorance) is due to the defilernen ts from the external world . Phenomenal realities then burden the mind. This greedy mind wants more, ~n an insatiable wã.* The inner spirit.becomes distracted, and the eyes 1 wander about, following the changing phenomena. The pre-cognitive spirit or mind has lost its "heavenly" 2 composure as it is bewitched by the colors of the world. This development is usually regarded negatively as a corruption of pristine purity. However, the running commentary to the Emperor's essay gives a new twist in its inter~retation . The pre-cognitive spirit or mind requires blindness (ignorance , wu-ming) as a cause, that is, as a necessary factor for the spirit to become cognizing and , hopefully, eventually self-conscious or enlightened . A happy innocence is ignorance (wu-ming), but an illumination(knowledge (ming] gained through a *-process of alienation/r.eunion) brings the spirit to fuller self awareness. A lucid formulation of this motif of "returning to the roots" is given by the Buddhis~, Seng-chao, in the 1 T. 52, p. 335. 2 The "five colors," i.e., the colors of the five elements, are actually regarded by Chinese thinkers to be agents that delude the once passive mind; see Lao-tzu, Chap. 12. . 142 early fifth century A.D. Seng-chao stated that prajna, wisdom, is non-cognizing, that is, supreme wisdom is not subject-obj e ct knowledge. He describes the action of the sage in the f ollowing manner. The r e fore the sage should empty his mind [of thoughts or matte rs] and simply reinforce its ( passive capacity to) reflect or illuminate [objects]. The sage would then know e verything [ there is] without actually cognizing [any particulars]. He dims [or darke ns] his mental light and surveys [all, impartially] with a vacuous mind. He closes off his facility of [everyday] perception and blocks up his [worldly] knowledge. Myste riously and by himself, he b e comes enlightened.I This psychology of withdrawal was an undercurrent in Chinese Taoist and Buddhist thought. Chinese philosopher and intelle ctual historian T'ang Chun-i traced it back to 2 Chuang-tzu, and the same ide a came up later in Zen practice, especially within the Ts'ao-t'ung (Jap. Soto} sect. "Quiet reflection" mo-chao (that l Seng-chao, "Prajna is non-cognizing," Chao-lun, T. 45, p. 153ab. See detaile d analysis of this figure in Tsukamoto Ze nryu ed. J5ron k e nkyu (Kyoto: 1955) and The Book of Chao trans. Walter Liebenthal (Peking: 1948)~2see section 2-f in this chapter, pp. 149-154 below. The more immediate predecessor to Seng-chao's idea of the vacuous mind may be the "hsin-wu ~ *$.§." school that he criticized. On "no-mind" (hsin-wu, wu-hsin}, see p. 140 above and T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 266-273. 143 Seng-Chao prescribed) was a term used to characterize this Z . . s 1 en practice in ung. The passage in which Emperor Wu posited a paradoxical entity called "wu-ming shen-ming" can now be given a second int e rpretation on the basis of the above long discussion. In the following, I provide my own commentary to this passage : The spirit is by nature dark and mysterious . It is originally oblivious of subject and object, being pre-cogni2ing. The phrase "wu-ming shen-rning" therefore refers, on the one hand , to an unenlightened spirit but, on the other hand, to a spirit that requires wu-ming as a catalyst to awaken the spirit to self-knowledge (ming) . Wu-ming, however, cannot be considered to be like the primal void . Unlike the primal void, wu-ming (ignorance) discriminates , cognizes and craves. Ignorance cannot be considered as antecedent to shen-ming, which being impartial, resembles more the void . People have said that earth and stones are without the Buddha-nature, but since earth and *stones are precisely those entities without craving feelings, discriminative knowledge, etc. and thus are closer indeed to the primal void, why shouldn't they be considered to be enlightened? . 1 see Heinrich Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism (New York: 1963), p . 133. The term "quiet reflection" was used by a Lin-chi (Jap . Rinzai) master Ta-hui to deride the "dumb sitting" practice of his opponent, who, however, elaborated on this " inner illuminating mind . " 144 Emperor Wu further explains the relationship between shen-ming (spirit), wu-ming (ignorance) and the phenomenal world: Upon the substance (t 'i ) of wu-ming is life and death (samsara) ; the phenomenal changes are the funct ions of unenlightened differentiations. The [one] mind that subsists behind enlightenment remains unchanging. However, fearing that people might be misguided into thinking that since the functions are many and therefore when the many disappear , the mind also vanishes with them , we insist on showing that behind the apparent changesr there is another foundati~n-:eality [wu-ming ~hen-ming]. Furthermore, we insist that wu-ming is none other than shen-ming [except] that the latter (shen-ming) subsists at all times.l In this bold manner, the emperor resolves the issue of two basic substances (t 1 i) . The many is based on the one mind or spirit (shen-ming); the phenomenal world is based on ignorance (wu-ming) . Combining these two substances, he comes up with "wu-ming shen-ming." In the spirit of the Prajna-paramita sutras, he stated bluntly that wu-ming is shen-ming, just as the sutras would say "klesa (defilement) is bodhi (enlightenment) . " One, however, suspects that the paradox has a Taoist twist. Finally, the emperor implies that, nonetheless, whereas ignorance can be eliminated, shen-ming will never be erased. It is the foundation of Buddha-hood. 1 T. 52, p. 54c. 145 The dialectic between wu-m*ing and shen-ming reappe.ars in the AFM in a more sophisticated fashion. The running commentary to the emperor's essay suggests that wu-ining is required as a cause for the production of phenomena, of object-knowledge and final spiritual self-knowledge (shen-ming). Fa-tsang, commenting on the AFM, came up with a more refined idea that wu-ming (avidya) is not the cause (hetu), but the auxiliary condition, pratyaya. The structure of argument, however, remains fairly similar. Fa-tsang and the AFM also seem to have inherited another key pair of concepts from the essay by the emperor: the distinction between the one mind and the consciousness of multiples. e . Hsin (nournenal mind) and Shih (phenomenal consciousness} Emperor Wu wrote his essay supposedly as a refutation of Fan Chen's thesis. Yet, the emperor apparently did not consider the issue from his opponent ' s perspective . The emperor's concern is shared by those within the Buddhist faith; how can karmic retribution work if there is no permanent self? This concern may be expressed in another way: how can the theory of momentariness basic to the Buddhist outlook be reconciled with the theory of a 146 permanent Buddha-nature taught by the MPNS. Emperor Wu puts it succintly: By impermanence is meant that something disappears in one instant and that something else is born in the next instant. If t he mind (hsin) functions (yung) within the karmic process, then a previous consciousness {~) would (accordingly) be different f~om a succeeding conscious ness. If that is true , then the mind (hsin} itself would disintecrrate along with the changing phenomena. How then can there be an entity which attains e nlightenment? l Apparently, the emperor aligned the' mind with the spirit that subsi sts eternally, and associated consciousness, shih, with the momentary succession of phenomena. His concern was whether "the mind disappears with the phenomenal realm 11 hsin-sui ching-mieh. The HPNS resolves his doubts : The [MPNS] says: "The mind is the basic cause. It end is to become the result, enlightenment itself. 11 It also says, "By a turn or revulsion, ignorance can become enlightenment . 11 Basing myself on this, I discover that the mind is the basis (pen) of its funct ions (yung). The basis is always one but the functions are many. What is many naturally "rises and falls" [goes through life and death, samsara], but the nature of this one basis is the wu-ming shen-ming. From the above discussion [on the big void, earth and stones J we know that cogn.i tion and 1 T. 52, p. 54b. 147 reflection are the natural responses of the soirit, that the divine substance (t 'i) cannot help being caught up in the thinking process. It is when one fails to acknowledge this [above] fact that wuming arises . Upon 1 the subs tance of wurning is life and death ... The mind is one , the basis, subs tance, the spirit, Buddhanature, divine and transcendental. Consciousness (shih) is not designated by these terms. The relationship between 2 the two is not always clear, but in one crucial passage the t'i-yung motif eme~ges: The [MPNS] says, "Ignorance is when the mind is bound to the various defilements . Enlightenment is when the mind is tied to the good." Does this not show that mind (hsin) a nd consciousness (shih) are one in nature (hsing} but different with regard to whethe r the items go along with change (or not)?3 The eternal mind abide s with the unchanging; the consciousness is that which ends up being involved wi th the many, the function, the samsaric world. Mind and consciousness are one in subs tance but two in function. The mind cannot help being dragged into mundane mental reflections, but its sacred home is always the eternal . 1 T. 52, p. 54c . 2Elsewhere in the essay , hsin and shih seem to be fairly interchangeable; see ibid. 3 Ibid . According to T'ang Yung-tung, Emperor Wu ' s p~ilosophy has been anticipated by the early Praj na-ist school of "Consciousness {being] incorporated~-$" (within the spirit, shen ]"; see T ' ang, fo-chiao-shih, pp. 263-265. 148 The elevation of mind above consciousness ha s great implications for Sinitic Mahayana developments later. In the AFM , Suchness, the absolute, is identified with the mind (hsin) whereas consciousness is seemingly relegated to the level of the mind-continuum ("perpetuating consciousness tt} , 1 and associated with the alayavijnana (storehouse-consciousness). As Chapter Three below will deal with this issue in greater detail , I will address only one general issue here. f. The Taoist concept of Hsin (Mind) It was natural for the Chinese Buddhists to select the mind as a topic for their discourse . There had been a long tradition of philosophical thought regarding the mind, hsin . The Mencian association of mind (hsin} and nature (hsing) was analyzed earlier. In the present context, of greater relevance "is Chuang-tzu 's discovery of the transcendental mind ( Hsu-ming ling-chueh hsin ''vacuous, luminous, spiritually alert mind" Ji ~'1£~1~*) . 2 1 The mind-continuum supplies the Buddhist the necessary notion of a continuity in personal identity, i.e. there is no permanent self that cognizes but there is a continuity in the cognition process. The AFM apparently considers this to be shih (consciousness ) , which is lower in status compared with the Suchness mind. 2 .. .. T'ang Chun-i, Chung-kuo che-hsueh yuan lun I, chap. on hsin, pp. 102-104. 149 Chuang-tzu (between 399 and 295 B.C. ) was a philosopher keenly aware of the workings of the mind. He described the "scheming, plotting, restless mind" of the "little 1 man" or the "everyday man." lie was acutely aware of the tension between the self and obj ect s and is reputed to have propounded the final dissolution of self and object, identifying the two as one. On the one hand, he was the poet of despair, lamenting the corruptibility of the mind that decays along with the body . On the other hand, he was the euphoric dreamer of roving cosm~ freedom, the fantasybuilder of the immortal hsien tradition. What we earlier described as the "dark spirit 11 or "pre-cognitive mind" originated in the writings of Chuangtzu . I shall only quote a line from T'ang Chun-i's study of the concept of mind in Chuanq-tzu to illustrate a point which should be familiar by now: The mind discovered by Chuang-tzu is the mind that has momentarily ceased to respond to external matters and ceased to acknowledge outside affairs. This mind has turned inwards upon itself and come to recognize its 2 own [absolute, independentl existence as such. 1 Chap . 2 of Chuang-tzu, cited in T'ang Chun-i, Chungkuo che-hsiieh yiian lun , I, p. 102. 2 *T 'ang, ibid. 150 As Chuang-tzu lamented the mind that was bewildered by and drawn into the interchanging colors of the world outside, Chuang-tzu too celebrated this discovery of a luminous, spirited mind. This self-sufficient mind is compared to a mirror that shines forth in a strange "dark" light, illuminating passively without beholding consciously either self or object. 1 It is pre-cognitive as well as supra-cognitive . It is this mystical concept of mind that influenced much of Chinese spiritualism. The Chinese Buddhists merely inherited this tradition and blended it with the Indian understanding. In cont~ast to the Indian Buddhist tradition, which went into elaborate detail in its analysis of the mind, its functions and the various aspect$ and levels of consciousness, the Chinese concept of mind remained 2 comparatively compact. What is often differentiated in the Yoqacara philosophy remains undifferentiated in the Chinese scheme. For example, the alayavijnana (storehouse1 rbid.; see chap. 7 of Chuang-tzu: ~~m1~-~~2The word "compact" is used as an antonym for the word "differentiated" in the next sentence; see the usage by Robert N. Bellah in his essay "Religious Evolution," in Bellah, Beyond Belief (New York: 1970). 151 consciousness) is largely a repository of bijas (seeds). The alayavij nana does not cognize objects nor itself, sinc e the discriminative (subject-object) knowledge based on a false sense of self-nature (svabhava) applied to self and others "resides" with the seventh vijnana, the nanas . In normal everyday cognition (false) self and (false) object exist interdependentlyi the five senses (first five consciousnesses) and their corresponding s e nse-realms "feed" o n each other . To attain wisdom, the ideal is to put an end to this endless flow of i mpressions from without and misgu i ded habitual thinkings fr om within. The cessation of "subject" and "object" is therefore desirable for e nlightenment into the anatman insight. compared with this Indi a n scheme, ~huang-tzu ' s conception of mind has a certain charming simplicity. Hsin (mind, heart) is "precognitive" in its pristine state, "object-cognitive" through its involvement with the world of objects, and "tra ns-cognit.ive" or self-enlighte ned when it returns to its roots . It includes within itself functions that the Yogacara philosophy would delegate to the manas (~ like manas can cognize itself and objects) and perhaps the manosvijnana (hsin like manosvijnana synthesizes the impressions received by the senses). 152 Hsin is therefor e a mo r e monistic real ity a nd because of this, Chinese Buddhism produces perhaps its own fo rm of philos ophical idealism . 1 Chuang-tzu envisions a s tate in which the self and objects become one and identical when a ll things a re "equalized." Accordingly, the Chinese Buddhists seem to fa vour a Taoist version of "equal ization of self and object" more than the "elimination of cognition and cognized objects . 112 ! suspect this is why Em9eror Wu was bothered by the possibility that " the mind will di sappear wi th the changing phenomenal realm . " The mind , hs in, is eternal; and unlike shih, consciousness, it can never and must never disintegrate . A distinction was then made be tween noumenal hsin (mind) and phenomenal shih {conscious l 3 ness . . Although in s ubstance one with hsin, shih is 1 Liebenthal suggested that strong Chinese influence lay behind the Chinese Buddhist interest in the One Mind, s ee his "One Mind Dharrna," Bukkyo shigaku ronshu (Kyoto: 1961) ; s ee also Hsun tzu , chap. 22 . ? -chua ng-tzu does speak of the neg ation of self and object , but more important in his philosophy is the higher synthesis known as "equalization of things;" see Chuang tzu, c hap. 2. 3The word hsin in Chinese is a k ey concept; words with hsin (heart}radicle are numerous as any Chinese dictionary can attest to. Shih is in no way as important a word and is always related to "knowledge" of some object . 153 .... that aspect of the mind that reacts with the changing phenomenal world and is seen ofte n as egually mutable . g. Sununary: Chinese Ideal ism in Empero r Wu a nd the AFM In this section, we have examined the possible structural similarity between the essay by Emperor Wu and the AFM . Emperor Wu, by using the paired concepts of pen-yung, hsin-shih, shen-ming and wu-ming and by exploring thei r dialectical "noumenal/phenomenal " relationships, blended toge the r Taoist and Buddhist motifs . The commentato r to the Emperor's essay actually lauded the Emperor for "harmonizing li (metaphysical principle ) and shih (phe nome1 nal fact}." This comment anticipated Hua-ven philosophy s ince the latter was known precisely for uncover ing the nonobstruction or interpenetration of li and shih. The centrality of the mind (hsin) and its superior status above consciousness (shih) foreshadowed a similar structure in the AFM and fo retold the defeat of the Wei-shih (Consciousness Only) philos ophy by Fa-tsang. A Taoist understanding of the mind , that is, Chinese philosophical ide alism, colored later Sinitic Mahayana development. Chinese idealism may be characterized in this ma nner: man has this dark, mysterious spirit or mind within himself. 154 .... _ This mind naturally loses itself in the world of things. Failure to recognize this natural fact constitutes ignoranee. By dimming one's mental light and learning to survey all with a vacuous mind , the person can--to use a favourite Chine se phrase--"know the affairs of the universe without stepping outside his door . " He will find his union with heaven and earth, the Tao or the li. 1 Awakening, illumination (ming) carries a certain unique flavour in the Chinese context. Perhaps the distinguishing marks are a confidence in a pure, h e avenendowed mind and a wisdom based on a passive acceptance of the natural functions of the mind . In the Indian Buddhist context, avidya (ignorance) , klesa (defilements), vi~alpa (subjective views) are all considered to be "negative" in nature. They are either to be eliminated or "transvalued" into a higher level of psychic consciousness . In Chinese Buddhism, although avidya, klesa and vikalpa are also viewed along the same lines, they are more tolerantly accepted, even appreciated. Ignorance is sometimes r egarded as a necessary cause or "condition." 2 1The above summary draws on previous discussions of Chuang-tzu, Li-chi, Emperor Wu, and Seng-chao. 2see the commentator's remark on Emperor Wu's idea of wu-ming shen-ming cited earlier, and Fa-tsang'°s idea of 11 suchnes s following condition, pratyaya (sui-yi.ian)" in Chapter Three below, p . 207. 155 Defilements seem at times to be like yin, the feminine 1 element in a fuller yin-yang harmony. Subjective views at times are challenged by a call to bring har~oniously in line the view of the "host" and the view of the "client . 112 As China in her late medieval period turned more and more away from the world-denying asceticism that she had learned from the Indian Buddhists, her acceptance of the innate goodness of a natural mind and its functions grew . Shen-hui of the southern Zen school, for example, often spoke of "natural knowledge" (tzu-jan chih) . 3 The Taoist elements, evident in early Chinese Buddhism and well integrated into Sinitic Mahayana, gradually came to dominate Chinese Buddhist understanding. 1The diagram of the alayavijnana, in Chapter Three below, p . 216t. shows this yin-yang motif. 211 Host" and "client" are terms used by the Ts'aot'ung Zen sect later. Strange as it may seem, modern Chinese usage has associated "subjectivity" with the "view of the host," chu-kuan, and "obj ecti vi ty:' k' e-kuan, with the "view of the client . " 3 See Yanagida Seizan et al., Mu no tankyu (Bukkyo no shiso , ed . Tsukamoto et al, VII; Tokyo: 1969), pp. 119-124 . 