Ph.D in the department of Philosophy, 6th Century Chinese Buddhism with a special reference to the Dunhuang manuscripts of that era. Supervisors: Cho, Sungtaek and Ikeda Masanori
This paper aims to examine the Fajieyuanqi (法界緣起, “Dependent - arsing of the Dharma Realm”) theor... more This paper aims to examine the Fajieyuanqi (法界緣起, “Dependent - arsing of the Dharma Realm”) theory, base on the Dilun texts S.4303 found in Dunhuang. The result can be summarized as follows. 1) S.4303 analyzes the Buddhist doctrines in the three doctrinal classification and discusses that all the doctrines are dependent on each other, therefore one is in all and all in one from the ultimate point of view. In this context, the Fajieyuanqi means the complete relationship, non - discrimination, and equality between all individual doctrines. Moreover, S.4303 declares the full relevance of these doctrines to be the standpoint of the Dilun school. 2) The Fajieyuanqi is generally considered to be the idea of the Huayen school. However, if we glimpse the S.4303, the analogies of the Indra’s net and the mirrors reflecting each other, or the six characteristics(六相) that are used to explain the Fajieyuanqi have already been formed from the Dilun School. 3) The S.4303 show the core point of the Fajieyuanqi should be ‘dependent - arising’ itself. When examining the Dilun manucripts from this point of view, it can be seen that the 緣起 would be derived from paratantra - svabhāva of the tri -svabhāva. The monks of the Dilun School interpreted the tri - svabhāva in the viewpoint of the Tathāgatagarbha theory, thus the Fajieyuanqi was appeared in the idea that the Tathāgatagarbha generates every phenomenal world(一切法) mainly indicating the Buddha dharma(佛法). 4) Therefore the Fajieyuanqi had been understood as a part of the Tathāgatagarbha theory in the Dilun school.
This paper aims to examine the Dunhunag Manuscript S.524R, a transcribed text of the Shengmanshu ... more This paper aims to examine the Dunhunag Manuscript S.524R, a transcribed text of the Shengmanshu (勝鬘疏, “A commentary on the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra”) ascribe to the Dharma Master Zhao(照, ?-?). The result of this survey can be summarized as follows: 1) Compared with the Dunhuang Manuscript, the Taishō edition of S.524R contains substantial amount of erroneous passages. Total 206 errors have been verified through the re-calibrating work on them. 2) The colophon of S.524R tells us that this manuscript was established in the fourth year of Yanchang (延昌, 512-515 C.E.). However, another Dunhuang Manuscript P.2908, presumably written before the Daśabhūmikā-śastra was translated (511 C.E.), quotes passages from the Shengmanshu in the name of “Dharma Master Zhao (招)”. Thus it is natural to presume the original version of the Shengmanshu would be written before 511 C.E. Moreover, the author Dharma Master Zhao would be the one of the well-known monks of the Northern Dynasty in that era, since he was mentioned in the various texts in the late 5th Century. 3) S.524R adopts the abhidharmic doctrines of the Satyasiddhiśāstra (成實論) to interpret the passages of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. These interpretations were replaced by the theories of the Indian yogācāra-vijñānavāda when the Dilun School was established, but some theories originated in the Shengmanshu still exert influence on later Buddhist thought. 4) Among the existing commentaries of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra written in the Northern Dynasty, the Shengmanshu was the first to introduce the trividhāni śīlāni theory of the Bodhisattvabhūmi into the interpretation of the sūtra. Therefore, it can be seen that the Buddhist in the Northen Dynasty began to study the Bodhisattvabhūmi from the time Shengmanshu was written.
불교철학(Journal for the study of Buddhist Philosophy), 2020
This paper aims to examine the previous researches on the authorship and the significant feature... more This paper aims to examine the previous researches on the authorship and the significant features of the Commentary of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith which is attributed to the renowned Dilun master Jingying Huiyan(523-592) (henceforth “Jingyingshu”), The results of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) The authorship of the Jingyingshu has been controversial for several Centuries. One of the clues of the forgery is its writing style. Unlike other works of Jingying Huiyuan, the Jingyingshu contains unpolished sentences throughout the text. However, I argue that it is not so much a question since the early version of Jingying Huiyuan’s writings shows the same problem as well. 2) The Jingyingshu interprets the term Kāya-traya thorugh the classification of the Ti(體), Xiang(相) and Yong(用). These three terms are identified with the Dharmakāya, the Saṃbhogakāya and the Nirmāṇakāya respectively. This way of interpretation is the original scheme of the Dilun School. 3) The Jingyingshu quotes his another writing “The Meaning of the Two Hindrances(二障義)” in almost full length when explaining the defilement theory of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith. The previous research asserted that this quotation shows no consistency and pointed it as the decisive evidence of the apocryphalness of the Jingyingshu. However, as far as I can see, the Jingyingshu choose the most relevant analytics on the matter.
In conclusion, the Jingyingshu can be regarded as a commentary written under the doctrinal influence of the Jingying Huiyan, if not composed by himself.
This paper aims to trace the ideological transformation from Huiyuan's Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, ... more This paper aims to trace the ideological transformation from Huiyuan's Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha in the various Sūtras”) to the later writings of eminent Silla monks: Woncheuk's Wuliangyijing Shu (無量義經疏, “A Commentary to the Mahānirdeśa-sūtra”) and Wonhyo's Yeolbanjongyo (涅槃宗要, “The Core Teachings and Essentials of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra”).
Both of these Silla texts selectively quote sentences from the Zhongjingjiaojiyi and transform their meanings to fit heir own contexts and discussions. Since Woncheuk and Wonhyo concentrated on the problems they faced in their own time, their usage of the earlier text distorted its original meaning. As a result, the original conceptual structure of the Zhongjingjiaojiyi, and its philosophical implications, were gradually lost.
These examples reveal the peculiarities of the history of Buddhist thought, as well as the significance of the transformation of a text. Regardless of the times, Buddhist monks pursued "the Middle" (madhyama) beyond two extremes. This applies not only to Woncheuk and Wonhyo but also to monks of previous generations. However, a particular text can only be fully understood in the context of the era in which the text was written. A text that argued for the madhyama of yesterday, sometimes comes to be understood as an extreme argument today. Nevertheless, the transformed text continues to play a role in the Buddhist tradition as a source used to identify "the Middle" in the new era.
This paper aims to trace the textual and ideological transformations of the view on the Buddhist ... more This paper aims to trace the textual and ideological transformations of the view on the Buddhist sacred texts from Fashang (法上)’s Jiaojiyi (敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha”, henceforth “JY”) to Jingying Huiyuan (淨影慧遠)’s Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha in the various Sūtras”, henceforth “ZhJY”); both were written in late 6th Century China. The result of this research can be summarized as follows: ZhJY is established under the direct influence of the JY. While the text of ZhJY provides more elaborate sentences which were refined from JY, the main argument of JY seems to be distorted through the revision. ZhJY inserted new but false information that JY did not consider. It resulted in a distortion of the historical facts reflected in JY. In addition, JY claims that there is no difference between Buddhist Sūtras since they are all derived from the Buddha himself, but in the process of recounting these contents, ZhJY claims that the teachings conveyed by all scriptures are different. As a result, ZhJY has become a less consistent and incomplete work compared to JY. Incidentally, it was ZhJY that had had a more powerful impact on later Buddhists of East Asia in spite of its structural imperfection. Therefore, the Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty have come to encounter and criticize the thoughts of their former generation through the ZhJY which cannot be assessed as an accurate description of the tradition
This paper aims to demonstrate how the viewpoint on the Sūtras had been changed in 6th Century No... more This paper aims to demonstrate how the viewpoint on the Sūtras had been changed in 6th Century Northern Wei Buddhism through the Dilun master Fashang(法上, 490~580)'s “Jiaoji - yi(敎迹義, “The Analysis of the Buddha's Teaching”) by examining his textual taxonomy / classification(Pan - jiao, 敎判). Before the 6th Century, the East Asian Buddhists considered the Sūtras as the direct records of the Buddha, each of which holds a certain moment of the Buddha's lifetime. Fashang declares that the understangins of that time has no validity since the preaching of Buddha contains every teaching in a whole scale at all time. Moreover, he points out the actual agent of Sūtras is the not the Buddha himself but his disciples who have authority in making and ‘editing’ the manuscripts. Instead of the chronological view on the Sūtras, Fashang suggests that the Buddha's teaching was established into two baskets, namely, the Bodhisattvapiṭaka (菩薩藏) and the Śrāvakapiṭaka(聲聞藏) which has the textual reference in the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Fashang's textual taxonomy gave a heavy impact on the doctrinal thoughts of East Asian Buddhists. Thenceforth East Asian Buddhists started to consider Buddhist teachings with the dichotomy of Mahāyāna and Hinayāna. As a result, the Pan - jiao system could be refined into a more hermeneutically developed form.
