Buddhist Sutras - Origin, Development, Transmission - Kogen Mizuno PDF
Buddhist Sutras - Origin, Development, Transmission - Kogen Mizuno PDF
-»-I*»«
iijijiiH*ifci figure
KOGEN MIZUNO
BUDDHIS
SUTRAS
Origin,
Development,
Transmission
Preface 7
1. Introduction 13
Probems of Definition 13
The Meaning of the Word Sutra 15
The Origin of the Sutras 17
4. Early Translators 57
Kumarajiva 57
Fa-hsien 62
Other Early Translators 70
5
6 CONTENTS
Glossary-Index 207
MapfoWowj page 63
Preface
system. As the teachings these monks took with them gained ad
herents, the Chinese in their thirst for greater knowledge began to
seek the original scriptures of their new religion.
In order to learn more about the religion and take that knowledge
back to China, a number of earnest, intrepid Chinese pilgrims made
their way to India, foUowing many of the same desert and mountain
routes their preceptors had taken. The depth of their belief can be
judged by such pilgrims as Fa-hsien (340?-420?), who undertook
the arduous journey to India when he was already in his sixties— in
a time when few people reached the age of sixty. For more than a
thousand years, beginning around the second century a .d., Buddhist
scriptures were transmitted to China and rendered into Chinese by
many translators, both Central Asian and Chinese; the Chinese
pilgrim and eminent translator Hsüan-tsang (ca. 596-644) trans
lated the largest quantity of scriptures. Today the Chinese canon
contains by far the largest body of Buddhist scripture, including a
great many important works for which the Indic originals are no
longer extant.
Because China was the one country in which Buddhist scriptures
were always translated into the local language and studied ex
haustively, and because China gave birth to most of the extant sects
of Mahayana Buddhism, the story of the transmission of Buddhist
scriptures to China is a particularly important and fascinating one.
And because Buddhism became and has remained a source of solace
and spiritual support for a large portion of the world’s population,
I decided to recount some of that story for general readers some
years ago in a series of articles that appeared in twenty-eight con
secutive issues of the magazine Kosei. In 1980 those articles were
gathered together and published as a book in Japanese, appearing
in the book in the same order in which I had written them for the
magazine. For this English-language version of that book, I have
completely reorganized the material.
Because I intended this book for the general reader, I have used
simplified transliterations of Pali and Sanskrit words throughout
the text, but the orthodox spellings are included in the appendix
and the index. Since I refer to documents and teachings belonging
to both the Northern and the Southern Buddhist traditions, I have
PREFACE 9
used both Sanskrit and Pali in the text, depending on which is ap
propriate, Northern Buddhist texts having been written in San
skrit and Southern Buddhist texts in Pali. Thus I have used both
Tipitaka (Pali) and Tripitaka (Sanskrit) in referring to the same
kind of scriptural collection. The Wade-Giles system of romaniza-
tion has been used throughout for Chinese words, partly because it
is more familiar and perhaps more readable than the new Pin-yin
system, but principally because it is the established system in
Western works on Chinese Buddhism. Hence readers interested in
doing further reading can easily find in other books the people,
places, and works mentioned here. Some Chinese place names, such
as Nanking, are given consistently in their modern form because
they have had numerous names throughout the long history of
China. With the names of those few Japanese who figure in this
story of the transmission of the sutras, I have followed the Japanese
practice of giving the surname followed by the personal name.
Finally, although in recent years it has become a common
practice in general works on Buddhism to use the terms Mahayana
and Theravada to designate the two major streams of Buddhism—
that is, Northern and Southern Buddhism— in this book I use the
terms Mahayana and Hinayana for specific reasons. Though Hina
yana (literally, “ Small Vehicle” ) was a derogatory t e ^ coined by
Mahayana (or “ Great Vehicle” ) Buddhists, it designates the entire
stream of Abhidharma Buddhism, of which Theravada (Way of the
Elders) was only one among many sects.
During the age of primitive Buddhism, the religion’s earliest pe
riod, there was but one body of Buddhism. Not long after 300 B.C.,
however, that age came to an end with the division of the religion
into two sects that later subdivided into eighteen or twenty sects,
ushering in the period of Abhidharma, or sectarian Hinayana, Bud
dhism, which lasted until the begin^^g of the first century a .d. From
that time until about a .d. 300, which is the period of early M aha
yana Buddhism, Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism existed side
by side. The middle period of Mahayana Buddhism, from about
300 to about 700, was dominated by Mahayana and Hinayana
scholastic Buddhism. Following the age of primitive Buddhism, a
number of Mahayana and Hinayana sects were born and flour
10 PREFACE
Introduction
elephant’s head and said it was like a ja r; the second man felt its
ear and was certain it resembled a winnower; the third touched the
elephant’s tusk and declared that it was like a pointed spear; the
fourth man patted the elephant’s leg and stated it was like a pillar;
and so they continued.
Each man, on touching the elephant with his own hands, had a
definite opinion of what it was like and, thinking himself right and
the others wrong, flatly denied the others’ reports. None would ad
mit that another explanation could possibly be right because each
allowed for only a partial description.
With this parable the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, demon
strated to his disciples that, by disputing one another’s beliefs and
insisting on their own theories of life and the world, the non
Buddhist philosophers and people of religion prevented themselves
from attaining enlightenment. Their insistence on the correctness of
their own theories and views, which were based on an incomplete
examination of the whole question, resembles the blind men groping
at the elephant. Through this parable the Buddha taught his dis
ciples that they must have an all-embracing view of the world and
of life.
We, too, must have a correct view of both religion and Buddhism
as a whole, yet an abstract concept is difficult to understand and de
fine correctly. We can more easily understand and correctly define
something that can be comprehended directly through our senses.
Even when we are dealing with something concrete, however,
our understanding of it may be different from someone else’s be
cause of our personal relationship to it. For example, in Buddhism
water is understood in four ways, depending upon the audience.
Hungry spirits, who thirst for water, see it as purulent because their
evil karma from the past causes the water to look like pus and blood
to them. To fish, water is an abode. Heavenly beings are said to
regard water as land ornamented with lapis lazuli and jewels, since,
viewed from high above, lakes are seen as beautiful and brilliant
crystals or jewels. And then there is water as we human beings
understand it.
But even human beings see water in many ways. Chemists know
it as H 2 O ; to physicists it is liquid, vapor, clouds, ice, or snow; and
MEANING OF T H E W O R D S U T R A 15
* The Agama sutras of the Pali canon consist of the complete Pali Sutta-pitaka,
containing the Five Nikayas: Digha-nikaya (Long Sayings), Majjhima-nikaya
(Middle-Length Sayings), Samyutta-nikaya (Kindred Sayings), Anguttara-
nikaya (Gradual Sayings), and Khuddaka-nikaya (Minor Sayings). The Agama
sutras of the Chinese canon consist of a Sutra-pitaka, translated ft-om S^^krit,
comprising the Four Agamas—Dirgha-ag^ama, Madhyama-agama, Samyukta-
agama, and Ekottara-agama, the Sanskrit equivalents ofthe first four of the Five
Nikayas. (The Chinese Agama sutras also contain some fragments and inde
pendent sutras not found in the Pali Agama sutras.)
T H E O R IG IN OF T H E S U T R A S 17
nagara and that the flower the believer held in his hand had been
part of the funeral decorations.
That news was a great shock. The monks who were enlightened
endured their sadness, believing that liVng beings were born to die,
in accordance with the truth “All things are impermanent.” The
monks who had not yet reached enlightenment wept and prostrated
themselves.
But Maha-Kashyapa overheard one man who had become a
monk in his old age sayng that the death of Shakyamuni was a
cause for rejoicing, not sorrow, since, with him gone, they would all
be free to do precisely what they wanted without being advised and
reprimanded by him at every turn. Maha-Kashyapa thought that
if m onS of this kind, willing to break the moral precepts, were to
increase in the Buddhist Order, the Buddha’s true teachings would
not be preached and thus would not be followed. He saw at once
that to prevent this it was essential to compile the Buddha’s true
teachings and decided to produce a collection of the sutras.
When Maha-Kashyapa reached Kushinagara, the funeral cere
monies were over. He called together the mo^nks gathered there and
suggested a council to compile all the teachings of the Buddha. This
was essential if the true Law was to survive and if false laws and
precepts were to be prevented from springing up. The assembly
agreed and chose five hundred arhats, or enlightened disciples, to
participate in the task. The ensuing council, held three months
after Shakyamuni’s death during the three-month rainy season, met
in the Cave of the Seven Leaves at the foot of Mount Vibhara near
Rajagriha, the original capital of Magadha.
