Jiabs 14-1

THE JOURNAL
Of THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION Of

BUDDHIST STUDIES
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Roger Jackson
Dept. of Religion
Carleton College
Northfield, MN 55057
USA
EDITORS
Peter N. Gregory
University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Alexander W Macdonald
Universite de Paris X
Nanterre, France
Steven Collins
Concordia University
Montreal, Canada
Volume 14 1991
Ernst Steinkellner
University of Vienna
Wien, Austria
Jikido Takasaki
University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
Robert Thurman
Columbia University
New York, New York, USA
Number 1
Both the Editor and Association would like to thank Carleton College
for its financial support in the production of the Journal.
Copyright The International Association of Buddhist Studies 1991
ISSN: 0l93-600X
Indexed in Religion Index One: Periodicals, American Theological Library
Association, Chicago, available online through BRS (Bibliographic
Retrieval Services), Latham, New York, and DIALOG Information
Services, Palo Alto, California.
Composition by Ann Flanagan Typography, Berkeley, CA 94710.
Printing by Thomson-Shore, Inc., Dexter, MI 48130.
CONTENTS
I. ARTICLES
1. The Pratftyasamutpiidagiithii and I ts Role in the
Medieval Cult of the Reli cs ,fry Daniel Boucher
2. Notes on the Devotional Uses and Symbolic
Functions of Sutra Texts as Depicted in Early
Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tales and
Hagiographies, by Robert F Campany 28
3. A Source Analysis of the Ruijing lu ("Records of
Miraculous Scriptures"), by Koichi Shinohara 73
4. Pudgalavada in Tibet? Assertions of Substantially
Existent Selves in the Writings ofTsong-kha-pa
and His Followers, by Joe Braniford Wilson 155
II. BOOK REVIEWS
1. The Dawn qfChinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine:
Ching-ying Hui-yuan)s Commentary on the
Visualization Sutra, by Kenneth K. Tanaka
(Allan A. Andrews) 181
2. Three Recent Collections: The Buddhist Heritage)
ed. Tadeusz Skorupski; Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha)
ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr.; and Rtjiections on
Tibetan Culture) ed. Lawrence Epstein and
Richard Sherburne (Roger Jackson) 191
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 195
The Pratrtyasamutpiidagiithii and Its
Role in the Medieval Cult of the Relics*
by Daniel Boucher
1. Introduction
Over the past one hundred and fifty years, thousands of clay
seals, miniature stilpas, and images inscribed with the famous
"Buddhist creed" (the ye dharma hetuprabhava ... verse) have
been excavated from saared sites throughout the Buddhist
world. The quantity and ubiquity of the finds has led Simon.
Lawson to state recently: "From late in the Gupta period until
the end of the Pala period, this verse was what drove Bud-
dhism."! There has yet to be, however, a satisfactory explana-
tion of the role of this verse in Buddhist cult practice. This
paper is an attempt to address part of the problem-to explore
both the literary and archeological milieu surrounding the use
of this verse during the early medieval period (ca. 600-1200
C.E.). My efforts will be directed at tracing the early develop-
ments that may have inspired the use of this verse epitome of
the pratftyasamutpada and its connection to consecrating stilpas
as an alternative relic of the Buddha. More importantly, we
may also be able to gain a clearer sense of one of the ongoing
struggles within the Buddhist tradition: to maintain the pres-
ence of the all-too-absent Buddha.
The Buddhist tradition has since the death of the Buddha,
or perhaps more precisely, because of the death of the Buddha,
wrestled between two tendencies: to locate the Buddha in his
corporeal body, especially as left behind in his relics; or to
locate the "true" Buddha in the dharma, his teachings. This
dichotomy manifested itself in two directions: the cult of the
stilpa, which venerated the physical remains of the Buddha;2
and the equation of the Buddha and his teaching in such pas-
1
2 JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
sages as Sa'T(lyutta-Nikqya III, 120, where the Buddha states:
"He' who sees the dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me,
sees the dhamma."3
As a corollary to this equation, the Pali sources also identi-
fied the paticcasamuppiida (Skt. pratftyasamutpiida) with the
dhamma.
4
Since the "discovery" of the pratftyasamutpiida is inti-
mately connected to the Buddha's enlightenment and therefore
who he was as Buddha, it is not surprising to find it exalted as the
premier dharma, the teaching par excellence. This doctrine has
been taken as the very essence of the Buddha's teaching, the
source of his Buddhahood, and has accordingly been expressed
in a variety of ways in Buddhist canonical texts.
5
The intimate connection between the Buddha and the
pratftyasamutpiida was taken up again in the Siilistambasutra, a
canonical reflection on the chain of causation known from
Chinese translations to date to 3;.t least the third century C.E.
6
The bodhisattva Maitreya says to Sariputra:
He, monks, who sees the pratztyasamutpiida sees the dharma; he
who sees the dharma sees the Buddha.
7
Then, he glosses this equation as follows:
How does one see the pratztyasamutpiidd there (i.e., in this
verse)? The Blessed One has spoken on this matter: "He who
sees this pratztyasamutpiida, which is eternal, [lifeless], without
the life-essence, as it should be, auspicious, unborn, not
become, unmade, uncompounded, unobstructed, unsup-
ported, propitious, fearless, unseizable, undecaying, with un-
ending self-nature-he sees the dharma. And he who likewise sees
the dharma, which is eternal, [lifeless], without life-essence ...
and with unending self-nature, he sees the Buddha) whose body is the
most excellent dharma, by attaining through right knowledge to
the direct understanding of the noble dharma.
8
Early Mahayana literature repeatedly identified the dharma
as the true body of the Buddha.