156 3. The AFM as Superior to the Nirvana School a . A basic difference: latency and reality Despite the simi l arity between the thinking of the Nirvana School and the contents of the AFM , there is little doubt that the AFM surpasses earlier speculations on the Buddha-nature. There are two clearly new elements: one, a deeper understanding of consciousne ss, drawn from the Lankavatara sutra;and two , a fine system of correlation between mental states, spiritual stages and types of defilement or illusions drawn from the Dasabhumika sutra and the T'i-lun tradition. These new additions aside, the AFM's approach and treatment is more ?Owerful, as it addresses itself to the similar problems. The basic difference lies with the more direc t style of the AFM. Whereas the MPNS designated the Buddha-nature as the seed leading to enlightenment, the AFM posits universal a priori enlightenment or omnipresent bodhihood . The AF~ begins where the Nirvana school ends, namely, with the idea of a core-sel f which is grounded in the ultimate principle, li. According to the MPNS, enlightenment was latent, i.e., man's endowed Buddha-nature will become enlightened (pen-yu), yet the AFM affirms that man's enlightenment is an a priori fact or reality (pen-ch'ueh) . 157 Whereas the Nirvana school locates the Buddha-nature somewhere in man, generally as one sacred divine spark within a larger profane samsara real ity, the AFM posits a cornprehensive One Mind that embraces all realitie s, sacred or profane , within itself. The AFM 's formulation of the world of life and death (samsara) is , in contrast with that of the Nirvana school, that a small aspect (the surface waves) of the larger reality of the suchness M.ind (the body of water) constitutes the phenomenal world . Wonhyo , the Korean monk who wr.ote a commentary on the AFM, understood the difference mentioned above ve ry well . Basing himself on the AFM, he reviewed and cri ticized the Nirvana school, and provided a more comprehensive understanding . b. Wonhyo on the partial u*nderstanding of the Nirvana school In his treatise Nieh-p'an-tsung yao (Essentials of the Nirvana school) , Wonhyo summarized the achievements of the Nirvana school . 1 There were, according to his 1The treatise is i n T. 38, no . 1769 . This is not as exhaustive a summary of the Nirvana school as that by Chi-tsang and others; see T 'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, p. 678 . 158 neat resume, six basic positions taken on the nature of Buddha-nature. They are: 1. Buddha-nature seen as something to be obtained in time as a matter of course. 2. Buddha-nature identified as sentient beings themselves; all men are "basic cause" of enlightenment. 3. Buddha-nature identified as the mind of sentient beings, the mind that desires after bliss and that loathes suffering. 4. Buddha-nature identified as the innermost core of the mind which is indestructable. 5. Buddha-nature identified as the alayavijnana, the eighth consciousness or storehouse-consciousness . 6. Buddha-nature identified as the amalavijnana, the untainted or pure ninth consciousness.l The six positions outlined by Wonhyo may not exhaust the possibilities of interpretations of the Buddha-nature, but they are fairly representative of the key positions within the range of options. Wonhyo finds that the six positions, as he outlines them, can be categorized in terms of the intensive ness or extensiveness of their definitions of what constitutes the Buddha nature. The first position is the least "radical. 11 According to the .. f.irst position, the Buddha1 See T. 38, p. 249b. I have summarized the positions. 159 nature is not something given but something to be achieved . That position falls unde r the category of gradual or, as the AFM puts it, incipient enlightenment. The other five positions suppor t in one way or anothe r a priori enlighten- ~ent, since al l affirm the existence of Buddha-nature in all men . Within these five , however , there are two major groups : the gro up that interpret s the Buddhanature in terms of the "higher truth" and the group which formulates its insight from the perspective of "mundane truth." 1 The sixth position which sees the Buddha-nature in its absolute purity as the untainted consciousness represents t he first group by itself. The remaining four, the second to the fi fth positions, s how varying degrees of accomodation to the mundane, that is, they locate Buddha-nature somewhere within the phenomenal r eal m. The most generous and loose position is the second: a ll sentient beings are Buddhanature. A more specific or refined position is the third: onl y the mind of sentient beings which desires after bliss is Buddha-nature. Still more specific is the 1wonhyo adapted the idea of the Two Truths from Nagarjuna here but followed the then current Chinese practice of regarding them as the noumenally true and the phenomenally common realities in ontological, instead of epistemological, terms. See T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih, pp. 273-274. 160 fourth: only the indestructable spirit or mind is Buddhanature . The most refined position, stil l at the mundane level, is the fifth: the storehouse-consciousness lying at the. core of sentient existence i s Buddha-nature . T"7onhyo considers the fifth position to have intuited to the working of the pure bijas (seeds), subtle germs that l ead to nirvana . The third and the fourth positions representa still greater function (yung) of the mind in the samsaric 1 world . wonhyo's categorization can be summarized in a diagram below: Positions : 1. Incipient enlighter.rnent 2. A priori enlightenment A) mundane truth i. broadly define:i all men 3. 4 . 5. 6. (~g) ii. 1 iii. aspiring min::1 .in:lestructable mind narrowly defined. alayavijnana (bijas) B) higher truth {t Ii) l.V • analavijnana ~~ In other words, Wonhyo maps the location of the Buddhanature in man in terms of an ascending order of specificity and refinement from one to six. Having done so, he says that all six are valid but each by itself is incomplete. Considered as partial perspectives, they are "not false . " Seen from the whole, they are ''not true" either . 2 lT. 38 249b ' p. . 2 rbid. 161 c. Wonhyo on the Totalistic und e rstanding of the AFM Wonhyo considers the 1'\FM to be supe rior in understand ing . The partial understandings of the six positions give n e arlier are not yet the whole or totalistic understanding. The Buddha-nature is neither caused nor effected; it is truly ultimate yet truly mundane, simultaneously self a nd other, a transcendental entity which fully participates in samsara. The Buddha-nature comprehends all s ix positions because the One Mind allows itself to d . . . h 1 ~p into causative p enomena. The One ~ind has two aspects . It is "pure and yet not pure , tainted and yet not tainted. 112 The tainted aspe ct a llows the Mind to be involved in the six paths of existe nce, but the untainted aspect grounds it firmly in the quiet and the unmoving absolute. The Mind of the untainte d aspect is what the sixth position within the Nirvana school considered as the amalnvijnana, the untainted consciousness. The tainted Mind, on the other hand, is that upon which the other five positions 3 speculated. l T. 38, p. 249b. 2 rbid . 3rbid . 162 ... ....:. .. ~ *The One Mind may be pure in itself, but in its involvement with the world , it cannot help generating realities. When this Mind is not yet perfumed: it can still generate the good seeds (bija s) according to the Dharma. When it is tainted but not so much as to lose its sublimity , the Mind becomes the indestructable spirit. However, further defiled, it produces karma and the surviving spark manifes ts itsel f only as the desire for bliss and the abhorence of suffering. Finally, the Mind takes on mundane existence itself and becomes sentient beings. By so describing the fall of the Mind into sentiency, Wonhyo recapitulated the second to the fifth positions held by members of the Nirvana school. The One Mind in descending order is the alayavijnana, the indes~ructable mind, the karmic mind that nevertheless desire s nirvana, and sentient beings themse lves . The first position--Buddha-nature as some thing obtained in time--merely introduces time into the consideration of the Buddha-nature. 1 In this analysis of the One Mind, Wonhyo actually anticipated what Fa-tsang later called the Ju-lai-tsang yiianch'i (tathagatagarDha causation) philosophy . 1 T. 38 , p . 249b. 163 Wonhyo's characterization of the One Mind as "pure yet impure, impure yet pure " became a favourite phrase used by Fa-tsang to d e scribe the tathagatagarbha. In postulat ing the ability of the One Mind to take on life itself to become sentient beings, Nonhyo pr6duced a phi losophical idealism generally foreign to Indian Yogacara--tathata, Suchness , became an active principle that dynamically creates phenomenal realities. 1 Above all, Wonhyo described the totalistic vision of the AFM and in so doing, subsumed the insights of the Nirvana school within the new perspective provided by the AFM . d. Summary: the Buddha-nature and the tathagatagarbha The superiority of the AFM over the Nirvana s chool has been demonstrated in the sense that AFM does have a more compre hensive or all-inclusive notion of the Suchness Mind. The latent germ of enlightenment, the Buddpa-nature of the Nirvana school is surpassed by the encompassing tathagatagarbha. One may therefore regard the superiority of the AFM to be due to a deepe r appreciation of the tathagatagarbha notion. 1 See Chapter Three below. pp. 204-208. 164 The contrast betwe en the Nirvana school a nd the AFM, however, should not be overdrawn. This is because the ~1PNS identifies the Buddha-nature with ta thagatagarbha and has as inclusive a view of the Buddha-nature as the ~FM has of the One Mind. Furthermore , as has been s~own earlier, the Chinese term fo -hsing (Buddha-nature} actually refers to Suddha-dhatu {Buddha-realm) and Buddha-garbha (Buddha-womb) in Sans kr it . Buddha-garbha is synonymous with tathagatagarbha (womb o f the Tathagata or Buddha ) . Pe rhaps the relatively part i al understanding of the Nirvana school was due to a lag in understanding produced unintentionally in the process o f transmitting Indian concepts into Chinese ~ A basic motto of the Nirvana school is that "All sentient (sheng} beings have (yu) Buddhanature (fo-hsing}1." In Chinese , that reads naturally like: essentially all beings posses s some Buddha-entity within themselves. The interest in the l ocal e of the Buddhanature inside man was therefore reinforced. However, the human possession of Buddha-nature is only ~ s id e of the picture . Buddha-nature, being the Buddha-realm, the l.:rhe Chinese word "yu " ~ in that phrase ~~ ~~ 1-Jt!j;. i s natural and necessary in the translation. 165 Dharmakaya etc., also encompasses and possesses men and 11 h . . 1 a ot er sentient beings. The southern Buddhists who speculated upon the Buddha-nature were gentry humanists. In their humani s tic anthropocentrism they probably overlooked the simple fact that it was equally important to realize that although man may have Buddha-nature in him, man too is possessed by, enveloped within, the womb or the realm of the absolute . 2 Perhaps some time prior to the emergence of the AFM this second aspect of "being-possessed-by 11 was driven home to the Chinese Buddhists . In the north, the important Ratnagotravibhaga was translated. In the south, Paramartha made available a work known as Fo-hsing-lun (Treatise on the Buddha-nature) attributed to Vasuba ndhu. I will focus at present only on the Fo-hsing-lun . 1 rn the AFM, man is also urged to take faith in Mahayana but then Mahayana (the absolute) is also said to induce faith in man through the power of the tathagatagarbha. This paradox is not uncommon within human religious experience or expression. Religion is man ' s Ultimate Concern but man can be so concerned only when he is grasped by the ultimate concern itself . 2 The anthopocentric view sees man finding God : the theocentric view sees God finding man. Zen puts it this way : Deluded, man seeks out the Dharrna. Enlightened, the Dharma runs after man. The Zen phrase is from the essay *~..;:..~;z:..~ an-hsin fa men; see T. 48 , p. 370b. 166 Paramartha was informed of the doctrine of alaya- ~ijnana as well as that of the tathagatagarbha and earnestly tried to introduce the new teachings to the Chinese in the south. Yet the jealousy of the Nirvana school at the southern capital as well as the political desturbances denied Paramartha an audience . 1 Apparently, Paramartha tried to make himsel f heard. A commentary attributed to Vasubandhu on a sloka (versef in the MPNS supposedly translated by Paramartha was probably a forgery aimed at attracting the southerner s. Perhaps in a similar attempt to lure the southe n e rs Paramartha chose to translate alayavijna n a in the unconventional form of mu-mieh-shih, the undying consciousness . Was that choice motivated by an attempt to harmonize the new theor~ of a storehouseconsciousness with the southe rn fixation on an immor tal, 3 undying, soul or a permanent Buddha-nature? Paramartha 1 s 1 See the comprehensive study of his life in T'ang, Fo-chiao-shih , pp. 855-867. 2The s loka was on the theme that a n ew positive (yu) philosophy (about Buddha-nature) supercedes the old negative (wu) ph ilosophy . 3There are still scholars who defend or rationalize Paramartha ' s reading of the word "alayavijnana ";e.g . Yamakami Sagen,. Systems of Buddhist Thought (Calcutta: 1912) . 167 .. translation of the Mahayana-samparigraha is the only version that mentions the tathagatagarbha alongside the 1 . . 1 a ayavl.Jnana. was he trying to bri~g the Yogacara school's philosophy to the southerners by way of the concept of tathagatagarbha which was known to the Nirvana school since Fa-yao through the Srimal*a sutra? Was he again accommodating himself to the southern delight in a pure mind when he initiated the doctrine of the amalavijnana, the untainted consciousness, as the ninth consciousness ? Similarly, did he compile the Fo-hsing-lun himself , drawing upon the Ratnagotravibhaga but intentionally choosing the term "fo-hsing" to call atten tion to it s 2 contents? 1vasubandhu and Asanga are known to avoid the term tathagatagarbha, preferring to philosophize on the alayavijnana; see parallel texts in Fukaura Seibun, Yui shiki gaku kenkyG, I, pp . 283-290 . It shoula be noted that both "alaya" and "garbha" have been translated by the same Chinese character "tsang " (store, womb) 'i/i... 2see Hattori Ma.sa 'aki , "Busshoron no ichi kosatsu," Bukkyo shigaku , IV, No . 3-4 (1955) , pp. 16-30; Mochizuki ed. Bukkyo daijiten, v, p. 4457. The fact that Paramartha uses the term "fo-hsing" in this treatise whereas the AFM avoids this term suggests that the AFM could not have been translated or authored by Paramartha or his circle . 168 Though less succes sful in hi s other enterprises, Paramartha s eems to have le f~ some lasting influence by way of his Fo-hsing-lun. Thi s t reatise g ive s an ana ly s is of the three meanings o f tathagatagarbha . The analysis is still oft-quoted to this day and was a good corrective to the one-sided understanding of nman' s pos ses sion of Buddha nature" at that time in the *sixth century A.O. in China. The mea ning of "tsang" (store , womb) in "Ju-lai-tsang" (tathagatagarbha) has three aspects: (1) that the tathagatagarbha is "storedn in all sentient beings, (2) that all s e ntient beings are "stored" within the womb of the Tathagata and (3) that the * t athagata garbha "stores" itself away, i.e., hides itself or is being hidden behind defilements. 1 This fuller under standing of the nature o f the tathagatagarbha probabl y influenced the AFM and g ave to the AFM a more "all-inclusive" i mage of the omnipr esenc e or immensity of this "hidden womb. " The One Mi nd embraces and creates all. 2 1 T. 31, p. 796a. See p. 179 below. 2 The sen se of "create" will be analyzed below in section 4-c. The term might be somewhat mi s leading , because of the English connotation of "create." .If so, it should be * und er s tood a s "making the phenomenal world out of Suchness itself " i .e., not ex nihilo. Even when the Chines e s eem t o s a y that the world out there is a creation of the mind, the Chinese usually do not question the 169 4. The Problem of Indian Scr*iptures as Preludes to' the AFM a . The tathagatagarbha tradition 1!A basic mystery * The discussion so far has stressed the Chinese contribution to the AFM . Even when Indian scriptures like the MPNS are involved, it has been shown that the Chinese analysis of these scriptures led to new interpretations. This closing section of the chapter will look into a still more shadowy area: namely, whether or not there was not a "third tradition''--the tathagatagarbha tradition--in 2 India which a nticipated the AFM developments. We will begin the discussion with the assumption that there is a discrete third tradition and temporarily leave the issue of how this third tradition was uncovered by Fa-tsang . objective existence of phenomena . Objects are "na tural extensions" of the mind, are the functions of a substance. See T'ang Chun-i, "The Individual and the World in Chinese Methodology ," The Chinese Mind, ed. Charles A. Moore* (Honolulu : 1967), pp. 264-285. 1This is more in the nature of a survey because it requires more extensive study than i s possible at the moment. 2The main source I am using is Takasaki Jikido, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhaga (Rome: 1966), together with Ui Hakuju, Hosh6ron kenkyu (Tokyo: 1959). 170 b. The concept of the innately pure mind The Chinese showed a tendency to absolutize a "pure mind," whether it be identical with the Buddha-nature or with Suchness. This "pure mind" is dangerously close to the Upanisadic notion of the atman . Indian Buddhist sects being so numerous, it can be expected that some schools would come up with precisely such an idea. 1 Actually, there is such a concept--the innately pure mind,visuddhi cittaprakrti--which appears repeatedly in ~ahayana sutras . The roots of the idea go back to the days of sectarian Buddhism prior to the rise of Mahayana. Even the Pali canon recorded this sermon ascribed to Gautama: In a similar manner, all the component elements (of the Phenomenal Life classified into) 5 elementary groups, 18 component elements, or 12 bases of cognition have their support in the Active Force and Defilements. The Active Force and Defilements are founded on the Irrational Thought and the latter has its support in the Innate pure Mind. Therefore, it is said: the Mind is radiant by nature (but ~t) is polluted by occasional defilements. 1 . For example, there was a pudgalavada school stressing the "personality" (pudgala). 2cited by Takasaki, op. cit. as "eg. AN, I, 5, 9-10; IV, 1-2." Anguttara Nikaya, yol. I, p. 10. 171 p. 240; source given See Pali Text Society~ The historical actuality of this sermon cannot be ascertained. However, the liberal group, the Mahasanghika, apparently supported the idea whereas the conservative wing of the Nikaya-Buddhists were generally opposed to the idea . It is said to be the opinion of the Vibhajyavadins and also ascribed to Vatioutriva . 1 The idea , however, found its way into the Mahayana sutras. There seems to be some uncertainty about exactly how the pure mind was polluted or could ever be polluted. It can be and has been argued that the Mind Only school was based ultimately on this early tradition. The term "aqantuklesa", accidental defilement, wa s long associated with the innately pure mind. What is innately pure and untainted is somehow covered up by dirt. Nine metaphors, like the metaphor of the gold buried in the earth, were traditionally used to describe this state of things. 2 A small sutra, the Tathagatagarbha sutra , has essentially these nine metaphors as its content. Since the "womb" image recalled comparable "mother earth" images associated with the Dravidian south India, the feminine symbol "tathagatagarbha" 1cited byTaka.sa.Y..i, op. cit., p. 240, drawing on T. XVIIX (sic}, p. 140b and T. 28, p . 697b. 2see "Zobun Nyoraizokyo vakuchu" (The Translation into Japanese and Notes on the Tibetan Text of the Tathaqataqarbha Sutral, Bukkvo daiqaku kenkyu kiyo, XLI (1962), pp. 1-38. 172 has traditionally been traced to the geographic area there . Similarly, the term "prajna" ("mother of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas") has been so loca ted . 