I have said that five hundred arhats were delegated to coilect the
teachings, but in fact only four hundred and ninety-nine were
arhats, since Ananda had not yet reached the final stage of enlight
enment when the council was convened. Nevertheless, Maha-
Kashyapa and many other monks agreed it would be impossible
to exclude him, because during the last twenty-five years of Sha
kyamuni’s life Ananda had been in constant attendance on their
master. He had heard more of Shakyamuni’s sermons than any
one else and had remembered all of them perfectly. Moreover, he
had heard and learned from Shakyamuni and feilow monks all the
20 INTRODUCTION
There are also many sermons that were preached by the Bud
dha’s disciples after his death. Not all of the extant sutras were re
cited at the First Buddhist Council: some were not recited until
the second council, or even later, but they were still regarded as
containing the correct teaching and as being consistent with the
Buddha’s truth. Since the later sutras also begin with the phrase
“Thus have I heard,” we can infer that these words were uttered
not only by Ananda at the First Buddhist Council but also by the
reciters at following councils.
The extant sutras do not necessarily contain the Buddha’s exact
words because they were not recorded as he spoke. Furthermore, the
intelligence and mental capacities of the people who heard him
differed, so the way in which they understood the content of the
preaching differed. This is another reason that the exact words of
the Buddha could not have been handed down to us. Moreover, no
sutra has been handed down in a language the Buddha himself
used. The sutras were transmitted in other Indic languages of later
periods, and without doubt conscious and unconscious changes in
the Buddha’s words were made during several centuries of oral
transmission. In spite of all this, however, both the primitive sutras
regarded as the oldest extant sutras and the Mahayana sutras of
later periods are considered correct records of the Buddha’s words.
It should be noted that the primitive sutras were not compiled as
biography, since at the time that Shakyamuni was with his disciples,
his preaching and his disciples’ concerns centered on faith and its
practice, not the recording of his acts. However, even though those
sutras were not intended to describe the Buddha’s acts, many of
them do contain detailed accounts of his life at the begi^^ng of his
teaching ministry— after he attained enlightenment— and of the
events surrounding his death.
Many of the Buddha’s sermons recorded in the primitive sutras
are actually biographical. Because the descriptions in the p^rimitive
sutras were not intended as biography, however, they were not
embellished and the Buddha was not depicted as a superhuman
being. In this respect the primitive sutras are more reliable than the
conscious biographies of later ages.
Two or three centuries after the Buddha’s death, when memory
T H E O R IG IN OF T H E SUTRAS 23
SCRIPTS AND SUTRAS The two ancient Indic scripts that were
used in both Buddhist scriptures and the
edicts of Emperor Asoka are Brahmi and Kharoshti. Neither of
these scripts was indigenous to India: both developed from Semitic
writing forms.
In the beginning a spoken language has no direct relationship to
its written form because they are not born at the same time. Spoken
languages developed with the emergence of humankind, but the
invention and use of written characters came much later. In Japan,
for example, where a spoken language has existed for several thou
sand years, a writing system was not introduced until around the
fourth or fifth century a .d ., after Japan had had contact with the
Chinese. But the ideograms borrowed from China were not widely
used by the Japanese until some were greatly simplified to create
the two syllabaries still in use today.
Although Indic, or Indo-Aryan, languages existed several thou
sand years ago, their written scripts do not appear to have evolved
until some three or four hundred years before the founding of
Buddhism. Thus there is little immediate relationship between the
spoken languages and the written scripts of India.
One of the two writing systems in ancient India, Kharoshti, was
used only in northwestern India and in the neighboring area of
Central Asia during a limited period of roughly seven hundred
years, between the fifth century b .c . and the third century a .d .
This system seems to have been based originally on the Old Persian
and Brahmi scripts used in northwestern India after the Persian
king Darius the Great conquered the area at the end of th e sixth
S C R I P T S AND SU T R A S 37
century B.C. Like the Arabic or Iranian system today, it was written
horizontally from right to left.
So far, edicts of Emperor Asoka have been found in some thirty-
odd sites throughout the area of ancient India, but only the edicts
discovered in two places in the northwest, in modern Pakistan, are
written in Kharoshti. The Gandhari Dharmapada was also written
in Kharoshti, but since this script was used for a limited period in a
limited area, the number of Kharoshti texts and fragments is ex
tremely small in comparison with those in Brahmi. As Bra^hmi came
into common use in northwestern India after the third or fourth
century a .d., Kharoshti was displaced.
According to ancient Indian tradition, the Brahmi characters
were devised by Brahma, the Hindu deity of world creation, who
taught them to mortals. Various studies, however, have revealed a
close relation between India’s ancient Brahmi and the old scripts of
Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Many hypotheses have been offered
as to the origin of the Brahmi script, but it is now thought to have
been developed from Phoenician around 800 B.C.
Indian Brahmi was at first written horizontaliy from right to left,
like Phoenician script. Later, but only in northwestern India,
method of writing was adopted for the edicts of Emperor Asoka. All
other edicts were written horizontally from left to right, like Western
languages. Buddhist scriptures in Brahmi and its derivatives were
all written horizontally from left to right.
The Phoenician script, which fi^^es in the origins of Brahmi, is
believed to have developed from E ^ ^ tian glyphs. In fact, the
majority of the world’s written languages in use today derive from
the lineage of Egyptian and Phoenician characters. In the Middle
and Near East the modern characters are derived directly from
Phoenician script, either through cuneiform characters or through
the characters used in the scriptures ofJudaism , Christianity, and
Islam; in the East, there are Brahmi and Kharoshti; in Southeast
Asia there are writing systems that developed from Brahmi; and
modern alphabets in the West are based on Greek and Roman
characters, which in turn derive from Phoenician. In essence, ali
the world’s written languages except Chinese and languages that
38 SU T R A S AND T H E I R L A N G U A G E S
* The five aggregates are the elements or attributes of which every human being
is composed: (I) form, or the body; (2) receptivity, sensation, feeling; (3) mental
conceptions and ideas; (4) volition, or various mental activities; and (5) COn
sciousness. The Wlion of these five aggregates dates from the moment of birth and
constitutes the individual. -
O TH ER E A R L Y TRANSLATIONS 47
Early Translators
Tradition holds that Yao Hsing, who deeply admired Kum ara
jiva, was afraid that with Kumarajiva’s death his great talent would
be lost, so with the intention of having Kumarajiva beget an heir,
Yao Hsing commanded ten comely young women to wait upon
Kumarajiva. Yao Hsing also built luxurious quarters for the young
women and Kumarajiva, who was obliged to accede to the ruler’s
wishes. Kumarajiva appears to have been very aware of the un
usual circumstances in which he lived, for at the beginning of his
lectures he would tell his disciples : “You must take only the lotus
flower that grows out of the mire and not touch the mire."
Some of the non-Chinese priests were outraged to see Kumara
jiva living a life of ease in royal quarters instead ofliving humbly in
a temple. For instance, the Central Asian monk Buddhabhadra
(359-429), who translated the Flower Garland Sutra (Avatamsaka-
sutra), faithfully observed the precepts and was critical of Kuma
rajiva’s way of life. Thus he incurred the ill will of Kumarajiva’s
disciples, who compelled Buddhabhadra to leave Ch’ang-an. He
went to Mount Lu, in southern China, where he was warmly wel
comed at the monastery of Hui-ytian (33^4-416).
Hui-ytian, a disciple of Tao-an, moved to Mount Lu in about
384 and spent the remainder of his life in seclusion there. Hui-ytian
practiced nien-fo, that is, invoking the name of Amitabha Buddha in
order to be reborn in that buddha’s Pure Land. In 402 he and
one hundred and twenty-three followers formed a group called the
Pai-lien-she (White Lotus Society) and vowed to be reborn in the
Pure Land. Sometime after 404, Hui-ytian and Kumarajiva en
gaged in a lengthy correspondence on fine points of doctrine. In his
daily life Hui-yUan, who revered Shakyamuni, strictly observed all
the precepts for monks. When he became old and infirm, his dis
ciples offered him broth and wine and even honey, but he refused
it all, admonishing the disciples to recall the precepts.
Chinese pilgrims seekng the Law made their way to Central Asia
and India and brought sutras back to China to be translated into
Chinese. Of the monks who sought the Law in this way, the most
well known are Fa-hsien, Hstian-tsang, and I-ching.
The Record of Buddhist Kingdoms is Fa-hsien’s account of his jour
ney to India at the beginning of the fifth century. Hstian-tsang re
corded his travels in Central Asia and India in his Record of the
Western Regiom, a valuable work giving us insight into the customs,
habits, geography, history, and religions of various parts of India
in the mid-seventh century. I-ching’s four-fascicle Record of the Bud
dhist Kingdoms in the Southern Archipelago is a concrete introduction to
the customs and daily life of the monks in Buddhist temples in In
dia in the late seventh century, rather than a travel sketch.
Fa-hsien, the first important Chinese pilgrim, believed that many
aspects of Buddhism were still unfa^miliar to the Chinese, especially
the precepts, or monastic rules for monks, even though Tao-an had
already established the Buddhist teachings themselves. Thus in 399
Fa-hsien set out for India to seek a complete original text of the
uinaya, or rules of discipline.