9
By extension, therefore, a dis-
course on the Buddha's dharma (dharmaparyqya) would equal if
not surpass the Buddha's physical body, especially as left
behind in his relics. This equation found its fullest practical
expression in the cult of the book, an early Mahayana adapta-
CULT OF THE RELICS 3
tion for establishing new cultic centers vis-a.-vis the stupal relic
cult.
lO
Briefly stated, the Mahayana sutras reinforced their cul-
tic innovation by consciously identifying the loci of their writ-
ten dharmaparyqya with the well established pilgrimage site of
Bodh-Gaya, the seat of the Buddha's enlightenment (bodhi-
ma1!r/a).ll We find, for example, at AsP 28:
Furthermore, Kausika, just as those men or ghosts who
have gone to the seat of enlightenment (bodhimar;rja), or to the
vicinity of the seat of enlightenment, or to its interior, or have
gone to the foot of the Bodhi tree itself, they accordingly cannot
be harmed by men or ghosts, even with the help of evil animals,
or be injured or taken possession of by them, except as a result of
former deeds. Why? Because there the future, past, and present
tathiigatas) arhats) [etc.] achieve enlightenment. ... In the same
way, Kausika, where a son or daughter of good family will set up,
preserve, [etc.] this perfection of wisdom, there, Kausika, beings
cannot be harmed, [etc.] by men or ghosts except as a result of
former deeds. Why? Because by this perfection of wisdom,
Kausika, this spot of ground is made a true shrine (caityabhiita)
for all beings, and is to be honored, worshipped .... 12
In a concrete sense, the bodhima1!r/a is the seat under the tree
at Bodh-Gaya where Siddhartha Gautama attained enlighten-
ment and became the Buddha. It is to this seat, an established
pilgrimage site, that the loci of the dharmaparyqya are equated.
Simultaneously, in a more figurative sense, the bodhimaTJr/a is
the source or essence (maTJr/a) of that experience under the
Bodhi tree. It represents what Lamotte has called the "presence
toute spirituelle de la Loi ou du dharmakqya des Buddha, et ceci
independamment de toute localisation materielle."13 A spot,
therefore, where the dharmaparyqya is set up, recited, etc., is a
true shrine (caityabhuta) because there the enlightenment expe-
rience of the past, present, and future buddhas is made present.
Such a spot contains the quintessence of the Buddha himself
and thus has no need of relics:
Why? There the body of the Tathagata is deposited in its total-
ity. At which spot of earth this dharmaparyaya would be declared,
or taught, or recited, or chanted in chorus, or written, or hav-
ing been written, would be set up in a book-at that stiipa,
4
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
honor, reverence, worship, and homage should be done ... And
furthermore, all beings who would succeed in
praising, worshipping, or seeing this tathagatacaitya, they all,
are to be known as ones who come near to the
most excellent, perfect enlightenment.
14
Paralleling this link between dharma-text and the bodhi-
maTJrja in the Mahayana literature is the appearance of reliquary
inscriptions of the pratftyasamutpada formula. From at least the
second century C.E., inscriptions of a short sutra detailing the
pratftyasamutpada were etched on relic caskets and other objects
deposited inside stupas in India and Central Asia. The earliest
known archeological evidence of this practice is a
inscription from the Kurram Valley in Peshawar. It was dis-
covered on a copper relic casket "shaped like a miniature stupa
with harmika and umbrellas, all complete." IS This stupa not only
housed the Buddha's bodily remains, but was simultaneously
vitalized in some sense with the "remains" of his enlighten-
ment experience:
Anno, 20, the 20. day of the month Avadunaka, at this in-
stant $vedavarman, the son ofYasa, deposits a relic of the Ador-
able Sakyamuni in the relic stupa (erected by King M ... ) the
property of the Sarvastivada teachers-as it has been said by
the Adorable one: contingent on ignorance (are) the forces, con-
tingent on the forces perception, contingent on perception
name and form, contingent on name and form the six senses,
contingent on the six senses contact, contingent on contact sen-
sation, contingent on sensation thirst, contingent on thirst
grasping, contingent on grasping existence, contingent on exis-
tence birth, contingent on birth age, death, sorrow, lamentation,
misery, downcastness and despair. Such is the origin of this
entire mass of misery-in honour of all beings. And this contin-
gent origination [paticasamupada (sic)] has been written by
Mahiphatika in honour of all beings.
16
Similar finds include the Devnimori relic casket inscrip-
tions,17 the Kasia copper plate,18 the Gopalpur bricks/
9
two
important brick finds from Nalanda,20 a slab from Ratnagiri,21
as well as instances of the pratftyasamutpada formula engraved
on the base of miniature stupas at Tun -huang. 22
In terms of Buddhist practice then, the cult of the book in
early Mahayana consolidated the identification of the Buddha
and the dharma by linking the locus of their written sutras to the
well established and popular pilgrimage center at Bodh-Gaya,
where the Buddha was thought to be in some sense still pre-
sent. The reliquary inscriptions of the pratztyasamutpada indi-
cate a parallel attempt to appropriate the enlightenment
experience of the Buddha-his cognizance of the chain of cau-
sation-into the stiipa cult that venerated his corporeal remains.
Thus we see developing a dialectic between what could be .
described, for lack of better words, as the concrete and abstract
modes of defining and locating the Buddha.
23
By the late Gupta period (ca. 6th-7th cent. C.E.), the tra-
dition oflocating the Buddha in his concrete presence-at sites
housing his bodily remains or at the bodhimarpja where he
attained enlightenment-and the tradition that identified him
with his dharma most essentially embodied in the pratztyasamut-
pada became completely synthesized. After the sixth century,
when the reliquary inscriptions of the pratztyasamutpada formula
appear to end in the archeological record, we begin to find
deposited in stupas clay tablets and miniature stilpas inscribed
or stamped with the verse epitome of the pratZtyasamutpada (ye
dharma hetuprabhava ... ). This four-line verse has been rather
matter-of-factly regarded as some form of Buddhist "creed."
The function of this much-neglected verse and the complex of
ideas surrounding it will be the focus of the remainder of this
paper.
II. The Uirse and Its Function
The verse itself is quite simple. It is composed in the arya
meter
24
and occurs canonically in the famous conversion of
Sariputta and Moggallana.
25
These two brahmacarins, disciples
of the mendicant Safijaya, were unable to attain the deathless
state. Sariputta, having seen Assaji (one of the Buddha's five
initial discipls) wandering in Rajagaha for almsfood, ap-
proached him to inquire who his teacher was and what dhamma
he professed. Assaji replied:
Now I, dear Sir, am new [i.e., newly ordained], not long on the
renunciant's path, a newcomer to this dhamma and vinaya. I am
not able to teach you the dhamma in detail. But I will tell you its
essence (attha) concisely.