1 All sentient beings are said by the Tathagatagarbha sutra to possess the tathagataqarbha which is essen tially not polluted and which is identical with t he Tatha gata himself . The innate mind {cittaprakrti) and the tathagatagarbha belong therefore to the same conce ption of a divine core in all beings. The Mahaparinirvana sutra (MPNS) further identif ied the pure mind and the tathagatagarbha with the Buddha2 nature. In other words , the identification of the pure mind, the Buddha-nature, and the tathagatagarbha with the absolute was already present in the Mahayana scriptures. c . The Avatamsaka sutra The Avatamsaka sutra is also considered to have contributed to the tradition of the ''innately pure mind." One line in thi s sutra stands out above all others, and is implicitly cited by the AF.M . It reads: "The three worlds are unreal , the creation of mind only ." The earliest recorded 1For more detailed discussions on the origin of the tathagatagarbha tradition, see Alex Wayman's introduction to his translation, The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, pp . 1-3. 2 The MPNS comes after the Tathagatagarbha sutra and its later sections {last 30 chapte rs of the Dharmaksematranslated version) are more influenced by the tathagatagarbha tradition; see Takasaki, op . cit., p. 40f . 173 expression of this line is to be found in the Dasabhumi sutra which was later incorporated into the Avatamsaka sutra in Central Asia or China. 1 The philosophy of the one Mind in the AFM was in part based on this line which says that all realities are created (tso, made) by the mind, that is, according to the APM, by the Suchness Mind. However, the word "create" (tso) found in the Chinese ? translations-, was not in the original Sanskrit. The original Sanskrit, according to Tamaki Koshiro's investigation, 3 is "Cittamatrarn ida!!l yad idaJll traidhatukam." It reads more li tera.lly, "The threefold realm / possess / the mind only 11 or as Hakeda gives it, "What belongs to this triple world 4 is mind only." A T'ang translation of the _Avatamsaka sutra into Chinese follows this more literal reading and does not include the word "~",make, create. 5 Tamaki See notes by Hakeda in Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 49. The Dasabhumi sutra is a work of the first or second century A.O. 2 T. 26, p. 169a; T. 9, p. 558c; T. 10, p. 514c. 3Tamaki Koshir5, "YJJ.shin no tsuikyu," Kegon shiso, ed. Nakamura Hajirne (Kyoto: 1960), pp. 345-356. 4 See notes by Hakeda in Hakeda trans. A.FM, p. 49. 5see Tamaki, op. cit., p. 358 and T. 10, p. 194a and p. 533a. The T'ang translation reads "What is possessed by the three worlds are all one mind." This translation omits the word "create" but includes the word "one." The English sense of "of the mind 11 is not conveyed directly in the Chinese. 174 concludes that the Chinese interpretation which sees the worlds as products of the mind is peculiar to the Chinese b . h . h "b 1 and not attested to y eit er the Sanskrit or t e Ti etan. Saigusa Mitsuyoshi in his essay in the same volurre on Huayen thought lends support to Tamaki's observation, for Saigusa discovers that the so-called " Mind Only" philoso phy was really tangential to the Avatamsaka sutra . 2 Furthermore, the realization that the three worlds are of the mind only comes, according to the Dasabhumi (Ten stages) sutra, to the Bodhisattva upon the sixth stage of his spiritual ascent. This realization is crucial though perhaps not as ultimate as the Chinese made it out to be. What is realized at this stage of "superior under standing (adhimukti)" is that the mind and the objects are interdependent . It is clear from the context of the 3 sutra and from Vasubandhu's commentary on t he passage that the three worlds exist as "object " because the mind 1Tamaki, op . cit . , p. 359 . 2saigusa Mitsuyoshi, "Engi to Yuishin," Kegon shi so , pp. 201-273. Saigusa demonstrates the absence of the "Mind Only" philosophy in the Madhyamikakarika and the Ta-chihtu-lun is shown to have no systematic theory of it. Citta {mind) is something different from the compounded realities {samskrta dharmas) but it is nevertheless empty (sunya}--and not, as the Chinese would see it, permanent i.e . the Suchness Mind . 3 See T . 26, p . 169b . Tamaki documents it in 2.E. • cit., pp. 338 350. 175 o r consc iousness (vijnana) exists as a "subject ." Name-andform (namarupa) and consciousness (vijnana} coexist. In fact, the "unreality " of the three r ealms corresponds to a "deluded " mind. It is the desiring, craving mind who sees the desired three real ms . The realization of this should lead one to put a stop to the unreal world as we ll as the de luded consciousness and thereby transcend the mundane to reach the higher truth. The mind does not create the phenornena of desire. Even if there is a subtle relationship between reality a nd consciousness, it is clear that the mind spoken here is not the Suchness pure mind but the deluded . 1 consciousness . How then did the meaning change from "The three worlds are of the [deluded] consciousness" to "The three worlds are created by the (true} mind "? .. The clearest turning point can be located in Hui-vuan. Hui-yuan explicitiy states that "The three worlds are created by the true mind, chen hsin. 112 Hui vuan 1 s statement became definitive .. For~1Tamaki, however, reverses his own finding by discovering that Vasubandhu might have posited a "true mind" behind the twelve nidanas; see Taraaki, op. cit, pp. 345-356. His findings here r ema in ambiguous and apologetic. The mind behind the twelve nidanas is more than vijnana, more than samskrta dharmas but is this mind explicitly stated as the Suchness pure mind? 2 T. 44, p. 527b. Hui-yuan very likely followed his teacher , Hui-kua ng, in his ~nterpretation. 176 • yuan, the alayavijnana is the true mind. 1 From the above short * study , it can be seen that the Avatamsaka sutra was indeed important for Sinitic Mahayana ideal of "Mind Only.~.* Yet once more, it is an Indian scriptural tradit ion seen through the prism of Chinese trans lations a nd interpreta tions . d . The Srimala sutra 2 A very important work is the Srimala sutra . The Srimala sutra developed the idea of the tathagatagarbha , identifying it with the Dharmakaya and its magnificant attributes. A key passage speaks of the following: The tathagatagarbha is the Dharmadhatu-garbha, the Dharmakaya-garbha, the most superior garbha of the path leading to the transrnundane, the innately pure garbha itself. In a split second, the good mind is not tainted by defilements . In a split second, even the evil mind itsel f is also freed from b eing so tainted. It is a mystery how defilements n ever touch the mind, how the mind never touches defilements , and how the mind which was not touched by[defilement s of worldly] dharmas can nevertheless become so tainted.3 1Fukaura Seibun , in his Yuishiki gaku kenkyu (Kyoto: 1954), I, pp . 188-208 discusses the T'i-lun tradition, and on p . 190 summarises Hui-yuan's position on the eight consciousness . Hui-yuan considers the alavavijnana as true , and hsin rl.!.l'[corresponding to the seventh adanaviinana (ego clinging consciousness)], i ~.(the sixth mental center,] shih ~[the five senses] to be-delude::l and to be eliminated.-2see Wayman trans . The Lion 's Roar of Queen Srimala. 3My translation from the Chinese, T . 12, p . 222b. 177 It is a n utter rny,stery how this pu re mind is seemingly trapped in t he impure world . 1 The mind, a s Wonhyo puts it in a neat pa radox, is "polluted and y e t not polluted, not pol2 lute d a nd yet polluted ." The Srimala sutra also introduces another key concept: asunya, not-empty . Lord, the Tathagatagarbha is void of all the defilementstores which are discrete and knowing as not liberated. Lord, the Tathagatagarbha is not void of the Buddhadharmas which are nondiscrete, inconceivable, more numerous than 3 the sands on the Ga nge s, and knowing a s liberated. Th e tathagata garbha, the absolu t e Suc hne ss in worldly bond4 age, i s the support, the holder and the base of all realiti es . 5 By relying upon the tathaga tag a rbha is there life a nd d eath (samsara). Because of the tathagatagarbha, s e ntient beings desire bliss.and loathe the world of sufferings. 6 These insights into the workings of the tathagataga rbha were inherited by the Lankavatara sutra, the Ratnagotra vibhaga (Uttara-tantra}, and the AFM. 1see Wayman, op. cit., P* . 106 . 2 T. 37, p . 249b. Fa-tsang favoured this description . 3wayman, ibid., p. 99; see a lso his discussions on pp. 50-51 and consult the Chinese in T. 12, 22lc. 4wayman, ibid., p. 98 and p. SO. 5Ibid ., p. 105 and p . 44. 6 rbid., p. 97 and p. 49. 178 e. The Ratnagotravibhaga The most systematic work known within the Indian tathagatagarbha tradition is the Ratnaqotravibhaga. In this work, the ten grand attributes of the tathagatagarbha are outlined, showing the all-encompassing magnificance of this »treasured-jewel (ratna) germ-store (aotra)" or pao-tsang • ... it is said by the [Buddha] that all living beings are always possessed of the [Womb] of the Tathacrata, rathagatagarbha. That is to say, by the following three meanings: (1) the Absolute Body, Oharmakava, of the Tathagatagarbha penetrates all living beings; (2) the Tathagata being the Reality , tathata (suchness) is the undifferentiated whole; and (3} there exists the germ of the 1 Tathaqatagarbha (Tathagata-qotra) in every being . This description of the "transcendental " nature of the wombmatrix of the Buddha is very different in nature from the Yoqacara concern for the epistemological structure of human consciousness and the status of the alayavijnana vis 2 vis phenomenal objects . I would characterize the tathagatagarbha tradition as the "noumenalist" school, stressing the transcendental magnificance of that which abides with the absolute in some mysterious sense. I would characterize the Yoqacara tradition as a "phenomenalist" school interested primarily in the nature of phenomenal becoming. The former 1Takasaki, op . cit ., p . 198. Seep . 169 of this thesis for a variant of the '' three meanings" given by the Fo-hsing-lun. The term "uttara-tantra" refers to this ultimate (uttara} hidden teaching (tantra} ,concerning the jewel (ratna) store (garbha) or germ {q__otra). 179 leans towards a philosophy of monism as the latter delights . f , t. 1 in the analysis o tne 9ar iculars . One loves the ineffable, the mysterious and the paradoxical as the other excels in epistemology and logic . However, since both the alayavijnana and the tathagatagarbha are , in some sense, the foundation of nirvana and 2 samsara, it is not impossible to affiliate the two. The confluence of the two was not there in the Ratnaqotravibhaga nor in early Yogacara sutras .* It seEmS t.~t in India, the southern {tathagatagarbha} and the northern (~layavijnana) traditions developed independently. The two only cume toge3 ther in the Lankavatara sutra. There is a technical orobl em in this wedding of two key concepts . The alavavijnana is phenomenally tied to the flow of mental defilement (asrava) while the tathagatagarbha is essentially pure and * only accidentally defiled . 4 For the alayavijnana to discard its ties with samsara, a qualitative change in its innermost Takasaki puts it in op. cit., p. 28: "The Tathagataqarbha theory is in one sense an inevitable result of the development of Mahayana Monism in its religious expression." 2The T'i-lun school in north China used the terms "support" (nisraya) 1 "holder" (adhara ) and "base" (pratistha) from the Srirnala sutra (see p. 178 above) to describe the function of the alayavijnana. 3see Takasaki, op. cit ., p. 198. 4A lucid contrast of the pair is made by Shih Yin-shun, I fo-fa yen-chiu fo-f~ {Taiwan: 1961), pp. 301-361. 180 1 beiñ is necessary . The Lankavatara sutra su9gests. the idea of a sudden "revulsioñ, paravritti. 2 However , this sudden "turn-over," though aj?propiate to the alayavijnana, is inappropiate to the tathagataqarbha. The Mahavana sutralankara offers an alternative idea: parivritti, meaning "manifestation" and thus it clarifies the transcendental nature of the tathagata-gotr?, seed of Buddha-hood. 3 The Ratnagotravibhaga prefers this solution. The Ratnagotravibhaqa could not employ the latter e xpression [oaravritti] because the gotra, being asraya (support), could remain before and afte r 4 the enlightenment without changing its nature. The tathaqatagarbha , being essentially enl ightened already, requires no metamorphosis. It simply has to shed the accidental defilements . For the alavavijnana "with the flow of mental defilement s" (asrava) to be purified, it has to discard the asrava seeds (bijas) and cultivate their opposite , anasrava bijas "seeds without the flow of mental defilements." Yet even these "pure seeds" belong to the category of sarnskrita (compounded) dharmas ; see Shih Yin-shun, op . cit . 2o . T. Suzuki ,trans. The Lankavatara Sutra (London : 19 56) , p . xxvi; see discussion below on p. 183. 3Takasaki , op. cit., p . 44 . The Mahayanasutralankara is ascribed to Maitreya, the teacher of Asanqa and Vasubandhu . It has only one mention of the tathagatagarbha. This work was not known to the Chinese until the T'ang dynasty and the distinction made here between "2aravritti 11 and "parivritti 11 was probably unknown to the T'i lun school. 4 rbid . See also o. 187: Sarnala tathata, Suchness with defilements can , after asrayaparivritti (manifestation of support), revert directly to Dharmakaya. 181 The ~atnagotravibhaga probably exerted an influence upon the AFM. This Sanskrit work, translated by Bodhiruci, has the conce9ts of Suchness with and without defilements, innate and acquired purity, innate and achieved Buddhagerm . These concepts perhaps anticipated the AFM's notion of a priori and incipient enlightenment and the idea of the 1 suchness Mind with two aspects. However, the immediate ideological precedent to the AFM is the Lankavatara sutra. f. The Lankavatara sutra The Lankavatara sutra synthesized the alavavijnana and the tathagatacarbha tradition and has been considered by Hui-vuan as the predecessor to the AFM . 2 Suzuki has studied the Lankavatara sutra and has contributed to the understanding of oaravritti (revulsion) in the manã, the seventh consciousness . Manas is conscious of the presence behind itself of Alava and also the the latter's uninterrupted working in the entire system of the Vijnanas. Reflecting on the Alava and imagining it to be an ego, Hanas cling to it as if it were reality and disposes of the reports of the six Vijnanas (the five senses and the mental center) accordingly. In other words, Manas is the individual will to live and the principle of discrimination. The notion of an ego-substance is herein established and also t~e acceptance of a 1 see Takasaki, op. cit., p . 30 and also pp. 173-174. 2T. 44, p. 176a: 11 Asvaahosa wrote the AFM basing himself on the Lankavatara sutra." 182 world external to itself and distinct from itself. 1 Let there be, however, an intuitive penetration into the primitive purity (P.rakritiparisuddhi} of the Tathaaata-garbha, and the whole syst~m of the Vijnanas goes through a revolution. The Lankavatara sutra identifies the tathaqataqarbha with the alavavijnana. One line in the sutra as translated by Bodhiruci alone suggests that the tathagatagarbha might be superior to the alayavijnana. The tathaqatacrarbha is not within the alayavijnana, because whereas the seven vijnanas go through life and death (samsara), the tathaqatagarbha is beyond life and death .3 The seven viinanas are mutable; the tathaqataoarbha is not mutable . The nature of the eighth vijnana , the alayavijnana, is not clearly stated. Scholars have thought that the AFM may have taken the cue from this passage and elevated the immutable tathagatagarbha above the presumably mutable 1 . . 4 a ayaviJnana . However, the Sanskrit version of the LankaD. T. Suzuki trans., The Lankavatara Sutra, p. xiii. 2 rbid., p. xxvi. 3 T. 16, p. 556bc. My translation. 4 see Mochizuki, Daijo kishinron kenkyu, p. 155 . 183 *~ vatara sutra gives the following line for the passage cited . aparav~tte ca tathagatagarbhasabdasãsabdita alayavijnane nasti saptavã prav~ttivijnanã nirodhah. 1 ttin the alayavijna na that is not [yet] revulsed and that is called the tathagatagarbha, there is no cessat-ion of the seven active consciousnesses. " There is no mention of the tathagatagarbha as transcending life and death. The other Chinese translations of the sutra follow the Sanskrit more faithfully, neve r suggesting that the tathagatagarbha is superior to the alayavijnanã It would appear that Bodhiruci had interpolated the line that affirms the immutable quality of the tathaqatagarbha and that the AFM was modelle d on the Bodhiruci-translated Lanka3 vatara sutra. 1The Lankavatara Sutra, ed. Nanjo Bunyu (Kyoto: 1956) . 2 See T. 16, p. 619c and T . 16, 510b. 3rn the same section of the Lankavatara sutra {T. 16, p. 556bc), Bodhiruci kept the identity of the tathaqatagarbha and the alayavijnana intact: The alavavijnana is called the tathagatagarbha and together with the seven vijnanas, is like a sea's waves, never ending . Without the alayavijnana, there will be neither birth nor death; that there is alayavijnana, sages and commoners experience life and death . [sarnsara]. The second passage suggests that the alayavijnana is the cause of life and death . 184 f. Summary: A bold sugges tion We have briefly surveyed the tathaqatagarbha tradition on the assumptio n that it is a discrete tradition. There is little doubt a s to the existence of the concept of the "innately pure mind" or the "tathaqatagarbha accidentally defiled." The authentici t y of the ~athaqatagarbha sutra, the .srimala sutra and the Ratnagotravibhaga cannot be questioned. However , could thi s tathagatagarbha tradition have been diffused and amorphous in India until Fa-tsang transformed it into a discrete entity when he uncovered it? Here , a curious point emerges. The name Sthiramati has been associated with the ..... ta thaqataqa rbha tradition. Sth iramati is sa id by Fa-tsang to be the author of the Ratnagotravibhaqa . 1 Fa-tsang obtained this information from Devaorajna who supposedly translated another tathaqataqarbha text, the Ta-ch 'eng fachieh wu-ch'a-pie h lun This work which follow s closely the Ratnaqotravibhaga has no known k . . . 1 2 Sans rit origina . In fact, two other so-called tathaqataqarbha treatises made available i n the T ' ang period are suspected to be Chinese fabrications , as they seem to draw 1Takasaki, op . cit. , p. 9. 2 rbid .; see Fa-tsang's commentary on the Wu-ch'a-oie h - ~, T. 44, p. 63c , where Sthiramati and Devaprajna are named. 185 upon ~he philosophy of _Fa-tsang . 1 The AFM, considered to be a tathagatagarbha work, is suspect also. Two other works that e me rged around the time of the AFM, both trans lated by Pa*ramartha, are again tathagatagarbha works of questionable origin . One, the Fo-hsing-lu~ s eems to be .. compiled by Paramartha who drew on the Ratnagotravibhaga. The other, the wu-shang-i-chin9_ ~ l:::... -t-t, ?~ is a " sutraization" of the Ratnagotravibhaga. Takasaki suspected that these two works attribute d to Vasubandhu were authored by the Paramartha circle for the "propagation of the [tatl}.?gata]garbha theory and the Vijnanavada [philosophy]. 112 Reviewing the above facts, it is indeed curious that a ~ ajority of the so-called tathagatagarbha texts coming after Bodhiruci's translation of the Ratnagotravibhaga are only available in Chinese. This raises the question whether all these.works were not ingenious Chinese fabrications based on the Ratnagotravibhaga? If so, did Fa1 Takasaki, op . cit., p. 53f. 2rbid., p. 52. The wu-shang-i-ching is cited only by-the .FO"=l1sing-lun; .see ibid., pp. 47-50. Only in the Pararnartha-translated Mahayana-samparigraha, an AsangaVasubandhu work, does tathagatagarbha appear; see Fukaura, Yuishiki gaku kenkyu, I, pp. 283-290. The Samparigraha takes a line from the Mahayana-abhidharma sutra ("This realm has no beginning; all realities depend on it ... as does nirvana,") and identifies the "realm" with the alayavijnana . The Ratnagotravibhaga takes the same line and identifies the "realm" as the tathagatagarbha; see Ui Hakuju, Hoshoron kenkyu, p. 337. 