Corless-Jonatha-1973-Thesis-Tan-luans-Commentary-on-the-Pure-Land-Discourse

M ic ro film e d b y U n iv o f W is , D e p a rtm e n t o f P h o to g ra p h y 73 27,095 CORLESS, Roger Jonathan, 1938 T'AN LUAN'S COMMENTARY ON THE PURE LAND DISCOURSE AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND[.]

D e p a rtm e n t o f P h o to g ra p h y

CORLESS, Roger Jonathan, 1938- T'AN-LUAN'S COMMENTARY ON THE PURE LAND DISCOURSE:

AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

OF THE WANG-SH^NG-LUN CHU (T.1819)

The University of Wisconsin, Ph.D., 1973 Religion

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AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL

A NALYSIS OF THE WANG-SHENG-LUN CHU (T.1819)

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

BY

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ROGER JONATHAN CORLESS_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Degree to be awarded: January_19 _ June 19 August 19 73

APPROVED by Thesis Reading Committee:

\

AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WANG-SHENG-LUN CHU (T 1819)

BY

ROGER JONATHAN CORLESS

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment

of the requirements for the degree

ofDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Madison, Wisconsin

1973

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If a man is once born into Sukhavati, and at

a later time wishes to be re-born in the triple­

world to teach and convert beings, he forsakes the Pure Land, and is able to be born according

to his wishes.

(T.XL ,838a)

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe there is a subtile magnetism

in Nature which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct

us aright, When I go out of the house for a walk,,,I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle south-west,,.The future lies that way for

me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side,,.Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free Thither no business leads me I believe that the forest which

I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun

Henry David Thoreau

The audacity of the present undertaking must be its most character­istic feature To enter upon T'an-luan is to go through a magic door leading grandly to the Paradise in the West, 'which is wide, without limits or bounds', to go towards all human hopes, to there where the sun ever lives in the land of no night T'an-luan's vision, pulled to­gether from the kaleidoscopic congeries of the Pure Land Sutras, has sustained the religious aspirations of the majority of Far Eastern Buddhists from his own time until ours That is a matter of historical record, but the precise nature of his vision, and its philosophical and religious validity, has been unstudied, outside of the Sino-Japanese geographical area It is the purpose of this Dissertation to begin to remedy this omission, but more than a beginning it cannot be There is

no doubt much here that is ill considered, even unconsidered, but, heartened by the Sutras which spend so long in the description of the indescribable, I offer what I do, as perhaps a handhold by which those more learned than- myself may rise to superior conclusions,

A Dissertation is in the nature of a saipskara, a getting-together,

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focuses elements I have assimilated from many teachers, though their individual contributions cannot be exactly measured During my undergra­duate years at King's College Theological Department, University of London, I learnt the central importance of a text as an anchor in the treacherous tidal waters of religious studies, and the necessity of language, the links of the anchor chain, being as firmly forged as may

be Dr Ch'u Chai introduced me, at the New School for Social Research, New York City, to the vexing delights of Chinese calligraphy, and though

I never managed to write the characters properly, I did acquire the respectful contemplation of them until such time as they should deign

to yield up their meaning Patient mentors at the University of Minne­sota and the University of Michigan began me in the rudiments of Chinese and Japanese as everyday languages, from which I could ascend to the more rarified atmosphere of the Buddhist texts The faculty and gradu­ate students of the University of Chicago Divinity School, revolving

in ordered methodological patterns like planets around, a peaceful sun, gave an exhilarating new slant to something which, under my tutors Pro­fessor Ninian Smart and Professor Geoffrey Parrinder, I had learnt in

3ngland to call 'Comparative Religion.' All this was rooted in the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, begun by the late Professor Richard Robinson: this dissertation is dedicated to his memory not because I think he would approve of it, for I believe there are many points with which he would strongly take issue, but simply because it was largely due to his efforts that there was such a Program

at all, and the possibility of my studying within it The most signifi­cant acknowledgment, naturally, must go to Professor Minoru Kiyota of

the University of Wisconsin, my Advisor, without whom I would not have been stimulated even to look into T'an-luan.

An unformed and vague acknowledgment is due to the many monks, Christian and Buddhist, whom I have been privileged to meet and who have spoken, more by their lifestyle than in words, of the mysteries

of the spirit, so that I might realise that sometimes the letter killeth, but always the spirit giveth life Amongst these the chief must be Dorn Damasus Winzen, O.3.B., (1901-1971), founder of Mount Saviour Monastery near Elmira, New York, whom we knew simply and accurately as, 'Reverend Father.'

My colleagues on the Faculty of Duke University have beetn longsuf- fering enough both to leave me alone when I needed quiet, and no.t to mind when, gripped by an acute attack of translationese, I would burst in upon then with a, 'How do you say so-and-so in Fhglish?' Professor Peter

Burian of the Department of Classics, who made crushing but invaluable remarks upon my poesy, deserves special mention

I have been fortunate enough to secure as my Stenographer a lady who can not only type, a feminine accomplishment as necessary for social success today as excellence at the pianoforte used to be, but is also intelligent and learned, so that she has been able to make helpful sug­gestions on stylistic improvement To Barbara Lawrence, therefore, and her husband and my colleague Professor Bruce Lawrence, who helped read the proofs, goes my thanks for providing the vehicle for the actual manifestation of my thoughts into the Kamadhatu

It is a great relief, in this age of sexist nervousness, to realise that, being single, I do not have to compose a tribute to my pneumatic and ever-smiling wife, in a manner flattering but not patronising, I

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the whole full-throated Company of which has enlivened my Saturday afternoon labours, by courtesy of the Texaco Oil Company; though it

is perhaps discouraging: to note that the final draft was begun during

La Boheme and completed to Lucia di Lammermoor: we do indeed begin in tragedy (sarvaip dufrkham), but must our end be madness?

Roger CorlessDuke University

Durham, North CarolinaApril 1973

Easter Day

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments - iv

List of Abbreviations - -— -— -— - — ix

Introduction: I# Pure Land Buddhism before T'an-luan - — - -— — 1

Ao Sutras— - — — - — — — -— -— — — 1

B Hui-yiian - — — -— -— - 3

lie T'an-luan: Life and Works - — — - — — — -— 5

III* The Wang-sheng-lun Chu A Title - 12

B# Authenticity— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 15 Co Format— - -— -— -— — — — — 20

Do Significance— — — — — — — — — — — — — — 21 IV The Soteriology of the Wang-sh&ng-lun Chu A Some Preliminaries— - — -— — — — — 23

B The Unsaved Condition - -— - - — — 26

C The Primary Saviour: Amitabha Buddha— — — — — — — — - 2? (i) Becoming a Saviour - — — 28

(ii) Being a Saviour - — — - 30

(a) A Buddha Named Amita - 30

(b) A Land Called SukhavatT— — — — — — — — — 32 D The Secondary Saviours: The Bodhisattvas of Sukhavatl-— — 36 (i) Becoming a Saviour -— -— — — — - 36

(ii) Being a Saviour -— - — 39

V Some Special Problems in the Wang-sheng-lun Chu A Textual Lineage— - — - — — — — — ^3

B Doctrinal Affiliation (i) The Problem - — - — - ^6

(ii) Seng-chao - - — — — 48

(iii) Proto-Yogacara - — — — 51

(iv) Interrelation, Interpenetration and Sunyata— - 54

C Kaya Theory - - — — -— — - 61

VI T'an-luan and Theism - - - -— — 66

VII* The Present Translation— * - — -77

Translation: The Stanzas -— — — — — — — — — — - 82

Index to the Translation - -— — — 06

Translation— - "— — — — 89 Bibliography - — - — — — 339

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS (For complete bibliographical information, see Bibliography.) Ashikaga

Oouvreur

Eigerton

JAAR JAOS K.