Sariputta, satisfied with a gist of the dhamma, implored Assaji
to him. Assaji consented by uttering this dhamma-
pariyiiya (short exposition of the dhamma) :
ye dhammii hetuppabhavii tesii'l7} hetu'l7} tathiigato
iiha tesiiii ca yo nirodho eva'l7}viidr mahiisamar;o 'ti.
Those dhammas which arise from a cause
The Tathagata has declared their cause
And that which is the cessation of them.
Thus the great renunciant has taught.
Having acquired the "stainless eye of wisdom" through the
hearing of this verse, Sariputta conveyed this discourse to his
fellow wayfarer Moggallana, to whom he repeated this formula
of the dhamma.
Although relatively insignificant from a literary point of
view, this verse appeared on clay seals and miniature stilpas vir-
tually everywhere in the Indian Buddhist world during the
medieval period (ca. 600-1200 CE). These clay balls, often
regarded as among the most trivial of finds from Buddhist
: sites, functioned in many cases as far more than mementos.
26
Because it would be impossible to consider every inscriptional
instance of this verse in all its contexts, I will focus on those
better reported finds for which the archeological context of the
discovery is known. Only then can we get a sense of the import
of this verse and its place in a history of Indian Buddhist cult
practice.
Thousands of small clay seals inscribed with the ye
!, dharma . .. verse have been excavated from various stilpa sites-
often from within the relic chamber itself. Many of these relic-
seals are simple and unadorned, bearing only this verse. Such
examples would include many from Kasia/
7
Sarnath,28 Bodh-
Gaya,29 . Ratnagiri,3o . Lauriya-Nandangarh, 31 Nalanda,32 Vala-
bhI,33 GaznI,34 and Mainamati
35
to name just a few. Others,
however, are stamped with specific For exam-
pIe, Alexander Cunningham' unearthed from the ruined stiipas
at Bodh-Gaya several burnt clay seals only a few inches in
diameter. In the center is the Buddha seated on the vajrasana
( diamond throne) in bhiimisparfamudra, the posture of his
enlightenment.
36
Above the niche in which the Buddha sits is a
straight-sided tower surmounted by an amalaka, depicting the
famous temple at Bodh-Gaya. Branches of the Bodhi tree ema-
nate from the top; small stiipas, found in abundance at Bodh-
Gaya, flank the niche. Below is etched the ye dharma . .. verse in
medieval characters.
37
These seals, in effect, juxtapose both
senses of the bodhima1frja: they depict the enlightenment site at
Bodh-Gaya as well as the essence of the experience at that site.
Furthermore, they are intentionally placed within repositories
traditionally associated with the corporeal remains of the Bud-
dha. Other tablets like these have been found at Sarnath,38 Raj-
badidanga,39 SanchI,40 Ratnagiri,41 Kasia,42 and in Sind,43
Burma
44
and ThailandY
Clay seals inscribed with the pratrtyasamutpiidagatha were
also frequently inserted into miniature clay stiipas, which in
turn consecrated larger stiipas. Hsuan-tsang, the Chinese pil-
grim who traveled throughout the Indian subcontinent in the
seventh century, observed this practice in Magadha:
There is a practice in India of making incense powder into
paste to make small stiipas 5 or 6 inches high. People write.
[pieces of] scripture and place them into the interior [of these
small stupas]. They call these dharmafarfra. When a number [of
these small stupas] are greatly heaped up, they erect a large
stupa and gather them into its interior, constantly doing piljii to
it. This then is the practice of Jay as en a: with his mouth he pro-
claimed the wonderful dharma, instructing his students in it,
while with his hand, he made stupas and acquired great merit
by venerating them .... In 30 years he made altogether seven
kotis of dharmafarfra-stupas. Every time he completed one koti, he
erected a large stupa, collected them into its interior, and per-
formed copious homage to it.46
The archeological evidence is equally abundant. Minia-
ture stiipas of baked clay, often only 2 or 3 inches high, were
found en masse inside of stiipa no. 40 at Sarnath:
Inside the stupa near the bottom is inserted a little tablet with
. the Buddhist creed as is proved by other stupas of this type
which were found in a broken condition. The stupa dates from
about the 10th century A.D. Such stupas were made in India in
abundance in the time of Hiuen Thsang, and were called
dharma-fa(ira. That such stupas were frequently built into larger
ones is shown by the fact that the core of stupa No. 40 to the
north-east of the Main Shrine at Sarnath was, in the main, con-
structed of stupas of unbaked cl ay. 47
Cunningham also discovered such clay stilpas at Bodh-
Gaya: "Scores, and sometimes even hundreds, of these minia-
ture stilpas were found inside of these larger stilpas, enclosing
small clay seals."48 Similar relics were from
Rajagrha,49 Paharpur,5o Harwan (Kashmir)/l GaznI,s2 Maina-
mati,s3 and Gilgit.
54
Besides the plethora of archeological remains, there is also
a short siltra preserved in Chinese that specifically enjoins the
practice of depositing the ye dharma . .. gatha inside stilpas. Diva-
kara's seventh century translation of the Siltra on the Merit if
Building a Stilpa Spoken by the Buddha
55
articulates what was
understood to be the nature and function of this verse at a time
roughly contemporaneous with its appearance in the epi-
graphical record. Because the text is little known and since
there is no known extant Sanskrit version,56 I will provide a
complete translation below:
Translated by the Central Indian Tripitaka master of the T'ang
dynasty, Divakara, whose name means in Chinese, the "Day
Illuminator."57
Thus have I heard at one time. 58 The Buddha was in the
heaven of the thirty-three devas on a pure jade seat, together
with an immeasurable assembly of great bodhisattvas, as
well as the lord of the devas, Indra. At that time Brahma,
NarayaJ}.a-deva, MaheSvara and the five gandharva kings, each
with his retinue, came to where the Buddha was. They desired
to ask the Tathagata the method of building a stupa and the
amount of merit that would be produced by the stupa.