Just two years after Fa-hsien’s departure Kumarajiva arrived at
Ch’ang-an, and not long afterward such great masters of the pre
cepts as Vimalaksha and Buddhayashas, with whom Kumarajiva
had studied, also crossed into China. By 404 Kumarajiva and Pun-
yatara had translated the sixty-one-fascicle Ten-Category Vinaya,
and in 408 (or possibly between 410 and 412) Buddhayashas, along
with others, translated the sixty-fascicle Four-Category Vinaya
(Dharmaguptaka-vinaya). Had Fa-hsien waited but a few years,
his journey to India would have been unnecessary. Yet, Fa-hsien’s
experience was immensely useful both to him and to Chinese Bud
dhism.
In the time of Fa-hsien many Indian and Central Asian mo^nks
had gone to China, and some Chinese had attempted to travel to
India or Central Asia. According to the Record of Buddhist Kingdoms,
Chih-yen, Hui-chien, Seng-shao, Pao-ytin, and Seng-ching were
among those few Chinese pilgrims who had set out seeking the Law
before Fa-hsien made his jo ^ ^ ey , accompanied by Hui-ching, Tao-
cheng, Hui-ying, and Hni-wei. Chih-yen and Pao-ytin were very
r..........
Turfan
I ^ •Kashga'r ----------- -
i /T N. L T A K L A M A K A N D tS tR T
: ^ 1 T 11»^ .... y \ . ' y ^
• •>J'
-Pu«4shapura'
/ (
.: PAKISTAN N
N
Mathura '^Lumbini\
,*»ììk^
-• ^ P atalip u tca^ " .....T '
^ , =C ïli^landa ’■
Buddha-gayal
Varanasi
Tamralipti
BUF
INDIA
G'
SRI LANKA
INDIAN OCEAN
bird that flies overhead and no beast that runs on the ground. There
is nothing around us, and we cannot even find our direction. We
can go on only by using the scattered skeletons as our guides.”
Fa-hsien and his companions were able to lodge in Buddhist tem
ples along the way, and they finally reached the Pamirs, which they
had to cross to get into India. Fa-hsien spoke colorfully of the moun
tains: “ On the Pamirs there is snow in both summer and winter. A
poisonous dragon also lives there. If men anger him, he vomits a
poisonous wind, makes snow fall, and throws gravel and rocks.
None who meet this calamity survive.” Even after entering India,
Fa-hsien’s party stil had the steep mountain path ahead of it.
Fa-hsien’s description is vivid: “ For fifteen days, as we move to the
southwest along the mountain ridges, the path is steep, the precipice
towering steeply, the mountains an impassable rock wall. One feels
dizzy when one looks down, and even if one wishes to proceed, there
is no place to put one’s foot. Below is the Sindhu [Indus] River.
People of the past chiseled a path out of the rock and drilled about
seven hundred holes across the face of the cliff for handholds. Mter
traversing the path, one crosses the river by means of ropes that are
strung across it. The river is about eighty paces wide.”
Since the cliff along which the path had been cut was several
thousand meters high, just standing on the steep path made people
feel dizzy and weak: nowhere was the ground level. Small holes
had been drilled at intervals of about thirty centimeters, and by
means of two short sticks, which they thrust into alternate holes,
travelers pulled themselves along the path across the face of the
cliff. If one missed but a single handhold, one could faU to one’s
death. Mter that dangerous crossing one still had to negotiate a swift
river some sixty meters wide. Only one person at a time could cross
the precarious ropes stretched across the river. Once safely on the
other side, that person signaled so the next person could make the
crossing.
Some people who had joined up with Fa-hsien’s party turned
back at Purushapura (present-day Peshawar). Fa-hsien, Hui-ching,
and Tao-cheng continued the difficult journey, but Hui-ching be
came ill along the way and died. Fa-hsien and Tao-cheng continued
on to the Buddhist center Mathura, in central India; the Jetavana
68 EARLY TRANSLATORS
Monastery, at Shravasti; Kapilavastu, where Shakyamuni grew up;
Lumbini Garden, the birthplace of Shakyamuni; Kushnagara,
where Shakyamuni died; and the Vaiji city Vaishali. Some six years
after leaving China, they finally crossed the Ganges and arrived in
Pataliputra (modern Patna), then the capital of Magadha. The two
monks visited various places in Magadha, including Rajagriha, the
orignal capital of M agadha; Gridhrakuta, or Vulture Peak, where
Shakyamuni had often preached; and Bodh Gaya, where Shakya
muni attained enlightenment. M ter returning to Pataliputra they
went up the Ganges to Mrigadava, or Deer Park, on the outskirts of
Varanasi (also called Benares), where Shakyamuni had preached
his first sermon after enlightenment, and then on to Kaushambi,
the capital ofVatsa, as weli as south to the Vindhya Range in order
to visit Buddhist pilgrimage sites in that area.
At that time both Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism were
flourishing in India. The four great Buddhist holy places— Lumbini,
Bodh Gaya, Mrigadava, and Kushinagara— were popular pilgrim
age sites. Indian Buddhism gradually declined, however, and by
the time of Hsüan-tsang, about two hundred years later, both Ma
hayana and Hinayana Buddhist temples had been abandoned in
some regions.
M ter his journey to the Vindhya Range, Fa-hsien returned again
to Pataliputra, where he stayed for three years (406-8) in order to
learn Sanskrit and the B r a h .i script and to transcribe sutras. There
were no sutra manuscripts in northwestern India, and Fa-hsien
obtained a few manuscripts only when he visited central India. It
was not until he went to Magadha that he was able to acquire a
number of sutras, uimya texts, and treatises. Tao-cheng decided to
remain in Magadha rather than return to China because he felt
that the true teachings of the Buddha could not be learned in the
Chinese countryside and that Magadha was the best place to study
Buddhism. Fa-hsien parted company with Tao-cheng and contin
ued his travels in the belief it was his mission to communicate true
Buddhism to the people of China. He went down the Ganges River
and stayed two years in the port city Tamralipti (present-day Tam-
luk, near Calcutta), where he transcribed sutras and sketched Bud
dhist images.
FA-HSIEN 69
for China sometime in 414. That ship also ran into a severe storm,
and it reached Shantung Province over eighty days later, having
been swept far to the north of its original destination, Kwang
tung Province. Fa-hsien then went south to Nanking, where he met
Buddhabhadra. With Buddhabhadra’s assistance Fa-hsien was able
to translate a portion of the sutras and the Vinaya-pitaka, or O r
dinance Basket, that he had brought back from India. Among them
were six fascicles of the Sutra of the Great Decease (Mahaparinir
vana-sutra) and forty fascicles of the vinaya, or precepts, of the M a
hasanghika school (Mahasanghika-^^aya).
in the city. His refusal may have been an expression of his disap
proval of the life of ease led by Kumarajiva, in violation of the
precepts that ordained monks vowed to honor. Kumarajiva could
understand Buddhabhadra’s attitude, but the people close to Ku
marajiva were displeased by Buddhabhadra’s behavior, which they
thought insincere.
Buddhabhadra possessed both scholarly ability and an excellent
character gained through uncompromising discipline, and as his
reputation for instruction on dhyana practice grew, many people
gathered around him, wanting to become his disciples.
Once Buddhabhadra prophesied to his disciples: “ Five ships are
sailing to China from India.” ^ ^ e n Buddhabhadra’s words became
known to others, Kumarajiva’s disciples considered the prophecy
a fraud, and they attacked Buddhabhadra as an impostor. But even
before the prophecy of the five ships, which later came true, Bud
dhabhadra had at times exhibited mysterious paranormal powers
achieved through his training.
Buddhabhadra’s disciples began to disperse when they sensed
potential danger to themselves from Kumarajiva’s disciples. Re
alizing that he would never be fully accepted in Ch’ang-an, Bud
dhabhadra left for the south with some forty-odd close disciples,
including Hui-kuan. About a thousand monks and lay believers
saw him off with sadness, and Yao Hsing also seemed regretful.
Buddhabhadra visited Hui-yuan at Mount Lu, and the two men
agreed completely in their views on keeping the precepts. Buddha
bhadra stayed at Hui-yuan’s monastery long enough to translate
such Zen writings as the Dharmatara-dhyana-sutra (Yogachara
bhumi-sutra) for Hui-yUan. At about the same time, Emperor
Wu Ti (r. 420-22) of the brief Liu Sung dynasty (420-79) invited
Buddhabhadra to live in the temple Tao-ch’ang in Nanking, the
Liu Sung capital. Buddhabhadra accepted, and because he engaged
mainly in giving instruction in dhyana practice there, he was called
either Zen Master Tao-ch’ang or Zen Master Buddha. But since
his dhyana was meditation in the context of Hinayana Buddhism,
it is considered inferior to the dhyana of Chih-i (538-97), founder
of the T ’ien-t’ai sect, and of Bodhidharma (fl. ca. 520), founder of
the Chinese Zen school.
