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Once more on the two truths: What does Chi–Tsang mean by the two truths as ‘Yüeh–Chiao’?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Whalen W. Lai
Whalen W. Lai
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of California – Davis
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Extract

The teaching of the Buddha concerning Reality has recourse to Two Truths: the Mundane and the Highest Truth.

Without knowing the distinction between the two, one does not know the profound point of the teachings.

The Highest Truth cannot be taught apart from the Mundane, but without understanding the former, one does not apprehend nirvāna.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 505 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

page 506 note 1 The most detailed study on Chi–tsang is by Shun'ei, Hirai, Chūgoku hanya shisōshi kenkyū (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1976)Google Scholar; on this issue, see pp. 457–77, from where most of the following citations are taken.

page 506 note 2 T. (for Taishō Daizōkyō) 45, p. 15a; Hirai, , p. 457.Google Scholar

page 507 note 1 Hirai, , pp. 562 f.Google Scholar addresses this problem directly. The present analysis so chooses to locate the polemical necessity in Chinese Madhyamika development instead of tracing it back to an ambivalence in Indian origins; see note no. 1 of Hirai, , p. 474.Google Scholar See conclusion.

page 507 note 2 T. 45, p. 22c; Hirai, , p. 459.Google Scholar

page 508 note 1 T. 45, p. 86b; Hirai, , p. 458.Google Scholar

page 508 note 2 Ibid.

page 508 note 3 T. 45, p. 86b; Hirai, , p. 460Google Scholar. The passages are from: T. 30, p. 32c, T. 30, p. 181c, T. 8, p. 405a, and T. 12, p. 684c.

page 508 note 4 T. 45, p. 78b; Hirai, , p. 460.Google Scholar Also, ‘The San-lun school always understood the Two Truths as pertaining to teaching’; T. 45, p. 86 ab, Hirai, , p. 458.Google Scholar

page 508 note 5 See citations above; the Sata-śāstra says that both (truths) are true, and the mahāparinirvāna Sūtra that the Highest Truth is the Mundane Truth (T. 12, p. 708a; Hirai, , pp. 568.Google Scholar f.; note 5 on p. 586).

page 508 note 6 T. 45, p. 23a; Hirai, , p. 460.Google Scholar

page 509 note 1 Zokuzō 1. 714.1. 18, left-lower (quarter); Hirai, , p. 469.Google Scholar

page 509 note 2 T. 45, p. 86b; Hirai, Ibid.

page 509 note 3 T. 45, p. 90ab; Hirai, , p. 468.Google Scholar

page 510 note 1 Ibid.

page 510 note 2 Zokuzō ibid.; T.45, p. 15a; Hirai, , p. 469.Google Scholar

page 510 note 3 The first is from Indian Buddhism; the next two from Chuang-Izu; the last from Wang Pi's understanding of the I Ching's ‘dark principle’.

page 511 note 1 Cited by Hirai, , pp. 457–8.Google Scholar

page 511 note 2 T. 52, pp. 247c–250b. Previously analysed in my ‘Sinitic understanding of the Two Truths in the Liang dynasty (502–557): ontological gnosticism in the thoughts of Prince Chao-ming’, Philosophy East and West XXVIII, 3 (1978), 340–51Google Scholar. The essay was written earlier (before I knew of Hirai's work) and accepted too easily the Yüeh-li (‘ontological gnosticism’) characterization.

page 511 note 3 The reason for Fa–yun's absence is unknown; he was definitely alive at the time.

page 512 note 1 T. 52, p. 247c.

page 512 note 2 Ibid. This is an early understanding of what the Two Truths represent.

page 513 note 1 See Hirai, , pp. 561–92.Google Scholar

page 513 note 2 T. 52, p. 249a; similar arguments on p. 248b.

page 514 note 1 Unfortunately this is not developed; see conclusion.

page 514 note 2 T. 52, p. 249a.

page 514 note 3 T. 52, p. 248b.

page 515 note 1 T. 52, p. 249bc. Chi-tsang would extend hsiang-tai to both Truths.

page 515 note 2 T. 52, p. 249b.

page 515 note 3 See my ‘Nonduality of the Two Truths in Sinitic Madhyamika: Origin of the “Third” Truth’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies II, 2 (1979), 45–65.Google Scholar

page 516 note 1 T. 52, p. 249b.

page 516 note 2 T. 52, p. 247c.

page 517 note 1 T. 52, p. 238a.

page 517 note 2 T. 52, p. 249b.

page 518 note 1 T. 52, p. 248b.

page 518 note 2 Chi–tsang himself had a theory of the Two Truths in identity; see Hirai, , pp. 568–75.Google Scholar He also considered the Two Truths as chih and ching: Hirai, , pp. 593–601Google Scholar. But he handled these differently and critically.

page 519 note 1 T. 52, p. 250a.

page 519 note 2 T. 52, p. 250b gives this exchange, translated here because this is interesting in the history of sudden/gradual enlightenment: ‘When the Sage sees the true, is it sudden or gradual?’ ‘It is gradual.’ ‘The formless is innately empty. Seeing this Principle, all at once the myriad forms should cease. If so, why should the insight into the true be gradual?’ [cp. Tao-sheng's position]. ‘The progress from the common man to Budda-hood involves the shallow to the deep. The true may be sudden, but that does not rule out attainment through gradual steps [cultivation].’ ‘But in once gaining the formless, does not one forget the myriad forms all together?’ ‘One does.’ ‘If so, once gaining this emptiness, one penetrates fully the real. This should not be gradual insight.’ ‘For the Buddha, being able to intuit the empty, can so exhaust the real, but for the lesser Sages [of the yānas] the acquisition of insight is gradual.’ ‘If seeing the true needs gradual progress, then forgetting the (false) forms should also not be sudden.’ ‘(Degrees in the Triyana) liberation have ranks; therefore insight is gradual. Forgetting (of samsaric form) has no such bias [i.e. all yānas are likewise free]; so the forms fade together.’

page 520 note 1 T. 45, p. 15b; Hirai, , pp. 564–5.Google Scholar

page 520 note 2 T. 30, p. 32c; Hirai, , p. 562.Google Scholar

page 520 note 3 T. 45, p. 79a; Hirai, , pp. 562–3.Google Scholar

page 521 note 1 Declared extravagant – vis-à-vis milder ‘form is emptiness’ – by Shih-1un hsüan-i; Zokuzō, 1. 1. 74, 1. 27, right–upper (quarter); Hirai, , note 22 on p. 588, also pp. 568–85.Google Scholar

page 521 note 2 Hirai, , pp. 575–81.Google Scholar