In the midst of this assembly, there was a bodhisattva
named AvalokiteSvara, who, knowing their wishes, rose from
his seat, bared his right shoulder, and placed his right knee on
. the ground. With palms together in salutation, he faced the
Buddha and made this statement: "World-Honored One, the
reason that these gods, gandharvas, and others have come here
today is that they desire to request of the Tathagata the method
of building a stilpa and the amount of merit that would be pro-
duced by this stiipa. I only desire that the World-Honored One
expound this for them, benefitting all the innumerable beings."
At that time the World-Honored One explained to the bo-
dhisattva AvalokiteSvara: "Noble son, among the heavenly beings
present here and all the living beings of future generations,
whoever is able to erect a stiipa wherever there is a place without
one-whether its form be so exaltedly marvelous as to surpass
the triloka or so extremely small as an iimalaka fruit; whether its
mast ascends to the brahma heaven or is as extremely small as a
needle; whether its parasol covers the great chiliocosm or is
extremely small like a jujube leaf59-and if inside this stiipaone
encloses the [body of the] Tathagata down to even one minute
portion of his relics, hair, teeth, beard, or fingernails; or else if
one deposits the twelve section scripture, which is the
storehouse of the Tathagata's dharma, down to even one four line
verse,60 this person's merit will be as great as the brahma
heaven.
61
At the end of his life, he will be born in the brahmaloka.
When his long life reaches its end in that realm, he will be born
in the five pure abodes; there he will be no different than the
gods. Noble son, of such matters have I spoken-the magnitude
of these stiipas and the cause of their merit. You and all the
heavenly beings should study and observe this.
At that time the bodhisattva AvalokiteSvara once again
addressed the Buddha, saying: "World-Honored One, I have
accepted and upheld what you have just taught concerning the
installing of relics or scriptures in the stiipa. But I do not under-
stand the meaning of the four line (verse )of the Tathagata. I
only wish that this could be separately explained for me."
At that time the World-Honored One uttered this verse:
All dharmas arise from a cause.
I have explained this cause.
When the cause is exhausted, there is cessation.
I have produced such a teaching.
62
"Noble son, this verse signifies the Buddha-dharmakaya. You
should write [this verse] and place it inside the stiipa. Why?
Because all causes and the dharma-nature of all things that are
produced are empty. This is the reason that I call it the dharma-
. kaya. If a living being understood the import of such causes,
you should know that this person would then see the Buddha.
At that time, the bodhisattva AvalokiteSvara and the whole
multitude of heavenly beings, gandharvas, and so forth heard
what the Buddha taught. All were greatly delighted to faithfully
receive and carry out the Sutra on the Merit qf Building a Stupa.
Several issues with regard to the medieval understanding
of the verse are raised here. First of all, this siltra makes it clear
that the bodily relics of the Buddha and the ye dharma . .. verse
were interchangable-either may consecrate a stilpa. The exten-
sive archeological evidence as well as eyewitness accounts
more than confirm this.
Secondly, the ye dharma . .. verse is identified here with the
dharmakaya "because all causes and the dharma-nature of all
things that are produced are empty." This equation of the verse
epitome of thepratrtyasamutpada and the Mahayana doctrine of
filnyata can be traced back to Nagarjuna's Millamadhyamaka-
karikas:
sunyatiim tiiT(l pracak.)mahe
sii prajiiaptir upiidaya pratipatsaiva madhyamii.
That which is the pratltyasamutpiida, we call it emptiness. This
[funyatii] is a provisional term; it is indeed the middle path.
63
In the eighth century, Haribhadra, the famous commen-
tator on the A{tasahasrika, understood a similar connection
between the Mahayana notion of emptiness and the pratrtya-
samutpadagathii. In his gloss ofthe word "caityabhilta" at AsP 28,
Haribhadra elucidates the medieval conception of a "true
shrine":
Caityabhuta: According to some, caityabhilta is this piece of
ground in so far as itis equal to other caityas because by its wor-
ship and the like it causes the accumulation of merit, and
because of the use of the word "bhuta" which signifies a simile,
as pit,(bhuta means "like a father" (piteva). Candragomi explains:
Where a piece qf ground is consecrated by the verse "ye dharma hetu-
prabhava and so on lJ which manifests the doctrine qf the vacuity qf the
. self, a stupa is considered to be)' there furnished with the setting up
and the like of the perfection of wisdom (lit. the mother64),
which illuminates the doctine of the non-existence of self-
nature in all things, a stupa does indeed exist in its entirety. Con-
sequently, caityabhuta is a true shrine in the sense of having the
same nature as one, as a siik.fibhuta is a "true witness" (siik-lYeva). 65
Thus a spot that is made a true shrine (caityabhiita) by the
presence of the prajiiiipiiramitii-which illuminates the doctrine
of the non-existence of self-nature in all things-is equivalent
to a stiipa supported by the pratftyasamutpiidagiithii) which man-
ifests that doctrine. That is to say, the spot consecrated with the
perfection of wisdom was equivalent to what was obviously
recognized in Haribhadra's time as a true shrine: a stiipa
infused with the dharma-verse relic of the Buddha.
Finally, one who understands this verse on causation can
be said to "see the Buddha." This linking up of the pratftya-
samutpiidagiithii) the dharmakqya, and "seeing the BU,ddha" echoes
the very same relationship we saw earlier in the Siilistambasiitra.
If the connections seem a bit subtle in Divakara's translation,
they are unmistakably clear in the Arya-pratftyasamutpiidaniima-
mahiiyiinasiitra :
Then the Blessed One spoke the pratftyasamutpiida verse:
Those dharmas which arise from a cause
The Tathagata has declared their cause.
And that which is the cessation of them,
Thus the great renunciant has taught.
As for this, AvalokiteSvara, this pratftyasamutpiida is the dharma-
kiiya of the Tathagatas. He who sees the pratftyasamutpiida, sees
the Tathagata. 66
The use of the ye dharmii . . , verse-relic would appear there-
fore to represent a move toward complete synthesis of the relic/
dharma dichotomy stemming essentially from the death of the
Buddha.