Legge

Mahavyutpatti Mathews

Mochizuki

Morohashi

Nanjio

PTS SBE

O'/ (hapax legomenon) A usage occurring once only.

Bulletin de l ’^cole fran^aise d*extreme orient.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

in the University of London.

Dictionalre Classique de la Langue Chlnolse par F.S Couvreur, 2nd, ed Cited by page and column.

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, by Franklin Blgerton Cited by page number and dolumn.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Journal of the American Oriental Society.

Kashiwabara Yugi, Shinsu Tsuge Zenshu Cited by page num­ ber and (sometimes) note number in the jigeffi^sections

of volume one.

The Chinese Classics, ed and trans, by James Legge,

5 vols 1893 edition, Hong Kong reprint.

As compiled by R Sakaki, Cited by entry number.

The Pall Text Society.

The Sacred Books of the East, ed by F Max Mueller.

and L Hodous Revised Edition Cited by page and column.

T, TaishS Shlnshu Daisokvo Cited by volume (Roman numerals)

page (Arabic numerals), column (miniscule letter) and (sometimes) line (Arabic numerals).

Taya Taya Hiroshi, 'Donran no Senjitsuchu ni Inyo saretaru

Sho-moku no Chosa.'

U Uesugi Shiro, Kaidoku Jodoron Chu Cited by page and

(sometimes) footnote.

v.l, varia lectio, variant reading! a character which appears

in the Apparatus (Taisho footnote) rather than the text NOTE; A reference consisting solely of a number/letter/number combina­ tion between the values of 826a28 and 844b3 indicates the text of the Wang-sheng-lun Chu in T.XL, cited by page/column/line.

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I: PURE LAND BUDDHISM BEFORE T'AN-LUANA: SUTRAS:

It is usual to count three Sutras as specifically 'Pure Land’, i.e., the Larger and Smaller Sukhavat ivyuha, and the Amitgyurdhyana Sutra.Their date and provenance are quite uncertain, although the first two are at least extant in Sanskrit and may be around 2nd century A.D.: the third is available only in Chinese, but has a distinctly Sanskrit feel

to it, and so is presumed to be a translation, The Chinese versions normally read, and those from which T'an-luan quotes, are said to have been translated by Saijighavarman (A.D 252) KumSrajTva (A.D 402) and KalayaSas (A.D 424), respectively: the datecs of the translations, which

it is not customary to doubt, are regarded as a terminus ad quern for the completion of the corpus

The Sutras are fully developed Mahayana in type, and assume a con­vinced Mahayana audience The Larger SukhavatTvyuha, which claims to have been preached by Sakyamuni on the Grdhraku-fca at Rajagrha, recounts the story of how, in the unimagineable past, there was a Bodhisattva named Dharmakara exercising under a Buddha called Lokesvararaja

Dharmakara decides, in a series of Resolutions (pra.Qidhana: forty- eight in the Chinese text) that, when he becomes a Buddha himself, he will have a kgetra (land or kingdom) that will be the finest possible, and thatitwill.be obtainable at death by all who shall have faith in him Receiving from Lokesvararaja a somewhat lengthy (10^ years) account of all the best Buddhakgetras then existing, Dharmakara perfects, after five lealpas (aeons) a nlmitta (contemplative representation) of the essence of all of these, courses towards Buddhahood with that goal in

called Amitabha, ('He of Limitless Light') in the paradise of SukhavatT (°The Land of Bliss') far to the West (^100,000 x 10^ Buddhakgetras distant), but all who have faith may go there easily: as with all good myths or fairy-stories, it is 'far, far away, but not very far for those with long legs,' The Smaller Sukhavatrvyuha briefly describes the para­dise, and the Ami tSyurd h.y an a Sutra prescribes sixteen subjects for con­templation which will direct the mind towards SukhavatT, ensuring re­birth there The outside observer seems to see a doctrinal evolution tend­ing towards elaboration and catholocity in the three Sutras, but a Pure Land Buddhist generally, and T'an-luan certainly, regards them as a unit At one point in his commentary, this causes T'an-luan an exegetical problem of apparent contradiction, which he resolves very cunningly (see the second of Eight Queries in the Translation below).

Dylan Thomas said that when he was a child, he was given a book which told him, 'everything about the wasp, except why.' This is quite the impression one gets from reading the Pure Land Sutras We shall exhort the reader to familiarise himself with these Sutras, since T'an- luan, commenting on them, assumes a deep acquaintance with them, and they are available in an (unfortunately no more than 'adequate') English translation (S.B.E., v.^9» pt.2, pp.1-103, 161-201): then, after he has heard so much about the ritzy delights of the Western Paradise that he fears himself unable to look another jewelled lotus in the calyx with­out blanching, he will be ready to examine the 'why?' of T'an-luan

And it turns out that quite an exciting metaphysical journey awaits him.The Paradise of Amitabha receives honourable mention in some other Sutras, and a few ^astras Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary,

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597a, cites the Karagflavyuha, Saddharmapupflarika, Bhadracarr, Gapfla- vyuha, Sikgasamuccaya, Samadhira.jasutra, Aryaman.jusrimulakalpa, and Lankavatara, 'etc.' There is also a famous passage at the end of the (possibly pseudepigraphical) Mahayanaisraddhotpada oastra, and scattered references in that unclassifiable tome, Mahapra.jnaparamita Sastra Cer­tain sections of the Vimalakirtinirde^a have a Sukhavatl-like world­view, but do not merttion it by name Of these texts, T'an-luan refers specifically to the chapter (no 25 in the Chinese version) in the Saddharmapupflarika where Avalokitesvara appears as an apparently inde­pendent entity, though T'an-luan takes him in the sense of the Pure Land Sutras, i.e., as chief minister to Amitabha (see 833a8-10) He also

uses the Vimaiaklrtinirde^a to prove a couple of points (e.g., at 829a5),

and draws frequently on the Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra All, however, are subordinate to the Larger and Smaller Sukhavativyuha, and Amitayur- dhyana Sutra, and it appears to have been T'an-luan's preference for these three that caused them to become established as 'the' Pure Land Sutras A more complete analysis of T'an-luan's textual sources will