This paper aims to examine the philological and ideological features of a fragmentary Dunhuang ma... more This paper aims to examine the philological and ideological features of a fragmentary Dunhuang manuscript BD3443 entitled Dachengwumenshidi–shixianglun (大乘五門十地實相論), a commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. The result of this research can be summarized as follows: 1) As an early Dilun text, BD3443 shares the exact same passages with the Shidilun-yishu (十地論義疏), a Dunhuang manuscript which preserves small portion of a larger commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. Since Shidilun-yishu was told to be written by Fashang (法上, 490-580), a renowned monk of the Dilun School, the author of BD3443 can be the same person, or even the two manuscripts can be the parts of a full-length text. 2) Though there is no external clues for confirming the two texts to be the same text, there are rich amount of internal evidences showing these two are closely related. Therefore, I presumed that these texts was made under the ‘group’ of Fashang, if not written by Fashang himself. 3) From the premise that both documents contain Fashang's thoughts, it should be noted that the theory of mind and the theory of pratītya-samutpāda shown in BD3443 identifies doctrinal explanations that are not explicitly described in the existing part of Shidilun-yishu. That is, for the mind theory, BD3443 links the seventh consciousness with the fundamental ignorance (根本無明), while the pratītya-samutpāda theory of BD3443 discusses the essence and phenomena, showing the structure of three kinds of pratītya-samutpāda which are the very original doctrines of the Dilun School. Thus, BD3443 can be seen as containing discussions that further refine the content of Shidilun-yishu. In conclusion, the BD3443 represents the doctrinal understanding of Fashang in a more elaborated and systematized form than that of Shidilun-yishu.
This paper aims to reexamine the term “Three Seals of the Dharma
(三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspect... more This paper aims to reexamine the term “Three Seals of the Dharma (三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspective of East Asian Buddhism. The results of this article can be summarized as follows: 1) Modern scholars have traced the term “Sanfayin (三法印)” to the Indian origin and established its original Sanskrit form as “*tri-dharma- uddāna.” However, this fact seems nothing new to the East Asian Buddhist tradition, since texts written in 6th century China already acknowledged the term yin (印) was the translation of youtanna (優檀那=uddāna). 2) The term “三法印” emerged in the translation works of Kumarājīva (334-413) for the first time. His rendering of the term uddhāna to the “印 (seal, sanction)” seems to be a liberal, or rather a literal, translation reflecting his understanding of the term. 3) Due to its Chinese form, the “三法印” has often been contrasted to another term of “One Dharma Seal (⼀法印, Yifayin) as the translation of “dharma-svabhāva-mudra” from the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. This kind of comparison can only be possible in the field of East Asian Buddhism where the Sanskrit term “uddāna” and “mudra” had been translated to an identical Chinese form “印.” 4) Among various explanations of “三法印” in East Asian thoughts, Tientai Zhiyi (538?-597) claims it as the teaching of the Lesser Vehicles. His interpretation has been most widely spread and even influenced the thinking of today’s academia.
This paper aims to submit the doctrinal features of a Dunhuang manuscript named Renwangbore-shixi... more This paper aims to submit the doctrinal features of a Dunhuang manuscript named Renwangbore-shixianglun (『仁王般若實相論』, henceforth “RBS”), which is a commentary on a Chinese apocryphal sūtra Renwang-Jing (『仁王經』). The results of this research can be summarized as follows: 1) Compared to the original manuscript, the printed version of RBS in Taisho edition contains a substantial amount of erroneous passages. In total, 110 errors have been verified through the textual analysis. 2) The Renwang-Jing in the RBS contains slightly different passages from the present Renwang-Jing. This suggests that different versions of Renwang-Jing may have existed at the time of composing RBS, approximately the early 6th C.E. 3) RBS mentions doctrines that are characteristic of those introduced by the Dilun Masters, such as Three Bodies (三身) or Three Secular Worlds(三種世間). This implies that RBS was written under the ideological influence of the Dilun School. 4) Unlike other Dilun texts, however, RBS contains no passages quoting from Shidijing-lun (『十地經論』), which was the core reference of the Dilun School thought. Even in the section that explains the ten stages (十地) of the Bodhisattva, RBS refers to texts that existed before the Shidijing-lun was translated, such as Pusayingluobenye-Jing (『菩薩瓔珞本業經』) and Sizhupiposha-Lun (『十住毘婆沙論』. *Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā). 5) The list of texts quoted in RBS shows a close affinity to that of another Dunhuang manuscript Shidilun-yishu (『十地論義疏』). Especially the Youposejie-Jing (『優婆塞戒經』, *Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra) and the Sizhu-piposha-Lun are cited in these two texts exclusively. Moreover, these two texts share an identical passage that cannot be found elsewhere. These facts suggest that RBS and Shidilunyishu were written in the same doctrinal lineage.
This paper aims to demonstrate the chronological position of a Dunhuang manuscript entitled Benye... more This paper aims to demonstrate the chronological position of a Dunhuang manuscript entitled Benyeyingluo-Jing-shu (本業瓔珞經疏, henceforth “S2748”), a commentary on a Chinese apocryphal canon Pusayingluobenye-Jing (菩薩瓔珞本業經), in the Dilun texts of the early 6th Century Northern Dynasty (北朝, Beichao). The results of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) All the Buddhist canons quoted in S2748 are listed in Sūtra Catalogs of the Northern Dynasty. Among them, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (Rulengqie-jing, 入楞伽經) translated by Bodhiruci in 513 AD has the latest date of translation. Thus the composition date of S2748 should be no earlier than 513 AD. It is also noteworthy that S2748 uses what are rarely found in the later Dilun School, such as Shanbipusa-Jing (善臂菩薩經) and Wujinyi-Jing (無盡意經). 2) As might be expected from a Dilun text, S2748 refers to Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra (Shidi-jinglun, 十地經論) throughout the manuscript. Moreover, S2748 gives priority to the Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra over the Pusayingluobenye-Jing in doctrinal explanations. 3) S2748 shares an almost identical paragraph with Shidilunyishu (十地論義疏), a representative text of the early Dilun School. Comparing these paragraphs seems to suggest that S2748 was written earlier than the Shidilunyishu. 4) The identical paragraphs of the two texts both state that “the first stage Bodhisattva out of ten stages can break the binding of Saṃsāra”, which was a soteriological doctrine newly adopted in the Dilun School. However, another passage from S2748 argues that it is actually at the seventh stage of the Bodhisattva path when the bindings of Saṃsāra would loosen. These conflicting statements clearly imply that their doctrinal system had not yet been fully organized at the time of S2748’s composition. 5) Another Dunhuang manuscript, Renwangbanruo-shixianglun (仁王般若實相論), shows an obvious correlation with S2748. These two texts are presumably founded in the same group though the Renwangbanruo-shixianglun seems to have been written before the Dilun School was established. It provides an interesting insight into the changing doctrinal identity of a certain group according to the propagation of new thoughts and soteriological devices.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the reference to the Dilun School in early 6th century accor... more The aim of this paper is to analyze the reference to the Dilun School in early 6th century according to the newly discovered Dunhuang manuscript 羽726R. Its bibliographical features imply that this document was transcribed in Wetstern Wei西魏, 396 A.D., and therefore it could be useful to investigate some interesting aspects on the very early form of the Dilun school. The results of my research can be summarized in three points: First, although 羽726R was labeled as Daisheng - Shidilun - Yiji(A Commentary for the Treatise of Mahayānān Ten Stages, 大乘十地論義記), this manuscript was identified as a short but rare commentary to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, translated by the renowned Indian monk Bodhiruci of Nothern Wei. It is remarkable that the 羽726R uses the same technical terms and soteriology as the Jingangxian - Lun(金剛仙論). Contemporary scholars believe that the Jingangxian - Lun is either a compilation or the study notes of Bodhiruchi’s students, Thus it is highly probable that the 羽726R was also written for the same purpose by Bodhiruci’s disciple. Second, unlike later treatises and commentaries on the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, 羽726R analyzes the text using the term dharma - kāya, the body of ultimate truth. Contrary to modern scholarship which usually approaches the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, along with the Dilun School, mainly focusing on mind theory and regarding the dharma - kāya as a peripheral element, this research tells a whole different story. It brings to light the fact that at least some Northern Wei Buddhists did focus on the notion of the dharma - kāya. Third, 羽726R is written on the theoretical bases of the ten stages(十地) theory, and has distinctive yet elementary mind-only element. This means that yogacara’s theory had been adopted and substantialized as early as Bodhiruci. Moreover, this paper will attempt to unveil the hermeneutical frameworks for interpreting similar texts from that era.
This is a revised version of my paper “『入楞伽經』 주석서에 나타난 초기 地論學派의 특징 - 둔황사본 羽726R(『大乘十地論義記』)을 중심으로(... more This is a revised version of my paper “『入楞伽經』 주석서에 나타난 초기 地論學派의 특징 - 둔황사본 羽726R(『大乘十地論義記』)을 중심으로(The Special Features of the Early Dilun School As portrayed in a Dunhuang Manuscript 羽726R)”, 『禪文化硏究』, 韓國禪理硏究院 no.16, Seoul: 2014, and is presented in the international conference “敦煌遺書與佛教研究” 28th-30th October, 2016, Shanghai.
