Tathagatagarbha Thought in Chinese Buddhism

Chan Buddhist discourse refers repeatedly to many kinds of animals, particularly dogs and cats, as symbols or in fables in order to comment ironically on human attitudes and behavior. These creatures are appreciated for their positive qualities yet are also scathingly criticized for representing a lack of discipline and self-control. This paper considers how a couple of Chan gongan cases featuring animals are related to the Mahayana doctrine of universal Buddha-nature. Does Chan accept and approve or reject and refute the (...) orthodox view, does it craft a standpoint of ironic inconclusiveness that deliberately bypasses and reorients traditional doctrinal disputes, or do these cases primarily express an allegorical message regarding possibilities or challenges for humans seeking to attain an experience of enlightenment? (shrink)

This dissertation argues that the Yogâcāra Buddhism transmitted by the Indian translator Paramârtha (Ch. Zhendi 真諦) underwent a significant transformation due to the influence of his later Chinese interpreters, a phenomenon to which previous scholars failed to paid enough attention. I begin with showing two contrary interpretations of Paramârtha’s notion of jiexing 解性. The traditional interpretation glosses jiexing in terms of “original awakening” (benjue 本覺) in the Awakening of Faith and hence betrays its strong tie to that text. In contrast, (...) a contrary interpretation of jiexing is preserved in a Dunhuang fragment Taishō No. 2805 (henceforth abbreviated as T2805). The crucial part of this dissertation consists in demonstrating that T2805 and the Awakening of Faith represent two competing lineages of the interpreters of Paramârtha. The first clue is that modern scholars have voiced objection to the traditional attribution of the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. In addition, I discovered that striking similarities exist between T2805 and Paramârtha’s corpus with respect to terminology, style of phrasing, and doctrine. I further draw attention to the historical testimonies about two different doctrinal views held by Paramârtha’s interpreters. Therefore, I argue that there were two lineages in the name of Paramârtha’s disciples around 590 CE: the indirect lineage interpreted Paramârtha through the lens of the Awakening of Faith; and the direct lineage—represented by T2805—preserved Paramârtha’s original teachings but died out prematurely. Later Chinese Buddhist tradition mistakenly regards the indirect lineage as Paramârtha’s true heir and attributes the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. This implies that Paramârtha may have agreed with Xuanzang 玄奘 (600-664) much more than scholars used to assume. For example, Xuanzang’s characterization of the notion of “aboriginal uncontaminated seeds” looks very similar to how Paramârtha depicts jiexing. It also implies that we should distinguish the strong sense of the notion of “tathāgatagarbha” in the Awakening of Faith from its weak sense. The fact that even Vasubandhu endorses the weak sense of “tathāgatagarbha” strongly challenges the received wisdom that Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha were two distinct and antagonistic trends of thought in India. (shrink)

Buddhism enthusiasts that the tathAgatagarbha sources were themselves aware of the criticism that they simply taught an Atman in the same way that non- Buddhists did, and they rejected this accusation and defended themselves against the ...

The Saddharmapundarika-sutra-upadesa , composed by the eminent Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu in the fourth or fifth century A. D., has the important distinction of being the only Indian commentary on the Lotus Sutra to be preserved in any Buddhist canon. The Lotus Sutra, with a 2,000 year history spanning India, Central Asia, China and Japan, still remains one of the most important of all the Mahayana Sutras. ;This dissertation on Vasubandhu's commentary to the Lotus Sutra is comprised of three parts: Part (...) I contains a survey of its history and significance; Part II covers various philological issues regarding it; Part III is an annotated English translation of its Chinese version. Appendixes covering certain issues involving the quotations from the Lotus Sutra found in the Chinese manuscript of the SPU and a Chinese-English glossary for its translation are also included. ;In Part I, background information regarding the Lotus Sutra as well as the development of Mahayana Buddhism and its Sutra tradition is provided. New terminology for the historical periods of Mahayana Buddhism, a new model for its development in India and a chronology for some of the major Mahayana Sutras, all of which take into consideration modern Japanese scholarship on the subject, are presented. The formation of the Lotus Sutra and its major doctrines, primarily that of Ekayana , is also introduced. ;In Part II, philological issues regarding the Chinese SPU manu- script, such as various linguistic peculiarities and authenticity, are discussed. Although Chinese tradition proposes several translations of the SPU only two are extant: No. 1519 in Vol. 26 of Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo attributed to Bodhiruci and T. 1520 by Ratnamati. Actually a study of the various versions of the SPU, that is T. 1519, 1520 and the versions quoted verbatim in Enchin's and Chi-tsang's commentaries indicates that there is just one translation. ;The manuscript of the Lotus Sutra which Vasubandhu used was closer to the present Sanskrit manuscripts than to the manuscript Kumarajiva used for his translation of the Lotus Sutra . It may well have been a more expanded version of the Lotus Sutra when compared to the present Sanskrit manuscripts. (shrink)

Of the many translators who carried the Buddhist doctrine to China, Paramartha, a missionary-monk who arrived in China in AD 546, ranks as the translator par excellence of the sixth century. Introducing philosophical ideas that would subsequently excite the Chinese imagination to develop the great schools of Sui and T'ang Buddhism, Paramartha's translations are almost exclusively of Yogacara Buddhist texts on the nature of the mind and consciousness. This first study of Paramartha in a Western language focuses on the Chuan (...) shih lun (Evolution of Consciousness), a text that reveals the outline of Paramartha's Yogacara thought. The study begins with a discussion of Paramartha's life, the historical and political context of the time in India and south China, and the roles of his main disciples in disseminating his work. It then describes Paramartha's treatment of Yogacarin views on language and the process of cognition, both central to this system of thought. The final chapter analyzes the history and content of the Chuan shih lun, and the book concludes with a new translation of the text, with extensive annotations. (shrink)