be given in Section V

B: HUI-YJAK :Whatever may have been the status of Buddha-bhakti (devotion to the person of Buddha) in early Buddhist history (on this see Section IV),

we know of no definite devotion to Amitabha Buddha, trusting to re­

birth in Sukhavati, before Shih Hui-yuan^^-ilL (3^"^16 A.D.), This elegant gentleman (whose life is summarised in Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism

in China, pp 103-112), schooled in the refined tittle-tattle of ch'ing-

t ’an ’immaculate small-talk'), planted himself in the inspiringly

and there, before an image of Amitabha, is reported to have made, in company with a sodality of twenty-three disciples, the Resolution to

be born in Sukhavati

Because of this event (whether it be historically true or not), Hui-yiian is reckoned as the 'founder' of Pure Land Buddhism in China but, since he did not do much more than.this, we.may.view such a title as honourific Hui-yiian did not attempt to publicise his views, though he graciously received visitors His writings, some of which have been translated by Walter Liebenthal in a perceptive little article ('Shih Hui-yuan's Buddhism as Set Forth in His Writings', JACB, vol.70 (1950),

pp 2^3-259) and by Richard Robinson (Early Hadhyamika, pp 96-llb,

181-205), are more those of Taoist recluse than an architect of aihajor new school of Buddhism, Set beside the imaginative boldness of T'an- luan, they are poor things indeed: like the Anagram Teas of Victorian England, or the modern American Tolkien salons, they are not unstimu- lating, but finally irrelevant Nevertheless, a full study of T'an-luan presupposes a full study of Hui-yiian, for their problematic is often similar

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Accounts of the life of T'an-luan exist in fourteen texts of Buddhist Chinese biographies, and four dynastic histories, Of these, two, the Hsu Kao Seng Chiian ('Further Biographies of Eminent

Land', T.19&3), dated respectively c.6^5 A,D and before 6^9 A.D., are original, the remainder being derived from them Their content and value have been examined by Hsiao Ching-fen, The Life and Teachings of T'a.n- luan (University Microfims, 196?), pp 15-66, and what follows is large­

ly based upon his findings, with which I have little quarrel

The family name Shih T ' a n - l u a n ^ ^ ^ , v a r ^ ^ ^ j , is unknown, and so it is presumed that he was of peasant stock His religious name combines, in the first two characters, abbreviated transliterations of

abd of Pharma The third character signifies a mythical bird whose union with his mate symbolises civil peace and harmonious marriage, much after the fashion of the Christian symbol of a peacock and peahen drinking at a single fountain The variant third character means a pinnacle or pointed mountain,

T'an-luan was born near the foot of Wu-t'ai Mountain, which was

1 (a common monastic surname, denoting a 'son of Buddha')

the date of death a.nd age at death given in the Kao Seng Chiian, is 4y6 A.D, However, Hsiao (op cit.) collects evidence from other texts and from Japanese researchers which indicates that T'an-luan must have been alive after the death date mentioned in the Kao Seng Chiian, and proposes

488 or 489 as the date of birth,T'an-luan probably entered the religious life (ch'u-chia /J L pravrajya) when about fourteen, and began to study the Buddhist texts, especially picking on the Hahasannipata (Nanjio 61), This daunting antho­logy of Kahayana texts in thirty chiian understandably perplexed him, and he assayed a commentary on it Such an undertaking was probably no more than a zealous, youthful attempt to comprehend an unfamiliar work

by summarizing and systematising its the present author remembers, with wry amusement, his own teenage efforts to get down the much shorter Dhammapada, by laboriously drawing up a concordance to it in Narada Thera's translation, for which he received a publisher's rejection:, slip: he therefore sympathises with T'an-luan who, in the course of this tiresome business, became ill and laid aside his work, never to finish

it Nothing of it remains Travelling then in search of a cure, he was accorded a.sudden vision of the Gate of Heaven opening in a break in the clouds, and instantly became well He decided to go on to search for immortality (ch'ang-sheng ), i.e., the physical means of keep­ing the yin and yang 'souls' together longer than the common allotted span (a matter of constant fascination to the Chinese) so that, very probably as Hsiao suggests (p 41), he would be assured of enough time

to complete his commentary on the Kahasann i pat a This incident is re­garded as his 'conversion' to Taoism, though this is probably too strong

a word to use in the pluralistic Chinese situation

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Taoist recluse T'ao Hung-ching (^55-536 A.D.), from whom he received abook in,ten chuan called the Hsien Ghing^ j ^ ('The Classic on the „Immortals’), What this book was is still uncertain, Fujino Ritsi^jen hasargued 'that it was the Pao P'u-tzu 1, the famous book of Ko-hung with a pill for everything, but Taya Hiroshi seems quite correct

2

in denying this As the great bulk of the Tao Tsang is still unstudied,

it would not be surprising if the Hsien Ching, under that or some othername, were hidden somewhere within it

Then about forty years old, T'an-luan started back towards Wu-t'ai,but stopped off to call on the famous Indian Buddhist Waster Bodhiruci,who was working on his translation at Lo-yang Questioned as to whetherBuddhism could do better or worse than the Hsien Ching, the Holy Masterwas uncompromisingly directs

Bodhiruci spat on the ground and said, 'What do you mean? How can you compare the two? Where in this land could you find the formula for 'iramsrtality? Even i£ you should remain young_and live forever, you would still be within the realm of sfynsara! '

(Kao Seng Chiian T.L.^70: modified slightly from Hsiao, op, cit,,p.^7)Bodhiruci then gave T'an-luan a book called Kuan Ching jjL (other ac­counts give slightly different titles) and T'an-luan burned his copy

of the Hsien Ching and 'converted' to Buddhism, This 'second.' conversion seems to have taken place about 529-530 A.D, (Hsiao, p.^9)

Fujino Ritsujen ^ 'Donran Daishi no KankenShina Bukkyo Shigaku , Kyoto, 1937, vol.l, no.2, p,9^f

^ Taya H i r o s h i ' D o n r a n Daishi Den no Ken

Utani Gakuho , vol.21, no.2 (19^0), pp.51-52

The identity of the Kuan Chins is only slightly less mysterious than that of the Hsien Ching It does not seem to have been the Amita- yurdhyana Sutra, which is popularly called Kuan Ching, nor is it clearly either of the Sukhavativyuha texts Hsiao (p.5&) suggests that it was the Wang-sh£ng Lun, the text supposedly by Vasuband.hu translated by Bodhiruci himselfp upon which T'an-luan wrote his great sub-commentary which we here have under discussion, the Wang-sheng-'lun Chu

