2013, Vol., No.14

불교학리뷰 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.5

pISSN : 1975-2660
https://journal.kci.go.kr/crbs

The Āgama texts from Eastern Turkestan and those contained in the so-called Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya from Gilgit are, apart from differences in diction, by and large congruent, whereas the Vinaya texts differ from each other considerably. This circumstance has led scholars to assume that the two Buddhist schools possessed their own Vinaya traditions, but shared an Āgama tradition. The congruency between the Āgama texts from Eastern Turkestan and the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, however, does not seem to have been confined to the Āgama citations, or to the narrative portions. In the Saṅgīti-sūtra reconstructed on the basis of Sanskrit fragments from Eastern Turkestan there are passages on the six roots of contention (Skt. ṣaḍ vivādamūlāni). These passages show a striking similarity to the corresponding portion in the Adhikara- ṇavastu from Gilgit, a degree of similarity which cannot be observed between the Shisong-lü and the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. From this point of view, it is tempting to assume that the Buddhists who passed down the Āgama tradition found in Eastern Turkestan possessed a Vinaya corpus which rather looked like the Vinaya from Gilgit than the Shisong-lü. Seeing that the existence of both Vinaya traditions has been proven in Eastern Turkestan, a reconsideration of the relationship between the Āgama texts from Eastern Turkestan and the so-called Sarvāstivāda Vinaya tradition including the Shisong-lü, appears to be indispensible.

This paper analyses the perfection of absorption(dhyānapāramitā) from the mahāyāna-inclusivism in the description of the Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra( Chinese: Ta-chin-tu-lun; T 1509). To begin with, meaning of dhyānas, which switches from one-pointedness of mind (cittaikāgratā) to all sorts of others such marvelous absorptions possessed of meritorious qualities and to well-balanced of wisdom and meditative absorption. the Bodhisattva of practice of dhyānapāramitā describes as father, brother, son etc. and he guides living beings employing all sorts of teachings and expedients at everywhere around us or a cakravartin had the portals of merit. Absolutely, its inevitability of reconstitution begins with the reinterpretation of a passage of PvsP. Here we can see what PvsP called “the Bodhisattva, who abides in the perfection of wisdom through the method of non-abiding, must accomplish the dhyānapāramitā by relying on the non-existence of distraction and delectation”. The contents of practice of dhyānapāramitā may be divided into three types in this text: The first is the preliminary for the perfection of absorption; The second is part of mahāyāna-reconstitution about the four dhyānas and the four samāpattis; The third is 20 commendable characters in the dhyānapāramitā as concrete guidelines. In this paper I focus on analysis of the second and third. I find that from well-balanced of wisdom and meditative absorption point of view, the four dhyānas can be reinterpreted by interpretation of words and phrases, namely characterful elements in the four stages without further amendment about the stereotype description, but in the formless realm, absorption is greater whereas wisdom is lesser, to compensate for imbalance the samāpattis included description of discriminating insight at every stage. Expediently, I classified 20 characters of the dhyānapāramitā as related statement of mahākaruṇācitta, the difference between the bodhisattvas and the heretics or śrāvakas and examples by method of the prajñāpāramitā. Notably, the third is represented in immeasurable, inscrutable, and liberal form. These results indicate that the dhyānapāramitā is an effective means of the prajñāpāramitā.

The Chinese Buddhist monk/scholar Ling-bian’s (477-522) Annotation to the Hua-yan Sutra is the earliest extant Chinese commentary on the sutra. Though it was an important Buddhist text, it had circulated only among the grassroots believers in the next 160 years since its completion( 520). In Tang Dynasty, however, by virtue of Hua-yan master Fa-zang’s (643-712) The Story of Hu-yan Sutra (particularly the chapter/ book “Biography of Ling-bian” in it), the text began to capture the attention of a wider circle of Buddhist scholars and practitioners. Perhaps due to Fa-zang’s influential position in Hua-yan Buddhism, his account of the biography of Ling-bian had been taken as accurate by most scholars later in the history who wrote on Ling-bian. I argue in this paper that much of Fa-zang’s account of the biography of Ling-bian is not historically true, but rather Fa-zang’s hermeneutic reconstruction. My conclusion can be warranted through a careful examination of the accounts of Ling-bian’s life given in Huan-yan master Cheng-guan’s(738-839) yan-yi-chao and in Huan-yan master Hui-xiang’s Ancient Qing-liang Chronicle. In comparing Cheng-guan’s and Hui-xiang’s accounts with Fa-zang’s reconstruction, it becomes clear that Fa-zang’s reconstruction not only changed Ling-bian’s area of activity but also his social status. However, Fa-zang’s reconstruction is not accidental: 1) The fact that Fa-zang’s account transfers Lingbian’s activity area from Xuan Weng Shan (悬瓮山) to Qing Liang Shan/Wu Tai Shan (清凉山/五台山) resonates nicely with the spirit of the “Wu Tai Shan Sanctification Movement”; 2) The fact that Fa-zang’s account transforms Ling-bian into a royal monk seems to suggest that Fa-zang was trying to absorb and transform what Koujima Daisan(小岛岱山)’s called Wu Tai Shan sect (which stresses the actual practice and the grassroots nature of Buddhist faith) from the perspective of what he called Zhong Nan Shan sect (which stresses doctrinal studies and royal connections).