186 tsang create the legend of Sthiramati's association with the ''tathagataqarbha school" he discovered in order to challenge the Dharmapala lineage of the "new school" of l Hsuan-tsang? Did Fa-tsang uncover a third Indian Mahayana tradition or did he fashion a Sinitic ~ahayana tradition? Or, did he unravel a structure already established by others in the sixth century A.O .? I venture to suggest that there is a faint possibility that the 11 l!lature" tathagatagarbha tradition--represented by works coming 2 after the Ratnagotravibhaqa and the Lankavatara sutra -was a Chinese creation . Fa-tsang only discovered this tradition, encouraged its further developments, and retrojected the tathagatagarbha 'school (tsung) as a discrete entity into the distant Innian ?ast. 1 This is not impossible . Sutras ~ere fabricated in the reign of Empress Wu to support her claim to the throne. Paramartha in the sixth century A.D. also tried to rally Vasubandhu behind his understanding of the Yogacara tradition . 2For a list of the tathagataqarbha works divided into early, middle and late periods, see Mizutani Kos ho, ''Nyorai zo shis5 shi kenkyU josetsu," Bukky6 daiqaku kenkyU kiv6, XLIVXLV (Kyoto= 1963), pp. 245-277. 3A lot hinges upon the authenticity of the AFM which occupies a pivotal position mediating definite Sanskrit works and outright Chinese fabrication . 187 In this chapter, the ideological roots of the AFM and specifically of those elements mentioned in Chapter One, are traced and analyzed. Dasabhumi su tra Avatamsaka sutra A Srimala sutra I innately pure mind athagatagarbha sutra CT 1 PNIS tRatnagotrJavibhaga ea-yao CT GE Fo-hsing-lun CE I I I Lankavatara sutra Immortal~ The NirvanãEssay by '.-cr~AFM soul School / "Emperor Wu Chuang-tzu (hsin)~-Taoism~ Mencius (hsing)~~~~.-Key CT=imputs fr(;l.!Tl the Chinese translation CE=imputs from the Chinese exegesis The above diagram summa rizes the areas and issues studied in this chapter. Since the thesis is interested in the Sinitic elements in the AFM, the chapter has dwelled mostly on the Chinese imputs . In the next chapter , the commentary tradition that came out of the AFM is analyzed. 188 CHAPTER THREE The Theory of "Dynamic Suchness" and the Book of Changes : the Awakening of Faith as Interpreted by Fa-tsang What the AFM says is extremely terse . An unitiated first reading of it might not impress the reader that much. What is said of the AFM by the classical commentaries is extreme ly impressive, for the commentators cleared up many ambiguous points in the text. It is in the nature of any living religious tradition that "new" insights may be derived in this way from sacred scriptures and accumulate in the grõth of the tradition . The commentators do not r e gard themselves as innovators, or their insights as ''new." (I n medieval times, in Europe, the usual charge against heretics was 11 innovation.") Commentaries on scriptures only sought to bring out the Buddha-Dharma reveale d in eternity. 1 1 T 'ai-hsu, who led the Buddhist revival in China in this century , criticized the "higher criticism" of the AFM precisel y on the grounds that the Dharma is transhistorically revealed . See essay in Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun chen-wei oien , ed . T 1 ai-hsii (Wu-cheng: 1924), pp. 50-57. 189 Fa-tsang's commentary is so definitive that there is almost no way to bypass it. This gifted1 patriarch of the Hua-ven school literal ly redefined the Buddhist tradition as he systematically reviewed the past from the viewpoint of his understanding of the "true" significance of the AFM. He discovered the tathagatagarbha tradition through the AFM . He underlined the idea that the "three worlds are created by the mind." 2 He spelled out the implications of his theory that Suchness is dynamic, that it is both changeless and yet it participates in change. I have chosen to focus on the issue of "dynamic Suchness" in this chapter. Whether Suchness is dynamic depends on the commenttors ' conception of the r e lationship between Suchness, tathagatagarbha and alayavijnana. The three classical The word "gifted" can be exchanged with the term "charismatic" but I avoid the latter Weberian term--too vague and loaded--especially with reference to Fa-tsang, a scripturalist who broke with tradition by recalling a different tradition. 2scholars now refer to this tradition as "Mind Only," Cittarnatra as distinct from Vijnaptimatra "Consciousness Only" (viz. Yogacara), because hl.storically Fa-tsang defeated the Wei-shih school--the "new school" of Hsuan-tsang. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the tradition of the Yoqacara school is known as serns-tsarn (cittamatra). There is no "Mind vs. Consciousness" distinction. See pp. 146-149, 173-177 above and pp. 217- -218 below. 190 I i commentaries on the AFM are those of Hui-yuan (523-592 A.D.), the Korean Wonhyo (Yiian-hsiao , 617-686 A.D.) and Fa-tsang * 1 (643-712 A.D.). A brief review of the doctrinal background of these figures can help explain their differences in interpretation of the AFM. The most naive interpretation is that of Hui-yuan. Had the interpretative tradition been arrested at that point, the AFM would never have attained its eventual importance. Wonhyo added life to the interpretation, and Fa-tsang radicalized Wonhyo's insights. The commentary by Hui-yuan seems to have been influenced by the She-lun school, because it introduced the notion of a pure ninth consciousness, arnalavijnana. This ninth consciousness is identified with the Suchness Mind. The characteristics of the Suchness Mind are of the ninth consciousness . The causative characteristics of the [One] Mind in its samsara aspect are those of the eight consciousnesses.2 The eighth consciousness is identified with the tathagataqarbha, 3 which is said to be different f rom the remaining 1846. 1 The commentaries are in T. 44, No. 1843, 1844, 2 T. 44, p. 179. 3rbid. 191 seven consciousnes se s. The remaining seven are mutable, and make up the "mind of life and death." ~-------ninth amalavijnana One --{ Suchness aspect --- --- -eighth immutable Mind i_~ tathagatagarbha _ Samsa ra aspect mind of the seven mutable life and~vijnanas death The above interpretation is what I would call a "se quential" solution to the problem of the One Mind and its aspects. Suchness Mind is posited as the ninth pure consciousness and tathagatagarbha is put alongside the seven vijnanas as one more consciousness among other consciousnesses . Perhaps, this interpretation is the "proper" interpretation intended by the AFM itself. The commentary by Hui-yuan suggests that "Asvaghosa authored 1 the AFM basing himself on the Lankavatara sutra . " This opinion is still well-received as far as the second half of the statement in conce rned. If indeed the AFM tried to resolve the tension in the line cited earlier from the Lankavatara sutra translated by Bodhiruci ("The tathagatagarbha is not in the alayavijnana [for whereaaj the seven vijnanas go through life and death, the lT. 4 4, p. 176a. 192 tathaqatagarbha is beyond life and death» 1 ), then the comme ntator Hui-yuan here found an easy and logical solution. We know, however, that the writer of the Hui -yiian commentary is not Hui-yuan himself but someone who imitated nui-yuan presumably after Hui-yuan ' s death and prior to when the Wonhyo commentary became known to the Chinese. 2 The historical Hui-yuan who wrote the Ta-ch'eng-i-chang would not posit a "ninth pure consciousness," for Hui yua n is known to have regarded the "alayavijnana, 11 the "tathagatagarbha," the "true consciousness" to be synonymous in that they all were used to denote the same entity. Additionally, he argued that the eighth con sciousness is identical.with Suchness, Dharmakaya and 3 12_aramartha. Hui-yuan suggested many radical ideas in his writings . It is he who said that the three worlds db h *a 4 dh h ltd are create y t. e true min , an e w o specu a e 1 see p.183 above. 2 . ,. .. The Hui-yuan commentary refers to "master Yuan" as a third person at one point; see T. 44, p. 192b . This commentary is inferior ~o the Ta-ch'eng-i-chang written by the historical Hui-yuan. his the See his 3see Mochizuki, Daijo kishinron . ~enkyu, p. 38. 4T . 44 , p. 527b. See also p. 176f above. De~pite learning, Hui-yuan did not exert as much influence on emerging Hua -yen school as did Tu-shun (557-640 A.D.) Kamata Shigeo 1 s survey of the Hua-yen tradition in Chugoku kegon shiso shi no kenkYti""(Tokyo: 1965). 193 upon how the true and false aspects of consciousness interact to produce phenomenal reality. 1 Ue even said that all realities are established by Suchness, a nd that causation is based on "true consciousness . " He would be a likely candidate for the originator of the theory of "dynamic Suchness," and yet Hui-yuan explicitly said that Suchness itself dOeS nOt fOllOW eratyaya (condition) I pU-SUi yiian 2 Suchness does support reality, but it is the tathagatagarbha that follows change without losing its e ssence. The next commentator, Wonhyo, anticipated the more radical development to come. Wonhyo is the Korean master whose fame was and remains greatest. Whereas the corrunentary of Hui-yuan spoke for the T'i-lun school, Wonhyo used language more suggestive of the Hua-yen worldview . His understanding of the One Mind qua tathagatagarbha as the all-encompassing absolute clearly surpassed the timid pyramid-building style of the first commentary. We have already encountered h~s logic of argument in his summary of the Nirvana school in the last chapte r. The following is a similar argument drawn from his commentary on the AFH: 1 T. 44, p. 192. See pp. 207-212 below. 2 T. 44, p. 180a. See chap. on Hui-yuan in Karnata Shi geo, Chugoku Bukkyo shiso shi kenkyu (Tokyo : ;969), pp . 259-255. 194 The One Mind is the tathagataqarbha. This is to designate the Suchness-Mind showing the One Mind as quiesent. However, the Samsara-Mind is also to show this same [One] Mind as [active] tathagatagarbha . Why? This is bec~use all dharmas [realities] are originally free from life and death , inactive and of the One Mind. The essence of the One Mind is that it is Omnipresent Bodhihood ./.F-~ ( a priori e nlightened]. However, as the One Mind follows avidya (ignorance) and b ecame actively involved in the world [samsara, life and death], its original essence as Buddhahood becomes hidden and unmanifested. It is for that reason that it is referred to as the [hidden] womb of the Tathagata ( tathagatagarbha ) .1 The tathaqatagarbha is not seen , as in Hui-yuan's commentary , as "one" in a series of consciousnesses, or as "one level" in the hierachy of vijnanas, but properly (following the main tathagatagarbha tradition of, for example , the Srimala sutra) as the "one and all" basis of reality. Wonhyo, however, was still careful not to attribute activity to Suchness itself, only to the avidyainfluenced tathagatagarbha. 2 The commentary of Hui-yuan followed the She-lun. style of Yogacara analysis ; Wonhyo leaned more to the 1 T. 44, p .2 06 . The immanence and omnipresence is emphasized. 2see Ishibashi Shinkai, '1Gangyo no kegon shisõ JIBS XIX, No . 2 (1971) pp. 245-247. 195 intuitionist and monistic tathagatagarbha worldview. The Yogacara philosophy does not really ontologically "reduce" the five senses, the conscious mind etc . into one storehouse consciousness, even as it analyzes the organic relationship between them all . The alayavijnana is a repository of so-called bijas or seeds from the past and receives perpetual karmic increments from the present; it is not, strictly speaking, a monistic or homogeneous Urgrund or self. Wonhyo realized the difficulties of grafting the logical analytic scheme of Yogacara onto the dogmatic synthetic monism of the tathãatagarbha tradition. wonhyo raised the following query: Question: The Yogacara-bhumi sastra says that the dharmas of the mind in its various aspects are the same only in terms of the conditioning [pratyaya] factor. In their various manifested forms, they are not similar. These forms arise in split-moments, and there is a perpetual turnover [of such impressions from one moment to the next]. Here, in the AFM, it is said that the cognized forms are all the same . There is a contradiction here. How can the views be compatible?l 1 T. 44. 215b. In the AFM, shih (vijnana) is considered to be "the mind -continuum" evolved out of the mind , hsin (citta). The five senses are not "independent" sense=-centers with sense-fields and not even enumerated in the AFM as such. 196 What Wonhyo refers to is this : the classical Yogacara doctrine asserted that the various sense-fields correspending to the various senses, produce discrete, separate "impressions." Onl y the consc ious mind (the sixth vijnana) inteCJrates these impressions" into a whole as they come 11 simultaneously" from moment to moment, through the senses to the conscious mind. The AFM , however, says that these "impressions" and a ll phenomen a are homogeneous just as al l waves are 11 wet. u Thus, al l form s (hs iang ;f§. ) of consciousness are identical in essence. 1 A more detailed discussion o n the AFM borrowing and "dis tortion" o f the water-wave metapho r from the Lankavatara sutra will be given later. The AFM scheme did away with the usua l analysis of sens e -fields and senses , the classical analysis of the various consciousnesses, and even the key idea of inte rdependent causation as inte rpreted in 2 Yogacara . 1The forms are identical with the mind too, the mind being the water . See p. 220 below. 2 Paratantra , the self-nature that arises depe ndent upon another ( 1R it:!:J t !f_i'F2- ) is not an issue in the AFM. See p. 23Sf below: Fa-tsang challenged the doctrine of interdepe ndent causation with his own doctrine of Suchness a utogenesis--hsing ch 'i, essence-arousal. 197 Wonhyo, however, answered the hypothetical inquirer in the fol lowing manner. Wh e n ignorance ceases, the motion-forms will a lso cease . The mind then fol lows incipient enlightenment and returns to its basic origin (in Suchness ]. There are some who say that the first half [of the above expression] refle cts the insights of Yogacara, whereas the second half the position of the AFM.l Repeatedly we find the commentators saying: the Yogacara or the La nkavatara discoursed upon the ef fable, thinkable 1:7J .~-~~)$:.- (read "logical") whereas the AFM revealed the 2 incomprehensible mystery . What the commentators say may be true. Add itionally , what they say e xplains in part why Buddhist logic so central to late Mahayana philosophy in India a nd encouraged by the Yogacarins never found a home in Hua-yen-influenced Chinese Buddhism . Wonhyo 's sensitivity towards the problematical nature of the AFM alerted Fa-tsang to the pending debates between the interpretation of the "old school " and that 1 T. 44. 215b, i.e. *Yogacara illusionism versus AFM ''ontologism." 2 h' . T lS lS a used in Mahayana p. 532 533 cited familiar self-legitimi zation commonly sutras. See Hui yuan ' s usage in T.44 later. 198 of the "new school" represented by Hsuan-tsang. The "new school" was hardly compromising in it s attacks on past misunderstandings. Wonhyo tried to smooth out the differences from afar, but within a tense cultural atmospher e in China around 700 A.D., polarization of opinion probably necessitate d Fa-tsang's radical defense of the AFM and of the "old school," resulting in his critical denouncing of the "new school." Added to the ideological debates were the political turnovers. HsUantsang was the protege of the Li house of T'ang as Fa-tsang was the protege of Empress ~u who usurped the throne and founded her own empire. 1 I suspect Fa-tsang rallied Sthiramat i to his own defense and dethroned the Dharmapala lineage of the "new school" which for not accepting the possibility of the icchantika of becoming enlightened , was and still is regarded as less than authentic Mahayana . 1see Stanley Weinstein, "!rnperial Patronage in the Formation of T'ang Buddhism;" Perspectives on the T'ang, ed. Wright and Twichett (New Haven: 1975)PP 265-306. This is a traditional historical resume with emphasis on the political function of religion and is not too sensitive to the actual ideological evolution involved . Empress Wu was the most powerful female ruler in Chinese history, innovative, supportive of lower power groups (against entrenched powers) and pious as well as political. Piety and opportuni sm, spiritual meekness and earthly hunger for power of ten met in medieval monarchs and are not contradictions. 199 . . , The line in the AFM which began the process that eventually led to a grand structure in Fa-tsang's comme ntary is very simple, although it requires exp lanation. The AFM ha s just finished describing how illusion or samsara comes to be, i.e., illusion is due to the nine causes which agitate the mind out of its original passivity and the perfuming ( "influence" ) of avidya which gives r i se to defilements . The AFM then goes on to talk about the r e versal of this process. Hõ does the perfuming give ris e to pure dharmas and continue uninterrup ted? It may be said t hat there is the principle of Suchness and therefore it can p erfume Ignorance . Through the karmic forces of this perfuming , the deluded mind may be caused to loathe the suffering of samsara a nd aspire f or nirvana.! The tathaqataqarbha according to the Srimala sutra is able to promote the loathing of suffering and the desire for bliss . The AFM stresses the asunya (not empty} aspect of the tathaqatagarbha in rescuing men from the jaws of delusion . The Ratnagotravibhaga admits the _function of "pure karma" generated by the tathagatagarbha 2 for that purpose. Even Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty had popularized in his days the idea of "pure karma" 1 See Hakeda trans. AFM, P.* 58. 2Takasaki trans. Ratnagotravibhaga, p. 221. 200 . h . 1 in his essay on t at topic. In addition, the Yogacara tradition speaks of the generating of pure, that is, anasrava , dharmas in the alayavijnana , which are bijas or germs conducive to nirvana. Given all these traditions that were familiar to the author of the AFM , it seems heardly unusual for the above passage to appear . The term "perfuming" (vasana) , which Hakeda has translated as "permeation;• is explained by the AFM just orior to the above mentioned section. ' The meaning of [per fuming.] Clothes in the wor ld have no scent in themselves, but if man permeates them with perfumes , then they come to have a scent . It is just the same with the case we are speaking of. The pure state of Suchness certainly has no defilement, but if it is permeated by ignorance , then the marks of defilement appear on it. The defiled state of ignorance is indeed devoid of any purifying force , but if it is permeated by Suchness , then it wi11 come to have a purifying influence. Here the AFM gives a short explanation of the action of "vasana." Our everyday mind as such is subtly influenced by lingering , misguided , habitual ways of perception rooted in past experiences preventing the mind from seeing what 1 T. s2. No. 2013, p . 335, ::w~~ .. 2Hakeda trans. A.FM, p. 56. This remains the general reference among oriental Buddhists . 201 reality is. Concepts, names, clouding our mental apparatus, leave such traces that the insubstantiality of all phenomena is kept from our knowledge. The term 11vasana" was thus used to explain our sad plight. Ignorance, defilernents (klesa), vi~nloa (subjective notions) perfume. However, can Suchness "perfume" a nonentity like avidya? 1 rt is very likely that, if the AFM was a work influenced in any way by Chinese interpolation or authorship, the writer or interpolator may have inserted this passage for symmetry's sake and drawn upon the tradition which said that the tathagatagarbha can perfume. The remarkable fact is that the discrepancy did. not escape the notice of the commentators. The 11 pseudo-Hui yuan" of the Hui-yuan commentary paused precisely at this point, wondering why after a rather detailed discussion on how illusion arises, the AFM has only a sentence or two on this logically very important counterthesis. He remarked: ... somehow the text ended here(or was destroyed here} , and the meaning of how Suchness perfumes is absent.2 1The mind may be perfumed but avidya, ignorance, being a negation of vidya, knowledge, is not a logical "something" to be clouded. See p. 206 below. 2 T. 44, 533c. 202 ... And it was at thi s point that he turned to "Master Yuan" (i .e., the historic Hui-yiian) and looked for a guideline. In effect , he quoted directly from the Ta-ch ' engi-chang 1 h ded 1 . 