However, it is odd to refer to this, a form of commentary, as a ching

it , since T ’an-luan clearly reserves ching for the class of litera­ture purporting to be the actual words of the Buddha He is well aware

of the distinctions within the dvadasanga (twelvefold corpus), as he shows in his Introduction (826bl2-28), though admittedly he is not responsible for a term used in the Kao Seng Chiian But since his com­mentary is (as we shall show) on all three ’Pure Land Sutras', col­

lectively called Wu-liang-shou C h i n g (a title very close to the variant found in the account of Shao-k'ang, T.LI,83), might it not

be that Kuan Ching is also a collective, abbreviated, title for the three Sutras considered (as T'an-luan certainly did consider them) as

a unit? Hsiao points out (pt55)j against the idea of it being a Sutra

at all, that the doctrine of T'an-luan's sub-commentary is closer to that of the commentary of 'Vasubandhu' than to any one of the Sutras With this I agree, but, to say that Bodhiruci gave T'an-luan a copy

of the three Sutras does not preclude the possibility that he also gave him a copy of the commentary: it would be quite natural to give

a commentary along with the Sutra.— Sutras alone are virtually untelli- gible, as any newcomer to the Sacred Books of the «h.st series quickly realises— but as a commentary it would not receive a mention, being regarded as no more than the explanatory supplement to the Unchanging'

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T'an-luan seemed, after this, to have found the answer for which

he had been locking ever since his vision of the Gate of Heaven 'Long life', long enough to comment sensibly on the Hahasannipata, was seen

to be insufficient, for it did not finally attack the problem of suf­fering which is endemic to the phenomena,! existence That T'an-luan had well digested the prime Budd.hist doctrine of universal unsatisfactoriness (sarvaip duhkham) is shown by his insistence that every aspect of Sukha- vati has been appointed by Amitabha as a corrective for some specific disability of the 'triple-world' (trailokadhatavafr) of samsara His vision was now fixed on a 'life' which was 'no-life' 'A being,' he says, quoting the Sutra on Neither Increasing nor Decreasing, 'means, "neither born nor decaying",' And such are the 'beings' of Sukhavati (831bl7-28) 'Birth' in Sukha.vati, then, is 'no-birth' (838cl6-25, 839a.2l-b7)

T'an-luan had understood, as so many Chinese monks never did, the mean­ing of the word 'transcendental': Sukhavati, he says repeatedly, is kuo san-chieh jj — 1 'transcending the triple-world.', or, simply, 'pure' ching , that is, separated from everything conceivable, for concepts sully the original purity of the mind Thus, talk of 'length' of life was just nonsense Bodhiruci's testy reply had been taken to heart

This is a very important point, and I sha.ll come back to it in the doctrinal discussion

The rest of his life was apparently fulfilling but rather unevent­ful 'The Emperor of Wei' (whom Hsiao, p.59> plausibly identifies with the first Emperor of Eastern Wei, Hsiao-ching Ti, r.53h-55C A.D.), dubbing him his 'Divine Peacock' (shen luan ), established him in

a monastery about fifty miles southwest of the modern Taiyuan (capital

of Shanshi lA'$> ) There he must have composed the present text, Wang-sheng-lun C h u (which, if Hsiao's biographical chronology

is correct, would place the text between 53^ and 55^)» ana two other works which have come down to us, the Tsan A-mi-t'o Fo Chi l£$f 1?1 RVftig)('Stanzas in Praise of Amitabha Buddha', T.1978, one chiian) and the Liieh-lun An-lo-ching-t'u I ('Brief Discourse on theSignificance of Sukhavati', T.1957, cne chiian) It is possible that the

3last two works were originally bound as one Eight other works are listed in the biographies, none of which have survived Some of them appear to be on medicine, and T'an-luan may have been a part-time phy­sician This would not be unexpected, given his Taoist background, his concern for the common people (see below), and his familiarity with medical treatises evinced by his easy quotations from them in the thick

of a metaphysical argument (see, e.g., 835c8-15)•

The accounts of T'an-luan's death are most edifying Vouchsafed

a vision of Nagarjuna, who spoke cryptically on the subject of imperma­nence, he foretold his own death and, at midnight, attended by a crowd

of upasakas and upasikas fpo-i ti-tsu ^ 3 ) , he sat down facing West, preached about Sukhavati, and died at sunrise, holding his thuri­ble in his hand as the congregation intoned the Name of Amitabha Buddha The nuns of a neighbouring convent heard.’ heavenly music arrive from the West and, after a short time, depart again The traditional death date

is 5^2 A.D., but for the reasons already outlined, Hsiao prefers

3 Mori Kenmyo , ' Ryakuron Sakusha no Kenkyu'

3hin5hu Kenkyu , no 18 (1927), p.l^

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c 55^ A.D He is said to have been sixty-seven years old.

The presence of so many upasakas (three hundred persons, includ­ing the monks, who cannot have accounted for very many, according to one account) indicates that T'an-luan was, unlike Hui-yuan, in touch with the peasants, from whose ranks he had probably arisen, was loved enough

by them,and lived near enough to their village, for them to come and visit him at midnight It is this dual facility, on the one band with abstruse Buddhist doctrine (as will be evident enough herein), and on the other with practical devotion, that has assured him an enduring place both in the textbooks and in the hearts of the people

III: THE WANG-SH&JG-LUN CHU:

A: TITLE:

The full title of T'an-luan's major work, which we are to dis­

cuss, is Wu-liang-shou Ching Yu-p'o-t 'i-sh£ Yuan Sh§ng Chi Chu

• T^e text is printed at T.1819 (vol.XL, pp.826-844) and is two chiian in length It is a commentary (chu^.j_ )

on T.1524 (vol.XXVI, pp.230-233)1 one chuan, which claims to have been composed by Vasubandhu and translated by Bodhiruci The text which T'an-luan uses is in minor disagreement with T.1524, Abbreviated titles for T.1819 in common use are:

(i) Wu-liang-shou Ghing Lun Chu ^ 4 $ / / f ^ '(ii) Ching-t'u Lun Chu

(iii) wang-sneng Lun Chu(iv) Lun Chu

, / A :4 V;

I shall hereinafter refer toVT.1524 as 'The Comma' and T.I8I9 as 'The Commentary', The 'restored' Sanskrit title of the Comma is given by Hobogirin 1524 as Sukhavativyuhopade^a (?), and by Nanjio 1204 as either Amitayus-sutropadesa or Aparamitayus-sutra-sastra, Both catalogues state that it is a commentary on the surviving texts of the Larger Sukhavati- vyuha, and this opinion seems to be the common one However, it will not do The title needs examining more closely

First, it is improper to call it an upade^a (y.u-p'o-t'i-she^ j ^), and leave it at that It also says it is a gat ha ('/$ , nor­mally read chieh but pronounced chi, fourth tone, when taken to mean

a Buddhist verse, according to Mathews 775(a) ) on the Resolution (prapidhana; yuan/^j ) to be (re-)born (pratyajati (Eigerton 376b);