This thesis sets out to explore the implications of the concept of the ālayavijñāna in East Asia... more This thesis sets out to explore the implications of the concept of the ālayavijñāna in East Asian Buddhism, on the basis of its earliest appearances. The notion of the ālayavijñāna, which denotes the ur-mind that functions as the sole basis of phenomenal consciousness and as the medium of the eternal cycle of birth and death, was first adopted in China by the Dilun School. Their explication of the concept makes for a good example of the way Chinese Buddhists employed Indian ideas in developing their own thoughts system.
The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) Before the Dilun School was established, Chinese Buddhists embraced the doctrines of the ‘ignorance as a profound defilement’ (*avidyāvāsabhūmi) and of the ‘essentially pure mind’ (*prakṛtipariśuddha-citta, also known as tathāgatagarbha) taught by the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. Both were considered to be Mahāyānan concepts that could not be grasped by the adherents of Hīnayāna, and both became the foundations of the Mahāyānan soteriology in Chinese Buddhism. While the pure mind was identified with Buddha Nature(佛性), the profound defilement was identified with uncultivated mind itself(卽心).
2) Bodhiruci, one of the Indian founders of the Dilun School, put forth the theory of the two aspects of the ālayavijñāna: the defiled and the pure. In contrast to the traditional interpretation advanced by the Indian concept of the ālayavijñāna to be an unceasing stream and therefore not able to be defined as an eternal attribute, Bodhiruci’s theory entailed an inclination to admit the permanent quality – the unchangeable pure aspect – in the ālayavijñāna.
3) The Dilun School associated the defiled and pure aspects of the ālayavijñāna with the profound defilement and with the pure mind respectively. Moreover, since the Dilun School accepted Laṅkāvatārasūtra’s schematization of the eight kinds of mind, the defiled ālayavijñāna was regarded as the seventh and the pure ālayavijñāna as the eighth, in addition to the six kinds of phenomenal consciousness. Among them, the early Dilun texts generally interpreted the seventh mind as the ālayavijñāna while using the ‘ultimate truth’ or the ‘Buddha Nature’ to describe the eighth mind.
4) This conception of the ālayavijñāna of the early Dilun School had significant effect on the development of the soteriological system in Chinese Buddhism. Traditionally, Buddhists upheld a dichotomous framework which distinguished between the unreal (妄) and the real (眞), illustrated through phenomena or concepts such as suffering and nirvana, the defiled and the pure, sentient beings and the Buddha, and the conditioned and the unconditioned. However, once the ālayavijñāna intermediated between these poles of the dichotomy, thereby forming “a synthesis of the unreal and the real (眞妄和合)”, the ideological framework of the pre-Dilun era, which had consisted of a doctrine of structural opposites, was transformed into a conception of the gradual process of change, with a trajectory from the unreal to the real.
This paper aims to examine the Fajieyuanqi (法界緣起, “Dependent - arsing of the Dharma Realm”) theor... more This paper aims to examine the Fajieyuanqi (法界緣起, “Dependent - arsing of the Dharma Realm”) theory, base on the Dilun texts S.4303 found in Dunhuang. The result can be summarized as follows. 1) S.4303 analyzes the Buddhist doctrines in the three doctrinal classification and discusses that all the doctrines are dependent on each other, therefore one is in all and all in one from the ultimate point of view. In this context, the Fajieyuanqi means the complete relationship, non - discrimination, and equality between all individual doctrines. Moreover, S.4303 declares the full relevance of these doctrines to be the standpoint of the Dilun school. 2) The Fajieyuanqi is generally considered to be the idea of the Huayen school. However, if we glimpse the S.4303, the analogies of the Indra’s net and the mirrors reflecting each other, or the six characteristics(六相) that are used to explain the Fajieyuanqi have already been formed from the Dilun School. 3) The S.4303 show the core point of the Fajieyuanqi should be ‘dependent - arising’ itself. When examining the Dilun manucripts from this point of view, it can be seen that the 緣起 would be derived from paratantra - svabhāva of the tri -svabhāva. The monks of the Dilun School interpreted the tri - svabhāva in the viewpoint of the Tathāgatagarbha theory, thus the Fajieyuanqi was appeared in the idea that the Tathāgatagarbha generates every phenomenal world(一切法) mainly indicating the Buddha dharma(佛法). 4) Therefore the Fajieyuanqi had been understood as a part of the Tathāgatagarbha theory in the Dilun school.
This paper aims to examine the Dunhunag Manuscript S.524R, a transcribed text of the Shengmanshu ... more This paper aims to examine the Dunhunag Manuscript S.524R, a transcribed text of the Shengmanshu (勝鬘疏, “A commentary on the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra”) ascribe to the Dharma Master Zhao(照, ?-?). The result of this survey can be summarized as follows: 1) Compared with the Dunhuang Manuscript, the Taishō edition of S.524R contains substantial amount of erroneous passages. Total 206 errors have been verified through the re-calibrating work on them. 2) The colophon of S.524R tells us that this manuscript was established in the fourth year of Yanchang (延昌, 512-515 C.E.). However, another Dunhuang Manuscript P.2908, presumably written before the Daśabhūmikā-śastra was translated (511 C.E.), quotes passages from the Shengmanshu in the name of “Dharma Master Zhao (招)”. Thus it is natural to presume the original version of the Shengmanshu would be written before 511 C.E. Moreover, the author Dharma Master Zhao would be the one of the well-known monks of the Northern Dynasty in that era, since he was mentioned in the various texts in the late 5th Century. 3) S.524R adopts the abhidharmic doctrines of the Satyasiddhiśāstra (成實論) to interpret the passages of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. These interpretations were replaced by the theories of the Indian yogācāra-vijñānavāda when the Dilun School was established, but some theories originated in the Shengmanshu still exert influence on later Buddhist thought. 4) Among the existing commentaries of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra written in the Northern Dynasty, the Shengmanshu was the first to introduce the trividhāni śīlāni theory of the Bodhisattvabhūmi into the interpretation of the sūtra. Therefore, it can be seen that the Buddhist in the Northen Dynasty began to study the Bodhisattvabhūmi from the time Shengmanshu was written.
불교철학(Journal for the study of Buddhist Philosophy), 2020
This paper aims to examine the previous researches on the authorship and the significant feature... more This paper aims to examine the previous researches on the authorship and the significant features of the Commentary of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith which is attributed to the renowned Dilun master Jingying Huiyan(523-592) (henceforth “Jingyingshu”), The results of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) The authorship of the Jingyingshu has been controversial for several Centuries. One of the clues of the forgery is its writing style. Unlike other works of Jingying Huiyuan, the Jingyingshu contains unpolished sentences throughout the text. However, I argue that it is not so much a question since the early version of Jingying Huiyuan’s writings shows the same problem as well. 2) The Jingyingshu interprets the term Kāya-traya thorugh the classification of the Ti(體), Xiang(相) and Yong(用). These three terms are identified with the Dharmakāya, the Saṃbhogakāya and the Nirmāṇakāya respectively. This way of interpretation is the original scheme of the Dilun School. 3) The Jingyingshu quotes his another writing “The Meaning of the Two Hindrances(二障義)” in almost full length when explaining the defilement theory of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith. The previous research asserted that this quotation shows no consistency and pointed it as the decisive evidence of the apocryphalness of the Jingyingshu. However, as far as I can see, the Jingyingshu choose the most relevant analytics on the matter.
In conclusion, the Jingyingshu can be regarded as a commentary written under the doctrinal influence of the Jingying Huiyan, if not composed by himself.
This paper aims to trace the ideological transformation from Huiyuan's Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, ... more This paper aims to trace the ideological transformation from Huiyuan's Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha in the various Sūtras”) to the later writings of eminent Silla monks: Woncheuk's Wuliangyijing Shu (無量義經疏, “A Commentary to the Mahānirdeśa-sūtra”) and Wonhyo's Yeolbanjongyo (涅槃宗要, “The Core Teachings and Essentials of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra”).
Both of these Silla texts selectively quote sentences from the Zhongjingjiaojiyi and transform their meanings to fit heir own contexts and discussions. Since Woncheuk and Wonhyo concentrated on the problems they faced in their own time, their usage of the earlier text distorted its original meaning. As a result, the original conceptual structure of the Zhongjingjiaojiyi, and its philosophical implications, were gradually lost.
These examples reveal the peculiarities of the history of Buddhist thought, as well as the significance of the transformation of a text. Regardless of the times, Buddhist monks pursued "the Middle" (madhyama) beyond two extremes. This applies not only to Woncheuk and Wonhyo but also to monks of previous generations. However, a particular text can only be fully understood in the context of the era in which the text was written. A text that argued for the madhyama of yesterday, sometimes comes to be understood as an extreme argument today. Nevertheless, the transformed text continues to play a role in the Buddhist tradition as a source used to identify "the Middle" in the new era.