1 to supp y t e nee exp anation. The "missing portions'' were then supplied . What " perfumation by Suchnes s" gives rise to are these t~o: first, it gives rise to 2 ignorance , and second, the de luded mind. According to the historic Hui-yiian , followed here by the psuedo-Hui-yuan, Suchness itself is su?pose d to produce its archenemy , avidya. Indian philosophers would find this illogical and intolerable . However, in the Chinese context this is not impossible. In fact, we shall see how Hui-yuan actually duplicated the argument of Emperor Wu of Liang in a slightly different fashion . This is so because Suchness is undif ferentia ted, and therefore it can give rise to wu-ming. Its cognizing ability can know [objects] and therefore it [can be] covered by false views. So covered , t~e deluded mind is born . 3 If we supply the Taoist logic derived from our earlier analysis of the essay by the Emperor , the sequences here involved 1T. 44, p. 192b. 2 T • 4 4 • 5 3 3c • 3rbid. 203 are totally explicable: 1. The undifferentiated suchness is dark and mysterious in the sense of hsuan. 2 That means wu-ming (not-lit, avidya, ignorance) can be. 3. The pre-cognitive Suchness (mind), leaving behind its self-sufficient mysterious state, comes to cognize objects. 4. So doing, it discriminates, becoming"listless11 and finally "deluded" by the eternal colors. Actually, what is said above has already been suggested by none other than the AFM itself but under the section on "perfumation by ignorance" where the same Sinitic "logic" was at work. It may be said that on the ground of Suchness, ignorance appears. Ignorance, the primary cause of the defiled state, permeates into the Suchness. Because of this permeation, a deluded mind results.l Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty would have used the term "shen-ming" for Suchness, and the result, according to Emperor Wu, would have been the deluded consciousness shih arrested by transient nien, thought-moments. The Sinitic elements here are too obvious to be denied. wonhyo was much more cautious and did not consider the 0 perfwnation by ignorance" series along with the 1 Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 56. 204 l discussion of the ~perfumation by suchness." Instead, he initiated the theory of "internal perfumation" that was followed by Fa-tsang and others. 1 The line about the power of Dh~ that perfumes refers to the power of Suchness to per=wne internally. Relying on this power, one can cultivate practices and accumulate [good roots], follow the path of perfections,[paramitas,) from the initial [Bodhisattvic] stage to the final pure (Buddha-] field [bhumi] and be replete with upaya. [ One can thereby J break through the realm of samsaric phenomena , which is produced by the mixed [ pure -and imeure ] consciousness and reveal the eternal LBuddha-1 nature that transcends life and death.2 It is said, therefore, that when the samsara aspect of the mixed [pure-and-impure] consc iousness [alavavijnana] is destroyed and the Dharmakaya is revealed, then at that time, the karmic and changing aspects of the perpetuating consciousness (mind-continuum] perishes and the mind of a priori e nlightenment will return to its original state and become Pure Wisdom . 3 Wonhyo, in so describing internal perfuming, follows fairly orthodox lines of interpretation. The deluded aspect of the alayavijnana has to be eliminated and the accumulation of good deeds will retrieve the original mind from the karmic stream. 1 see note in Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 59. 2 T. 44. p. 211; for Fa-tsang's follow-up, see T.44. p. 27lc. 3 T. 44, p. 2lla. 205 However, Wonhyo was a learne d scholar and realized t hat, according to the Mahayana-samparigra ha (She-lun) what is "beyond life and death" cannot be perfumed. Question: the She-lun has sa id that perfuming can only occur when four conditions are met. It is said that the permanent Dharma cannot be perfumed. Why is it that here [in the AFM] ignorance is said to actually p e rfume Suchness? Answer: that treatise [She-lun] s p eaks of the thinkable and therefore it says that the permanent Dharrna cannot b~ perfumed . The work [AFM]speaks of the incomprehensible and therefore it is said that there is the perfuming of Suchness by ignorance and vice versa. The meaning of "perfuming" differs [in the two 1 contexts J • The two (views) need not conflict. Wonhyo drew on the tradition that recognizes that the permanent tathagatagarbha is somehow mysteriously tainted. He reconciled the appare nt differences . However, Suchness in Indian Mahayana thought was the Unborn Absolute; Dharmata was generally seen as the support of realities. Conceivably, Suchne ss can, through the tathagatagarbha, act upon the human mind. However, can Suchness interact with Ignorance ? Conversely, Ignorance may conceivably cloud the mind and therefore obscure Suchness . However, can Ignorance perfume Suchness itself? The She-lun says "no" but the Srimala sutra 1 T. 44, p. 239a. The She-lun specifies that only the alayavijnana can be perfumed; see T. 31, p . 165 c. and Ui Hakuju, Shodaijoron kenkyu (Tokyo: 1935), p. 282. 206 suggests that the tathagatagarbha mysteriously tainted or perfumed can with its wealth of Buddha-dharmas provoke and direct the self-fulf il~ent of the innately pure germ in sentient beings . ?he interaction of Suchness a nd Ignorance, as if they were two primordial forces, was intimated by the structure of the AFM, naively assumed by Hui-yiian and apologized for (in the name of the utter mystery of it all) by Wonhyo. Fa-tsang finally came out, without reserva- . 1 . tion, with the theory of a yin-yang interaction scheme of these two "ontological'' en ti ties, and defended the notion of a "Dynamic of Creative suchness " in open confrontation with the doctrine of the total passivity of Suchness held by the "new school. 112 He said: Suchness has two aspects: the Unchanging and that which goes along with[changing] condition . ( ;:;: ~ . 13~~) Ignorance also has two aspects : that which is non-substantive, empty and that which [nevertheless] actively functions and completes affairs [of the world ] . Analyzed in terms of the "true" and the "false," the first [of the two above pairs] combine to produce the Gate (aspect) of Suchness, while 1The yin-yang logic is implicit and it might be latent in the AFM. Hui-yuan used similar logic; see p. 194 above . 2see T. 45 pp. SOOa, 48lab for sources on this difference. Fa-tsang borrowed the vocabulary of his oppo nents but for his own end, see for example Kobavashi Jitsugen, "Hozo no sanshosetsu ni tsuite: Kegon ni okeru nyoraiz5 kaishaku no mondai," JIBS, IX, No.l (1961), pp . 237-240. 207 (the other two) the Gate of life and death (samsara) • 1 The binary division and reintegration lends itself to neat diagrarnmatization, which probably became popular around 800 A.O., if not earlier . Translated into diagrams, 2 it means*. Suchness Unchanging aspect Aspect that Gate of Suchness The two aspects of the One Mind Ignorance and Gate of sarr.sara 3 aaving spelled out this basic scheme, Fa-tsang elaborates on the structure of the Gate of Samsara, which has (as shown above) two component parts. [The gate of samsara has two component parts:] the aspect of Suchness that accompanies change and the aspect of Ignorance that functions and completes. [These two component parts] have each two sub-aspects: that mode which negates 1 T. 44, p. 255c. The first sentence echoes ideas from Wonhyo , and the second can be traced to Hui-yuan or further back, but Fa-tsang's powerful statement should be considered as original. 2 These diagrams are used still as instruction helps, cf. Takemura Shoho, Daijo kishinron kodoku. 3The Gate of s*amsara "contains" the "real" Suchness. I would consider this formulation of a "creative Suchness" to be original. See Yamada Ryoken, "Nyoraizo engishi'.i ni tsuite," Indogaku Bukkyogaku ronshu (Kyoto : 1955) 208 its own being and affirms others, and that mode which affirms its essence and denies the others '. In terms reminiscent of Hegel, Fa-tsang's elaboration mean s that each component can be either in the mode of being-for-self/against-others or being-for-others/againstself . 2 From the *one (gate of sarnsara) came the two (com~onents) and from the two come the four (sub-aspects) . Then come the eight: The aspect of ignorance [that functions and completes] in the mode of "being-for-others/ against-self" also can be divided into two aspects : that which is against the given state of affairs and is ready to show [others' true] nature and merits; that which can come to know [its own] superficiality of names and help the pure in its function .3 In other words, these two sub-sub-aspects represent ignorance in self-denial, either actively or passively affirming its opposite, namely, Suchness (the other) . The ~ore self-asserting sub-sub-aspects are as follows--they assert their ignorance and hide true Suchness. 1 T. 44, p. 255c. 2 This coincidence is perhaps in the nature of monistic idealism. 3 T. 44, p. 255c. 209 The aspect [of ignor ance ) in its "be ing-forself/agains t-others~ has [also) two aspects; t h a t which [actively] seeks to obliterate the tru e principle [Suchness] and that which [ more pass ively merely] produces a deluded mind.l The words "active" and "passive" hav e been added in the translation to show what would be, again, a yin-yang type of s ubdivision. Likewise , Suchness [that accompanies changes] in its "being-for-self/against-others " mode, has two aspects: that which [actively] opposes the deluded defilements and aspires to reveal its own virtue or power; and that which [more subtly] internally perfumes ignorance and arouses the pure functions [to seek for nirvana]. [so too, the same SuchnessJ in its "being-forothers/against-self" has two aspects : that which actually [too willingly] hides its own true nature; and that which [more passively] allows delusions to reign.2 In this new scheme of Fa-tsang, which has only a vague link with the initial suggestion in the AFM, Wonhyo 's idea of " i*nternal perfuming" was subsumed as ~ of the four sub-sub-aspects of Suchness that accompanies change. The full "One-Two-Four-Eight" structure under the gate of samsara has been built. Fa-tsang went on to detail the recombinations of the eight back to the one ("Eight1 T. 44, p. 255c. 2 rbid 1 p. 255c-256a. 210 Four-Two-One"), telescoping them into the one of the alayavijnana . The following is a diagram of the involved dialectical synthesis : I Ignorance that Completes I r Cate of Life and Death (Samsara) I Suchness that Accompanies I "flr I I "agains t " fo r self" mode "against self" mode self" mode self" th.nt that that that which which which which which makes hides knows reverses allows delusions the names its elf itself names points deluded be)'.ond L as and to be true I mode I I that that which which seeks perto f umes . hide internitself ally I I that which reverses delusions to re tr veal uth Branch Root Incipient A priori Nonenlightenroent Storehouse Consciousness (alayavijnana) Enlightenment I The diagram above shows two movements. The top half, the expansion of one into eight, depicts the objective world of sarnsara and its constituents. The lower half, 211 the contraction of the Gight into the one, shows the subjective side. Together, they show that all phenomena (samsa ra, at the top of the diagram) are consciousness only (store house consciousness, at the bottom of the di~gram.) The key innovation of this scheme in the history of Chinese thought in general is that, although the expãsion of the one into e ight (upper half) can be anticipated by the Book of Cha nge s (I Ching), the "telescoping" of external reality into con s ciousness (lower half), that is, subjective Idealism, is not in the classical I Ching tradition. The I Ching never says that the eight trigrams are "of the mind." 1 Re ality is made up of a positive {Suchness) and a negative {Ignorance) element . The combinations of this pair produce objectively the world of samsara and subjectively the various modes of enlightenment and nonenlightenment. Both Suchness and Ignorance can either deny itself or asse rt itself . The quantitative degrees of "positive" and "negative" attributes of the eight modes (in the middle of the diagram) can be "tabulated" as follows: LEFT (Negative) Set of Four -3 -4 -2 1 (Positive) Set +l +-3 RIGHT of Four +4 1The Nee-Taoists did initiate a subjective reading of the I Ching, turning practical omenology into a spiritual guide aimed, not at mundane facts but at the metaphysical li . 212 The nwnerical values (spanning plus to minus 4) show their relative endowment of Suchn<:ss {plus side) and of Ignorance (minus side). The mode furthermost to the right (plus 4)-the active Suchness in its "for self (and against Ignorance)" !node--seeks aggressively to "reverse delusion to reveal truth (itself)." The fourth from the left (minus 1)--the 4 self-e ffacing Ignorance in its "against self (and for Suchne ss)" mode--se eks to reverse its ignorant self a nd point beyond to the good . Th is pair (plus 4 and minus 1) in their union produces a *priori enlightenment, their numer ical total being "plus three", the best or most positive combination possible between two items from the two sets. Similarly , the other combinations can be so analyzed: Incipient ' enlightenment Branch nonenlightenment Root nonenlightenrnent -t3 and -2 -3 and 2 -4 and 1 total: T"l total: -1 total: -3 Fa-tsang's comme ntary on the AFM ingeniously shows that sams ara corresponds to the alayavijnana and that the alayavijnana is the abode of enlightenment and nonenlightenment . Consciousness , though trapped in sarnsara, can seek out the Suchness elements and delive r itself from the mundane realm. The I Ching says : From the Great Ultimate comes the two poles; from the two poles come the four forms 213 (hsiang); from the four forms come the eight trigrams. 1 The diagram on p. 211 can be structurally r eproduced in ~Ching forms following the logic listed above . -~----------------~------ ---------- - - -- --~ - 7~ /\ - __!'""'- -3 -4 -2 1 +2 +l +3 +4 The above diagram is my reconstruction showing the I Ching's influence on Fa-tsang 1 s thinking. Actually, although the I Ching contains such an idea of evolution, the diagrammatical representation of it was not known b e fore Fa-tsang's time. Strangely, a diagram similar to the one above was produced for the first time by the Sung Nee-Confucian, Shao Yung (1011-1077 A.O.), three centuries after Fa-tsang~ .Shao Yung himself was probably influenced by Tsung-mi 1The Yi King, trans. James Legge (Oxford: 1899), p.373. 2The diagram is reproduced in Imai Usaburo, ~i ekigaku no kenkyu (Tokyo: 1958), p. 317. 214 (780-841 A.D.), patriarch of the Zen and the Hua-yen school. Tsunq-mi was probably the first to summarize Fa-tsang's d . 1 . insights in Zen iagrams. It was also around the time of Tsung-mi that the interest in diagrammatical teachings arose . This trend was supported by Zen, embraced by the Taoists and came to influence Neo-Confucians later . The .Ylind of Sentient Beings 0 The *rrue Suchness The False ~luded I ' 0 0 The unchanging The Acconpanying In Substance In Function AcC'Omplishing Gate of Suchness I Suchness The Ineffable The Expressed I Drpty Gate of ~ The Alayavijnana ten rro:ies of enlightenment ten rro:ies of nonenl igh tenment ~ 0 (O(g(g(O(t) ()()000 1 For a general study of Tsunq-mi, see Jan Yun-hua, "Tsung-mi: his analysis of Ch'an Buddhism," T'oung Pao, LVIII (1974), pp. 1-54 . 2 2The diagram here, much abbreviated (the corrunentary part has been eliminated) , is based on the original in T . 48, No . 2015, pp. 410-413. 215 A Digression: A Brief Explanation of Tsung-rni's diagram The use of diagrams, especially in Zen, is a tcol in itself. Ideally speaking, the diagram on the last P3-ge should speak for itself . The following is a brief explanation. The mind is essentially pure • (white circle for purity) but there is the 11accidental defilanent"Q (the black dot by the side of the white circle} which can taint it. This mind of sentient beings contain both Suchness Q (white circle) and false delusions (} (black circle). The .intercourse between these two produces Suchness Q ('White circle) or samsara 0 (black center in a white circle}. The unchanging Suchness and the empty f alsehocx:l produce the former as the active ignorance an:l the accarrpanying Suchness the latter. The gate of samsara corresponds to the alayavijnana. The alayavijnana is represente::l by its unique diagram. The @* *~ left (white-black-white) concentric half-circles is really ~ t..l-ie I Ching trigram - transp:>sed (white-~roken line; black=yin=broken line.) Similarly, the right half is --the I Ching trigram of transposed. (It should be noted that the Yin-yang circle () is a ninth or tenth century .r...D. prcduct. l The alayavijnana has two aspects: enlightenrrent arrl nonenlightenment. The former is represente::l. by ten circles showing the change fran a cresent m::x:>n to a full m::x::m • (A similar set is used. in Zen and is known as the T'ao-shan wu-wei-t'u Q e 8 0 C) .) The latter is represented by ten dark circles. unlike the Japanese, the Chinese had always been reading Fatsang 1 s ccmnentary on the AFM through Tsung-mi 1 s redaction. The Taoist influence on Hua-yen increased after Fa-tsang (the third patriarch).. Ch'eng-kuan (the fourth) and Tsung-mi (the fifth) explicitly ha.nronize:l Hua-yen and I Ql..:i.ng thought, paving the way for the revival of I Cring scholarship which blossaned in St.mg Neo--COnfucian circles. 216 As the diagram on p. 211 above shows, there are some unique elements in Fa-tsang's und e rstanding of the relationship between Suchness and Ignorance: (1) Suchness in its " accompanying " aspect is clearly dyna mic and without its acquiescence , samsara c;ould not exist. (2) This means that Suchness is not merely supporting phenomena but is somehow 0 e mbedded" within it. Because Fa-tsang says that chen-ju sui-yi..ian pu-pien **or~~:;;-.*;: (Suchness participates in all realities without changing its essent~al quality) / the sense of the immanence of the absolute within every particular item in the universe is established. Li (princ iple) and .shih (fact , particular) are identical . The Zen conf i dence in *the "goodness" of the natural world is derivGd from this doctrine of irrunanence. Chen-ju, Suchness, tathata or reality-as-it-is merges somehow with tzu-jan , nature, "self-be, •t as-is-ness. A stone,a raindrop hanging from the eave, a falling petal become the carrier of the divine. (3) The diagram shows that the alayavijnana exists in an interdependent relationship only with the gate of sarnsara. One M:i.n::l-----------------hsin J\:.' : the ir.mutable Gate of Gate of ---sllchness Mind Suchness Samsara -<>alayavij nana- - - - - - - - - shih ~Wi : the Imltable enlightene:i/nonenlightene:i ---COnsciousness 217 Samsara is (storehouse) consciousness only, but the c onsciousness (s hih) is structurally inferior to and distinct from the One .Mind (hsin} , the ~lind that encompasses Suchness and samsara in its being . (4) So considered, it is inevitable that the "new school", known as "Weis hih", Consciousness Only , with its main interest in the alayavijnana, could not measure up to the Hua-yen school and its basic doctrine that the three worlds are 11 wei-hsin-tso 11 , cre ated by Mind Only. It was unfortunate that Hsi..ian-tsang, conscious of the "old school "' s abuse of the Yogacara philosophy,called his ''new" school the "Fa hsiang" school that expertly analyzes the phenomena 1 for ms ( h s i a ng ;fi3 ). This emphasis on forms by the "new school" only affirmed its opponents' conviction that the insights of the "new school '' remained arrested at the ?henomenal or samsara level of the alayavijnana, falling s hort of an insight into the Suchness Mind which is one with fa-hsing ;:i\j-~ (Dharmata, Suchness). Other points of contention aside, the "new" and the "old" school disagreed on one crucial point: the nature of Suchness. The "new school" held the idea that Dharmata "supports" reality, like the ground of a house supporting the house its elf . "Suchness," the "new school" says, •t is not active and cannot ere ate ( tso 1'1- ) *the various dharmas. 111 T. 45. 48lab summarizes the two opposing positions. 