74 EARLY TRANSLATORS
inn. Because wars were still being waged and robbers and thieves
abounded, Dharmakshema feared that his sutras would be stolen,
and he used them as a pillow at night.
During the night, however, someone pulled at the sutras beneath
his head. This also happened on the following two nights, and he
thought that a burglar was responsible, but on the third night
he heard a disembodied voice asking him why he slept with his
head on valuable sutras that preach the emancipation of the Bud
dha. He felt great remorse and immediately put the sutras on a high
shelf before going back to sleep. Burglars did intrude that night to
steal the sutras, but they could barely lift them. The following day,
the robbers saw Dharmakshema easily pick up the sutras, and, awed
by his obvious sanctity, they bowed politely and left.
The Northern Liang kingdom had been established in Liang-
chou by the devout Buddhist Chu-ch’ii Meng-hstin (r. 401-33).
Hearing of Dharmakshema, Meng-hsun invited him to accept the
hospitality of the court and also asked him to translate the sutras
he had with him. The high priests of the area, who knew of Dharma-
kshema’s distinguished scholarship and virtue, worked with him
in translating a number of sutras, including the Sutra of the Great
Decease and the Great Collection of Sutras, most of which were not
yet known in China.
O fall the sutras he took with him, Dharmakshema thought most
highly of the Sutra of the Great Decease. Its Sanskrit original,
written on bark, had been given to him in his youth by the Zen
master Pai-t’ou. Dharmakshema translated it first, but he found
he had only the initial portion of the original, so his ten-fascicle
translation was incomplete. He returned to India to obtain a com
plete manuscript, staying for over a year, during which time his
mother died. He acquired the middle portion of the sutra at Khotan
and returned to the Northern Liang capital, where he made an
other ten-fascicle translation. He sent an envoy to Khotan to bring
back the final portion of the sutra, and in this way the Sutra of the
Great Decease in three parts, forty fascicles altogether, was com
pleted in 421, seven years after Dharmakshema had begun his
translation.
The translation was still incomplete, however, because the orig
76 EA R LY TRANSLATORS
was stiU incomplete because of a lack of texts. ^nd this was the state
of Chinese Buddhism at the time of Hstian-tsang’s birth, around
596.
Hsüan-tsang was born into a family of scholars that lived near
Loyang, to the east of Ch’ang-an. His grandfather had been a Na
tional Preceptor, and his father had been well versed in Confucian
ism at an early age. It was said that his father and older brother
were more handsome and had better physiques than most people
and carried themselves with dignity but that in Hstian-tsang those
qualities were even more apparent.
His father was appointed to a provincial governorship at the end
of the reign of Yang Ti- (r. 6 0 4 -1 8 ), the last emperor of the Sui
dynasty, but ânce he did not want to serve in the government of
the new dynasty, he resigned his post and retired. With the loss of
his father’s income, the family experienced financial difficulties,
and Hstian-tsang’s older brother left home to become a monk at
Ching-t’u Temple in Loyang, receiving the religious name Ch’ang-
chieh at ordination. He earned an excellent reputation for his out
standing lectures on the sutras.
Because Hstian-tsang’s family became increasingly poor, Ch’ang-
chieh brought his younger brother into the temple to pursue the
same vocation. Both brothers entered the monkhood in order to se
cure a living and not out of a genuine desire to seek after the
truth. Nonetheless, Hsüan-tsang became interested in the sutras
and by the age of eleven he was already able to read the Vimala-
kirti Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and others with ease. It is said that he
was so intent in his study of sutras and philosophical works that he
did not join the other monks when they took time to chat or relax
and that the young Hstian-tsang attended all the lectures on sutras
and commentaries given at Hui-jih Temple in Loyang.
By the time he was fifteen and had begun to study at an advanced
level, his abilities had become evident and even people far from
Loyang had heard of him. When he had learned all he could in
Loyang, he went to Chuang-yen Temple in Ch’ang-an in search of
an able teacher, but his trip was fruitless. Fleeing the widespread
warfare and famine in that part of the country, Hstian-tsang and
his brother made their way to the west, eventually settling in the
80 h s Oa n -t sa n g
THE INDIAN YEARS AND Hstian-tsang did not resume his stud-
THE RETURN TO CHINA ies until after he had passed through
Central Asia and reached India. He
stayed in the Kashmir region of northwestern India for a ^me,
studying both Hinayana treatises, such as the Great Commentary
T H E INDIA N Y E A R S 83
(Abhidharma-mahavibhasha-shastra) and the Abhidharma Store
house Treatise (Abhidharmakosha-shastra), and logic from Hina
yana scholars there and also lear^rng Indic grammar. The time in
Kashmir was only in preparation for later studies, but he was ad
mired there for his linguistic ability and understanding of the texts.
Hstian-tsang began serious study of Buddhist philosophy in M a
thura, in central India, and at the great Nalanda monastery, to the
east. Buddhist students from throughout India gathered at the
monastic university of Nalanda to study the teachings of the Yoga
chara (Yoga Practice) and Madhyamika (Doctrine of the Middle
Way) schools of middle-period Mahayana Buddhism under promi
nent scholars. Four thousand monks lived at the university, and a
total of six thousand people, including secular researchers and
non-Buddhist scholars, pursued studies there.
Hstian-tsang’s reputation preceded him, and when he reached
Nalanda, more than a thousand monks and lay believers welcomed
him. He was provided with living quarters, and then twenty monks
escorted him to Shilabhadra, the university’s foremost scholar.
Shilabhadra, already one hundred and six years old at the time of
Hstian-tsang’s arrival, was an authority on the doctrine of Con
sciousness Only (Vijnanavada), and his knowledge had earned him
the sobriquet Treasury of the True Law.
Mter greeting Hsüan-tsang, Shilabhadra asked where he came
from. Hstian-tsang replied that he had come from China and wished
to study the Treatise on the Stages of Yoga Practice (Yogachara
bhumi-shastra) and other works. On hearing this, Shilabhadra wept
and asked his disciple Buddhabhadra (who was not related to the
great translator of the same name) to tell a particular story.
Buddhabhadra said, “ My teacher suffered from a serious illness
three years ago. He had a sharp pain, as if he were being pierced
by a sword, and, resolving to die, he stopped eating. In a dream,
however, a golden being with the appearance of a s ^ ^ b g buddha
or bodhisattva appeared and said, ‘You must not lay down your
life. In a previous existence you were a king and abused many
people. Because of this, you now suffer pain. A Chinese monk is now
on his way to India to study, and he will be here in three years. You
should teach him the Law so he can disseminate it in China. If you
84 HSÙAN-TSANG
day Kannauj), on the middle reaches of the Ganges, and his influ
ence extended into central and eastern India.
Although King Harsha protected various Indian religions, he
was a devout Buddhist. Once every four years the benevolent H ar
sha held an assembly, lasting seventy-five days, in order to give
away gold, silver, jewels, clothing, and grain to religious people,
philosophers, and the needy. For Harsha this was a practical way to
dispose of surplus goods stockpiled in his warehouses and to help
his people at the same time.
Around the time that Hsüan-tsang was to return to China, King
Harsha asked the rulers of various countries to gather for a religious
assembly, to which he invited tens of thousands of shramanas, or
ascetics, and Brahmans from all over India. Harsha erected large
buildings in which to lodge his religious guests. At the time that
Harsha convened his assembly, Hstian-tsang was in remote Kam a-
rupa (modern Assam), in northeastern India, where he had been
invited to teach Buddhism to King Kumara. King Harsha had
heard that Hsüan-tsang was in Kamarupa and sent a messenger
to invite him to Kanyakubja. King Kumara himself accompanied
Hstian-tsang to Harsha’s capital.
By that time Hsüan-tsang’s reputation was excellent, and he was
addressed by the respectful title Mahayanadeva (Great-Vehicle
Deity). King Harsha had Hstian-tsang debate publicly with the
people of religion and the philosophers in attendance at the as
sembly. Such contests were often held in India in those days; and
since generous awards of gold, silver, and jewels were presented to
the winner, winning was a singular honor. The debates between
Hsüan-tsang and his opponents lasted eighteen days, during which
time Hsüan-tsang disproved his opponents’ arguments, gaining the
admiration of the foremost scholars in India.
With nothing left to study, Hstian-tsang asked permission to re
turn to his country. Various kings, including Harsha, attempted to
detain him, but at last understanding his firm resolve, they gave
him elephants and made handsome gifts of gold and silver so he
could travel in comfort. He refused most of the gifts, accepting only
a single elephant and feed for it, a little money for expenses, and
provisions. The elephant was large enough to carry eight people and
86 HSÜAN-TSANG
everything Hsüan-tsang had collected, includingsutras and images
of the Buddha.