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sheng^ )— re-born, of course, in Sukhavati Now, gat ha and upadesa are separate classes within the dvada^anga, and a moment's inspection

of the text makes it quite clear that it begins with a gatha prais­

ing the pranidhana (which is given in the opening lines), and continues with an upade/a, or 'instruction' (Eflgerton 135a ) which is an auto-com­mentary of the dialogue form (cf E Burnouf, Ihtroductiop a l'histoire

du Buddhisme (sic) indien, 2nd ed., Paris, 1876, p.58), 'Why do we say

X in the gatha? We say X because of the principle of Y', etc, T'an-luan

distinguishes quite clearly between the two parts, which he calls the

o h i ^ , the summary for chanting, and lunj^ , the exposition (82ob28-c3)

An understanding of this helps to throw light on the dark phrase lun yueh , which opens the second part (see my comments in loco)

Second, it is evident that all the cataloguers, seeing that the first part of the title is Wu-liang-shou Ching, and noting that this is practically the title of Saijighavarman' s translation of the Larger Sukha- vativyuha (Fo-shuo Wu-liang-shou Ching^ffij^'f^j^fL , T.360), have

simply identified the one with the other But, if we read what T'an- luan says he is doing, this must be a mistake He never gives any indi­cation that he is commenting just on the Laxger Sukhavativyuha He quotes from all three (see below on the textual lineage) He attempts

to reconcile an apparent contradiction between the Larger Sukhavati- vyuha and the Amitayurdhyana Sutra in the second of hi Eight Queries,

as if they were of equal authority (83^1^-20) And, to clinch the matter, he says:

Sakyamuni Buddha spoke, in the city of Rajag^ha and the f^cxty^J

state of Sravastii in "the midst of great congregations, on the

merits of the adornments of Buddha Amitayus Thus, that Buddha's Name embodies the Sutras ( c h i n g ),

(826bl2-l4)Now, the Larger Sukhavativyuha and the Amitayurdhyana Sutra, both of which we have seen he uses, claim to have been spoken at Rajagfha, while the Smaller Sukhavativyuha alone claims to have been spoken at

^ravasti Thus, T'an-luan's commentary is on all three, 'embodied' (t'i 'fj? ) in the Name of Amitayus (wu-liang-shou), and we must understand ching ( » ) in the plural

We should remember that T ’an-luan was concerned, even obsessed, with 'eternal life': it was this that drove him to Bodhiruci, and it was Bodhiruci's sharp answer on this that converted him back to Buddhism, Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that, whatever the individual titles of the Pure Land Sutras, they were all three for him, 'the

Eternal Life Sutras', and that this must be the meaning (at least as T'an-luan understood it) of Wu-liang-shou Ching in the title of the Comma This idea he may have got from Bodhiruci himself, whom we might imagine as saying, 'So, you want "eternal life"? Well, here are the Sutras and here is a Sastra.' If we understand Wu-liang-shou Ching in this way, it seems to make more sense in regard to the identity of the Kuan Ching (which appears as, Wu-liang-shou Kuan Ching, perhaps, 'con­templation according to the Sutras of Eternal Life', in Shao-k'ang),

as I have argued above (pp.7-9)•

Therefore, I propose that the title should be translated somewhat

as follows: 'An Instruction (upadesa) on the Sutras which are concernedwith Limitless Life (amitayus) and a Hymn (gatha) on the Resolution

to be Born (in accordance with those Sutras).' This could perhaps be

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'restored' as: Amitayufrsutranyupadesapratya.jatipraQidhanagatha T'an- luan then vrrites a 'commentary' (chu^ L ) on this.

Qi AUTHENTICITY:

There seems to be no good reason to doubt the authenticity of T'an-luan's Commentary, but the Comma deserves investigating The title is followed by the ascription, 'composed by the Bodhisattva Vasu- ba.ndhu and translated under the Former Wei dynasty /~386-53if A.D.J7 by the Indian Tripitaka j_ var: 'and Pharma Master^/ Bodhiruci.' The date and the connection with Bodhiruci fit with the known biographies

in the absence of any other evidence, are presumably to be prima facie accepted The authorship of Vasubandhu, however, is more uncertain: as

a giant of the Indian Mahayana, his name was liable to be attached to any text, to lend it authority Thus, we cannot unquestioningly believe that he wrote everything tha.t now bears his name It does not, at first glance, appear to be the sort of thing one would expect from the author

of the Abhidharmako^a or the author of the Vi inapt imatratasiddhi^ but,

I suppose, anyone who had only read the 'sceptical' Mulamadhyamakaka- rikah of Nagarjuna would hardly believe, without further ado, that the practical Ratnavali was by the same author Such occult premonitions can hardly be admitted as evidence

First, then, we must ask if it is a translation from the Sanskrit

at all, or something composed in Chinese It is quite clear to me that T'an-luan, at least, did not know Sanskrit, and this fact has implica-

1 On the vexing question of 'will the real Vasubandhu please stand up?', the latest thing seems to be Padmanabh S Jaini, 'On the Theory of the Two Vasubandhus', 3S0AS, vol.21 (195S), pp.48-53

certain key terms is according to the Chinese translation, not the

details as they occur, see my notes to the translation Richard Robin­son once pointed out to me that the (much more clearly pseudepigraphical)

true of T'an-luan When T'an-luan quotes the twenty-second Resolution

of Dharma.kara from the Larger Sukhavativyuha (twice: 84-Obl9-27 and

&l4all-17), he divides up the clauses in a way impossible in any known Sanskrit text of the Resolution, and derives his important doctrine of Subitism within Sukhavati from this new punctuation (see my notes on those passages) It is true that he seems to have a sort of word-list

to hand, for his interpretations of specific Sanskrit terms like arbst, tathagata, sutra, upade^a, anuttarasainyaksambodhi, etc., are for the most part unexceptionable However, he does make one howler, 'Kacilin- dikam', he confidently tells us, 'is the name of a soft Indian grass' (829b6) It isn't It is a sea-bird with soft feathers and, by extension,

of soft garments, etc, (Soothill 317&! Mahavyutpatti 5879) But, from the context in which this rather uncommon word occurs, he has made a pretty intelligent guess

All this seems to indicate that he did not take Sanskrit lessons from Bodhiruci or anyone else ('too old at forty'?) and, apparently, that

he did not ask Bodhiruci about all the Sanskrit terms That he worked entirely from Chinese sources seems proved by the fact that,although

Sanskrit equivalent: thus, for example, kung-te m - is used indis­criminately for gupa and pup.ya; chuang- is used for the nounsvyuha and alamkara, and for the verb alamcakara; and so forth— for

Hahayana^raddhotpada Sastra uses yin-yuan in the very Chinese sei

of hetvalambana rather than the Sanskrit hetupratyaya: the same seems

sense

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when he talks of the much weirder kykalasa (? restoration uncertain),

a very peculiar lizard which inflates as the wind rises (837a3-5):

the reason appears to be, that while krkalasa is mentioned in (the Chi­nese translation of) the Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra, (T.XXV, 113b),

kacilindikam is not I do not know what to make of this It might in­dicate that T'an-luan never met Bodhiruci at all, so throwing suspicion

on all our extant biographies Less radically, it may show that Bodhi­ruci and T'an-luan never had any very profound conversations together The austere accounts of their meeting show Bodhiruci as a rather ira- sciole character, who may well have been fed up with the stream of Chinese seekers after immortality, so that he gave him the book or books

to shut him up and let him get on with it Bodhiruci was not to know that, in T'an-luan, an apt pupil had at last arrived