218 The phenomenal forms themselves are "specific." The houseness of a house cannot be reduced to one horrogeneous essence because a house is different from a tree and the two are something other than the ground that supports all phenomena . The 11 old school", now defended by Hua-yen, argued to the contrary. The three worlds are created by the true mind. Suchness is inactive in one respect (pu-oien, unchanging) but in another, Suchne ss follows pratyaya {condition, suiyiian.) Instead of the "house-and-ground" metaphor, Fa-tsang used the "water-and-wave" metaphor. Phenomena (the waves} are created or generated out of the noumenal Suchness itself (the water); universal principle (li) and particular facts (shih) interpenetrate (like water is wave and vice versa . ) The two metaphors are contrasted below: Dharma-essenc.e samsara Suchness House-and-ground metaphor House {form, laksana ) is supported by ground (essence, Dharmata), but the two (form and essence, hsiang and hsing) are distinct, separate entities . Water-and-wave metaphor {AFM) Waves: the mutable phenomena/consciousness {shih); function (Y£!l9') Water: the subsisting Suchness/mind {hsin} i substance (~i) Water and waves interpenetrate; nourrena is phenarena; universal is particular. 219 The I Ching, the yin-yang philosophy and the Taoist paradox of wu-wei had influence d Fa-tsang's interpretation of the nature of Suchness as "changeless yet dynamic . 11 However, Fa-tsang based his interpretation on the AFM, especially on its "water and wave" metaphor. It is therefore necessary to inquire into the nature and origin of this metaphor in the AFM. This is because the metaphor Ln the AFM might have been "Sinici zed." The AFM depicts Suchness (the water) turning into phenomena (the waves) when ignorance (the wind) acts as a conditioning factor . All forms of mind and consciousness are the product of ignorance. Forms of ignorance do not exist apart from the essence of enlightenment . They cannot be destroyed and yet they cannot not be destroyed . This is like the water of the sea being stirred up by the wind. The form of water and the form of the wind are inseparable. Water is not moving when left to itself. If the wind ceases, so cease the forms of movement. The wetness, however, remains undestroyed.l So too it is with the "innately pure mind" of sentient beings . The wind * of ignorance stirs it [the water]. The [pure] mind and ignorance were [originally] formless or shapeless. The two are [now] inseparable [being defined by the waveforms that rise and fall like samsara.J The mind is not moving when left to itself. If ignorance (the wind] ceases, then the forms of continuity [the waves, symbolizing both phenomenaarrl their correlation, the perpetuating consciousness 1 Compare my translation with Hakeda's in Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 41. I have tried not to interpolate any interpretation in this section , 220 shih , alayavijnana ] will also c ease. All the while 1 however 1 the essence of wisdom [the wetness] remains undestroyed .l Implied in the above passage, I think, is the t'i-yung relationship between Suchness Mind and phenomena or consciousness. Both phenomena and consciousness are the "forms of ignorance" mentioned in the preceding passage. The line "The forms of ignorance cannot be destroyed and yet they cannot not be destroyed" means this : Since the forms do not ex ist apart from the essence of e nlightenment (waves are water nonetheless), being the function (yung) of a mind-substance (t'i) , they cannot be destroyed. However, in so far as they mislead man away from seeing the eternal substance (t'i) of the Suchness Mind, these forms should be eliminated. Wonhyo realized the magic in this paradoxical t'i - ~ ("not-two") relationship, for he noted that Although the eternal mind [the sea] moves and the mind [water] and samsara [waves] are not different , yet the eternal mind never lose s its own essence as that which is beyond life and death (samsara). Therefore, [in another sense,] samsara and mind are not the same. Had they been totally identical, the mindsubstance will disappear along with the destruction of the phenomenal consciousness and its forms. That would mean the heresy of annihilationism . 1 My translation with explanatory interpolations; cf . Hakeda trans. AFM, p. 41 . Hakeda, overlooking the t'i-yung structure, gives a different reading of the passages. 221 Had they been totally different, then the ~ind would have no business following conditions (Eratyaya) when the wind of ignorance perfumes it. And that would mean the fallacy of eternalism. 1 Like Emperor Nu of the Liang dynasty, Wonhyo was anx ious that the mind-substance must not disappear with the phenomena to be destroyed . Like the Emperor, Wonhyo underlined the eternal substance to avoid the heresy of annihila* tionism (ucchedavada, the view that reality is totally fragmented) . Likewise , he emphasized the functional aspect of the dynamic mind to avoid the fallacy of eternalism. However, at heart, this crypto-wu-wei paradox favours a doctrine of a permanent Suchness Mind . The ''water and wave" metaphor in the AFM seems to carry a Sinitic overtone. The metaphor is known to be taken over from a similar --but in intention, very different--metaphor in the Lankavatara sutra . The Lankavatara sutra uses the "water and wave metaphor" to explain the organic relationship between the alayavijnana and the other consciousness. The sea of the storehouse-consciousness is permanently subsisting. The wind of the phenomenal realm stirs it . Various consciousness springs up [at the sea of the storehouse-consciousness,] churning out like waves [responding, moment to moment, each to its own sense-field] ... • T. 44, p. 208b. 222 The way in which the sea gives rise to the waves, is the way in which the seven vijnanas arise inseparably with the mind [citta, alayavijnana .] Just as the sea agitates and various waves swell out so too the seven viinanas come about not different from the mind. 1 The metaphor of "water and wave" is used by the Lankavatara sutra to explain a psychological process in which the five senses, the mental center, the ego-conscious mind (manas) arise together with the eighth consciousness in an organic fashion , being stimulated into endless karmic entanglements by the alluring phenomenal realms of the sense-fields. The metaphor is not used to depict a theory of the ontological generation of samsara ( the phenomenal realm or reality) from out of the Suchness Mind its e lf. The discrepancy did not go unnoticed . Hui-yuan in his Ta-ch 1 eng-i-chañ noted: In the Lankavatara sutra, the wind is the phenomenal realm, but in the AFM, it is said to be ignorance itself. Why is this so? This is because both phenomenal realm and ignorance, actin3 as wind, are involved with movement . L In fact, J we can say that ignorance, the deluded mind, or illusory r ealities can play the role of the wind . Therefore the AFM finds the deluded mind, the illusory realities and ignorance to be agents that perfumes. Perfuming is analogous to [the action of] the wind .... The Lankavatara sutra puts emphasis on mo * secondary issues [whereas the AFM addresses itself to the more basic, pen /}. Therefore the AF.H designates 1 The sloka (verse} is from T. 16, p. 848b; see other versions on p . 523bc and p. 594c and compare my translation with Suzuki trans . The Lankavatara Sutra, pp . 40, 42. 223 ignorance as the wind, whereas] the Lankavatara sutra designates phenomena as the wind. These two views are not in conflict.l However, there are crucial differences and the AFM's formulation is unique . In the _Lankavatara sutra , the phenomenal realm is said to lure the various consciousnesses to action, but in the AFM, the Suchness Mind (influenced by ignorance) creates the phenomenal realm out of itself . The Lankavatara sutra depicts the position that namarupa (name and form) "exists" because a discriminative consciousness (as subject or ego) exists. Subject and object are "interdependent . "2 The AFM, on the other hand, suggests that the absolute subject, the Suchness Mind , creates the objects themselves. There is another line in the AFM which might support the AFM's usage of the "water and wave" metaphor, but this line also poses problems of interpretation : The (One) Mind in its samsara aspect (hsin-shengmieh): l Relying upon the tathagatagarbha is there the mind of life and death (shengmieh-hsin) . 3 T. 44, p. 532cf. 2 see pp . 175-1 76 above. In Yogacara philosophy, this interdependence is described in terms of paratantra (1T><.it.'f':t~ i-ta-hsing-ch ' i), origination relying upon the selfhood of another . 3see Hakeda trans. AFH , p . 36: "The Mind as phenomena is grounded on the Tathagatagarbha." 224 The closest antecedent to t he above passage is a line in the Srirnala sutra , "Relying upo n the tathaqataqarbha is there life and death. 111 The Srimala sutra also says that the tathasataqarbha is the "support" (nisraya; Chinese i'fK"to rely), the ."holder" (adhara) and the "base " (pratistha) of a ll realities. 2 Whether Suchness (~athagatagarbha} merely passively "support" phenomena or actively "create" phenomena depends on the meaning of the word i it'<... 3, "relying on ." The Srimala sutra's usage of the terms "nisraya, .adhara , pl:'atistha" does not suggest that "dynamic and creative" quality Fa-tsang has in mind for Suchness. It seems that Fa-tsang has taken "::celying upon" to mean "from out of." Suchness generates realities out of itsel:. Fa-tsang gives a more "ontological" interpretation to what originally was an epistemologica l description of the interdependence of "subject-support" and "objectphenomena . " 4 T . 12, p. 22lb; see Wayman's translation, op. cit., p. 105 . 2 rbid. 3 .. Hsuan-tsang used the word "i" in his translation of paratantra as i-ta-hsing-ch'i. "I" does not mean "from out of 11 here. It only means "depending upon." 4rt is possible that Fa tsang was influenced by Kuohsiang: 1 s understanding of "dependence~~' In his commentary on Chuang-tzu, Kuo asian9 spoke of the Tao as that which things can rely on . 225 .. It is possible that Fa-tsang 1 s more "ontological" understanding of the tathagatagarbha and its role in the process of suchness 1 creation was influenced by another motif in the I Ching. In the I Ching , it is said that "The alternation of yin and~ is the Tao .... When yin and yang are not yet differentiated, this is called ~' (cosmic] Geist." 1 This cosmic spirit predates yin and yang and as Chou Tun-i (1017-1073A .D.) describes it2 , it is "active and yet not active , passive a nd yet not passive." This paradoxical state of being neither active like yang nor passive like yin is called "shen." The shen mediates between the (One) Great Ultimate which is most sublime, pure, passive and the (two} ethers of yin and yang. Curiously, Fa-tsana favoured Wonhyo's description of the tathagatactarbha in the paradoxical ter:ns of "defiled and ye t not defiled, not defiled and yet defiled." Furthermore, the tathagatagarbha also mediates between the (One} Mind and the (double-aspected, pure-andimpure) alayavijnana . 1 h' d' 3 5 I C ing, Appen 1x • A. • 2Just as Shao Yung was probably influenced by Tsungrni (seep . 214 above}, Chou Tun-i's formulation of the nature of shen can also be indebted to Fa-tsang. The phrase tung-erh-p~ng, ching-erh-pu-ching, shen yeh Tf,m';f*ittJ ~ fu~*lf1\ ;fept!!; used by Chou in his :r'ung-shu was not, as far as I can ascertain, in the Han I Ching scholarship. Unlike shen, matter (wu 1:f"t'7 } is neither active nor passive. Because shen (psyche) nas this sublime quality, it can t'ung WU l5L ~'lJJ (penetrate things); see Chou, T'ung-shu, chap . 16. 226 The ONE The TWO I Ching The Great Ultimate (pure, passive) Shen: "active yet not active, passive yet Fa-tsang The Suchness Mind (pure, not m:>bile) !atbacatagarbha : "pure yet t.ainte:l, tainte:l yet pure . " not passive." ------------------------------------------ - '{in-vang: passive-impure and active-pure Alayav~jnana: "half-pure, half-impure . " 'rhe coincidence of the two schemes outlined above might explain certain unique developments in Chinese Buddhist thought . Both the shen and the tathagataqarbha belong to the noumenal realm. ~ is not "physical", hsing-hsia, as the two material ethers are . Tathaqatagarbha is not bound to the samsaric realm like the alayavijnana. Both mediate the noumenal and the phenomenal , paradoxically in and yet not of the realm of action and impurity . The Great Ultimate and the Suchness Mind have been represented by a white circle () , while the yin-yang and the alaya vijnana diagrams balance the dark and the light element s! Change and causation touch upon yin-yang and the alayavijnana, but just barely the shen and the tathagatagarbha. Given this possible parallel pattern, Fa-tsang might indeed have fused unconsciously the cosmogonic scheme of the I Ching and the psychological orientation of the Lankavatara sutra. The AFM, having subtly incorporated Sinitic elements, eased this transition. 227 The Sinitic elements in the Paramartha-translated AFM allowed the Chinese commentators to furthe r develop these Chinese modes of thought. We have not discounted, however, the possibility that these elements were included in the translation process, 1 nor has the Siksananda translation in the T'ang been considered. 2 The following is a very brief comparison of the two texts focusing on 3 the issue of the explorãion of the centralmetaphor. Paramartha version If the water ceases to be, then the forms of the wind would also cease to be, because it would have nothing to rely on. Since the water does not cease to be, the forms of the wind can continue to exist . Siksananda version If the water ceases to be, then the active forms also cease to be, because there is nothing to be relied on and nothing that relies on. Since the water subsists, the moving forms can continue . 1 rt is generally recognized that the Paramartha version reads much more smoothly, which can be due to Chinese authorship, liberal free-hand translation or a stroke of translation genius . 2 The issues here are not solved yet; see one comparison by Kashiwagi Hirao, 11 Shikushananda no vaku to tsutaerareru Daij6 kishinron,n JIBS, X No. 2 (1962), pp . 124~25 . 3 r follow the edition of Akashi Etatsu, Daijo kishinron, p. 29# which gives th~ two texts in parallel form. 228 Paramartha version (cont.) Siksananda version (cont . ) It is only that the wind should cease in (nil) order that the active forms can cease. The water does not cease to exist in any case. So it is with ignorance . It has to rely on the essence of the mind to be active. If the mind-essence ceases, then sentient beings• existGnce also ceases, because it has nothing to rely on. As the essence [of mind) does not cease, the mind [or mental functions) may continue . When stupidity ceases, the marks of the mind also cease , but the wisdom of the mind never ceases . (nil) So it is with sentient beings. It is ignorance's power which sets their minds moving . If avidya ceases, then the active marks also cease, but the mindsubstance does not cease. If the mind ceases, then sentient beings will end, be cause there is nothing to rely on and nothing that relies on. As the essence of mind does not cease, the active marks of the mind may continue. (nil) Comparing the above two versions, it is significant that the second version did away precisely with those radical elements essential to the Paramartha version and leaned 229 r.~ore towards the more "orthodox" posi tion of the Lankavatara sutra. 1 To enume rate: 1. The Siksananda version avoided the issue of the wind of ignorance (despi te the fact that it accepted that metaphor when it occurred in the text earlier), and limited its .discussion to the psychological relationship between the essence of the mind and the marks of the mind. 2. The Siksananda version avoided also the issue of the waterness (wetness), symbol of the nondestructable wisdom; what would be corresponding passages are absent. 3. The Siksananda version recal led the central idea of the mutua l dependence of that which relies and that which is being relied upon, primarily with reference to reality and the mind . In other words, it denies the idea that realities are generated out of a subsisting mind. 4. The Siksananda ve rsion had generally a more "reserved" attitude to the mind , which is clearly more the alayavijnana that Paramartha's noumenal mind. Whereas the Paramartha text is concerned that sentient beings must continue (on the naive assumption that they shouldn't disappear) , the Siksana*nda version really suggested the Yogacara position that the various selves (atman) would and should cease to be if only the (falsely individuated) mind also ceases to be.2 1 The following is using the Paramartha version as the standard; see justification of this on the next page. 2Although it might not be transparent , the Siksananda version implicitly encourages the need to "let the mind cease to e:x:ist" whereas the Paramartha version is for a subsisting core on which sentient existence's continuation can depend. 230 The Siksananda version is more faithful to the message in the Lankavatara sutra. It is also more "logical". For e xample, the "wetness" was not an issue in the Lankavatara and appears to be an "extraneous metaphor" added l by the AFM . However, considering the fact that the Siksananda version did not reject the metaphor of the wind of avidya and that of wetness in the basic passage that precedes the discussion portion cited above, it would appear that the Siksananda version was--at least in this one aspect- -a revised version of the Paramartha version . In trimming the excesses of the Paramartha version, the second version was perhaps an answer to the "new school" 2 or a compromise or a critique of the "old school." Since the present study explicitly intend s only to understand how Chinese elements flowed into and out of the historically definitive Paramartha version, these finer 1 The "wetness " metaphor is somewhat irrational because the essence of wisdom, says the AFM, is there no matter whether man is enlightened or not. There are two possible sources for this additional metaphor as I see it: ( 1} the Indian "water-andwave" metaphor might have been fused with the "river-and-sea " metaphor in Chuang-tzu chap. 1 "Autumn Flood ", or (2) with traditions in the Ratnagotravibhaga, which recalls the metaphors *of "wind of improper thoughts" and "waves of karmic defile ments" (see Takasaki, op. cit., pp . 236-238) and compares the self-nature (svabhava} of the tathagatagarbha to the "texture of water " (see ibid , p . 2 01.) 2The background of the second translation of the AFM is somewhat confusing . Fa-tsang , who would not have liked the new edition, was supposed to have overseen it. Of course, there might be two Sanskrit Ur-texts . 231 controversies on authorship and the mystery of two trans la tions nee*d not be a key concern here. It is important to know, however, that those technical issues do exis t. A cryptic line concerning perfuming by ~chness on ignorance in the AFM generated, in time, the Hua-yen notion of a "dynamic, creative suchness."l Fa-tsang brought to bear on this issue an innovative scheme drawn from native I Ching worldviews as well as from the key metaphor of water-and-wave in the AFM . The One Mind , the innately pure ~ind , the tathagatagarbha created the phenomenal world when it came in contact with "the wind of ignorance." The wind acts as condition pratyaya_ Suchness is the cause, hetu, and sarnsara is the result , phala. So far we have stressed the similarity with classical Chinese ideas: the original inactive state is activated; substance (t 'i } evolves into function (yuñ) . Hua-yen philosophy is, however, as will be shown later, more than Lao-tzu's philosophy updated, and actually there was a subtle reaction precisely against the pen-mo sequence or the implication that "activity follows upon original inactivity ." That classical "cosrnogonic" scheme had been 1chinese Buddhists regard the theory of "dynamic Suchness" as a causation theory superior to the Yogacara school's. The hierarchy of causation theories are: (i) karma causation, (ii) alayavijnana causation, (iii) tathagatagarbha or Suchness causation and (iv) Dharmadhatu causation; see Takakusu, Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, pp. 30-41. 232 challenged by the Buddhist idea of a "beginningless" 1 samsara or, in the AFM, a "beginningless " ignorance of a "sudden" deluded thoug.ht . 