With several companions Hsüan-tsang made his way north, re
ceiving the hospitality and protection of the king in each country
through which he passed and eventually arriving safely near the
border oflndia. Hstian-tsang crossed the upper reaches ofthe Indus
River on his elephant, but he put some ofthe sutras and statues and
the seeds of unusual flowers in a boat. As the boat left the shore, the
wind began to rise. The boat almost sank, and fifty boxes ofHstian-
tsang’sgoods fell into the river.
The king of Kapisa, waiting on the opposite bank to greet
Hstian-tsang, surveyed the damage and asked if Hstian-tsang had
loaded Indian flower seeds on the boat. Hsiian-tsang replied that
he had, and the king said, “Since ancient times a ship carrying
Indian flower seeds has been sure to sink or be capsized to prevent
such seeds fromleaving India.”
The sutras that fell overboard comprised the Tripitaka of the
Kashyapiya school of Hinayana Buddhism. They were only a small
part ofthe sutras Hsiian-tsang had collected, but since he had gone
to the trouble of obtaining them, he delayed his journey for over
fifty days in order to collect other copies of them.
When they were finally ready to resume their journey, Hsiian-
tsang and his companions packed their goods on the elephant, ten
mules, and four horses. They encountered many hardships in the
Himalayas before crossing the Pamirs, making their way into Cen
tral Asia and at last reaching Khotan, where the elephant drowned
in a river. Because Hsiian-tsang had no other means of transporting
all the goods the elephant had carried, he sent a messenger with a
letter to the T’ang emperor asking help.
It tookabout six months for the messenger to return, and during
that time Hstian-tsang lectured on Buddhism every day to the
king, monks, andlay believers in Khotan. The T’ang emperor asked
the king of Khotan to supply Hsiian-tsang with transportation, and
his sutras and images of the Buddha were loaded on twenty horses.
Hstian-tsang’s party passed through the Takla Makan Desert safely,
and in January 645, they entered Ch’ang-an and were greeted by
the viceroy, Fang Hstian-ling. Hsiian-tsang was at that time around
THE TRANSLATIONYEARS 87
forty-six years old. The monk who had left the country without his
emperor’s permission was welcomed home with a procession befit
ting a triumphant general.
Scriptural Interpretation
and Doctrinal Distinctions
should bear in mind that there are important differences from the
systems of Western philosophy or science and even from the com-
mon-sensical approach we take in addressing the problems of every
day life. In science, for example, demonstrable empirical proof of
a hypothesis is the important criterion for determining the validity
of that hypothesis. In formal logic a variety of reasoning methods
or arguments, such as the syllogism, are adopted for testing the va
lidity of a statement, and the common-sense judgments we make in
everyday life are based on assessments very like those of formal logic.
Buddhist sutras, however, contain numerous discrepancies and
contradictions that cannot be explained adequately in terms of
formal logic alone. Because the ways of expounding various Bud
dhist teachings differ with the degree of faith or spiritual develop
ment of the listeners, those teachings cannot be analyzed from only
one point of view or on the basis of a single criterion; hence they
do not admit of testing by the arguments of formal logic. Buddhist
treatises and commentaries— and even sutras— mention a multidi
mensional view of the teachings.
From the standpoint of science or formal logic (both of which are
given to single-perspective judgments based on a single criterion),
this multidimensional view could be regarded as an extremely
complicated system of non-order or non-logic. Yet such a multi
dimensional view is necessary in order to fully comprehend a men
tal state as something dynamic and mutable.
under the fifth patriarch, Hung-jen (602-75), who trained him well.
Among the seven or eight hundred priests practicing under Hung-
jen, some were highly accomplished in knowledge of all kinds of
sutras and in other Buddhist learning, but it was to the unlettered
Hui-neng that Hung-jen handed on the Law, making him the sixth
patriarch in the Chinese Zen lineage established by Bodhidharma.
Hung-jen’s designation ofHui-neng as his successor was confirma
tion that Hui-neng saw with the eye of the spirit and was able to
perceive the true nature of a sutra. Some years after Hui-neng be
came the patriarch, a priest called Fa-ta, who made it a practice to
recite the Lotus Sutra, was unable to fathom its meaning and asked
Hui-neng for guidance. It is said that Hui-neng had only to read
a small portion of the Lotus Sutra in order to grasp its essence and
be able to enlighten Fa-ta.
From around the end of the Northern and Southern dynasties
(317-589), Pure Land Buddhism, with its emphasis on the practice
of nien:f)— invoking the name of Arnitabha Buddha in order to be
reborn in his Pure Land, or paradise— also became widely accepted.
T ’an-Iuan (476-542), Tao-cho (562-645), and Shan-tao (613-81),
the three early Pure Land masters who were instrumental in pop
ularizing the practice of nien:fo, all understood the true meaning
of the sutras through direct spiritual experience, without the hin
drance of slavish preoccupation with subtle interpretations of each
word they contained. Of the many Buddhist sects once popular in
China, only Zen and Pure Land Buddhism still flourish today, and
their survival can be attributed to the simplicity and purity of their
approach to the sutras.
the Zen and Pure Land priests did represent the true spirit of Bud
dhism. In his wiU the Indian monk Gunavarman (377-431), who
went to China early during the Northern and Southern dynasties,
left counsel that supports less rigid interpretation: “Although vari
ous kinds of teachings [such as Mahayana, Hinayana, Provisional,
and Real] are found [in the sutras], there is no difference in the way
of practicing [the faith]. [Moreover,] while many [scholars] cling
to their own views and discuss the correctness or flaws of others’
views, no dispute arises among those who achieve [the true spirit
of Buddhism].”
Nevertheless, because many of the sutras translated into Chinese
did not adequately meet the needs of the people, the Chinese came
to produce their own original Chinese-language sutras, the “gen
uine” and spurious sutras discussed in the previous chapter. As we
have seen, although a number of these sutras were fabricated for
wholly dishonorable reasons, some of them were composed out of
a genuine desire to communicate the true meaning of Buddhism.
The most famous of these well-intentioned spurious sutras were
written by Hsin-hsing (540-94). Hsin-hsing, who founded the Sect
of the Three Stages (San-chieh-chiao), based on the theory of
three periods of the Law— that is, the period of the True Law, the
period of the Counterfeit Law, and the period of the Decay of the
Law— is regarded as a follower of Fa-ytin, whose influential com
mentary on the Lotus Sutra we have already considered.
Like Seng-ts’an (d. 606), the third Zen patriarch in China, Hui-
wen (fl. ca. 550), the seminal thinker who contributed so much to
the eventual founding of the T ’ien-t’ai sect, and the great Pure
Land teacher Tao-cho (562-645), Hsin-hsing experienced at first
hand the persecution of Buddhism between 574 and 578 instituted
by the Northern Chou dynasty emperor Wu Ti. Hsin-hsing believed
that Buddhism was made to suffer so heavily at that time because
Buddhists had become corrupt and strayed far from the True Law.
Maintaining that in order to resuscitate Buddhism priests must de
vote themselves to sincere practice of the Law rather than to aca
demic investigation, Hsin-hsing himself actively practiced Zen
meditation.
Although Hsin-hsing has been caUed a Zen master, he fostered
148 SC RIPTU RA L IN TERPRETA TIO N
pitaka were deleted from collections compiled later. This is the rea
son that the writings of Hsin-hsing (5 40-94), founder of the Sect
of the Three Stages (San-chieh-chiao), and the Biography of the
Treasure Forest (Pao-lin-ch’uan), which records Zen history, are
found in some Tripitaka and not in others.
The earliest Chinese Tripitaka, or complete collections of sutras,
were compiled during the period of the Northern and Southern
dynasties (317-589). In northern China, Emperor Hsiao-ming Ti
(r. 515-28) of the Northern Wei dynasty and, in southern China,
Emperor Ming Ti (r. 494-98) of the Southern Ch’i dynasty and
emperors Wu Ti (r. 557-59), Wen Ti (r. 559-66), and Hstian Ti
(r. 568-82) of the Ch’en dynasty all had a number of copies of Tri
pitaka transcribed for enshrinement in major provincial temples.
Before long it became fashionable among wealthy commoners to
commission copies of the Tripitaka to be dedicated to temples.
The first Sui emperor, Wen Ti (r. 581-604), who established
Buddhism as the national religion after the reunification of China,
commissioned forty-six copies of the Tripitaka, which he had en
shrined in various provincial temples. Tripitaka including the
sutras recently translated by Hstian-tsang (ca. 596-664) were en
shrined in the temples Ching-ai-ssu in Loyang and Hsi-ming-ssu in
Ch’ang-an; and Ching-t’ai’s five-fascicle catalogue Chung-ching
mu-lu (Catalogue of the Sutras; commonly called Ching-t’ai’s
Catalogue) and the ten-fascicle T a -T ’ang nei-tien-lu (Catalogue of
T ’ang Dynasty Sutras) compiled by Tao-hstian (596-667) were pre
pared as catalogues of those collections of sutras.