This paper aims to trace the textual and ideological transformations of the view on the Buddhist ... more This paper aims to trace the textual and ideological transformations of the view on the Buddhist sacred texts from Fashang (法上)’s Jiaojiyi (敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha”, henceforth “JY”) to Jingying Huiyuan (淨影慧遠)’s Zhongjingjiaojiyi (衆經敎迹義, “The Meaning of the Teachings of the Buddha in the various Sūtras”, henceforth “ZhJY”); both were written in late 6th Century China. The result of this research can be summarized as follows: ZhJY is established under the direct influence of the JY. While the text of ZhJY provides more elaborate sentences which were refined from JY, the main argument of JY seems to be distorted through the revision. ZhJY inserted new but false information that JY did not consider. It resulted in a distortion of the historical facts reflected in JY. In addition, JY claims that there is no difference between Buddhist Sūtras since they are all derived from the Buddha himself, but in the process of recounting these contents, ZhJY claims that the teachings conveyed by all scriptures are different. As a result, ZhJY has become a less consistent and incomplete work compared to JY. Incidentally, it was ZhJY that had had a more powerful impact on later Buddhists of East Asia in spite of its structural imperfection. Therefore, the Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty have come to encounter and criticize the thoughts of their former generation through the ZhJY which cannot be assessed as an accurate description of the tradition
This paper aims to demonstrate how the viewpoint on the Sūtras had been changed in 6th Century No... more This paper aims to demonstrate how the viewpoint on the Sūtras had been changed in 6th Century Northern Wei Buddhism through the Dilun master Fashang(法上, 490~580)'s “Jiaoji - yi(敎迹義, “The Analysis of the Buddha's Teaching”) by examining his textual taxonomy / classification(Pan - jiao, 敎判). Before the 6th Century, the East Asian Buddhists considered the Sūtras as the direct records of the Buddha, each of which holds a certain moment of the Buddha's lifetime. Fashang declares that the understangins of that time has no validity since the preaching of Buddha contains every teaching in a whole scale at all time. Moreover, he points out the actual agent of Sūtras is the not the Buddha himself but his disciples who have authority in making and ‘editing’ the manuscripts. Instead of the chronological view on the Sūtras, Fashang suggests that the Buddha's teaching was established into two baskets, namely, the Bodhisattvapiṭaka (菩薩藏) and the Śrāvakapiṭaka(聲聞藏) which has the textual reference in the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Fashang's textual taxonomy gave a heavy impact on the doctrinal thoughts of East Asian Buddhists. Thenceforth East Asian Buddhists started to consider Buddhist teachings with the dichotomy of Mahāyāna and Hinayāna. As a result, the Pan - jiao system could be refined into a more hermeneutically developed form.
This paper aims to examine the philological and ideological features of a fragmentary Dunhuang ma... more This paper aims to examine the philological and ideological features of a fragmentary Dunhuang manuscript BD3443 entitled Dachengwumenshidi–shixianglun (大乘五門十地實相論), a commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. The result of this research can be summarized as follows: 1) As an early Dilun text, BD3443 shares the exact same passages with the Shidilun-yishu (十地論義疏), a Dunhuang manuscript which preserves small portion of a larger commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. Since Shidilun-yishu was told to be written by Fashang (法上, 490-580), a renowned monk of the Dilun School, the author of BD3443 can be the same person, or even the two manuscripts can be the parts of a full-length text. 2) Though there is no external clues for confirming the two texts to be the same text, there are rich amount of internal evidences showing these two are closely related. Therefore, I presumed that these texts was made under the ‘group’ of Fashang, if not written by Fashang himself. 3) From the premise that both documents contain Fashang's thoughts, it should be noted that the theory of mind and the theory of pratītya-samutpāda shown in BD3443 identifies doctrinal explanations that are not explicitly described in the existing part of Shidilun-yishu. That is, for the mind theory, BD3443 links the seventh consciousness with the fundamental ignorance (根本無明), while the pratītya-samutpāda theory of BD3443 discusses the essence and phenomena, showing the structure of three kinds of pratītya-samutpāda which are the very original doctrines of the Dilun School. Thus, BD3443 can be seen as containing discussions that further refine the content of Shidilun-yishu. In conclusion, the BD3443 represents the doctrinal understanding of Fashang in a more elaborated and systematized form than that of Shidilun-yishu.
This paper aims to reexamine the term “Three Seals of the Dharma
(三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspect... more This paper aims to reexamine the term “Three Seals of the Dharma (三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspective of East Asian Buddhism. The results of this article can be summarized as follows: 1) Modern scholars have traced the term “Sanfayin (三法印)” to the Indian origin and established its original Sanskrit form as “*tri-dharma- uddāna.” However, this fact seems nothing new to the East Asian Buddhist tradition, since texts written in 6th century China already acknowledged the term yin (印) was the translation of youtanna (優檀那=uddāna). 2) The term “三法印” emerged in the translation works of Kumarājīva (334-413) for the first time. His rendering of the term uddhāna to the “印 (seal, sanction)” seems to be a liberal, or rather a literal, translation reflecting his understanding of the term. 3) Due to its Chinese form, the “三法印” has often been contrasted to another term of “One Dharma Seal (⼀法印, Yifayin) as the translation of “dharma-svabhāva-mudra” from the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. This kind of comparison can only be possible in the field of East Asian Buddhism where the Sanskrit term “uddāna” and “mudra” had been translated to an identical Chinese form “印.” 4) Among various explanations of “三法印” in East Asian thoughts, Tientai Zhiyi (538?-597) claims it as the teaching of the Lesser Vehicles. His interpretation has been most widely spread and even influenced the thinking of today’s academia.
This paper aims to submit the doctrinal features of a Dunhuang manuscript named Renwangbore-shixi... more This paper aims to submit the doctrinal features of a Dunhuang manuscript named Renwangbore-shixianglun (『仁王般若實相論』, henceforth “RBS”), which is a commentary on a Chinese apocryphal sūtra Renwang-Jing (『仁王經』). The results of this research can be summarized as follows: 1) Compared to the original manuscript, the printed version of RBS in Taisho edition contains a substantial amount of erroneous passages. In total, 110 errors have been verified through the textual analysis. 2) The Renwang-Jing in the RBS contains slightly different passages from the present Renwang-Jing. This suggests that different versions of Renwang-Jing may have existed at the time of composing RBS, approximately the early 6th C.E. 3) RBS mentions doctrines that are characteristic of those introduced by the Dilun Masters, such as Three Bodies (三身) or Three Secular Worlds(三種世間). This implies that RBS was written under the ideological influence of the Dilun School. 4) Unlike other Dilun texts, however, RBS contains no passages quoting from Shidijing-lun (『十地經論』), which was the core reference of the Dilun School thought. Even in the section that explains the ten stages (十地) of the Bodhisattva, RBS refers to texts that existed before the Shidijing-lun was translated, such as Pusayingluobenye-Jing (『菩薩瓔珞本業經』) and Sizhupiposha-Lun (『十住毘婆沙論』. *Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā). 5) The list of texts quoted in RBS shows a close affinity to that of another Dunhuang manuscript Shidilun-yishu (『十地論義疏』). Especially the Youposejie-Jing (『優婆塞戒經』, *Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra) and the Sizhu-piposha-Lun are cited in these two texts exclusively. Moreover, these two texts share an identical passage that cannot be found elsewhere. These facts suggest that RBS and Shidilunyishu were written in the same doctrinal lineage.
This paper aims to demonstrate the chronological position of a Dunhuang manuscript entitled Benye... more This paper aims to demonstrate the chronological position of a Dunhuang manuscript entitled Benyeyingluo-Jing-shu (本業瓔珞經疏, henceforth “S2748”), a commentary on a Chinese apocryphal canon Pusayingluobenye-Jing (菩薩瓔珞本業經), in the Dilun texts of the early 6th Century Northern Dynasty (北朝, Beichao). The results of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) All the Buddhist canons quoted in S2748 are listed in Sūtra Catalogs of the Northern Dynasty. Among them, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (Rulengqie-jing, 入楞伽經) translated by Bodhiruci in 513 AD has the latest date of translation. Thus the composition date of S2748 should be no earlier than 513 AD. It is also noteworthy that S2748 uses what are rarely found in the later Dilun School, such as Shanbipusa-Jing (善臂菩薩經) and Wujinyi-Jing (無盡意經). 2) As might be expected from a Dilun text, S2748 refers to Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra (Shidi-jinglun, 十地經論) throughout the manuscript. Moreover, S2748 gives priority to the Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra over the Pusayingluobenye-Jing in doctrinal explanations. 3) S2748 shares an almost identical paragraph with Shidilunyishu (十地論義疏), a representative text of the early Dilun School. Comparing these paragraphs seems to suggest that S2748 was written earlier than the Shidilunyishu. 4) The identical paragraphs of the two texts both state that “the first stage Bodhisattva out of ten stages can break the binding of Saṃsāra”, which was a soteriological doctrine newly adopted in the Dilun School. However, another passage from S2748 argues that it is actually at the seventh stage of the Bodhisattva path when the bindings of Saṃsāra would loosen. These conflicting statements clearly imply that their doctrinal system had not yet been fully organized at the time of S2748’s composition. 5) Another Dunhuang manuscript, Renwangbanruo-shixianglun (仁王般若實相論), shows an obvious correlation with S2748. These two texts are presumably founded in the same group though the Renwangbanruo-shixianglun seems to have been written before the Dilun School was established. It provides an interesting insight into the changing doctrinal identity of a certain group according to the propagation of new thoughts and soteriological devices.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the reference to the Dilun School in early 6th century accor... more The aim of this paper is to analyze the reference to the Dilun School in early 6th century according to the newly discovered Dunhuang manuscript 羽726R. Its bibliographical features imply that this document was transcribed in Wetstern Wei西魏, 396 A.D., and therefore it could be useful to investigate some interesting aspects on the very early form of the Dilun school. The results of my research can be summarized in three points: First, although 羽726R was labeled as Daisheng - Shidilun - Yiji(A Commentary for the Treatise of Mahayānān Ten Stages, 大乘十地論義記), this manuscript was identified as a short but rare commentary to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, translated by the renowned Indian monk Bodhiruci of Nothern Wei. It is remarkable that the 羽726R uses the same technical terms and soteriology as the Jingangxian - Lun(金剛仙論). Contemporary scholars believe that the Jingangxian - Lun is either a compilation or the study notes of Bodhiruchi’s students, Thus it is highly probable that the 羽726R was also written for the same purpose by Bodhiruci’s disciple. Second, unlike later treatises and commentaries on the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, 羽726R analyzes the text using the term dharma - kāya, the body of ultimate truth. Contrary to modern scholarship which usually approaches the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, along with the Dilun School, mainly focusing on mind theory and regarding the dharma - kāya as a peripheral element, this research tells a whole different story. It brings to light the fact that at least some Northern Wei Buddhists did focus on the notion of the dharma - kāya. Third, 羽726R is written on the theoretical bases of the ten stages(十地) theory, and has distinctive yet elementary mind-only element. This means that yogacara’s theory had been adopted and substantialized as early as Bodhiruci. Moreover, this paper will attempt to unveil the hermeneutical frameworks for interpreting similar texts from that era.