2 These last ?ages of this chapter will seek to correct a possible misconception that nothing is new in Chinese Buddhist thought . Although it might carry us a bit too far frõ the AFM itself , yet to do justice to the innovative elements, the following brief notes are necessary . Wonhyo was too learned and sharp a thinker to accept the ide a that at first there is a calm piece of water which came to be ruffled up in time by the wind to form waves onlv on the surface. The original metaphor in the _......_ Lartkavatara sutra itself was more dynamic than that; it depicted a ceaseless swelling of suboceanic waters being churned out into waves. That image of an endless process of change , an almost autogenetic or instantaneous generation of forms, was not missed by the master . Wonhyo insisted that "it is the whole body of water which moves," 3 1 T 1 i-yung (substance and function) has moved already somewhat away""""f rom the penmo (origin and end) concern for temporality to a more ontological scheme (i.e. , vertical s cheme). 2 Hakeda trans AFM, p. 50. 3 T 44 . 208b . 233 -- *- and that the "body of water" should not be considered as the fusion of samsara (life and death) and nirvana (neither life nor death) . This is because the fusion of samsara and nirvana is considered by the AFM to be the alayavijnana, whereas Wonhyo saw rightly that the union of water and wave is the union of the Suchness Mind and samsara. 1 From this insistence on the ceaseless creation and the participation of the One ~ind in all particulars came eventually the Hua-yen doctrine of "Dharmadhatu causation . " The universe in every instant is continually regenerating itself in every part of its being . 2 In more ways than one, the Hua-yen philosophy was a kind of proto-Tantric philosophy produced in China. Whereas Indian Tantra drew upon the Dravidian lore, Hua yen drew upon a comparable, dynamic, powerful and extravagant cosmic worldview native to China. 3 The AFM was a very important catalyst to that grandiose vision of Hua-yen. 1 Ibid. 2 See Takakusu, op. cit., pp. 39-41. 3 The Avatamsaka (Hua-yen) sutra has the Sun-Buddha, Vairocana, as its key figure and carries strong Tantric overtones . Both Hua-yen and Tantra share the interest in a basic cosmic reality (Suchness, Adibuddha), in male-female interactions (yin-yang, sexo-yoga), enlightenment in the body ( ~priori enlightenment ) , the power of the tathagatagarbha, cosmologies and immanence of the Absolute . The more metaphysical Taoist tradition perhaps eliminated the cruder and more mythological outlook that one finds in Indian Tantra . The Zen use of the circle-diagrams can be. regarded as Sinitic mandalas. 234 Fa-tsang apparently was not satisfied with the theory of "Dynamic Suchness" sugges ted by the .AFM. In the AFM , Suchness still requires an auxiliary condition (J2..!"atyaya)--the wind of ignorance--to create the phenomenal world . If indeed Suchness is the one and only reality, then it should be able to generate phenomena without depending on "the nature of another " (i tahsing-ch 'i ) . Fa-tsang did formulate a theory of Suchness ' autogenesis known as hsing-ch' i ( 1P:t" ;'g_ } • Suchness can arouse itself to produce all . The term "hsing-ch' i " combines the eternal ism .of fa-hsing and the causationism of yuan-ch'i. Dharmata (fa-hsing =~ ~i ) genera tes phenomenal causa tive realities. This ingenious use of the Chinese language was extended to an analysis of the term "ju-lai" (~*-), thus-come, the Chinese for Tathagata. Ju is related to chen-ju ( ~-6:-c::r ) , Suchness, a nd lai, which suggests "coming-and-going," is related to causation. 1 ch'i, essence arousal. Ju-lai therefore signifies hsing1 A good concise artic le on essence arousal in Hua-yen philosophy is that of Tarnaki Koshiro, "Kegon no shoki ni tsuite," Indotetsugaku to Bukkyo no shomondai (Tokyo: 1951}, pp. 281309. The hsing-ch'i theory is used by Hua-yen to* oppose and negate yiian-ch 'i (p ratitya-sarnutpada ) which was understood as "inferior'', i.e. phenome nal causation. It is al so used to negate the T'ien-t'ai theory of " essence possession" ( '+~ ~ ) i.e. every man possesses Buddhaessence. Hsing-ch 1 i is supposed to '' re so lve" the tension between eternali sm ãd causationism; see Chapter Fo ur below. 235 Fa-tsang based this new theory on the title of chapter 32 in the 40-chaptered Hua-yen sutra, ~u-lai hsing-ch'i, benefitting from the particular choice of Chinese words used in the translation. 1 The Sanskrit original is, a s Takasaki Jikido has shown, Tathagatotpattisambhava. 2 Here "u tpatti" means the birth of the Buddha, i. e ., the attainment of bodhi, while "sambhava" is used to show the manifestation of the dharmakaya in various forms of Buddha 's activities. The former signifies Buddha's Wisdom (jnana) while the latter signifies Buddha 's Compassion (karuna} .3 Hsing-ch 1 i in its origina l Sanskrit has nothing whatsoever to do with a causation theory concern ing the self-generated power of creation of Dharmata or Suchness. However, Hsing-ch'i can imply the awakening of the Buddha-essence in man and it would correspond to the concept of the "arousal of the bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment." Hsing-ch'i was understood in that "subjective, meditat ive" format as the awakening of the Buddha-germ in man by the first patriarch of the ~~ 1Another Chinese translation yie lds "Manifestation of the Buddha" ( ft7P-W::.1 ';f:!J.~ch 1 u-hsien), T. 10, p. 259 . 2 r . bh . h b d f t is not gotrasam ava as mig t e construe rom the Chinese, i.e., hsing (gotra), ch'i (s~mbhava). 3Takasaki Jikido, "Kegon kyogaku to nyoraizo shiso," Kegon sKiso, ed. *by Nakamura HaJime (Kyoto: 1960), pp. 282-288. The above quote is taken from the English sununary at the back, p. 11. 236 school, }u-shun (557-640 A.O.), likewise by Chih-yen, the second patriarch. Fa-tsang cosmicized and objectified this idea of "awakening the Buddha-germ," because he tended to see the tathaqatagãbha in ontological terms. The arousal of one's innate germ of enlightenment, the Buddhanature, became now the generation of the phenomenal realm from the Dharma-essence. 1 All these points are beyond the concern of this thesis except for the interesting fact that the AFM, Tach'eng ch'i-hsin lun, suggests by its very title, the Awakening of Faith, the awakening or the arousing of the Suchness Mind. Although the phrase "arousing the bodhicitta" did not appear in the AFM, the general drive of the AFM treatise supports implicitly that doctrine . The arousing of the bodhicitta was central to Tantric Buddhism. The AFM, being a late Mahayana sastra indeed anticipated the Tantric tradition and helped to promote it . 2 In this chapter, we have studied the key concept of "Dynamic Suchness" and Fa-tsang's contribution to the understanding of the full significance of the AFM . 1Tamaki, op. cit. traces this development . See also Tamaki Koshiro, "The Development of the Thou.qht of Tathaga tagarbha from India to China," JIBS IX, No. l (1961), pp . 3 7 8 3 8 6 • 2Japanese Shingon (Mantrayana) inherited a Chinesefabricated work, a commentary on the AFM by Nagariuna (sic) . 237 CHAPTER FOUR The Lega cy of* the Awakening o f Faith ~n Mahay~na Guided by Fa -tsang , the AFM fulfils its destiny a s one o f the crown jewe ls of the Buddhist Dharma in the Far East. In r etr osp ect, the path to glory taken by this s hor t treatise seems to be just s hort of miraculous . The AFM eme rged as an obscure text towards the end o f the 11 dark 11 age of disunity~ Soon afterwards, in the Sui d ynasty t hat reunited China in 589 A.O., the monk Fa-ching in his catalogue of sutras expressed doubts concerning the AFM's claim to be an authentic Indian work. In the T'ang period that f ollo....ed, rumours c harging that the AFM wa s a forgery circulate d . The suspicion was fanned no doubt by the ris e of the "ne w s chool" of Hsuan-tsang . The AFM not only s urvived these controve rsies but rose triumphantly above its attackers in the reign of the Empress Wu (685-705 A.D.). The protege of Empress Wu, Fatsang (643 71 2 A.D.), brought his genius to b e ar on the text . Inspired b y t he AFM, . the patriarch *o f the Hua-ye n school succ e eded in producing a final Sinitic Mahayana synthesis of the Buddhist Dharma. The glory attained then 238 by the AFM coincided with the p eak of Buddhist glory in and around 700 A.O. The career of the "AFM tradition" studied in the thesis, the text itself and the three class ical commentaries, spanned therefore China's "dark ages " and her "high medieval" period . 1 The AFM tradition s o defined bears witness to the times. In this concluding chapter, I will review the key points of the thesis and reflect on the socio-cultural milieu in which the A.FM found itself and in which the AFM 2 tradition unfolded . Three topics will be examined : 1. From Despair to Hope: the historical fate of the AFM . 2. Astride India and China : the AFM as a catalyst to Sinitic Mahayana . 3. Beyond the Intellectual Synthesis of Fa-tsang: the Zen reaction and discontent. 1see the periodization scheme mentioned in the footnote on p. 5 above. The AFM, appearing around 600 A.O., coincided with the general emergence of Sinitic Mahayana that came between the early medieval period (400-600 A.D.) and the high medieval era (600-800 A.D.). 2 This chapter returns to the sociological concerns of . the Introduction chapter which surveyed the cultural milie u up to the appearance of the AFM. "Comparative religion" issues will also be touched upon in this concluding section. 239 1. From Despair to Hope: the historical fate of the AFM The career of the APM tradition spanned a period that saw a traumatic series of events affecting the Buddhist sangha . Following the unprecedented prosperity of the sangha in the 500-550 A.D. period, the community suffered the persecution of 574-576 A.O. in the north. From out of the ashes of this fire baptism, Sinitic Mahayana arose in a burst of energy unknown since . 1 The age of the degenerate Dharma, that was thought to b egin in 552 A.D., arrived only for those who decried the new prosperity that the sangha regained in the Sui-T 1 ang period of peace and general prosperity . Em~ress Wu 's patronage of the faith marked the second peak of Buddhist expansion. 2 It would seem natural that the AFM during this time might mean different things to different people . Fa-tsang had the definitive understanding, but his is only~ of several possible interpretations of the AFM. One should exp~ct that Fa-tsang, who experienced neither the 574 nor the 845 A.O. persecution of the Buddhists , brought a unique li f e experience or understanding to the AFM text itself. 1 The number of eminent monks recorded is highest in the Sui period, abqut. 4.4 persons per year; see Yamasaki Hiroshi~painstaking tabulation in his Shina chiisei Bukkyo no tenkai (Tokyo : 1942), pp. 367-368. 2 The outward prosperity of the sangha was not matched by the number of eminent monks in the Chou Wu period; ibid. 240 The introduction chapter has s~ggested the theme that Buddhist ideas and ins~ghts into truth and the nature of reality affected men and societies. The Chinese were converted to the faith and they built up an alternate institution, the sangha, alongside the traditional family, clan and state . The temple as a refuge from the sea of suffering in an age of chaos became an expanding economic institution. The sangha was not, as is often one-sidedly depictea--usually by unsympathetic Confucian observers~a parasitic institution. The temple manorial system was an ascetic corporation par excellence that helped the refeudalized China to recover from her version of the "sack of Rome." As the creative minority, the Buddhist fellowship grew until in time it became a dominant group in the middle of the sixth century A.O. Buddhist piety itself underwent changes that parallelled the changes in the nature of the Buddhist fellowship. 1 The institutional and spiritual crisis in the third quarter of the sixth century A.D. challenged the Buddhists 1A systematic and theoretical analysis of the social dynamics of medieval piety cannot be attempted in the thesis. Psychologically, the Buddhist teachings precipi- *tated changes in human personality. The ideal of "freedom" was changed; a dualistic understanding of the self led to the art of rational self-control; a philosophy provided integration at an anomic time. Numerical growth however challenged both the otherworldliness and the rationality. 241 to r e spond. It has been suggested earlier that the AFM was one such response: a contemplative '~ voluntary spiritual withdrawal into the security of the mind . The AFM recalled the monks to a more purist path of meditation and to shun generally the frenzied , untutored and magical devotion of the people . At a time when the physical sangha, the teachings and the Buddha-statues--the Three Jewels in their "physical" manifestations--were liable to d e struction from without and corruption from within, the AFM seems to ask men to put trust in the incorruptable deep " basis", faith in the Suchness (Mind) itself. Sinitic Mahayana that emerged around 600 A.D. represented largely a conscientious or conservative reformation --a sincere attempt on the part of soul-searching masters who turned away from the diluted gospel of the jen-t'i er~ chiao and who wanted to rebuild the spiritual sangha without the old abuses. The mark of the Chinese schools that emerged then was intellectual synthesis with commitments to actual practice. The AFM followed this trend. The well-known AFM may be regarded as the most typical work of this period. Its discussion on practice focuses primarily on two paths only: chjb-kllan (samatha-vipasana, cessation and contemplation} and nien-ro (Buddha-recall, the contemplation of the Buddha Amida through constant remembrance). Zen meditation is especially encouraged ... The goal is to attain Suchness 242 . ..... l l trace (tathata-samadhi) ... insight into the One [unity of the Dharmadhatu1 and the identity of Dharmakaya with sentient beings. This meditationis styled "one-path med itation" (ekavyuha or e kacarya samadhiJ. 1 The Zen tradition probably adhered to this meditative understanding of the AFM. Fa-tsang, however, gave a more "public" and "theocratic" reading of the text. His Hua-y en school is generally known to be relatively we ak in practice 2 and strong in metaphysical speculations. Fatsang's conunentary is more a Buddhological sumrna than a meditative guide. It talks more about the objective immensity of Suchness than about the inner nuances of contemplation . Fa-tsang was not a cloistered monk but a public figure. His age was not that of cosmic pessimism and fear of co smic evil . His philosophy of immanence came at a time when Empress Wu was depicted as the future Buddha, Maitreya, incarnate. The world was consecrated, overseen by the Sun-Buddha enshrined in the capital. This great Buddha emanated into a network of smaller Sun-Buddhas enshrined in t'he provincial temples (kuo -fen-ssu). The suggestion was that "All 1Yanagida Seizan, Wu no tankxu (Bukkyo no sh is6, ed. Tsukamoto et al, VII), p. 106 . 2 For a different opinion, see Unno Taitetsu, "The Dimensions of Practice in Hua Yen Thought," Bukkyo shiso shi ronshu (Tokyo: 1964) . Huayen and T'ien-t'ai are usually considered to be the "theoretical" schools, whereas Zen and Pure Land the "practice" schools . T'ien-t'ai, however, was known for founding "Mahayana meditation." 243 is One and One is All." The Sun-Buddha was omnipresent. The Dharma seemed to prevail and all was well. The despair of the Six Dynasties s eemed to be displaced by the aura of hope. Man, however, has harboured the highes t hope in the hour of deepest despair. The awakening of faith in the Unconditional often occurs at the time of greatest uncertainty ove r the conditioned world. If the introvertive elements of the AFM be considered as reflective of despair it should also be noted that the subjective idealism of the AFM reflected hope based on the awareness of the omnipresence of the Suchness mind within man . If that is so, Fa-tsang oo.ly highlighted one side of the "hope/despair" syndrome in the AFM. Fa-tsang transformed the contemplative idealism into philosophical idealism. Originally, tathata (Suchness) in the AFM means the basic essence of the mind of sentient beings . ... The Chinese translated Suchne.ss with "che_D- ~" under the influence of the notion of tzu-jan (nature). The Hua-~school in T'ang interprets Suchness as the "Ultimate One 11 at the basis of phenomenal realities, as that which activa tes and creates all, that is, as a metaphysical entity.l Tathagatagarbha, in India understood in terms of a "mode of consciousness" became, for Fa-tsang, something like the cosmic womb of the mystic female, the inexhaustible 1 Yanagida, op. cit., p. 98. Chinese Zen emerged out of this "metaphysicized " interpretation; ibid. 244 :...1i--------------------------------------------~~~~ -~ pregnant v oid of Lao-tzu's philosophy, paradoxically 1 empty and not empty. The Six Dynasties' Zeitgeist may be characterized as * "othershorely". The world was a vale of tears, a house on fire, to be escaped from. "Transcendental dualism " characterized its religious symbol system, its lifes tyle and its understanding of socie ty and human nature. However, the Hua-yen worldview in the T'ang period is best said to be "irnmanental and pane ntheistic" in inspiration . The cosmic womb of the Buddha was omnipresent and all powerful. The infinite Dharmadhatu {Dharrna-realm) was as Pasca l would say: its boundary is nowhere, its center everywhere. Phenomena like waves were only the surface of a n overwhelming reality, Suchness, the water . Every particular was swallowed up by the "transubstantiating" universal principle (li). Every man, as Zen put it in ex tr eme terms, is Buddha in the here-and-now. Nirvana is in this moment. Suchness is nature. The historical fate of the AFM is that a contemplative text from a period of crisis, coming at the end of a dark age, became a gospel of immanence in another period of outward prosperity. The coincidence here between Lao-tzu's concept of the mystic female (see Lao-tzu, chap. 1 and passim) and the tathagatagarbha (also empty and not-empty) is the coincidence of two early traditions of "mother earth" cults. 245 2. Astride India and China: the AFM as a catalyst to Sinitic Mahayana The thesis shows that the Sinicization process is a complicated one. The Buddhist and the Chinese traditions discovered themselves a s they discovered each other. The I Ching tradition, for example, helped to uncove r the tathagatagarbha tradition and in turn was nutured by it. The AFM lies at the watershed between two general outlooks, one "Indian Buddhist" and the other "Chinese": Indian Buddhist asatkaryavada1 causative model logical analysis neither/nor advaya epistemological Chinese yin-yang evolution biogenetic model monistic synthesis t'i-yung nonduality ontological The dynamic cultural interaction took place in the twi2 light area inbetween. The thes is has addressed itself to some of the issues listed above. In this section, the Sinitic ontological influe nce is analyzed . 1 Asatkaryavada means "the view that sees that effects do not pre-exist in the cause." 2 The Upanisadic tradition in India is closer to the Chinese set listed above. Chinese Buddhists were drawn to Indian Buddhist texts that show Hindu influence, e.g . the MPNS, the tathagatagarbha corpus. The Tantric tradition also shares some general traits with the Chinese set. 246 ... Indian Madhyamika and Yogacara philosophies may be characterized as "phenomenalist " in orientation, that is, they generally adhere to the anatman tradition that denies any ontological substance. Tathata , Suchness, is reality as it is phenomenally, that is, empty, devoid of any lasting being, sat . The Chinese, howe ver, were still much committed to a permanent principle and believed that there was a nournenal entity that transcended impermanence and emptiness . Given the Chinese predispositions , Indian phenornenalist philosophy imported into China was repeatedly "recast" into a "noumenal versus phenomenal" frame work. For example, Dharmata and sunyata are synonyms in India. The nature of reality (Dharrnata) is emptiness (sunyata). The Chinese acknowledged this to a certain ex1 tent. However, there are times in which the Chinese regarded fa-hsing {Dharmata 1 Dharma-essence} to be "higher" than kung (emptiness), especially when kung is related to kung-hsiang (form of emptiness), just as li (noumena) is higher than phenomena. The phrase "che n-ju shih-hsing" the true Suchness in its real (permanent) essence, in Chinese, naturally suggests something "higher" than "yiianch 'i kung-hsiang" the causative empty (transient) forms. 