In 730 Chih-sheng (658-740) compiled his monumental K ’ai-
yuan shih-chiao-lu (K ’ai-ytian Era Buddhist Catalogue), in which
some 1,076 translated sutras numbering 5,048 fascicles were me
thodically arranged and classified. Ytian-chao included a number
of new translations in the Chen-yUan hsin-ting shih-chiao mu-lu
(Chen-yUan Era Buddhist Catalogue), which he edited and com
pleted in 800; and the information in that catalogue was brought
up to date and new translations were recorded in 945 by Heng-an
in his Hsti Chen-yUan shih-chiao-lu (Supplementary Chen-yUan
Era Buddhist Catalogue), which listed 1,258 sutras totaling 5,390
fascicles. By the end of the T ’ang dynasty the most important sutras
166 S U T R A S IN S C R I P T AND P R I N T
had all been translated into Chinese, and only a small number were
translated later.
In China, carbon ink was used to copy sutras on paper. The oldest
extant copy of a Chinese-language sutra was transcribed during the
Three Kingdoms period (22^0-80), and although copies of scriptures
transcribed in succeeding ages also survive, many of them are only
fragmentary. In the beginning there was no standard format for
written sutras, but examination of extant sutras makes it clear that
the practice of copying sutras in lines of seventeen ideograms was
adopted at an early date.
As I mentioned earlier, some catalogues even recorded the num
ber of sheets of paper required for copying individual sutras. The
fact that the figures given for particular sutras vary little from one
catalogue to another is further evidence that sutras were being
copied in a fairly standardized format. A note appended to the
first sutra entry in Tao-hstian’s T a -T ’ang nei-tien-lu states that a
single sheet of a sutra is composed of twenty-eight lines. Although
there is no mention of the number of ideograms per line, it is
thought that all the sutras recorded in T ’ang-dynasty catalogues
were transcribed in the format of twenty-eight lines of seventeen
characters each per sheet of paper. (The individual sheets of paper
were afterward pasted together to form scrolls.)
Around the beginning of the Sung dynasty (960-1126) carved
wood blocks began to be used to print complete copies of the Tri
pitaka. Though they varied somewhat in format, the most common
editions from the Sung dynasty and through the Ming dynasty
(1368-1662) were printed with thirty lines of seventeen characters
each on one sheet of paper. (This format was used both for the sutras
bound as scrolls and for the later sutras bound as books.) The most
recent edition of the complete Chinese canon, the massive Taish4
Daizokyo, which was printed in Japan between 1924 and 1934, has
three columns per page, each column composed of twenty-nine
lines of seventeen ideograms each. Thus a single page of the Taish4
Daizokyo is roughly equivalent to three sheets of the Tripitaka as
it was originally printed in China.
I The copies of the Tripitaka presented to temples were stored il
sutra repositories. Although these structures foUowed no standard
COPYIN G T H E SUTRAS 167
design, a fixture common to most of them was the so-called round
shelf— a taU, octagonal revolving cabinet in the center of the re
pository. According to legend, the round shelf was invented by the
lay master of Buddhism Fu Ta-shih (4 9 7 -5 6 9 ; also known as Shan-
hui Ta-shih) during the Liang dynasty (502-57), and it was said
that by simply turni ng a cabinet full of sutras around and around
an illiterate person could gain merit equal to that of reciting the
sutras. Legend notwithstanding, it is thought that the round shelf
was invented as a convenience for readers, to reduce the amount
of walking necessary to find the sutras they wished to study. Ro u nd
shelves were also insta 11ed in t he sutra repositories of Japanese te m -
ples, along with a devotional statue of Fu Ta-shih.
Buddhist scriptures were first brought to Jap an in the mid-sixth
century, when Buddhism was introduced into the country. Prince-
Regent Shotoku (574-622) himself 1ectured and commented on
three Mah ayan a sutras— the Lotus Sutra, the Shrimala Sutra, and
the Vimalakirti Sutra— and it is believed that he sent a mission to
the Chinese court for the express purpose of bringing those sutras
to J a pa n. Eight Sui-dynasty (581-89) scriptures belonging to the
Nara temple Todai-ji and currently stored in the Sutra Repository
of the Shoso-in— Todai-ji’s storehouse for its own and imperial
treasures, built in 756— are believed to have been br oug ht to Japan
duri ng the regency ofShotoku or shortly thereafter.
I t is thought that the earliest Japanese copy of the Chinese Tri-
pitaka was transcribed at the Nara temple Kawara-dera in 673, the
first year of the reign of E m pero r Temmu. It appears that the sc ri p-
tures included in that copy were those recorded in the T a -T ’ang
nei-tien-lu co m piled by Tao-hstian in 664, indicating the r apidity
with which Buddhist scriptures were making their way to Ja p a n .
During the reign of Emperor ShOmu (r. 7 2 4 -4 9 )— whose imperial
treasures are stored in the Sh6so-in— the Nara monk Gembo (d.
746) journeyed to C hina and, in 735, b ro ug ht back to Japan “over
five thousand fascicles of Buddhist scriptures,” which must have
been the 5,048 fascicles listed in the K ’ai-ytian shih-chiao-lu com-
piled only five years earli er by Chih-s he ng.
ShOmu and his consort, KOmyo (701-60), seem to have com
manded t he making of co pi es of the Tripitaka bro ugh t back by
168 S U T R A S IN S C R I P T A N D P R I N T
* The wooden pagodas were made in three sizes. Ten of the largest size, thir
teen-story pagodas standing seventy centimeters high, were built; one hundred
of the next size, seven-story pagodas some sixty centimeters in height, were made;
and one million of the smallest size, three-story pagodas twenty-three centimeters
tall, were produced. One copy of a printed dharani was placed in each pagoda be
fore they were distributed for installation at ten major temples, including Todai-
ji and Yakushi-ji in Nara, the great HoryO-ji just outside Nara, and Shitenno-ji
in Osaka.
P RIN TIN G TH E SUTRAS 173
the European development of movable type, with which Gutenberg
is traditionally credited. It is believed that printing was known and
used in China well before Empress Shotoku’s dharani were printed
in Japan, possibly even as early as the second century a.d .; but the
oldest extant example of Chinese printing is the exquisite wood
block-printed copy of the Diamond Wisdom Sutra made in 868
that was recovered in Tun-huang from the rock-hewn temple com
plex that includes the famous Cave of the Thousand Buddhas. Al
though Confucian writings seem to have been printed not long
after the Diamond Wisdom Sutra, it was not until the beginning of
the Sung dynasty that printing of the massive Tripitaka was under
taken (about one hundred years after the Diamond Wisdom Sutra).
Though it would be another seven decades before the Chinese de
veloped practical movable type, the earliest printed Tripitaka ap
peared nearly five centuries before Gutenberg’s Bible.
The first complete Tripitaka printed in China was the Sung
Governmental Edition, which is commonly called the Shu-pan, or
Shu Edition. The wood blocks from which it was printed were
carved at Ch’eng-tu in Szechwan Province at the order of the first
Sung-dynasty emperor, T ’ai Tsu (r. 9 6 0 -76). The monumental task
of carving and printing the 130,000 wood blocks for that edition,
begun in 971, was not completed until 983. The fact that hardwood
was used for the blocks to prolong their useful life only increased the
difficulty of the carving. The sutras included in the Shu Edition
numbered 5,586 fascicles: the 5,048 fascicles listed in the 730 K ’ai-
yilan shih-chiao-lu (K ’ai-ytian Era Buddhist Catalogue), 279 fas
cicles of new translations completed during the Sung dynasty, and
259 fascicles of pre-Sung-dynasty translations not incorporated in
the K ’ai-ytian shih-chiao-lu.
On completion of the Shu Edition of the Tripitaka, in 983, copies
were installed in major provincial temples. In 984 the Japanese
monk Chonen (d. 1016) from the Nara temple Todai-ji, who was
then in China on a pilgrimage, was given a complete copy of the
Shu Edition, which he took back to Jap an on his return, in 987.
Highly prized as a rare treasure of the Law, that copy of the Tri
pitaka was later stored in the sutra repository of the temple Hojo-
ji, built in Kyoto by the powerful regent Fujiwara no Michinaga
174 S U T R A S IN S C R I P T AND P R I N T
(966-1027). Although that copy o fth e Shu Edition was lost when
Hojo-ji was destroyed by fire in 1058, that edition of the Tripitaka
is known through portions of another copy preserved at the Kyoto
temple Nanzen-ji and through portions of a third copy recovered
from the caves at Tun-huang.
In 990 still another copy of the Shu Edition of the Tripitaka was
presented to the Korean king Songjong (r. 981-97), of the Koryo
dynasty (918-1392). That copy eventuaUy formed the foundation
for the famous Koryo Edition of the Tripitaka, which has also been
known as the Tripitaka Koreana.