This is a revised version of my paper “『入楞伽經』 주석서에 나타난 초기 地論學派의 특징 - 둔황사본 羽726R(『大乘十地論義記』)을 중심으로(... more This is a revised version of my paper “『入楞伽經』 주석서에 나타난 초기 地論學派의 특징 - 둔황사본 羽726R(『大乘十地論義記』)을 중심으로(The Special Features of the Early Dilun School As portrayed in a Dunhuang Manuscript 羽726R)”, 『禪文化硏究』, 韓國禪理硏究院 no.16, Seoul: 2014, and is presented in the international conference “敦煌遺書與佛教研究” 28th-30th October, 2016, Shanghai.
This thesis sets out to explore the implications of the concept of the ālayavijñāna in East Asia... more This thesis sets out to explore the implications of the concept of the ālayavijñāna in East Asian Buddhism, on the basis of its earliest appearances. The notion of the ālayavijñāna, which denotes the ur-mind that functions as the sole basis of phenomenal consciousness and as the medium of the eternal cycle of birth and death, was first adopted in China by the Dilun School. Their explication of the concept makes for a good example of the way Chinese Buddhists employed Indian ideas in developing their own thoughts system.
The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) Before the Dilun School was established, Chinese Buddhists embraced the doctrines of the ‘ignorance as a profound defilement’ (*avidyāvāsabhūmi) and of the ‘essentially pure mind’ (*prakṛtipariśuddha-citta, also known as tathāgatagarbha) taught by the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. Both were considered to be Mahāyānan concepts that could not be grasped by the adherents of Hīnayāna, and both became the foundations of the Mahāyānan soteriology in Chinese Buddhism. While the pure mind was identified with Buddha Nature(佛性), the profound defilement was identified with uncultivated mind itself(卽心).
2) Bodhiruci, one of the Indian founders of the Dilun School, put forth the theory of the two aspects of the ālayavijñāna: the defiled and the pure. In contrast to the traditional interpretation advanced by the Indian concept of the ālayavijñāna to be an unceasing stream and therefore not able to be defined as an eternal attribute, Bodhiruci’s theory entailed an inclination to admit the permanent quality – the unchangeable pure aspect – in the ālayavijñāna.
3) The Dilun School associated the defiled and pure aspects of the ālayavijñāna with the profound defilement and with the pure mind respectively. Moreover, since the Dilun School accepted Laṅkāvatārasūtra’s schematization of the eight kinds of mind, the defiled ālayavijñāna was regarded as the seventh and the pure ālayavijñāna as the eighth, in addition to the six kinds of phenomenal consciousness. Among them, the early Dilun texts generally interpreted the seventh mind as the ālayavijñāna while using the ‘ultimate truth’ or the ‘Buddha Nature’ to describe the eighth mind.
4) This conception of the ālayavijñāna of the early Dilun School had significant effect on the development of the soteriological system in Chinese Buddhism. Traditionally, Buddhists upheld a dichotomous framework which distinguished between the unreal (妄) and the real (眞), illustrated through phenomena or concepts such as suffering and nirvana, the defiled and the pure, sentient beings and the Buddha, and the conditioned and the unconditioned. However, once the ālayavijñāna intermediated between these poles of the dichotomy, thereby forming “a synthesis of the unreal and the real (眞妄和合)”, the ideological framework of the pre-Dilun era, which had consisted of a doctrine of structural opposites, was transformed into a conception of the gradual process of change, with a trajectory from the unreal to the real.
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1) S.4303 analyzes the Buddhist doctrines in the three doctrinal classification and discusses that all the doctrines are dependent on each other, therefore one is in all and all in one from the ultimate point of view. In this context, the Fajieyuanqi means the complete relationship, non - discrimination, and equality between all individual doctrines. Moreover, S.4303 declares the full relevance of these doctrines to be the standpoint of the Dilun school.
2) The Fajieyuanqi is generally considered to be the idea of the Huayen school. However, if we glimpse the S.4303, the analogies of the Indra’s net and the mirrors reflecting each other, or the six characteristics(六相) that are used to explain the Fajieyuanqi have already been formed from the Dilun School.
3) The S.4303 show the core point of the Fajieyuanqi should be ‘dependent - arising’ itself. When examining the Dilun manucripts from this point of view, it can be seen that the 緣起 would be derived from paratantra - svabhāva of the tri -svabhāva. The monks of the Dilun School interpreted the tri - svabhāva in the viewpoint of the Tathāgatagarbha theory, thus the Fajieyuanqi was appeared in the idea that the Tathāgatagarbha generates every phenomenal world(一切法) mainly indicating the Buddha dharma(佛法).
4) Therefore the Fajieyuanqi had been understood as a part of the Tathāgatagarbha
theory in the Dilun school.
1) Compared with the Dunhuang Manuscript, the Taishō edition of S.524R contains substantial amount of erroneous passages. Total 206 errors have been verified through the re-calibrating work on them.
2) The colophon of S.524R tells us that this manuscript was established in the fourth year of Yanchang (延昌, 512-515 C.E.). However, another Dunhuang Manuscript P.2908, presumably written before the Daśabhūmikā-śastra was translated (511 C.E.), quotes passages from the Shengmanshu in the name of “Dharma Master Zhao (招)”. Thus it is natural to presume the original version of the Shengmanshu would be written before 511 C.E. Moreover, the author Dharma Master Zhao would be the one of the well-known monks of the Northern Dynasty in that era, since he was mentioned in the various texts in the late 5th Century.
3) S.524R adopts the abhidharmic doctrines of the Satyasiddhiśāstra (成實論) to interpret the passages of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. These interpretations were replaced by the theories of the Indian
yogācāra-vijñānavāda when the Dilun School was established, but some
theories originated in the Shengmanshu still exert influence on later Buddhist thought.
4) Among the existing commentaries of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra written in the Northern Dynasty, the Shengmanshu was the first to introduce the trividhāni śīlāni theory of the Bodhisattvabhūmi into the interpretation of the sūtra. Therefore, it can be seen that the Buddhist in the Northen Dynasty began to study the Bodhisattvabhūmi from the time Shengmanshu was written.
1) The authorship of the Jingyingshu has been controversial for several Centuries. One of the clues of the forgery is its writing style. Unlike other works of Jingying Huiyuan, the Jingyingshu contains unpolished sentences throughout the text. However, I argue that it is not so much a question since the early version of Jingying Huiyuan’s writings shows the same problem as well.
2) The Jingyingshu interprets the term Kāya-traya thorugh the classification of the Ti(體), Xiang(相) and Yong(用). These three terms are identified with the Dharmakāya, the Saṃbhogakāya and the Nirmāṇakāya respectively. This way of interpretation is the original scheme of the Dilun School.
3) The Jingyingshu quotes his another writing “The Meaning of the Two Hindrances(二障義)” in almost full length when explaining the defilement theory of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith. The previous research asserted that this quotation shows no consistency and pointed it as the decisive evidence of the apocryphalness of the Jingyingshu. However, as far as I can see, the Jingyingshu choose the most relevant analytics on the matter.
In conclusion, the Jingyingshu can be regarded as a commentary written under the doctrinal influence of the Jingying Huiyan, if not composed by himself.
Both of these Silla texts selectively quote sentences from the Zhongjingjiaojiyi and transform their meanings to fit heir own contexts and discussions. Since Woncheuk and Wonhyo concentrated on the problems they faced in their own time, their usage of the earlier text distorted its original meaning. As a result, the original conceptual structure of the Zhongjingjiaojiyi, and its philosophical implications, were gradually lost.