67
The early Mahayana siitras, while appreciating the
importance and popularity of the relic/ stiipa cult, attempted to
establish alternative cultic sites centered around the written
dharma. By setting the new books up as the true source of the
12
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Buddha's enlightenment, they were able to link their cultic
innovation to the established pilgrimage site ofBodh-Gaya, the
seat of enlightenment for all buddhas. The reliquary inscriptions
of the pratftyasamutpada formula demonstrate a parallel attempt
to infuse the stilpa cult with what had long been recognized as
the central achievement of the Buddha's enlightenment experi-
ence-the sine qua non of his Buddhahood.
The medieval shift to the ye dharma ... verse transformed
dharma into relic. Unlike the sacralization of the written word
in early Mahayana, the use of the pratftyasamutpadagatha took
over the institutional context of the relic cult, the stilpa. It bor-
rowed the already recognized cultic import of the pratftyasamut-
pada and reduced it to its essence. It is this essence, expressed
in a four line verse, that manifests the Buddha's "true body,"
his dharmakaya. It effected in a sense a redefinition of what con-
stituted a "piece" of who or what the historical Buddha was,
and therefore how he was to be located and maintained at cultic
centers.
The pratftyasamutpadagatha has also been found in a
decidedly Tantric context outside ofIndia proper and generally
later than the bulk of our evidence (after the ninth century).
Guiseppe Tucci personally collected hundreds of clay seals
from Tibet and the surrounding Himalaya region inscribed
with the ye dharma.< .verse in both Indian and Tibetan scripts.
Many of the seals are also inscribed with dharar;,ls or contain
Tantric iconographical features. Several are of the mold we saw
so frequently at Bodh-Gaya and Sarnath:
The Buddha, dressed in monk's robes, is seated in the vajra-
paryanka on the throne, bodhimar;rJa. His left hand is in the pose
of meditation, dhyana-mudra, and the right touches the earth
invoked as witness to the conquest of truth, in the pose of
bhumisparsa-mudra .... Traces of inscription in Indian charac-
ters of the IX-X century. Below ... hy avadat tesa11} ca yo nirodha,
i.e. the usual formula .... The tsha-tsha is very similar to those
found in Bodhgaya, published by Cunningham and spread
somehow everywhere in India.
68
Walter Liebenthal has published several brick inscriptions
from Yunnan (South China) in which the ye dharma . .. verse is
sandwiched among dhiirar;,fs. The gatha were written in a
medieval briihmz script that came to China with Tantra and
"was reserved strictly for the purpose of copying dhiirar;zs."69
Although these inscriptions do not occur on the clay seals that
we are accustomed to seeing, their context is unmistakably
similar: "The bricks are found inside the walls of pagodas.
They cannot be seen from the outside, becoming visible only if the
building is in decay and parts of it are tumbling down. They
were used instead rf a relic (she-li,a Sanskrit sarIra) or as a spiritual
relic." 70
In later Tantric literature, the consecrating power o f t h ~ y e
dharmii . .. giithii is adapted to specific Tantric rituals. In the Adi-
karmapradzpa, we find it used to consecrate miniature stupas:
01\1! Homage to the Blessed One, the radiant king of the sun,
the tathiigata) arhat, perfectly enlightened one. 01\1! subtle,
unequalled, calm, subdued, unobstructed, independent-
rescue us! Famous, mighty, possessed of undisturbed ni!viir;_a,
empowered by the empowerment of all Buddhas-SV AHA!
One should make a caitya by reciting this dhiirar;z twenty-one
times over a lump of clay or a lump of earth. As many atoms as
there are in that clay (or earth), that many kotis of caityas will be
made. Furthermore, one should consecrate it with the verse:
Those dharmas which arise from a cause
The Tathagata has declared their cause.
And that which is the cessation of them
Thus the great renunciant has taught. 71
Besides the widespread appearance of theye dharmii . .. verse
on clay seals and miniature stu pas, images were freql!.ently in-
scribed or stamped with this verse. For example, the Adikarma-
pradzpa just cited specifies that after making the small shrine of
earth and paying homage to it, "Then the disciple makes the
small reliquary mound into an image for worship with the
ritual of smiting, that the shrine may open and reveal the Bud-
dhahood within .... "72 Also, a short sutra translated into Chinese
by the T'ang monk Yi Ching in 710 gives an account of the
making of miniature stupas and images and infusing them with
the ye dharmii . .. giithii. The relevant part of this Sutra on the Merit
rfBathing the Buddha has the Buddha declare:
14
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Noble son, all Buddhas, World-Honored Ones have three
. bodies. They are known as the dharmakqya, the san:tbhogakqya,
and the nirmiir;akqya. After my nirviir;a, whoever wishes to do
homage to these three bodies, should do homage to my relics.
But there are two kinds: the first is the bodily relic; the second
is the dharma-verse relic. I will now recite the verse:
All dharmas arise from a cause.
The Tathagata has explained their cause.
The cessation of the cause of these dharmas
This the great sramaI).a has explained.
"If men, women, or the five groups of mendicants would build
an image of the Buddha; or if those without strength would
deposit one as large as a grain of barley; or build a stupa-its
body the size of a jujube, its mast the size of a needle, its
parasol equal to a flake of bran, its relic like a mustard seed, or
if someone writes the dharma-verse and installs it inside the
stupa, it would be like doing homage by offering up a rare jewel.
If in accordance with one's own strength and ability one can be
truly sincere and respectful, it [the image or stupaJ would be
like my actual body, equal without any difference."73
It appears that images and miniature stiipas, once conse-
crated with the ye dharmii ... verse, were in some way inter-
changeable. Yi Ching's translation and travel account suggest
that both images and miniature stiipas are to be infused with
the "formula on causation" and that both may receive the
bathing of the Buddha ritual. In the Tibetan context, Tucci has
attempted to trace the word tsha-tsha (which can be in the form
of seals or stiipas) to a Prakrit sacchiiya or sacchiiha,meaning per-
fect image or representation.
