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The Problem of Theodicy in the Awakening of Faith*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Peter N. Gregory
Peter N. Gregory
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana
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Extract

The present paper tries to trace the particular contours that the problem of theodicy assumes in the Chinese Buddhist text the Awakening of Faith in the Great Vehicle (Ta-sheng ch'i-hsin lun). It analyses the beginning section of the main body of text – the section, that is, that outlines the major theoretical structure of the work – in terms of a problem that has been of particular concern in western theology. I believe that taking such a tack is especially valuable for highlighting the central Problematik around which the text is organized. The paper will thus use the problem of theodicy as a means of exploring some of the philosophical implications of the Awakening of Faith.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 63 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 63 note 1 The paper will focus on that portion of the text contained on p. 576 a 3–c4 of volume 32 of the Taishō Daizōkyō edition. For easy reference, Taishō page references will be given in parentheses within the main body of the paper. See pp. 31–40 of Hakeda's, Yoshito S. English translation, published by Columbia University Press in 1967.Google Scholar

page 63 note 2 Joyce, James, Finnegan Wake (New York, Viking Press, 1939), p. 169.Google Scholar

page 64 note 1 The sheer volume of the literature on the authorship of the Awakening of Faith is daunting. In a recent study of the text, Kashiwagi Hiroo lists 46 references; see Daijōkishinron no kenkfū (Tokyo, Shunjūsha, 1981), pp. 498–501. The issue has most recently been taken up by Grosnick, William in his ‘Cittaprakrti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga: precedent for the Hsin-Nier distinction of The Awakening of Faith’, The journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies VI, 2 (1983), 35–47.Google Scholar

page 64 note 2 See chapter six of Shigeo's, KamataShūmitsu kyōgaku no shisōshi-teki kenkyū (Tokyo, Tūkyū Daigaku shuppansha, 1975)Google Scholar ‘Chūgoku zen shisō keisei no kyōgaku-teki haikei: Daijōkishinron o chūshin to shite’, Pp. 433–97.

page 64 note 3 See the ground breaking study and translation done by Buswell, Robert, The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul (Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1983).Google Scholar

page 64 note 4 See, for example, Tamura's, Kamakura shinbukkyō shisō no kenkyō (Kyoto, Heirakuji shoten, 1965).Google Scholar

page 64 note 5 See Ch'anyüan chu-ch'üan-chi tu-ü (‘Preface to the Collected Writings on the Source of Ch'an’), T48.409a6–14; cf. Broughton's, Jeffrey translation in his 1975 Columbia Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Kuei-feng Tsung-mi: the convergence of Ch'an and the teachings’, pp. 265–6.Google Scholar

page 65 note 1 The following characterization was inspired by Robert Gimello's discussion of these two Buddhist conceptions of the Mind in his ‘Chih-yen and the foundations of Hua-yen Buddhism’ (Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation, 1976), pp. 212–77.Google Scholar

page 67 note 1 See chapter nine of Kāumarajiva's translation of the VimalakīrtinirdeśaT 14.551c; cf.Thurman, Robert, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti (University Park and London, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), p. 77.Google Scholar

page 67 note 2 See Gunabhadra's translation of the Śrimālā-sūtra, T 12.221 b13: ‘The wisdom of the tathāgatagarbha is the Tathāgata's wisdom of emptiness.’ Cf. Alex, and Wayman, Hideko, trans., The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimeta (New York and London, Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 99.Google Scholar

page 67 note 3 See Pu-tseng pu-chien thing, T 16.467 a 20–1: lsquo;The merit and wisdom of the Tathāgata are not separate from, detached from, cut off from, or different from the inconceivable Buddha-dharmas, which are more numerous than the sands of the Ganges.’ This passage is quoted in the Ratnagotravibhāga, T 31.821b2–3 (cf. Jikidō, Takasaki, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), Serie Orientate Roma XXXIII (Rome, 1966), 144)Google Scholar and, in slightly altered form, repeated in the Srimālā-sūR;tra (see T 12.22IC17–18; cf. Wayman, , p. 99).Google Scholar

page 67 note 4 See, for example, Śrimālā-sūtra, T 12.222a21–5 (cf. Wayman, , p. 102).Google Scholar These four qualities, here attributed to the Absolute, are often referred to as the ‘four upside-down views’ and were traditionally taken as a hallmark of heretical teachings. They figure prominently in the Nirvāna-sūtra corpus and also appear in the Awakening of Faith, 579a 16–17.

page 67 note 5 The Sociology of Religion (Boston, Beacon Press, 1964), p. 145. Berger, Peter, who uses Weber's discussion of theodicy as the starting point for his own treatment of it in the third chapter of The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, Doubleday, 1969)Google Scholar, regards ‘the karma-samsara complex’ as ‘the most rational’ theodicy (p. 65), claiming that ‘Buddhism probably represents the most radical rationalization of the theoretical foundations of the karma-samsara complex’ (p. 67).

page 68 note 1 Ibid p. 147.

page 68 note 2 ‘Theodicy, sin and salvation in a sociology of Buddhism’, Leach, Edmund, ed., Dialectic in Practical Religion (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 11.Google Scholar

page 68 note 3 The Problem of Evil and Indian Thought (Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), p. I.

page 70 note 1 See Leibniz, , Theodicy; Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil, edited by Farre, Austin and translated by Huggard, F. M. (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), p. 136.Google Scholar I have followed John Hick in using natural evil instead of the ‘physical evil’ of Huggard's, translation – see Evil and the God of Love (revised edition) (San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1978), p. 12.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 See Mijjhima-nikāya 1.429; cf. Horner, I. B., trans., The Collection of the Middle Length Sayings (London, Pali Text Society, 1975), II, 99.Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 The Śrimālāsutra, for instance, claims that the tathāgatagarbha is the basis (nitraya, i), support (ādhāra, ch'ih), and foundation (pratisthā, chien-li) of samsāra (see T 12.222b5–15; cf. Wayman, , pp. 104–5).Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 See Fa-tsang's, Ta-skieng ch'i-hsin lun i-chi, T 1845.Google Scholar

page 77 note 1 See Śrimālā-sūtra, T 12.222 b28-c1: ‘That the intrinsically pure Mind is yet stained is difficult to understand. Only a Buddha, a World Honoured One, with his true vision and insight, being the source of Truth (Dharma), being well versed in Truth, and being the refuge of Truth, sees and knows it as it really is.’ (Cf. Wayman, , p. 106.)Google Scholar

page 78 note 1 Evil and the God of Love, p. 3.