These examples reveal the peculiarities of the history of Buddhist thought, as well as the significance of the transformation of a text. Regardless of the times, Buddhist monks pursued "the Middle" (madhyama) beyond two extremes. This applies not only to Woncheuk and Wonhyo but also to monks of previous generations. However, a particular text can only be fully understood in the context of the era in which the text was written. A text that argued for the madhyama of yesterday, sometimes comes to be understood as an extreme argument today. Nevertheless, the transformed text continues to play a role in the Buddhist tradition as a source used to identify "the Middle" in the new era.
ZhJY inserted new but false information that JY did not consider. It resulted in a distortion of the historical facts reflected in JY. In addition, JY claims that there is no difference between Buddhist Sūtras since they are all derived from the Buddha himself, but in the process of recounting these contents, ZhJY claims that the teachings conveyed by all scriptures are different. As a result, ZhJY has become a less consistent and incomplete work compared to JY.
Incidentally, it was ZhJY that had had a more powerful impact on later Buddhists of East Asia in spite of its structural imperfection. Therefore, the Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty have come to encounter and criticize the thoughts of their former generation through the ZhJY which cannot be assessed as an accurate description of the tradition
Before the 6th Century, the East Asian Buddhists considered the Sūtras as the direct records of the Buddha, each of which holds a certain moment of the Buddha's lifetime. Fashang declares that the understangins of that time has no validity since the preaching of Buddha contains every teaching in a whole scale at all time. Moreover, he points out the actual agent of Sūtras is the not the Buddha himself but his disciples who have authority in making and ‘editing’ the manuscripts.
Instead of the chronological view on the Sūtras, Fashang suggests that the Buddha's teaching was established into two baskets, namely, the Bodhisattvapiṭaka (菩薩藏) and the Śrāvakapiṭaka(聲聞藏) which has the textual reference in the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Fashang's textual taxonomy gave a heavy impact on the doctrinal thoughts of East Asian Buddhists. Thenceforth East Asian Buddhists started to consider Buddhist teachings with the dichotomy of Mahāyāna and Hinayāna. As a result, the Pan - jiao system could be refined into a more hermeneutically developed form.
The result of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) As an early Dilun text, BD3443 shares the exact same passages with the Shidilun-yishu (十地論義疏), a Dunhuang manuscript which preserves small portion of a larger commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. Since Shidilun-yishu was told to be written by Fashang (法上, 490-580), a renowned monk of the Dilun School, the author of BD3443 can be the same person, or even the two manuscripts can be the parts of a full-length text.
2) Though there is no external clues for confirming the two texts to be the same text, there are rich amount of internal evidences showing these two are closely related. Therefore, I presumed that these texts was made under the ‘group’ of Fashang, if not written by Fashang himself.
3) From the premise that both documents contain Fashang's thoughts, it should be noted that the theory of mind and the theory of pratītya-samutpāda shown in BD3443 identifies doctrinal explanations that are not explicitly described in the existing part of Shidilun-yishu. That is, for the mind theory, BD3443 links the seventh consciousness with the fundamental ignorance (根本無明), while the pratītya-samutpāda theory of BD3443 discusses the essence and phenomena, showing the structure of three kinds of pratītya-samutpāda which are the very original doctrines of the Dilun School. Thus, BD3443 can be seen as containing discussions that further refine the content of Shidilun-yishu.
In conclusion, the BD3443 represents the doctrinal understanding of Fashang in a more elaborated and systematized form than that of Shidilun-yishu.
(三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspective of East Asian Buddhism. The results
of this article can be summarized as follows:
1) Modern scholars have traced the term “Sanfayin (三法印)” to the
Indian origin and established its original Sanskrit form as
“*tri-dharma- uddāna.” However, this fact seems nothing new to
the East Asian Buddhist tradition, since texts written in 6th century
China already acknowledged the term yin (印) was the translation
of youtanna (優檀那=uddāna).
2) The term “三法印” emerged in the translation works of Kumarājīva
(334-413) for the first time. His rendering of the term uddhāna to
the “印 (seal, sanction)” seems to be a liberal, or rather a literal,
translation reflecting his understanding of the term.
3) Due to its Chinese form, the “三法印” has often been contrasted to
another term of “One Dharma Seal (⼀法印, Yifayin) as the translation
of “dharma-svabhāva-mudra” from the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra.
This kind of comparison can only be possible in the field of East
Asian Buddhism where the Sanskrit term “uddāna” and “mudra”
had been translated to an identical Chinese form “印.”
4) Among various explanations of “三法印” in East Asian thoughts,
Tientai Zhiyi (538?-597) claims it as the teaching of the Lesser
Vehicles. His interpretation has been most widely spread and even
influenced the thinking of today’s academia.
1) Compared to the original manuscript, the printed version of RBS in
Taisho edition contains a substantial amount of erroneous passages. In total, 110 errors have been verified through the textual analysis.
2) The Renwang-Jing in the RBS contains slightly different passages from the present Renwang-Jing. This suggests that different versions of Renwang-Jing may have existed at the time of composing RBS, approximately the early 6th C.E.
3) RBS mentions doctrines that are characteristic of those introduced
by the Dilun Masters, such as Three Bodies (三身) or Three Secular Worlds(三種世間). This implies that RBS was written under the ideological influence of the Dilun School.
4) Unlike other Dilun texts, however, RBS contains no passages quoting from Shidijing-lun (『十地經論』), which was the core reference of the Dilun School thought. Even in the section that explains the ten stages (十地) of the Bodhisattva, RBS refers to texts that existed before the Shidijing-lun was translated, such as Pusayingluobenye-Jing (『菩薩瓔珞本業經』) and Sizhupiposha-Lun (『十住毘婆沙論』. *Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā).
5) The list of texts quoted in RBS shows a close affinity to that of
another Dunhuang manuscript Shidilun-yishu (『十地論義疏』). Especially the Youposejie-Jing (『優婆塞戒經』, *Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra) and the Sizhu-piposha-Lun are cited in these two texts exclusively. Moreover, these two texts share an identical passage that cannot be found elsewhere. These facts suggest that RBS and Shidilunyishu were written in the same doctrinal lineage.
1) All the Buddhist canons quoted in S2748 are listed in Sūtra Catalogs of the Northern Dynasty. Among them, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (Rulengqie-jing, 入楞伽經) translated by Bodhiruci in 513 AD has the latest date of translation. Thus the composition date of S2748 should be no earlier than 513 AD. It is also noteworthy that S2748 uses what are rarely found in the later Dilun School, such as Shanbipusa-Jing (善臂菩薩經) and Wujinyi-Jing (無盡意經).
2) As might be expected from a Dilun text, S2748 refers to Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra (Shidi-jinglun, 十地經論) throughout the manuscript. Moreover, S2748 gives priority to the Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra over the Pusayingluobenye-Jing in doctrinal explanations.
3) S2748 shares an almost identical paragraph with Shidilunyishu (十地論義疏), a representative text of the early Dilun School. Comparing these paragraphs seems to suggest that S2748 was written earlier than the Shidilunyishu.
4) The identical paragraphs of the two texts both state that “the first stage Bodhisattva out of ten stages can break the binding of Saṃsāra”, which was a soteriological doctrine newly adopted in the Dilun School. However, another passage from S2748 argues that it is actually at the seventh stage of the Bodhisattva path when the bindings of Saṃsāra would loosen. These conflicting statements clearly imply that their doctrinal system had not yet been fully organized at the time of S2748’s composition.
5) Another Dunhuang manuscript, Renwangbanruo-shixianglun (仁王般若實相論), shows an obvious correlation with S2748. These two texts are presumably founded in the same group though the Renwangbanruo-shixianglun seems to have been written before the Dilun School was established. It provides an interesting insight into the changing doctrinal identity of a certain group according to the propagation of new thoughts and soteriological devices.
bibliographical features imply that this document was transcribed in Wetstern Wei西魏, 396 A.D., and therefore it could be useful to investigate some interesting aspects on the very early form of the Dilun school. The results of my research
can be summarized in three points:
First, although 羽726R was labeled as Daisheng - Shidilun - Yiji(A Commentary for the Treatise of Mahayānān Ten Stages, 大乘十地論義記), this manuscript was identified as a short but rare commentary to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, translated by the renowned Indian monk Bodhiruci of Nothern Wei. It is remarkable that the 羽726R uses the same technical terms and soteriology as the Jingangxian - Lun(金剛仙論). Contemporary scholars believe that the Jingangxian - Lun is either a compilation or the study notes of Bodhiruchi’s students, Thus it is highly probable that the 羽726R was also written for the same purpose by Bodhiruci’s disciple.
Second, unlike later treatises and commentaries on the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, 羽726R analyzes the text using the term dharma - kāya, the body of ultimate truth. Contrary to modern scholarship which usually approaches the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, along with the Dilun School, mainly focusing on mind theory and regarding the dharma - kāya as a peripheral element, this research tells a whole different story. It brings to light the fact that at least some Northern Wei Buddhists did focus on the notion of the dharma - kāya.