The Sung-dynasty government added newly translated sutras to
the Shu Edition in 1013 and 1036. By an imperial command in
1071 the wood blocks for the Shu Edition and its supplements were
entrusted to the subtemple Shen-shou ch’an-ytian at Hsien-shen
Temple, and the printing was transferred to private hands. Copies
of the Tripitaka did not immediately become widely available,
however, because publication was still supervised by the govern
ment.
In northern China the Liao dynasty (947-1125), established by
the Khitan Mongols, also embraced Buddhism and aspired to equal
the Sung dynasty in cultural development. Under Liao rule, sutraa
continued to be carved in stone at Yun-chu Temple on Mount
Fang in Hopei Province, and a complete set of wood blocks for an
edition of the Tripitaka was made. That edition of the Tripitaka,
which was based on the Shu Edition and its supplements, seems to
have been completed around 1055. Although this edition has not
survived, we know that the copy of it presented to the Koryo court
in 1058 influenced the Koryo Edition.
W ith the Shu and Khitan (Liao) editions as models, at least
editions of the Tripitaka were published in Koryo, and both have
been called the Koryo Edition. It is believed that the first K o ^
Edition, initiated and completed under King Hyeonjong (r. 1009
31), contained the 5,048 fascicles of the K ’ai-ytian shih-chiao-lu
and that it foUowed the format of the Shu Edition.
The second Koryo Edition, produced during the reign of King
Munjong (r. 1046-82), included translations not incorporated in
the K ’ai-ytian shih-chiao-lu, in addition to a number of sutras from
P RIN TIN G TH E SUTRAS 175
the Shu and Khitan editions. It is believed that together the two
Koryo editions contained some 1,524 works. A copy of the original
printing of either the first or the second Koryo Edition was instaUed
in the temple Kennin-ji in Kyoto, but because almost all of it was
lost in a fire in 1837 we cannot be certain which edition the temple
received. Additional portions of one of the printings are preserved
at other Japanese temples, such as Nanzen-ji in Kyoto and Zcjc-ji
in Tokyo.
Well over one hundred years after its first publication, the second
Koryo Edition was reprinted at Haein Temple in southern Korea.
It is the Haein Temple printings that are generally calied the Koryo
Edition of the Tripitaka. (A nearly complete copy of a Haein Tem
ple printing is preserved in the Tokyo temple Zqjl5-ji.) The wood
blocks used to print the Haein Temple Edition, numbering over
eighty thousand, are stil maintained at Haein Temple and have
been used again in recent times to print additional copies of the
Koryo Edition of the Tripitaka. One of those copies was presented
to Japan and is readily available to scholars.
Under the Chin dynasty (1115-1234), which displaced the Liao
dynasty in northern China and established its capital in Shansi
Province, a revised version of the Sung Governmental, or Shu,
Edition was published. Known as the Chin Edition, it included all
the sutras from the Shu Edition (and those sutras were printed in
the same format as in the Shu Edition), as well as a number of ad
ditional sutras, which were printed in a noticeably different format.
(Most of the printing blocks for the Chin Edition were preserved at
Kuang-sheng Temple in Shansi Province until World W ar II.)
Eventually some o f the printing blocks for the Chin Edition
became badly worn, or were lost, and Kublai Khan (1215-94),
founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), ordered the publication of
a revised version ofthe Chin Edition. T hat revised Tripitaka, known
as the Hung-fa Temple Edition, became widely accepted and was
designated a Ch’in-ting Ta-tsang-ching, or authorized edition of the
complete Chinese canon. From the Chih-yUan fa-pao k’an-t’ung
tsung-lu (Chih-ylian Era Complete Buddhist Catalogue), published
in 1306, we know all of the sutras that were included in the Hung-
fa Temple Edition. The Tibetan school of Buddhism known as
176 S U T R A S IN S C R I P T AND P R I N T
used to print the Obaku Edition are still preserved in the Hozo-in
at Mampuku-ji.
While the court noble Iwakura Tomomi (1825-83) was in
England— as head of the Japanese mission that visited America and
Europe between 1871 and 1873— he was asked to donate a copy of
the complete Chinese canon to the British Museum. As a result of
that request, a copy of the O baku Edition was presented to the
Library of the India Office. Shortly afterward, Samuel Beal (1825
89), an English scholar of Chinese literature, compiled Bud
dhist Tripitaka, an English-language catalogue of all the sutras in the
Obaku Edition, which was published in 1876.
In that same year the well-known Japanese Buddhist scholar
Dr. Nanjio Bunyiu (1849-1927) went to England to pursue his
study of English and to research Buddhist texts in Europe. In the
course of his studies Dr. Nanjio discovered that Beal’s catalogue was
riddled with errors. Nanjio therefore set himself the task of righting
Beal’s mistakes, and in 1883 he published A Catalogue of the Chinese
Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, a translation that was highly
praised by Buddhologists and scholars of Oriental studies through
out the world. That work remains the only reliable English-lan
guage record of Chinese translations of Buddhist sutras. Nanjio’s
catalogue generally follows the Ta-Ming san-tsang sheng-chiao
mu-lu (Ming Dynasty Catalogue of the Tripitaka), the compen
dium of the Northern Ming Edition of the Tripitaka, on which
the Wan-li Edition (and hence the Obaku Edition) was based.
^ ^ e n Buddhist studies became a recognized discipline in Japan,
in the Edo period, scholars began systematic comparison of the
O baku Edition (of the Tung-ch’an Temple Edition lineage) and of
the Koryo Edition (of the Shu Edition lineage). For instance, when
the priest Nincho (d. 1711), founder of the Kyoto temple Honen-in,
discovered there were numerous errors and omissions in the Ob^aku
Edition, he compared it with the Koryo Edition stored at the Tokyo
temple Zojo-ji. But that edition, a late printing, was not very help
ful. Finally granted special permission by the court noble charged
with its protection, Nincho was able to study the copy of the origi
nal printing of the second Koryo Edition owned by the Kyoto
temple Kennin-ji (almost all of which was lost in a fire over a centurY
L A T E R ED IT IO N S OF T H E CANON 183
after Nincho’s death). With those three versions of the complete
Chinese canon at hand, Nincho undertook an extensive revision of
the known Chinese canon in 1706, completing his work more than
four years later.
Well over a century later, in 1826, the priest Junkei of the temple
Josho-ji (in present-day Fukui Prefecture) embarked on a further
revision of the Chinese canon, not completed until eleven years
later, adding to the O baku Edition some five hundred fascicles that
he had found in the Kennin-ji copy of the KoryO Edition. Junkei’s
emendations are preserved at the Tokyo temple Zojo-ji. Unfortu
nately for modern scholars, the copy of the KoryO Edition consulted
by both Nincho and Junkei was almost totally destroyed by a fire at
Kennin-ji in 1837, the year afterJunkei completed his revision. Only
forty-nine fascicles survive.
At present Zojo-ji owns three different early editions of the T ri
pitaka: a Haein Temple printing of the second KoryO Edition, a
copy of the Southern Sung^ynasty Ssu-ch’i Fa-pao Temple Edi
tion, and a copy of the T a-p ’u-ning Temple Edition (also known as
the Yuan Edition)— all donated to Zojo-ji by the first Tokugawa
shogun, leyasu (1542-1616). The KoryO Edition had been brought
to Japan from Korea by the priest Eiko, who installed it in the tem
ple Enjo-ji in Nara between 1469 and 1487; but in 1609 leyasu
persuaded the temple to part with it in exchange for a plot of land
producing 150 koku (27,000 liters) of rice annually, and it was pre
sented to Zojo-ji. The Ssu-ch’i Fa-pao Temple Edition, which
belonged to Kanzan-ji in Omi (in modern Shiga Prefecture), had
been obtained in 1275 by the priest Sengyo. leyasu received it in
1613 in exchange for a small mountain forest and land with an an
nual yield of 150 koku of rice. In 1609 leyasu acquired the T a-p ’u-
ning Temple Edition from Shuzen-ji in Izu (in present-day Shizuoka
Prefecture) in exchange for land producing 140 koku of rice annually.
The comparative study of northern and southern Chinese edi
tions of the Tripitaka late in the Edo period (1603-1868) influ
enced Japanese Buddhist studies during the Meiji era (1868-1912)
and the TaishO era (1912-26), leading to the publication of three
modern editions of the Chinese canon produced by consolidating
the KoryO and Wan-Ii editions. The first of these was the Dai Nip
184 S U T R A S IN S C R I P T AND P R I N T
Works are entered here under their titles in more than one laguage;
complete information, when known, is given in the entry for the title in
the language in which the work was originaUy recorded. When the trans
literation of Sanskrit or Pali words appearing in the text differs from the
orthodox form, the latter is given in parentheses. In the abbreviations
used here, S stands for Sanskrit, P for Pali, andJ for Japanese. Ideogr^s
are included for both Chinese and Japanese titles, but only the few Japa
nese titles are expressly identified.