74
Furthermore, we have a short
text from the Gilgit manuscripts that, after enumerating the
various substances of which an image of the Buddha can be
made, states: buddha-pratimii kararJfyakii vii dzrghaka vii hraszukiim
vii sadhiitukam vii sapratztyasamutpiidam vii ("images of the Buddha
should be made either tall or short and with either a relic or
with the pratztyasamutpiida"). 75
The archeological evidence for image inscriptions of the ye
dharmii . .. verse is likewise abundant. There is, however, one
find that deserves special mention. Inside stiipa no. 8 at Saheth-
Maheth, usually identified as the ancient SravastI, a broken
pedestal with only the legs of a bodhisattva figure was dis-
covered.
76
The pedestal contains a three line inscription data-
ble on paleographical grounds to the early period (ca.
first century C.E.) .77 The fourth line contains the so-called Bud-
dhist creed "added several centuries after the original record
was carved." The language is Sanskrit, incorrectly composed,
and in characters datable to the eighth or ninth centuries. 78 It
would appear that someone, having only a piece of an ancient
image, understood that even this piece, if inscribed with the
pratffyasamutpadagatha, would sacralize a stupa in a way that the
image alone would not.
III. Conclusion
Given the wealth of evidence that the ye dharma ... verse sac-
ralized stupas with what was perceived to be a relic of the Bud-
dha, it is very difficult to take this verse as a "Buddhist creed"
as has been so commonly done.
79
A creed is generally regarded
as a statement of religious belief, a confession of faith, such as
the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed. If Assaji's instruction
of the essence of the Buddha's dhamma to Sariputta was meant
to serve as a confession of faith-and we have no reason to
believe that it was-it is certain that this was not how the verse
functioned in the medieval period when it began to appear in
inscriptions. In fact, much of the epigraphical evidence
suggests that this so-called creed was frequently inscribed by
"someone who did not know what he was writing."80 The ye
dharma . .. verse had become more than an epitome of the Bud-
dha's enlightenment. It became a manifestation of the Buddha's
real presence at cultic centers-what Benisti has called "Ie
principe vivant" -in the same way as relics were thought to
infuse the living presence of the Buddha in stupas.
81
This early medieval development may thus help us
examine a more fundamental problem in Indian Buddhism.
Unlike Hindu gods and gurus, who are physically present for
devotional contact, and the Jain tfrthahkara Mahavira who is
wholly absent to his followers, the Buddha was both absent
and present. On the one hand, Buddhists took his parinirva1Ja
16 JIABS VOL. 14 NO. I
literally. They located the "true" Buddha in his dharma, which
led to the developments in Abhidharma and later Mahayana
speculation on the bodies of Buddha. But they also tried to re-
present him-to regain physical contact with him via his bod-
ily remains, sacred sites, and imagesY While we have no
reason to believe that a seventh-century Buddhist incorporated
or even understood all of these developments when he or she
stamped clay tablets with the ye dharma . .. verse, by transform-
ing the notion of Buddha-as-dharma into relic, medieval Bud-
dhists were able to harmonize the impulse to fix the Buddha in
real time and space with the long established scholastic defini-
tions that, apparently, could not be ignored. This dialectic
could have important implications for our understanding of the
entire historical development of the conceptions of the Buddha.
However, much more work remains to be done.
NOTES
Abbreviations:
ASIAR-Archeological Survey if India, Annual Report
(P. L. Vaidya, ed., Darbhanga, 1960)
BEFEO-Bulletin de !'licole Franr;aise d'Extreme-Orient
BSOAS-Bulletin if the School if Oriental and African Studies
EI-Epigraphia India
JAOS-Journal if the American Oriental Society
JIABS-Journal if the International Association qf Buddhist Studies
JRAS-Journal if the Royal Asiatic Society
PTS-Pali Text Society
Skt.-Sanskrit
SN-Sa1'[lyutta-Nikifya (PTS)
SP-Saddharmapu1f.4arfkasiitra (Kern and Nanjio, ed., St. Petersburg, 1912)
Vaj-Vajracchedikiiprajiiiipiiramitiisiitra (Conze,ed., Rome, 1957)
*I would like at this point to extend my profound gratitude to Dr. Gregory
Schopen who provided critical advice during the early stages of research on this
project. I should also thank Drs. Ludo Rocher and Victor Mair for their careful
readings of an earlier draft of this paper; their comments were invaluable.
1. Janice Leoshko, ed., Bodhgaya: the Site if Enlightenment (Bombay: Marg
Publications, 1988), p. 68.
2. For a discussion of this cult, see Andre Bareau, "La construction et Ie
culte des stilpa d'apres les Vinayapiraka," BEFEO 50 (1962): 229-274; also, a
short but worthwhile paper by David L. Snellgrove, "Sakyamuni's Final
NirvaI,la," BSOAS 36 (1973): 399-411. More recently, Sugimoto Takushil has
contributed a large monograph on the cult of the stiipa in Japanese; Indo butto no
kenkyii: butto siihai no seisei to kiban
b
[Studies in the Buddhist Stiipa-Cult in India]
(Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1984).
3. Yo kho Vakkali dhammaT[l passatiso maT[l passati,yo maT[l passati so dhammaT[l
passati. For other instances of this equation, see Itivuttaka (PTS) p. 91; Dfgha-
Nikaya (PTS) II, p. 154; Milindapaiiha (PTS), p. 71; Buddhacarita, E.H.Johnston,
trans.(Reprint ed., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), pt. III, p. 90: "In this
world the self-controlled man who sees my Law may live far away in point of
space, yet he sees Me .... "
4. Majjhima-Nikaya (PTS) I, p. 190-91: yo paticcasamuppiidaT[l passati so
dhammaT[l passati, yo dhammaT[l passati so paticcasamuppiidaT[l passati . .. ("He who
sees the paticcasamuppiida sees the dhamma; he who sees the dhamma sees the pati-
ccasamuppiida . .. ").
5. The classical exposition of the paticcasamuppiida is found in such texts
as Mahiivagga (Vinaya-Pitaka I), 1 ff., SaT[lyutta Nikaya II, 1 ff., Majjhima Nikaya III,
63 Lalitavistara 346-7, Mahiivastu I, 1 ff.
, 6. Louis de La Vallee Poussin, Bouddhisme, Etudes et Matfriaux: Theorie des
Douze Causes, (Gand: Luzac & Co., 1913), p. 69. De La Vallee Poussin notes here
that although the Tibetan version labels this a Mahayana siitra, beside the fact
that it is promulgated by the bodhisattva Maitreya, there is nothing distinctively
Mahayana about it. In fact the Siilistamba is cited by Yasomitra, an eighth cen-
tury Sautrantika commentator.