Third, 羽726R is written on the theoretical bases of the ten stages(十地) theory, and has distinctive yet elementary mind-only element. This means that yogacara’s theory had been adopted and substantialized as early as Bodhiruci. Moreover, this paper will attempt to unveil the hermeneutical frameworks for interpreting similar texts from that era.
The critical edition of 羽7726R is added
The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) Before the Dilun School was established, Chinese Buddhists embraced the doctrines of the ‘ignorance as a profound defilement’ (*avidyāvāsabhūmi) and of the ‘essentially pure mind’ (*prakṛtipariśuddha-citta, also known as tathāgatagarbha) taught by the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. Both were considered to be Mahāyānan concepts that could not be grasped by the adherents of Hīnayāna, and both became the foundations of the Mahāyānan soteriology in Chinese Buddhism. While the pure mind was identified with Buddha Nature(佛性), the profound defilement was identified with uncultivated mind itself(卽心).
2) Bodhiruci, one of the Indian founders of the Dilun School, put forth the theory of the two aspects of the ālayavijñāna: the defiled and the pure. In contrast to the traditional interpretation advanced by the Indian concept of the ālayavijñāna to be an unceasing stream and therefore not able to be defined as an eternal attribute, Bodhiruci’s theory entailed an inclination to admit the permanent quality – the unchangeable pure aspect – in the ālayavijñāna.
3) The Dilun School associated the defiled and pure aspects of the ālayavijñāna with the profound defilement and with the pure mind respectively. Moreover, since the Dilun School accepted Laṅkāvatārasūtra’s schematization of the eight kinds of mind, the defiled ālayavijñāna was regarded as the seventh and the pure ālayavijñāna as the eighth, in addition to the six kinds of phenomenal consciousness. Among them, the early Dilun texts generally interpreted the seventh mind as the ālayavijñāna while using the ‘ultimate truth’ or the ‘Buddha Nature’ to describe the eighth mind.
4) This conception of the ālayavijñāna of the early Dilun School had significant effect on the development of the soteriological system in Chinese Buddhism. Traditionally, Buddhists upheld a dichotomous framework which distinguished between the unreal (妄) and the real (眞), illustrated through phenomena or concepts such as suffering and nirvana, the defiled and the pure, sentient beings and the Buddha, and the conditioned and the unconditioned. However, once the ālayavijñāna intermediated between these poles of the dichotomy, thereby forming “a synthesis of the unreal and the real (眞妄和合)”, the ideological framework of the pre-Dilun era, which had consisted of a doctrine of structural opposites, was transformed into a conception of the gradual process of change, with a trajectory from the unreal to the real.
1) S.4303 analyzes the Buddhist doctrines in the three doctrinal classification and discusses that all the doctrines are dependent on each other, therefore one is in all and all in one from the ultimate point of view. In this context, the Fajieyuanqi means the complete relationship, non - discrimination, and equality between all individual doctrines. Moreover, S.4303 declares the full relevance of these doctrines to be the standpoint of the Dilun school.
2) The Fajieyuanqi is generally considered to be the idea of the Huayen school. However, if we glimpse the S.4303, the analogies of the Indra’s net and the mirrors reflecting each other, or the six characteristics(六相) that are used to explain the Fajieyuanqi have already been formed from the Dilun School.
3) The S.4303 show the core point of the Fajieyuanqi should be ‘dependent - arising’ itself. When examining the Dilun manucripts from this point of view, it can be seen that the 緣起 would be derived from paratantra - svabhāva of the tri -svabhāva. The monks of the Dilun School interpreted the tri - svabhāva in the viewpoint of the Tathāgatagarbha theory, thus the Fajieyuanqi was appeared in the idea that the Tathāgatagarbha generates every phenomenal world(一切法) mainly indicating the Buddha dharma(佛法).
4) Therefore the Fajieyuanqi had been understood as a part of the Tathāgatagarbha
theory in the Dilun school.
1) Compared with the Dunhuang Manuscript, the Taishō edition of S.524R contains substantial amount of erroneous passages. Total 206 errors have been verified through the re-calibrating work on them.
2) The colophon of S.524R tells us that this manuscript was established in the fourth year of Yanchang (延昌, 512-515 C.E.). However, another Dunhuang Manuscript P.2908, presumably written before the Daśabhūmikā-śastra was translated (511 C.E.), quotes passages from the Shengmanshu in the name of “Dharma Master Zhao (招)”. Thus it is natural to presume the original version of the Shengmanshu would be written before 511 C.E. Moreover, the author Dharma Master Zhao would be the one of the well-known monks of the Northern Dynasty in that era, since he was mentioned in the various texts in the late 5th Century.
3) S.524R adopts the abhidharmic doctrines of the Satyasiddhiśāstra (成實論) to interpret the passages of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. These interpretations were replaced by the theories of the Indian
yogācāra-vijñānavāda when the Dilun School was established, but some
theories originated in the Shengmanshu still exert influence on later Buddhist thought.
4) Among the existing commentaries of the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra written in the Northern Dynasty, the Shengmanshu was the first to introduce the trividhāni śīlāni theory of the Bodhisattvabhūmi into the interpretation of the sūtra. Therefore, it can be seen that the Buddhist in the Northen Dynasty began to study the Bodhisattvabhūmi from the time Shengmanshu was written.
1) The authorship of the Jingyingshu has been controversial for several Centuries. One of the clues of the forgery is its writing style. Unlike other works of Jingying Huiyuan, the Jingyingshu contains unpolished sentences throughout the text. However, I argue that it is not so much a question since the early version of Jingying Huiyuan’s writings shows the same problem as well.
2) The Jingyingshu interprets the term Kāya-traya thorugh the classification of the Ti(體), Xiang(相) and Yong(用). These three terms are identified with the Dharmakāya, the Saṃbhogakāya and the Nirmāṇakāya respectively. This way of interpretation is the original scheme of the Dilun School.
3) The Jingyingshu quotes his another writing “The Meaning of the Two Hindrances(二障義)” in almost full length when explaining the defilement theory of the Awakening the Mahāyāna Faith. The previous research asserted that this quotation shows no consistency and pointed it as the decisive evidence of the apocryphalness of the Jingyingshu. However, as far as I can see, the Jingyingshu choose the most relevant analytics on the matter.
In conclusion, the Jingyingshu can be regarded as a commentary written under the doctrinal influence of the Jingying Huiyan, if not composed by himself.
Both of these Silla texts selectively quote sentences from the Zhongjingjiaojiyi and transform their meanings to fit heir own contexts and discussions. Since Woncheuk and Wonhyo concentrated on the problems they faced in their own time, their usage of the earlier text distorted its original meaning. As a result, the original conceptual structure of the Zhongjingjiaojiyi, and its philosophical implications, were gradually lost.
These examples reveal the peculiarities of the history of Buddhist thought, as well as the significance of the transformation of a text. Regardless of the times, Buddhist monks pursued "the Middle" (madhyama) beyond two extremes. This applies not only to Woncheuk and Wonhyo but also to monks of previous generations. However, a particular text can only be fully understood in the context of the era in which the text was written. A text that argued for the madhyama of yesterday, sometimes comes to be understood as an extreme argument today. Nevertheless, the transformed text continues to play a role in the Buddhist tradition as a source used to identify "the Middle" in the new era.
ZhJY inserted new but false information that JY did not consider. It resulted in a distortion of the historical facts reflected in JY. In addition, JY claims that there is no difference between Buddhist Sūtras since they are all derived from the Buddha himself, but in the process of recounting these contents, ZhJY claims that the teachings conveyed by all scriptures are different. As a result, ZhJY has become a less consistent and incomplete work compared to JY.
Incidentally, it was ZhJY that had had a more powerful impact on later Buddhists of East Asia in spite of its structural imperfection. Therefore, the Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty have come to encounter and criticize the thoughts of their former generation through the ZhJY which cannot be assessed as an accurate description of the tradition
Before the 6th Century, the East Asian Buddhists considered the Sūtras as the direct records of the Buddha, each of which holds a certain moment of the Buddha's lifetime. Fashang declares that the understangins of that time has no validity since the preaching of Buddha contains every teaching in a whole scale at all time. Moreover, he points out the actual agent of Sūtras is the not the Buddha himself but his disciples who have authority in making and ‘editing’ the manuscripts.
Instead of the chronological view on the Sūtras, Fashang suggests that the Buddha's teaching was established into two baskets, namely, the Bodhisattvapiṭaka (菩薩藏) and the Śrāvakapiṭaka(聲聞藏) which has the textual reference in the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Fashang's textual taxonomy gave a heavy impact on the doctrinal thoughts of East Asian Buddhists. Thenceforth East Asian Buddhists started to consider Buddhist teachings with the dichotomy of Mahāyāna and Hinayāna. As a result, the Pan - jiao system could be refined into a more hermeneutically developed form.
The result of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) As an early Dilun text, BD3443 shares the exact same passages with the Shidilun-yishu (十地論義疏), a Dunhuang manuscript which preserves small portion of a larger commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra. Since Shidilun-yishu was told to be written by Fashang (法上, 490-580), a renowned monk of the Dilun School, the author of BD3443 can be the same person, or even the two manuscripts can be the parts of a full-length text.