Rashmivimala-vishuddhiprabhasa-dharani-sutra (Ra§mivimala-visud-
dhiprabhasa-dharani-sutra, S), Wu-kou ching-kuang ta-t’o-lo-ni-
ching abbreviated: Wu-kou ching-kuang-ching
1 fascicle, translated 704 by Mitrashanta; Great Dharani
Sutra of the Spotless and Pure Light
Record of the Pai ntings of Ancient and Modern Sutra Translations. See
Ku-chin i-c hing t’u-chi
S C R I P T U R E S AND C A T A L O G U E S 199
Sutra of the Collection of the Practices of the Six Perfections. See Shat-
paramita-samgraha-sutra
Sutra of the Continuous Stream of Emanicipation. See Samdhinirmo-
chana-sutra (1)
Sutra of the Dharani of the Six Gates. See Shanmukhi-dharani-sutra
Sutra of the Great Accumulation of Treasures. See Maharatnakuta-sutra
Sutra of the Great Decease. See Mahaparinirvana-sutra
Sutra of the Herbs. See Yao-ts’ao-ching
Sutra of the Most Honored King. See Suvarnaprabhasottamaraja-sutra
Sutra of the Perfect Net. See Fan-wang-ching
Sutra of the Tathagata Treasury. See Tathagatagarbha-sutra
Sutra of the Treasure Summit. See Pao-ting-ching
Sutra of the True Summit. See Cheng-ting-ching
Sutra on a Bodhisattva’s Original Action. See P’u-sa ying-luo pen-yeh-
ching
Sutra on Emancipation. See Samdhinirmochana-sutra (3)
Sutra on Neither Increasing Nor Decreasing. See P’u-tseng pu-chien-
ching
Sutra on the Stages of Yoga Practice. See Yogacharabhumi-sutra
Suttanipata (Suttanipata, P), Ching-chi ( ^ ^ ) ; Collection of Discourses
Suvarnaprabhasa-sutra (Suvan).aprabhasa-sutra, S), Chin-kuang-ming-
ching (1) 4 fascicles, translated between 414 and 426 by
Dharmakshema; (2) 7 fascicles, translated 552 by Paramartha; Golden
Light Sutra
Suvarnaprabhasottamaraja-sutra (Suvarnaprabhasottamaraja-sutra, S),
Chin-kuang-ming tsui-sheng-wang-ching abbreviat
ed: Tsui-sheng-wang-ching 10 fascicles, translated 703 by
I-ching; Sutra of the Most Honored King
Szechwan Edition of the Tripitaka. See Shu-pan ta-tsang-ching
Orthodox transliterations and ideograms are not given for items included in
the Appendix. Abbreviations used are S for Sanskrit, P for Pali, and J for Japa
nese. Chinese terms are not expressly identified.
Treatise on the Twelve Gates (Dva vinaya (P, S), pr^ecepts or monastic
dashamukha-shastra), 59, 61 rules, 16, 50, 61, 63
Tripitaka. See Tipitaka Vinaya-pitaka (Vinaya-pif^^, P, S;
Tripitaka Koreana. See Kory/5 Edition Ordinance Basket), 16, 51, 70, 114
of the Tripitaka
Ts’ui Hac (tt:i1i; 381-450), Northern Wang Fu (::Ai fl. 4th cent.), com
Wei court minister, 95-96 piler or author of spurious Sutra on
Tsung-li chung-ching mu-lu (Com the Conversion of the Barbar^ians,
prehensive Catalogue of the Su 48
tras), 50, 102 Wan-Ii Edition of the Tripitaka
Tsung-mi (*ttf; 780-840), fifth Hua- (Leng-yen-Mu-pan), 126, 180, 181,
yen patriarch, 121 182, 183
Tung-ch’an Temple Edition of the Wei-chi-nan (^ % .; fl. 3rd cent.),
Tripitaka (Tung-ch'an-ssu-pan), Indian monk, 52-53
176-77,178 Wen Ti (3t-lW; r. 559-66), Ch’en em
Two Heian Sects, of Japanese Bud peror, 165
dhism, 151 Wen Ti (3t-lW; r. 581-604), first Sui
emperor, 95, 165
Udana (Solemn Utterances of the White Lotus Society (Pai-lien-she), 62
Buddha), a Pali sutra, 114; para Wu-ch’ao-lo (it3UI; fl. ca. 291),
phrased, 13-14 translator, 49, 163
Udana-varga (Solemn Utterances of wu-chung ^hsUan-i (1i.m::E#), five pro
the Buddha), a Sarvastivadin sutt-a, found ways of expounding sutras,
34 143
Wu Hou (Jil.:Fc'; 625-705), T’ang and
Vajrabodhi (S; 671-741), translator, Chou empre^, 90, 107
107-8, 109 Wu-liang-i-ching (Sutra of Innumer
Vajracchedika-prajnaparamita-sutra able Me^anings), 117
(Diamond Sutra), 98, 99, 164, 169, Wu-liang-shou-ching-lun (Treatise on
173 the Sutra of Eternal Life), 98
Vajrashekhara-sutra (Diamond Peak Wu Ti (JiI.:-lW;r. 141-87 B.C.), Former
Sutra), 109 Han emperor, 43
Vasubandhu (S; 4th or 5th cent.), Wu Ti (Jit-lW; r. 420-22), Liu Sung
Mahayana leader, 150, 164 emperor, 73
Vatsiputriya (Vatsiputriya, S), Hina Wu Ti (JiI.:-lW;r. 424-51), Northern
yana school, 152 Wei emperor, 95-96
Vedic Sanskrit (Sarpskrta), early Old Wu Ti (Jit-lW; r. 502-49), Liang em
Indic form of Sanskrit, 27-28, 29 peror, 94, 119
Vibhasha-shastra, 51 Wu Ti ; r. 557-59), Ch’en em
Vijnanavada (Vijnânavâda, S; Con peror, 165
sciousness Only), Mahayana doc Wu Ti (JiI.:-lW;r. 561-77), N orth s
trine, 78 Chou emperor, 94-95, 96-97, 104
Vijnaptimatratasiddhi-shastra 5, 147
(Treatise on the Establishment of Wu-tsung (Jit*; r. 8^^47), T’ang
the Doctrine of Consciousne^ emperor, 95, 98, 168
Only), 98, 150, 178-79
Vimalakirti-nirdesha-sutra (Vimala Yang Ti (:I-lW; r. 604-18), second and
kirti Sutra), 70-71, 143, 167 last Sui emperor, 97
220 GLOSSARV-INDEX
Yao Ch'ang (M8; r. 384-93), first Yüan-chao (M®; fl. ca. 800), cata
Later Ch’in emperor, 6^0-1 logue compiler, 109, 165, 168
Yao Hsing (MJQ; r. 393-415), second Yüan-chüeh-ching. See Sutra of Per
Later Ch’in emperor, 61--62, 72 fect Enlightenment
73, 100 Yüan Edition of the Tripitaka (Ta-
Yen Tsung (^ ^ ; fl. ca. 602), cata p'u-rung-Mu-pan), 177, 179, 183
logue compiler, 1M Yüan-Wei chung-ching mu-lu
Yogachara (Yogacara, S; Yoga Prac (Northern Wei Dynasty Catalogue
tice), Mahayana school, 83, 152-54 of the Sutras), 103
Yogacharabh^umi-shastra (Treatise Yung-Io (1.k!f; r. 1403-24), Ming
on the Stages of Yoga Practice), emperor, 180
78, 83, 89, 100
Yogacharabhumi-sutra (Dharma- Zen (Ch’an, ijI) Buddhism, 73, 144,
tara-dhyana-sutra; Sutra on the 146, 151, 154, 169-70; scriptures
Stages of Yoga Practice), 73 of, 73, 117, 120-21, 165
ded in India some twenty-five hundred years ago by the historical
lha, Shakyamuni Buddhism ranks with Christianity and Islam as one of
iree great universal religions. The history of its transmission from India
e countries where it flourished is in essence the story of the transmission
e teachings recorded in its sutras, or scriptures. The present book offers
^grossing account both of the origin and development of those sutras and
le monks who braved perilous journeys and mastered unfamiliar lan
es in order to carry the sutras to new lands.
îcause of China's significance in the history of Buddhism—as home to
greatest scriptural translators and seminal Buddhist thinkers and the
place of most of the extant sects of Mahayana Buddhism—the story of
ransmission of the sutras to China is a particularly fascinating and
»rtant one. Related here are the hardships and achievements of the early
ilators of Chinese Buddhist scripture and of the intrepid pilgrims who
leyed to India to take additional scriptures to China, as well as the in-
:tual ferment that led to the founding of numerous schools of Buddhism
;he devotion that led to the compilation of the Chinese canon—by far the
St body of Buddhist scripture today.
|l I L T n f l r
> < . . • •» ^ ^ 1 I B T il I 'i i M f M ~ n n * ’
..................................... ^
Kosei Publishing Co.