1 rt would be interesting to trace exactly when the Chinese popularly accepted fa-hsing (Dharmata} as more than k'ung-hsing (sunyata ). The two were regarded as synonyms by the Wu-liang-i ching ~;~~i:(a 6th cent. fabrication) • 247 A more curious case is this : interdepeñent causation (pratitya-sarñada, dependent co-origination) is yuan-ch'i f.~~ in Chines e. The nuance of the Sanskrit term is often lost in Chine se usage, when yuan-ch'i is taken to mean simply "causation ." Causation is viewed by the Chinese as belonging only to the sha ky world of universal flux and therefore of less value when compared with a theory of noumenal pe rmanence . Thus we find in Chinese Buddhism tendenci e s to characteriz e the Madhyamika philosophy as one which does not yet go far enough to spell out the "real" principle that is the substratum of the world of change . The re is then an ass umption among Chinese Buddhists t~at the progress of the Buddhist Dharma begins with Hinayana causa tion, advances to ( Indian) Mahayana negation of causation (by the Madhyamika.-karika ls denial of sheng, birth and mieh, deathl) and ends with Sinitic Mahayana discovery of the transcendental world of eternal es s ence. It '! Fa-tsang who gave b e st expression to this a ssumption in his f amous tenet-classification. 1 shgng-mieh >.:!::.~~ is g enerally conside red as samsara, and its opposite "neither life nor death" is considered to be nirvana. Madhyamika in denying sheng-mieh is thought to be pointing beyond to the higher reality or truth. It is significant to note that even after the introduction of the HPNS, "nirvana" still meant "extinction, rnieh 11 and only gradually it came to mean "non-extinction" T:"e:permanence; see Fuse Kogaku, Nehanshu no kenkyu, II, pp. 322-326. 248 l Tcnet-classif ication of the Ten Schools by Fa-tsang A. Phenomenal realist schools 1. Vatsiputriya 2. Sarvastivada 3. ~ahasanghika 4. Prajnaptivada naively accepts the reality of the phenomenal self and object. denies the phenonenal self but accepts the reality of the three times. affirms only the realities of the present time. affirms even in01:e selectively only some realities of the present time. All the above schools are fixated to phenomenal or nominal realities, but there is an ascending sophistication in bracket:ting more and more off mundane reality. B. Negators of phenomenal realism 5. Lokottaravada 6. Ekottiya 7. ~tadhyamika negates all mundane realities and affirms only the transmundane truth. sees that all realities, mundane and transmundane, are mere names. finally intuits to the truth that all is empty. All the above schools negate phenomenal reality, with growing sophistication until all is declared empty. Yet they have not yet affi~ed a higher Reality. C. ~oumenal "Realist" schools 8. T'ien-t'ai 9. Zen 10. Hua-yen represents "Final Mahayana". It intuits the not-ernpty nature of noumenal reality or principle. represents "Sudden Teaching". Zen attains the total identification of the true self and the absolutet the mind and Suchness. represents "Totalistic Teaching". The phenomenal (shih) and the noumenal (li) interpenetrates each other (like water and wave) and all is one and one is all (like each wave drawing the sea into itself and the sea absorbing all waves ). 1 The diagram-summary below ~ncludes explanations and classifications (A.B.C} showing the logic of the structure; see Takakusu, op. cit., pp. 117-118. 249 This classification of the schools by Fa-tsang is more detailed than the one he offered in his commentary on the AFM. In his commentary on the AFM, Fa-tsang gives the hierarchy of Indian Buddhism: (1) Hinayana, (2) 1 Madhvamika, (3) Yoqacara and (4) Tathagatagarbha schools. In his more elaborated "Ten Schools" classi fica tion, Sinitic Mahayana as represented by T'ien-t'ai, Zen and Hua-~, are placed at the top of the scale of values. 2 Madhyamika is considered to be on the threshold of Mahayana, and Yogacara as represented by the "new school" --for not accepting the icchantika into the scheme of enlightenment for all beings--was considered to be proHinayana. 3 In reserving authentic Mahayanafor the Chinese schools, Fa-tsang in fact declared the independence and superiority of Sinitic Mahayana schools. The term "Sinitic Mahayana" used in the introduction chapter above and throughout this thesis finds justification here. 1 T. 44, p. 243b. 2rt should be noted that the Pure Land school was not included. 3Actually Fa-tsang considered himself the heir to a special transmission of the Madhyamika philosophy, just as he considered that he had the better understanding of Asanga and Vasubandhu (through Sthiramati) than the "new scho'OI had through Dharmapala ." The "noumenal, transcausative versus phenomenal, causative" scheme used in the logic of his classification creates its own problems and resolutions. The theory of a "changeless yet dynamic suchness" in Hua-yen was precisely to reunite the distinction that was created in the Chinese understanding. 250 3. Beyond the Intellectual Synthesis of Fa-tsang: the Zen discontent and reaction Fa-tsang 's classification is perhaps the most comprehensive, logical and daring of all Chinese tenetclassification attempts. The telos of that classification can only point to Hua-yen. In that classification also is found one of the earliest references to Zen as a distinct school . Meditation masters had always existed, but a discrete meditation (i .e. Zen} school by itself seems to crystallize only in the seventh century A.D ., around the time of Fa-tsang. A strange dialectical tens i on existed, I believe, between Hua-yen, the most inclusive and cerebal school, and the emerging Zen school that was its opposite in many ways . The Hua-ven worldview was proto-Tantric . Its Buddhology was "realist"--the universal (li, principle} is in e very particular (shih, fact). Hua-yen provided the basis for much of the grand sacramental mysteries and liturgical beauty of cosmic rites performed . Fa-tsang was the resident philosopher of Empress Wu 's court, the "Thomas Aquinas" of Sinitic Mahayana who synthes i zed all diverging viewpoints into one. This thinker's summa has been revered and never been outdone since . His intelligence represented the peak of high medieval Buddhist 251 "scholastic ism." The history of religion often sees such peaks of systematization by a rationalizing mind followed by the rise of its opposite--an impatience with reason and with neat structures. Fa-tsa ng, for example, loved to classify everything into perfect sets of tens . Making reality conform to such perfect patterns, however, bred antiintellect activists or anti-intellectuals. 1 "Scholastic rationality," that is, the assumption or presumption that a reasoning mind can or should try to fathom all mysteries, was enough at times to turn agnostics into atheists or pi e tists into crypto-mystics . 2 The ''catholic" enterprise, that is, the acceptance of different paths leading to the absolute based upon a hierarchy of needs and endowments and an organic view of traditions accumulated, only spurred its opposite: the singlemindedness of "protesting" figures who were committed then to one and only one path--often in a dogmatically zealous exclusion of all other alternatives. 1People can be "anti-intellect" or "anti-intellectual." The anti-intellectual is an intellectual nonetheless. 2 when the dominant religious symbol system is mildly "rationalist," the non-adherents t e nd to be mildly sceptical or "agnostic", not claiming to know. However , when the dominant religious symbol system claims to be based on reason, the opposition is similarly radicalized to become strong rational critics or "atheist" while the pious men of faith are polarized also into using irrational symbols. 252 i We have already seen some elements of that singlemindedness during the crisis of 574 A.D . Thinkers were interested in the One when r eality was most gravely divided a nd fragmented. The theme of the "One Mind " prevailed. The Three Period school was fanatic in its devotion, paradoxically not to the one but to the all . Its indiscriminate worship of one and all Buddhas was, in the end, equally intolerant and exclusivist. The AFM emphasized "one-path samadhi" on Suchness and Suchness alone--a last minute concession was made to Amida piety. Chih-i (538-597 A.D.} of the T'ien-t'ai school brought all teachings under one roof--the umbrella of the Lotus sutra. Chihi 1 s "catholic" . 1 d 1 . . . 1 enterprise a so promo te exc usivist reaction. Yanagida Seizan considers that around the time when Chih-i wrote the Mo-ho chih-kuan ~ t~ .il:.. 'iljl..,. Treatise on Maha-[yancij Medi tation, the interest in "singleminded " devotion to one path, 2 one act , or one object of meditation developed. 1chih-i produced the first comprehensive tenet-classification which still informs the structure of the Buddhist canon in China and Japan. The T'ie n-t'ai classification is based on a supposedly historical sequence of Buddha's teachings ; the Hua-yen scheme is based on a logical progression of philosophical contents of the schools. Chih-i, by finding unity within multiplicity in a "catholic" (i .e. inclusive) enterprise, also promoted exclusive devotion to the Lotus sutra--especially later in Japanese Tendai sects. 2Yanagida, Wu no tankyu, p. 107 . Tao-cho (5 62-645 A.D.) and Shan-tao (613-681 A.D.) selected nien-fo, Buddhaname recitation/remembrance. Tao-hsin (580-651 A.D.), and Hung-jen (602-675 A.D.) selected Zen meditation. 253 In spiritual crisis, 1 "crisis-faith" emerges. A radical understanding of man is usually involved . The pressure of the hour dictates that there is no time to try all paths but only time to rely totally on one path alone . The mottos of such movements are often "By this or by that alone ." Sola fides, faith alone, in the vows of Arnida was the gospel among the Pure Land followers in the seventh century A.D. in China. This faith should preferably be in Amida and no other Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, perferably in one main vow above all other vows, perferably through one act of faith (recitation) instead of many--such radical developments, however, occurred only later in Karnakura Japan . In Loyang piety, there was the practice of endless liturgical chanting by monk and lay alike . Quality now challenged quantity; a deep inner faith, a change of heart was more important than outward display. Within the emerging Zen circle, the other main "practice-orientated" school, the cry was "By zazen or sitting meditation alone" directed at Suchness itself . 2 1i,y "crisis-faith" I mean a style of faith that explores crisis situations in human existence or the crisis of existence itself. The accompanying conversion pattern is often "volitional ego-integration" involving a conflict of wills, especially irrational will tha*t challenges human reason. 2see Yanagida, loc. cit. Chih-i, being a synthesizer, classified meditation into four types--walking, sitting,halfwalking and half-si tting, neither walking nor sitting. Of these four, Zen later chose "sitting meditation . 11 254 Just as Chih-i promoted "singlemindedness" in late sixth century A.O., Fa-tsang, the other giant in intellectual synthesis also seems to promote such reactions in late seventh century A . D. in China . Religious issues were revived as controversies: gradual cultivation versus sudden enlightenment, works versus faith, a step-by-step approach versus a leap in the dark, karmakanda and tnfil:@kanda. 1 I do not intend to go into the ideological issues involved . 2 I will merely note that in the history of religions, there are times when these debates flared up more than other times. At those controversial times, no Erasmian common sense ("works, and, of course, faith") would placate the spiritual genius and anguish of a Luther and no jnanakarrnasamuccaya {"combination of work and knowledge" as a path to liberation} would satisfy a Sankara. Similarly, no northern Zen master (who followed sudden e nlightenment in his own style) would pacify Shen-hui, leader of the southern Zen group. Fa-tsang, a conternporary of Shen-hsiu (d. 706 A. O.) of the northern Zen school, might actually have helped to bring the Zen controversy 1These issues, taken from Europe, China and India, seem to occur in the "late medieval" period according to my periodization; see p. 5 for the Chinese case . 2The opposing positions are based on different presuppositions and it is self-defeating to compare or contrast them . Comparison and contrast assume that the items are comparable or relative--a procedure which is not admissible to one of the two groups. 255 about . Philosophers like Fa-tsang seemed to legitimize the "path of knowledge" (jnanakanda) and provide a critigue of the "path of merits" , salvat ion through works (ka rmakanda.) 1 The Zen school b e n efitted from the clarification of the issues provide d by the theory of ~ priori e nlightenment , offered by the AFM (side by side with incipient enlightenment) and dramatized by the Hua-yen school. However, up to the time of Shen-hsiu, Hua=yen and Zen existed side by side and in mutual support of one a nother . Tao-hsin (580-651 A.O.) used the AFM to instruct the first sizeable following of Zen in the East Mountain . Sh e n-hsiu was companion to Fa-tsang in Empress Wu 's court. (Northern) Zen was Hua-yen Zen and Fa-tsang returned the complement by classifying Zen as the school closest to Hua-yen . The Hua-ven philosophy was however more "realist" and more supportive of icons, rites, sacerdotal practices than the later southern Zen school, which became increasingly "nominalist," individualistic and iconoclastic. 1 r am suggesting here an hypothesis that "scholasticism" was necessary for the emergence of "crisis-faith." "Crisisfaith" emerged in part as a r esult of the overrationalization of the religious symbol system by the professional thinkers . The crisis of reason produced "antiintellectuals" who questioned the basis of Reason itself. In medieval Europe, there were the ladders of merit, of speculation and of contemplation, fitting, in my opinion, to the "organic" division of labour between body, mind and spirit represented by the laity, the schoolrnen and the contemplative. This neat Catholic scheme was challenged by the Reformers . 256 The rise of the southern Zen school me ant the dissociation of Zen from the intellectual enterprise of the Hua-yen school. That rise also coincided with changes in society. The brightest days of T'ang Buddhism were numbered. Ch'ang-an, the capital, was sacked in the An Lu-shan revolt of 755 A.D . The northern lineage of Buddhists was weakened and the southern Buddhist branches rose in influence . Shen-hui (670-762 A.D.), a follower of Hui-neng (638-713 1 A.D.), was rewarded for his war efforts on behalf of the crown. Shen-hui introduced a more radical Zen esprit simpliste .... By this time, Indian Mahayana was declining and except for Tantrism, little new inspiration flowed from India to China. Chinese Buddhists had to rely more and more upon themselves. Necessity to appease a ruler who favoured Taoism led to further Sinicization. 2 Early Taoist-Buddhists like Tao-sheng and Seng-chao were rediscovered. Sinitic Buddhist works like the Pao-tsang-lun (attributed to Seng-chao) and the Yuan-chueh-ching were Hui-neng was said to be a southerri barbarian who was converted to the Dharma by the Diamond sutra. The southern Zen tradition seems to follow the more-intuitive prajna-paramita philosophy than the more analytical works like tne-Lank.avatara sutra and the AFM in the north. 2The synthesis of Taoism and Buddhism in the eighth century A.D. is from a point of strength and not of weakness as in the fourth century A.O. One represents "Sinitic Mahayana" as the other "Taoistized (ke i} Buddhism." The former does not confuse Buddhism with Taoism-and can critically review the native tradition. * . 257 well-received . Tsung-mi (780 -841 A.D . } commented on the Yuan-chueh-ching extensively . He was the Hua-yen and Zen master who attempted the last medieval synthesis prior to the persecution of 845 A.D. 1 In 845 A.D., the sangha suffered a crippling blow. The wealth of the temples might not ha ve been affected as much as sometimes thought, but both institutionally and 2 spiri tually, the vitality of Buddhism was sapped . The withdrawal of state support, the revival of Confucianism and the lack of intellectual stimulation from India curtailed the intellectual side of Chinese Buddhist activities . The faith turned mo re towards "prac tice" and Zen and the Pure Land school prospered. Buddhist piety took on a different style of expression. The grandeur of the Hua-yen philosophy , that vision of a world sanctif ied by the cosmic light of Vairocana and that peculiar awareness of the immanence of the infinite, belonged to the past. The legacy of the AFM that supported that vision lives on as a r e minder of the glory that was Buddhism. ******** Tsung-mi' s essay "On Man" (Yuan-j en-lun ~A..t~ ) is a l andmark* of this synthesis. See Feng Yu-lan, Chungkuo che-hsiieh shih (Shanghai :19 34) , pp.791-799. 2The temple manorial system, a have n at one time, was breaking down. Peasants were tenantized as temples be came just another "landlord" that exploited them. 258 .. -~ BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbreviations used: AFM T JIBS bwakening of Faith in Mahaya na Taisho Daizokyo , Taisho Tripitaka Journal of India n and Buddhist Studies; Indoga ku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu E!7~~14'f>*~*+~SG Primary Sources, Texts , Translations and Critical ~~ork.s 1. The Texts of the AFM j::...~gf~ ~~ Ta-ch ' eng ch'i-hsin lun, lated by Paramartha . attributed to Asvaghosa, transT. 32, No . 1666. Ta-ch 'eng ch 'i-hsin lun, attributed to Asvaghosa , translated by Siksananda . T . 32, No . 1667. Daij6 kishin ron (the two translations given in parallel texts) , ed . Akas~i Etatsu aPl.:>p ~~ . Kyoto , 19 56. Da ijo kishin ron kodoku ~*1~£.by Takemura Shoho i\,&,ro,~~ . Kyoto , 1959. 2 . English Translations of the AFM Hakeda,Yoshito S. trans . Awakening of Faith in Mahayana Attributed to Asvaghosa . New York, l967 . Richard, Timothy trans. The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana Doctrine--the New Buddhism . Shanohai, 1907. Robinson, Richard H. trans. The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana . (Unpublished manuscript) . Suzuki Teitaro (D . T . Suzuki} trans. Asvaghosa's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana . New York, 1967 . Wai-tao and Goddard, Dwight trans . . "The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana," A Buddhist Bible, ed . Goddard. New York, 1952 . 259 : I I I . 3. Classical commentaries on the AFM and related works Fa-tsang ;.£~ (643 -712 A . O.) * Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun i-chi _.,. ~g;c_,. T. 44, No. 1846. Hui-yuan ~-~ (523-592 A.O.) Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun i sh u _;-~ }!ii_, • T . 4 4 , No . 18 4 3 • Ta-ch'eng-i-chang 7',.~f'~* T . 44, No . 1851. Tsung-mi ~ ~ (780-841 A.D .) Ch'an-yuan chu-chuan chi tu-hsu ~;/~t~ tir ~ ~j'-13- • T. 48, No . 2016 . Wonhyo it,% ( 617-686 A. D.) Ch ' i-hsin lun-shu ,._,, ~fu . T . 44, No. 1844 . 4. Modern Critical Works on the AFM Del')'lieville r Paul . "Sur 1 1 authentici te du Ta Tch I ing K'i Sin Louen," Bulletin de la Maison FrancoJaponaise, II, No .2. Tokyo, 1929 . Liang,Ch'i-ch 'ao ~~~~ Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun k'ao cheng . Shanghai , 1923. Li e benthal, Walter , "New Light on the Mahayana-sraddhotpada sastra ," T'oung Pao, XLVI (1958). . "The Oldest Commentary on the Mahayana__ s_r_a_d,,...d"""'h-o-tpada Sas tr a," Bukky6 bunka kenkyG., No. 6 & 7 (1958). Mochizuki, Shinko 11'.PDJit;~ Daij6 . k .ishin ron kenkyu -Gff5'L . Kyoto, 1922. Petzold, Bruno . Das Dai Jo Kishin Ron und seine Lehre van der Erleunchtung . Tokyo, 1942. Tokiwa, Daijo "ft~ 1'..~. Shina Bukkyo no kenkyu , II $Z.:;;t~f.lf. ~~ ,..,-btf-•..t£... Tokyo, 19 4 3 . 5. Other Basic Texts used in the thesis Chih-sheng '1;3a . K 'ai-yuan-shih-chiao-lu E:l*lt.:~ ~~ T. 5 5, No. 215 4 . Hui-chiao ~--ã • Kao-seng-chuan ~ -rM!"l~ . T. 50 , No . 2059. Ju leng ch'ieh ching, trans . 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