2) Though there is no external clues for confirming the two texts to be the same text, there are rich amount of internal evidences showing these two are closely related. Therefore, I presumed that these texts was made under the ‘group’ of Fashang, if not written by Fashang himself.
3) From the premise that both documents contain Fashang's thoughts, it should be noted that the theory of mind and the theory of pratītya-samutpāda shown in BD3443 identifies doctrinal explanations that are not explicitly described in the existing part of Shidilun-yishu. That is, for the mind theory, BD3443 links the seventh consciousness with the fundamental ignorance (根本無明), while the pratītya-samutpāda theory of BD3443 discusses the essence and phenomena, showing the structure of three kinds of pratītya-samutpāda which are the very original doctrines of the Dilun School. Thus, BD3443 can be seen as containing discussions that further refine the content of Shidilun-yishu.
In conclusion, the BD3443 represents the doctrinal understanding of Fashang in a more elaborated and systematized form than that of Shidilun-yishu.
(三法印, Sanfayin)” in the perspective of East Asian Buddhism. The results
of this article can be summarized as follows:
1) Modern scholars have traced the term “Sanfayin (三法印)” to the
Indian origin and established its original Sanskrit form as
“*tri-dharma- uddāna.” However, this fact seems nothing new to
the East Asian Buddhist tradition, since texts written in 6th century
China already acknowledged the term yin (印) was the translation
of youtanna (優檀那=uddāna).
2) The term “三法印” emerged in the translation works of Kumarājīva
(334-413) for the first time. His rendering of the term uddhāna to
the “印 (seal, sanction)” seems to be a liberal, or rather a literal,
translation reflecting his understanding of the term.
3) Due to its Chinese form, the “三法印” has often been contrasted to
another term of “One Dharma Seal (⼀法印, Yifayin) as the translation
of “dharma-svabhāva-mudra” from the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra.
This kind of comparison can only be possible in the field of East
Asian Buddhism where the Sanskrit term “uddāna” and “mudra”
had been translated to an identical Chinese form “印.”
4) Among various explanations of “三法印” in East Asian thoughts,
Tientai Zhiyi (538?-597) claims it as the teaching of the Lesser
Vehicles. His interpretation has been most widely spread and even
influenced the thinking of today’s academia.
1) Compared to the original manuscript, the printed version of RBS in
Taisho edition contains a substantial amount of erroneous passages. In total, 110 errors have been verified through the textual analysis.
2) The Renwang-Jing in the RBS contains slightly different passages from the present Renwang-Jing. This suggests that different versions of Renwang-Jing may have existed at the time of composing RBS, approximately the early 6th C.E.
3) RBS mentions doctrines that are characteristic of those introduced
by the Dilun Masters, such as Three Bodies (三身) or Three Secular Worlds(三種世間). This implies that RBS was written under the ideological influence of the Dilun School.
4) Unlike other Dilun texts, however, RBS contains no passages quoting from Shidijing-lun (『十地經論』), which was the core reference of the Dilun School thought. Even in the section that explains the ten stages (十地) of the Bodhisattva, RBS refers to texts that existed before the Shidijing-lun was translated, such as Pusayingluobenye-Jing (『菩薩瓔珞本業經』) and Sizhupiposha-Lun (『十住毘婆沙論』. *Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā).
5) The list of texts quoted in RBS shows a close affinity to that of
another Dunhuang manuscript Shidilun-yishu (『十地論義疏』). Especially the Youposejie-Jing (『優婆塞戒經』, *Upāsaka-śīla-sūtra) and the Sizhu-piposha-Lun are cited in these two texts exclusively. Moreover, these two texts share an identical passage that cannot be found elsewhere. These facts suggest that RBS and Shidilunyishu were written in the same doctrinal lineage.
1) All the Buddhist canons quoted in S2748 are listed in Sūtra Catalogs of the Northern Dynasty. Among them, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (Rulengqie-jing, 入楞伽經) translated by Bodhiruci in 513 AD has the latest date of translation. Thus the composition date of S2748 should be no earlier than 513 AD. It is also noteworthy that S2748 uses what are rarely found in the later Dilun School, such as Shanbipusa-Jing (善臂菩薩經) and Wujinyi-Jing (無盡意經).
2) As might be expected from a Dilun text, S2748 refers to Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra (Shidi-jinglun, 十地經論) throughout the manuscript. Moreover, S2748 gives priority to the Daśabhūmikasūtraśāstra over the Pusayingluobenye-Jing in doctrinal explanations.
3) S2748 shares an almost identical paragraph with Shidilunyishu (十地論義疏), a representative text of the early Dilun School. Comparing these paragraphs seems to suggest that S2748 was written earlier than the Shidilunyishu.
4) The identical paragraphs of the two texts both state that “the first stage Bodhisattva out of ten stages can break the binding of Saṃsāra”, which was a soteriological doctrine newly adopted in the Dilun School. However, another passage from S2748 argues that it is actually at the seventh stage of the Bodhisattva path when the bindings of Saṃsāra would loosen. These conflicting statements clearly imply that their doctrinal system had not yet been fully organized at the time of S2748’s composition.
5) Another Dunhuang manuscript, Renwangbanruo-shixianglun (仁王般若實相論), shows an obvious correlation with S2748. These two texts are presumably founded in the same group though the Renwangbanruo-shixianglun seems to have been written before the Dilun School was established. It provides an interesting insight into the changing doctrinal identity of a certain group according to the propagation of new thoughts and soteriological devices.
bibliographical features imply that this document was transcribed in Wetstern Wei西魏, 396 A.D., and therefore it could be useful to investigate some interesting aspects on the very early form of the Dilun school. The results of my research
can be summarized in three points:
First, although 羽726R was labeled as Daisheng - Shidilun - Yiji(A Commentary for the Treatise of Mahayānān Ten Stages, 大乘十地論義記), this manuscript was identified as a short but rare commentary to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, translated by the renowned Indian monk Bodhiruci of Nothern Wei. It is remarkable that the 羽726R uses the same technical terms and soteriology as the Jingangxian - Lun(金剛仙論). Contemporary scholars believe that the Jingangxian - Lun is either a compilation or the study notes of Bodhiruchi’s students, Thus it is highly probable that the 羽726R was also written for the same purpose by Bodhiruci’s disciple.
Second, unlike later treatises and commentaries on the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, 羽726R analyzes the text using the term dharma - kāya, the body of ultimate truth. Contrary to modern scholarship which usually approaches the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, along with the Dilun School, mainly focusing on mind theory and regarding the dharma - kāya as a peripheral element, this research tells a whole different story. It brings to light the fact that at least some Northern Wei Buddhists did focus on the notion of the dharma - kāya.
Third, 羽726R is written on the theoretical bases of the ten stages(十地) theory, and has distinctive yet elementary mind-only element. This means that yogacara’s theory had been adopted and substantialized as early as Bodhiruci. Moreover, this paper will attempt to unveil the hermeneutical frameworks for interpreting similar texts from that era.
The critical edition of 羽7726R is added
The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows:
1) Before the Dilun School was established, Chinese Buddhists embraced the doctrines of the ‘ignorance as a profound defilement’ (*avidyāvāsabhūmi) and of the ‘essentially pure mind’ (*prakṛtipariśuddha-citta, also known as tathāgatagarbha) taught by the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra. Both were considered to be Mahāyānan concepts that could not be grasped by the adherents of Hīnayāna, and both became the foundations of the Mahāyānan soteriology in Chinese Buddhism. While the pure mind was identified with Buddha Nature(佛性), the profound defilement was identified with uncultivated mind itself(卽心).
2) Bodhiruci, one of the Indian founders of the Dilun School, put forth the theory of the two aspects of the ālayavijñāna: the defiled and the pure. In contrast to the traditional interpretation advanced by the Indian concept of the ālayavijñāna to be an unceasing stream and therefore not able to be defined as an eternal attribute, Bodhiruci’s theory entailed an inclination to admit the permanent quality – the unchangeable pure aspect – in the ālayavijñāna.
3) The Dilun School associated the defiled and pure aspects of the ālayavijñāna with the profound defilement and with the pure mind respectively. Moreover, since the Dilun School accepted Laṅkāvatārasūtra’s schematization of the eight kinds of mind, the defiled ālayavijñāna was regarded as the seventh and the pure ālayavijñāna as the eighth, in addition to the six kinds of phenomenal consciousness. Among them, the early Dilun texts generally interpreted the seventh mind as the ālayavijñāna while using the ‘ultimate truth’ or the ‘Buddha Nature’ to describe the eighth mind.
4) This conception of the ālayavijñāna of the early Dilun School had significant effect on the development of the soteriological system in Chinese Buddhism. Traditionally, Buddhists upheld a dichotomous framework which distinguished between the unreal (妄) and the real (眞), illustrated through phenomena or concepts such as suffering and nirvana, the defiled and the pure, sentient beings and the Buddha, and the conditioned and the unconditioned. However, once the ālayavijñāna intermediated between these poles of the dichotomy, thereby forming “a synthesis of the unreal and the real (眞妄和合)”, the ideological framework of the pre-Dilun era, which had consisted of a doctrine of structural opposites, was transformed into a conception of the gradual process of change, with a trajectory from the unreal to the real.