Now;if T'an-luan never met Bodhiruci, the authenticity of the Comma

is very seriously in doubt, since the entire account becomes suspect But if he did meet him, but talked little, we still have to decide on internal evidence if the language of the Comma is that of a translation

or just translationese, There is only one point at which I think any­thing material can be said on this: the use of the compound hui-hsiang This is normally regarded as a translation of paripamana, taken

in Bdgerton's fourth meaning (fldgerton 323b), of 'diversion (of some­thing to the use of someone for whom it was not intended)', i-.e., the dispersal of one's own acquired merits (pupya) for the weal of others more spiritually impoverished T'an-luan is quite aware of this meaning:

The usual interpretation of the term hui-hsiang is that onehands over (shih^<£> ) the merits one has accumulated so that

all beings together may go towards (hsiang ^ } the Way (bodhi) of Buddha.

(8^2a25-26)But this is only half the story, what he calls the 'going' (w a n g )aspect, i.e., the operation of hui-hsiang by those who are goingtowards Sukhavati There is also the 'returning' (huan^ ) aspect

He says of this:

Having been Born in that Land, and attained, the perfection of samatha, of vipasyana, and of competence in skillful strategy (upSya), one turns (hui ) and /""re-_J7 enters Q u ) the dense forest of saipsara, converting all beings so that they all together go towards (hsiang ) the way (bodhi) of Buddha

(836a2^-2£)

This philology of hui (,ju) hsiang 0$ (K)^l is certainly Chinese: but theimportant point is, that the germ of this explanation is already in theComma, though not at the point just discussed 'Vasubandhu' says:

Because of hui-hsiang in the power of the Fundamental Reso­

lution, one contemplates the sufferings of beings and, out_

of great compassion, one shows transformation-bodies (nirmapa- kcTyafi), turning around (hui) and entering (ju) the

gardens of sagisara and the forests of the passions

(8^3bl9-2l: cf T.XXVI,233al9-22)

The only indication Sdgerton gives of parinamana being used as ‘turn,change (in direction)', is a cryptic entry which either refers to theturning round of a quality (i.e., transformation), or to the Chinese interpretation, which is precisely what we are discussing (Sdgerton 323b) Thus, the passage contains a pun, central to its effectiveness, which

seems impossible in Sanskrit And since "the.- idea of 'turning around and

I

re-entering' is the very essence of the aim of the Pure Land praxis j

according to this text, a weakness at this point is a weakness in the whole text It would mean that it is a Chinese pseudepigraphon 1There is one further point, which may indeed be the most important

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the Tibetan' A full enquiry would therefore necessitate a precise ex­amination of this claim, and an attempt to restore a respectable Sanskrit text from the Tibetan If at any significant point, such as the understand­ing of paripamana, the Tibetan follows the Chinese, it would indicate that it was derived from it rather than from Sanskrit: if the reverse,

it would show the probability of a Sanskrit original, a definite step towards solving its authorship Embarrassingly, I have not yet learnt Tibetan, and so this reconstruction is something which I cannot at this moment do Hence, the question of authenticity must be left open

As a codicil, I wish to make a general methodological observa­

tion on the putative authorship of pseudepigrapha The question of 'corporate personality' is a commonplace amongst Biblical scholars, but has not, as fax as I am a.wa.re, been approached by Buddhologists With­out going deeply into this, let it suffice to sa,y that such names as Abraham, David, Solomon and so forth often appear to be both names of individuals and names of groups or schools Thus, someone might a.t some time say something 'wise', which would then become 'a saying of Solomon', since Solomon was the 'father' of all wise men who were there­fore his 'sons' In a culture where corporate personality operates, no­tions of copyright and plagiarism are quite other than in modern America, that most solitary of crowds For a Chinese artist to be told that his painting looked like a model (we would say 'fake') of his Master's was the highest compliment And so, apparently, for the painters of Ajaij^a

or the builders of Chartres, Thus, 'composed by the Bodhisattva Vasu­

bandhu' (and even, 'translated by Bodhiruci') may be tributes to their

august memory, Vasubandhu, it might be saying, if he had heard of Sukhavati (and we do not seem to know whether he did or not), would have talked about it like this The whole question of the authorship

of Mahayana texts needs::re-examining in the light of this principle

For instance, what does buddha bhagita mean, for a Sutra dated long after the parinirvana?

an autocommentary, called the upade^a, as we have said

The Commentary sets about dividing this into sections It is notalways clear why the divisions are made in the way that they are (e.g., the section on 'Furnishings' has sub-sections on 'Beings', who are supposed to be in another main section), and there seems no need to take them too seriously Broadly, they are as follows:

I, Introduction (826a-827a): the authenticity of the work, its out­line, and the meaning of the title

II Commentary on the Stanzas (82?a-833c):

A The First Three 'Gates': V/orship, Praise and Resolution (seebelow for the meaning of the 'gates')

B The Fourth Gate: Contempla/tion _(i) Contemplation of the Furnishings of SukhavatT (17 parts).(ii) Contemplation of the Beings in Sukhavati

(a) The Buddha (8 parts)

(b) The Bodhisattvas (^ parts)

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G The Fifth Gate: Dispersion of Merit ('turning towards').

Ill, Interlude (833c-834c): eight queries on points arising from II,G

IV Sub-Commentary on the Auto-Commentary (835a6-843c):

A Outline

B, The Ten Principles:

(i) The General Meaning

(ii) Beginning Contemplation and Producing Faith: general remarks

on the Pure Land praxis

(iii) The Contemplation of the Images: the 17 Furnishings, the

8 aspects of the Buddha and the 4 of the Bodhisattvas, asa.bove, with several important asides on doctrinal points,(iv) The Purity Entering into the Resolved Mind (84lb-c): this section is the climax of the whole work, tying together the dialectic, the metaphysic, and the praxis

(v) Skillful Conversion (upaya)

(vi) Obstacles to bodhi

(vii) Aids to bodhi

(viii) The Mutual Inherence of the Name (i=e,, Amita) and the

(ix) The Perfection of the Resolution (of Dharmakara)

(x) The Fulness of Beneficial Practice (of those Born into SukhcivatT)

V Conclusion (843c-844b): the meaning of anuttarasamyaksaipbodhi (as

an epitome of Buddhism), and the significance of Dharmakara's Resolutions 18,11 and 22 (as epitomising the 48), Codicil re­

viewing the descent of the thought from Sutra through Commentary

to Sub-Commentary

D; SIGNIFICANCE:

The complete history of the interpretation and use of T'an-luan's Commentary is no part of the present study, but a sketch of its develop­ment will show its importance