7. yo, pratftyasamutpiidaT[l pafyati sa dharmaT[l pafyati, yo dharmaT[l
pafyati sa buddhaT[l pafyati; ibid., p. 70. Also Nagarjuna, Miilamadhyamakakiirikiis,
L. de La Vallee Poussin, ed. (St. Petersburg, 1913), p. 6 and 160; Prajiiakara-
mati's commentary on the Bodhiciiryiivatiira, P.L. Vaidya, ed. (Darbhanga,1960),
p. 186.
8. L. de La Vallee Poussin, Bouddhisme: Etudes et Matiriaux, p. 72: Tatra
kathaT[l pratftyasamutpiidaT[l pafyati? atroktaT[l bhagavatii: ya imaT[l prat7:tyasamutpiidaT[l
satatasamitam [ajfvaT[l} nirj7:vaT[lyathiivad aviparftam ajiitam abhiitam akrtam asamskrtam
apratigham aniilambanam fivam abhayam aniihiiryiim avyayam avyupafamasvabhiivaT[l
pafyati, sa dharmaT[l pafyati; yas tv evaT[l satatasamitam [ajfvam} nirj7:vaT[l ityiidi piirvavat,
yiivad avyupafamasvabhiivaT[l dharmaT[l pafyati so 'nuttaradharmafarfraT[l buddhaT[l pafyati,
iiryadharmiibhisamaye samyagjiiiiniid upanayenaiva.
9. There are many such references in Mahayana siitra literature. See for
example Vaj 26a-b; Samiidhiriijasiitra in K. Regamey, Three Chapters from the
SamiidhirOjasiitra (Warsaw, 1938) 51 and 58; Suvar1Japrabhiisottamasiitra (J. Nobel
ed., Leipzig, 1937) 18; among the many references in the Lotus Siitra that equate
the written dharma with the Tathagata, see especially SP 227, 231, 338, 344.
While there are five references to the dharmakaya in the AsP (Vaidya ed. 48, 50,
168, 228, 253), the earliest Chinese translations omit all occurrences but one.
In second century translation (TaishO 224; vol. 8, 468c.l8), the
term dharmakaya is rendered as "body of the Buddha's siitras "(fa ching shene). See
Lewis R. Lancaster, "The Oldest Mahayana Siltra: Its Significance for the
Study of Buddhist Development," The Eastern Buddhist n.s. 8, no. 1 (May 1975):
30-41. I should note, however, that Lancaster's conclusions with regard to the
earliest Mahayana conceptions of the Buddha are probably somewhat prema-
ture. I am currently engaged in a project to investigate the earliest conception
of the dharmkiiya on the basis of a broader range of early Chinese translations of
Mahayana sutras.
10. This cult has been examined in detail by Gregory Schopen, "The
Phrase 'sa Prthivzpradefaf caityabhuto bhavet' in the Vajracchedikii: Notes on the Cult
of the Book in Mahayana," Indo-lranianJournal, vol. 17 (1975): 147-18l.
11. The importance of Bodh-Gaya as a sacred site is well known. In the
Mahiiparinibbii1f.asutta it is one of the four sites the Buddha tells Ananda is to be
visited after his death. A preoccupation with Bodh-Gaya continued throughout
the history of Indian Buddhism. In the MahiivaT[lsa (ca. 5th cent. C.E.) the
Bodhi tree is worshipped in a manner proper to worship of the Buddha himself
(Geiger, trans., pp. 122-35). Epigraphical evidence suggests that Bodh-Gaya
continued as a site of great importance through the 15th c. by Buddhists outside
ofIndia: "No one can read through the inscriptions of Burma and Siam without
being struck by the immense veneration in which the holy land of Buddhism
was held-the Majjhima-desa, where the Great Events of the Buddha's career
took place, and especially Bodhgaya, the scene of the Enlightenment, with its
Mahabodhi tree and its Vajrasana, the centre of the universe" [A.B. Griswold,
"The Holy Land Transported: Replicas of the Mahabodhi Shrine in Siam and
Elsewhere," in Paranavitana Felicitation Volume (Colombo, 1965), p. 173J. For a
recent monograph that discusses the complex and often confused history of
Bodh-Gaya, see Janice Leoshko, ed., Bodhgaya: the Site of Enlightenment (Bombay:
Marg Publications, 1988).
12. punar aparaT[l Kaufika tad yathiipi niima ye bodhima1f.q.agatii vii bodhima1f.q.a-
parisiimantagatii vii bodhima1f.q.iibhyantaragatii vii vii manuvii vii
amanuvii vii tiryagyonigatiin apy upiidiiya yiivan na te fakyii manuvair vii amanuvair vii
vihethayituT[l vii vyiiPiidayituT[l vii iivefayituT[l vii sthiipayitvii purvakarmavipiikam. tat kasya
tatra hi atztiiniigatapratyutPanniis tathiigatii ... abhisaT[lbudhyante
ca . ... evam eva Kaufika yatra kulaputro vii kuladuhitii vii imiiT[l prajiiiipiiramitiim
udgrahZvati dhiirayivati . .. tatra hi Kaufika sattvii na fakyii manuvair vii amanuvair vii
vihethayituT[l . .. sthiipayitvii purvakarmavipiikam. tat kasya anayaiva hi Kaufika
prajiiiipiiramitayii sattviiniiT[l krJo vandanZyo . ...
See also SP 340 and 391; Vaj 8; AsP 228; Schopen has discussed this phenome-
non in greater detail, op. cit., 172 iT.
13. Etienne Lamotte, La Concentration de la Marche Hero"ique [Silramgama-
samiidhisutra}, Melanges Chinois et Bouddhique, vol. XIII (Bruxelles, 1965), p. 221,
note 242; Lamotte continues: "Con<;u primitivement comme un lieu sanctifie
par la presence du corps materiel des Buddha, Ie bodhima1f.q.a est considere par
plusieurs Mahayanasutra comme Ie symbo1e ou la quintessence du Dharma ou
de 1a verite bouddhique."