The researches of Tsukamoto Zenryu into public images of Amitabha, summarised by Ch'en, Buddhism in China, pp 170-177, show a distinct shift of interest, by 650 A.D., away from Maitreya and Sakyamuni, and towards Amitabha and Avalokite^vara This is assigned to the missionary efforts of Tao-cho (562-645) and Shan-tao (613-681) But they In turn are based upon T'an-luan The icons of Sukhavati in the cave temples

IV; THIS SOTFRIOLOGY OF THE WANG-SH3NG-LUN CHU:

A: SOMB PRELIMINARIES:

Systematic treatises on Buddhist soteriology are conspicuous by their absence This is only a particular instance of a general timidity amongst Buddhologists to deal with Buddhism systematically, rather than chronologically or exegetically Certainly the bulk of untranslated, even unedited, material is awesome; but that does not mean that nothing

at all can be said, albeit haltingly and provisionally, about the ma­terial which is available Here we attempt to say something about the economy of the Wang-sheng-lun Chu but, for lack of a tried and tested model, we must use a hastily conceived prototype, and it may spill

One major study has recently appeared: David Ruegg, La Th/orie du

Tathagatagarbha et du Gotra, gtudes sur la Soteriologie et la logie du Bouddhisme (BEF20, vol.LXX, 19°9) but, insofar as this is readable (it was prepared for the press during the troubled Paris of

Gnoseo-1968, its printing 'fut fatalement interrompue par les ^v^hements de l'et£ de cette annee', and so bristles with curiosities) and insofar

as I have got into it, seems unfortunately largely irrelevant to the present discussion However, three cheers for the beginning which has been made

Other than Ruegg's book, there sire scattered articles here and there The best I have found are;

(i) D.T Suzuki, 'The Buddhism of Faith in India5, On Indian mhayana Buddhism, ed EL Conze, pps129-1^6, Harper Torchbooks, I968 (reprinted from The Eastern Buddhist for 1939)•

(ii) Edward Conze, 'Buddhist saviour* The'Saviour God^ ed S.G.F

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(iii) Richard H Robinson, Buddhist Soteriology: The Teacher-Saviours, unpublished paper, c.1968,

Gonze's article is the broadest, and does a good job of clearing the ground Referring to the chapter on Avalokite^vara in the Lotus Sutra (which T'an-luan also uses at 833^8-10 and 8^3821-22) he epito­

mises Buddhist soteriology in the power (prabhava) of Avalokitesvara consequent upon his purification of his Resolution (pranidhana) such that, through recollection/invocation (smarato) of his Name, beings are set free (parimucyeran) from their sufferings: Avalokite^vara is the 'saviour, refuge, and resort' (trapu bhoti ^arapagi parayapam) ('Buddhist Saviors', p.68) These elements are also present in T'an-luan's picture of Amita­

bha Conze also makes clear that 'saving' for the 3uddhist means 'going across' or 'causing to go across' from satpsara to nirvapa (ibid., p.69) All this is quite admirable, and it is a pity that it suddenly fogs as this eminent Buddhologist grapples with the dark dragon of his private manifestation of Christianity: saying (p.68) that we must, 'be careful

to eschew such loaded words as worship, prayer, sin, love, eternal, and supernatural' (words which,,to me, seem common currency in most religions and therefore quite neutral), he then (p.79) tosses in the tricky com- municatio idiomatum, one of the most 'loaded' words in the historycf-Chris- tianity, a' knife-edge bridge between Heaven and Hell that not even the most respected of Church Fathers trod surely I say this is a pity be­

cause neither his caveat nor his sudden 'comparison' helps us look facts in the face and develop a methodology: and I have (apologetically) pilloried the Master of the Prajnaparamita only beca.u-se, at this point

af least, he represents an all-too-common failing (whole sections of

D.T, Suzuki's writings, for instance, wreck on this rock) which it would

be well for us to exorcise The comparison of Buddhist and Christian soteriologies is a delicate topic, though ultimately the discipline

of the History of Religions requires that it must be done, and I ner­vously approach it in Section VI, below

D.T Suzuki, in 'The Buddhism of Faith 'n India', attempts, rathermore on hunches that clear evidence, to see the faith of Shin Buddhism

in Amida as a development out of a primitive devotion to the person

of Buddha Sakyamuni, which arose quite naturally:

There is no doubt that Buddha /"~Sakyamuni 7 was a wonderful personality; that is, there must have been something in him which was superhuman, impressing his immediate disciples with

a supernaturally overwhelming and entirely irresistible power

(ibid., p.132)While one could cite many examples from the Suttas of adversaries who were, on the contrary, conspicuously underwhelmed by Buddha's arguments, this is on the whole well said, in that it dismisses the ghost of the gentle Stoic whom T.W Rhys-Davids (and others like him) saw in the ailing BhikkhuYatramulle Unnanse (P.T.S Journal, 1920/3, pp.1-21), but the argument needs more substance Robinson provides this First, he analyses the merit (pupva) system, which is indeed the lifeblood of Buddhism at all stages of sophistication He conclude#, very suggestive­

ly, that

In summary, the cosmic merit economy is not a fixed-sum system The amount of merit varies in direct ratio to the purity and disinterest of giver and of receiver At a certain point, the finite calculus of mundane merit is suspended, and replaced by the infinite degree of supramundane recompense

Robinson is interpreting the Pali texts, but this situation obtains forT'an-luan also: the merit of Amitabha is 'immeasurable' (amita— what this

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means I shall analyse in a moment), therefore immeasurably beneficial Robinson then sets out five grades of 'salvation', in accordance with this merit-economy calculus:

(i) rescue from present danger;

(ii) assurance of not'being re-born in the bad destinies;

(iii) good fortune in present and future human lives;

(iv) rebirth in a heaven;

(v) sainthood (i.e., 'out of the system')

Then, he translates Dhammapada 276, so often quoted to show that theBuddha of the Pali Canon is 'only' a teacher:

The exercise must be done by you; the Tathagatas are proclaimers Meditators, when they have walked the way, are released from Mara's bonds

and comments:

The emphasis is not on any supposed limitation of the Buddhas, but on a complementary distribution of responsibility between master and disciple, between the savior and his client

From this rather scrappy evidence, it may be seen that the soterio- logy of the tfang-sheng-lun Chu, which at first glance may seem quite special, did not spring full-grown from T'an-luan's head The extent

of his indebtedness to former beliefs, however, must await further re­search

B: THE UNSAVED CONDITION:

The first of the Four Holy Truths is that everything phenomenal is unsatisfactory (sarvarp duhkham) This is the basic problem as Buddhism aees it, and everything else in Buddhism is an attempt to provide an answer T'an-luan well understood this and, as he meanders through the decorations of Sukhavati, he tells us that each severally was put there

as a remedy for some specific 3a.j.saric distress* Although he seldom quotes the words of Dharmakara directly from the Sutras, he notes a particular decoration, sees that it is the opposite of what pertains in sagisara, and imagines what Dharmakara must have thought to himself at the 'causal stage1 when he was laying down the conditions under which

he would attain final enlightenment and obtain Sukhavati, So, for ex­ample, observing that Sukhavati is flat and wide, T'an-luan says:

The Buddha /""Amitabha_/ originally called up the merits of the Measurements of the decorations becausee he saw in the triple­world : mountain passes, strait and dangerous; gorges between cliffs; though there were palaces, he observed that they were cramped; though there were fields, they were small and filthy; though one could find roads, they were narrow; mountains and rivers created barriers; and countries were split up into sections Since there were these troublesome things, the Bodhisattva

/~Tharmaka.ra_7 set up this Resolution concerning the merits of the Measurements of the decorations, resolving, ’My Land shall

be like to the sky, which is wide, without limits or bounds,'

(828b3-9)

Summarising the unsaved condition, he says:

Everything we see is like this: what one obtains has nothing

to do with what one has worked for, and one's livelihood has nothing to do with what one has keut safe,

(S^OalO-ll)Therefore, Dharmakara resolved:

'Hay it be, in my Land, that everyone, calling for what he seeks, will feel his want fulfilled,'

(831b9-10)

C: THE •PRIMARY SAVIOUR: AMITABHA BUDDHA:

The soteriology of the yfang-shehg-lun Chu is that of Outside Help (t ' o - l i ) rather than Self-Help (tsu-li '@7^ ) T'an-luan con­

trasts the two showing how Outside-Help is easier and more powerful tha.n Self-Help: it is like travelling by boat rather than, on foot (826bl-i0), or going through the air by magic power rather than plodding

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— —- — / _

along on a donkey (SUka.2^-26: cf Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra: Poussin,Siddhi, p.778); but he never seriously indicates that the time of the Latter-Day Dharma (pa^cimadharmakala; mo-fa-shih has actuallybegun, making Self-Help actually impossible

He now enquire into the source of this Outside-Help

(i) BECOMING A SAVIOUR:

The Sutra records that Dharmakara made forty-eight (according to the Chinese text) Great Resolutions (mahapranidhana), of which Sukhavati

is the end product T'an-luan picks three of these as typifying all the rest (SMM-a.2-20):

(a) Resolution 18 (not in the Sanskrit texts): all those who shall have faith in Amitabha and recollect/invoke (n i e n ^ ; ) him ten times (i.e., 'perfectly': 83^cl3-27)» will be re-born in Sukhavati, except for those who deny the existence of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, etc

(b) Resolution 11 (agrees with the Sanskrit): all those re-born in Sukhavati will be non-lapsing (avaivartika), programmed for final en­lightenment (anuttarasamyaksagibodhi)

(c) Resolution 22 (partly differs from the Sasnkrit, and where it agrees with it, T'an-luan punctuates differently): all those re-born in­

to Sukhavati will be approximated to Bodhisattvas of the ninth and tenth levels (bhumi) without ascending gradually through the lower levels

Thus T'an-luan regards the forty-eight Resolutions as assuring beings

of re-birth in Sukhavati consequent upon faith; of non-lapsing; and

of Subitist attainment of final enlightenment

All of the Resolutions were made when Dharmakara had advanced

him-self to the eighth level (bhumi), was himhim-self non-lapsing, and obtained the Calm Knowledge of Non-Arising (anutpaJtikadharmakganti— it is quiteupsetting that the S.B.E translation of the Sutra makes of this, 'resig-

j

nation to consequences not yet arisen'), i.e., when he knew that in reality nothing ever arises or decays: this is the 'Nature" (hsing

of Sukhavati:

At the beginning /~of his careerJ7» the Bodhisattva Dharma­

kara, in the presence of the 3uddha Lokesvararaja, awaking to the Calm Knowledge of Non-Arising, established then what we call, 'Holy Seed (gotra) Nature', and in that Nature put out forty-eight Great Resolutions, by the practice of which he called up this Land which we call, Sukhavati This /~Land_7 has been gained with that /~Nature_/ as cause, and as we can say that the cause is in the effect, we can thus speak of the Nature

(828b29-c4-)Since this is the level of powerful autonomy, of gotrabhu (N Dutt, Aspects of Nahayana Buddhism, pp.280-282), and since it was at this level of power that the Resolutions were made, there is a mutuality

of support between the perfection of the Resolution and the complete­ness of the resulting power-to-save:

The present lordly, divine power (tzu-tsai shen-li )

of Amitabha TathSCgata originates from the forty-eight resolu­tions of Dharmakara Bodhisattva, his power is complete (ch'eng ) because of his Resolution, and his Resolution was perfect (chiu^T ) because of his power The Resolution was not vain, and the power is not empty His power and his Resolution go together, in the final analysis they are not different, and therefore are called perfection (ch'eng-chiu f k )•

(8Wal3-l6)Put another way, since both the cause and the effect arose in the Un­arisen, sequential time does not bind :-.hem and so, though apparently separated in time (the later being unable to affect the earlier) they mutually support each other in a timeless dimension

The origin of this marvellous power is not further explained But

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perhaps this is enough for? 'amongst the Five Inconceivables (panca- cintyadharmesu), the power of the Buddha is the most inconceivable' (Mahaprajnaparamita ^astra, T.XXV, 283c: cf Lun-Chu, 840b29*cl.

(ii) BEING A SAVIOUR:

The result of the Resolutions and Praxis of Dharmakara is that(a) he becomes a Buddha named Amita (Amitabha, Amitayus, etc.) and(b) he obtains a Land (ksetra) called Sukhavati

(a) A Buddha Named Amita:

Quoting the Smaller Sukhavativyuha, though not quite accuratelyaccording to the text as we have it, T'an-luan reminds us of Sakyamuni'sexplanation of Buddha Amita's Name:

Why is his Name AMITA? That Buddha's glory (stbha) is measure­

less (amita) illuminating the lands in the ten directions with­out being hindered; therefore his Name is AMITA /~-ABHA_7 Again, the life-span (ayus) of that Buddha together with that of the inhabitants is a measureless (amita) and boundless asaqikhyeya- kalpa; therefore his Name is AMITA /"-AYUS_7

(827b2-S: cf SBE, v.^9» pt.2, pp.9?f.)His name is not something arbitrarily attached to him for means of iden­tification, it expresses his Essence of measureless light, i.e., wis­dom The Comma says:

As that Tathagata's glory is the image of his wisdom, so hisName is /""the image_/ of his Essence

(835^13: cf.T.XXVI, 231al5-l6

T'an-luan comments:

The Buddha's glory is the image of his wisdom This glory il­

lumines the worlds in the ten directions without hindrance, and

is able to remove the ignorance and delusion of the beings in the ten directions It is not like the pearly brightness of thesun or moon, which is only able to disperse the darkness in anempty cave

(835bl5-18)That is, it is both a very great physical light of laser intensity,