Haribhadra, the eighth century commentator on the Asp, confirms this
connotation (Vaidya ed., AbhisamayiilaT[lkiiriiloka, pp. 360.33-361.1):
bodher siiro' treti piiryiihkiikriinto
"The bodhima1f.qa, the unsurpassed seat, is a spot so named because the
ma1f.qa, the quintessence (siira) of enlightenment, is present there." I have fol-
lowed Lamotte's rendering for the most part; see The Teaching of Vimalaklrti (Vi-
malaklrtinirdefa) , rendered into English by Sara Boin (London: PTS, 1976), p. 94,
note-105. Lamotte gives a long series of references to the term bodhimaT}a in
other Buddhist sources. __
14. SP 231 10-232.2: tat kasya ekaghanam eva tasmi1'[ls tathiigatafarzram
bhavati. yasmin Prthivzpradefe 'yam dharmapiiryayo bhaveta vii defyeta vii
pathyeta vii samgayeta vii likhyeta vii likhito va pustakagatas tasmi1'[lf ca stupe sat-
kiiro gurukiiro miinanii piJjaniircanii karaT}Zyii . . . ye ca khalu punar sattvas
tam tathiigatacaitya1'[l labheran vandanaya pujanaya darfanaya vii sarve te
riijiibhyasannzbhuta veditavyii .
15. Sten Konow, "Remarks on a From the Kurram
Valley," Indian Studies in Honor qf Charles Rockwell Lanman (Cambridge, MA,
1929), p. 53. See also Konow, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, vol. II, pt. I, pp.
52-55; V Natesa Aiyar, "An Inscribed Relic Casket from Kurram," EI 18
(1925-26): 16-20.
16. Konow, "Remarks," p. 57.
17. This find is discussed by Oskar von Hiniiber in "Epigraphical Vari-
eties of Continental Pa1i From Devnimori and Ratnagiri," in Buddhism and Its
Relation to Other Religions: Essays in Honour qf Dr. Shozen Kumoi on his Seventieth Birth-
day (Kyoto, 1985), pp. 185-200; also, A. Ghosh, "The Relic Casket from Dev-
nimori," Journal qfthe Maharaja Sayajirao University qfBaroda 15, no. 1 (1966): 21-24.
18. F.K Pargiter, "The Kasia Copper-Plate," ASIAR 1910-11, pp. 73-77.
This inscription was discovered in the relic chamber of a large stupa behind the
Nirva!fa temple at Kasia, the ancient Kusinagara. Most of the epigraph is writ-
ten in ink on a plate that covered the mouth of a copper reliquary vesseL Par-
giter dates the inscription to the second half of the 5th cent. C.K on the basis of
coins ofKumaragupta (d. 455) found within the copper vesseL
19. KH. Johnston, "The Gopalpur Bricks," JRAS (1938): 546-53.
Johnston sets the probable date at ca. 500 C.K, at least two centuries later than'
Smith and Hoey, who first discussed the bricks. See VA. Smith and W. Hoey,
"Buddhist Sutras Inscribed on Bricks found at Gopalpur in the Gorakhpur Dis-
trict," Proceedings qf the Asiatic Society qf Bengal (1896): 99-103; also, Vincent A.
Smith, "Deposit ofSutras in Stupas," The Indian Antiquary 33 (1904): 175.
20. N.P. Chakravarti, "Two Brick Inscriptions From Nalanda," Epi-
graphia India 21 (1931-32): 193-199; A. Ghosh, "An Inscribed Brick from
Nalanda," EI 24 (1937-38): 20-22. For the relationship between the Gopalpur
bricks, the Nalanda bricks, and the literary expositions of the pratztyasamutpiida,
see Hirano Shinkan, "Innen soo no bonbun shiryo: indo koto shutsudo no renga
meimon no naiyo hiteI, "d ["Sanskrit Materials on the Pratztyasamutpiida: A Com-
parison of the Contents of Brick Inscriptions of Archeological Finds of Ancient
Indian Stiipas"], Indogaku bukkyogaku kenkyu [Journal qfIndian and Buddhist Studies],
voL XII, no. I (1964): 158-61.
21. Debala Mitra, "The Indian Museum Inscription from Ratnagiri
Orissa," Indian Historical Quarterly 34 (1958): 163-66. Unfortunately the in situ
context of this find is not known.
22. Hubert Durt, Krishna Riboud, and Lai Tung-Hung, "A propos de
'Stupa Miniatures' Votifs du Ve siecle decouverts a Tourfan et au Gansu," Arts
Asiatique40 (1985): 92-106.
20 ]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
23. The traditional distinction between rilpakaya and dharmakaya is not
adequate here. Not only is the semantic domain of these terms far from consis-
tent, but we are in fact dealing with both cultic and literary expressions of the
nature of the Buddha, the relationship between which is. yet to be worked out.
24. See E. Burnouf, Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale,
1852), pp. 525-6 for the metrical difficulties of this verse. Burnouf proposed,
not altogether convincingly, that the verse was originally composed in a popu-
lar dialect and became redacted in the iiryii meter when this creed spread to
those familiar with the classical language. To assume the Pali to be anterior to
the Sanskrit redactions on the basis of metrical conformity (and only after
emendation) ignores the fact that the iiryii meter does not appear in Indian liter-
ature until after the common era, indicating the late date of this verse. See
Edward]. Thomas, The Life qf Buddha as Legend and History (London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1927), p. 94, note 1. For a somewhat more plausi-
ble suggestion, see E. Hardy, ed., The Netti-Pakarar;a (London: PTS, 1902), p.
xxiii, note 5: "Supposing the texts of the Pali canon to have been remodelled
again and again, before they assumed their final shape, I venture to advance
the hypothesis that later on, when the Arya was employed with a special pre-
dilection for versus memoriales of every kind, the ancient formula of the Buddhist
Creed came to be turned into the Arya, being before extant only in prose."
25. This narrative occurs in several places in Buddhist literature, most
notably in Mahiivagga (Vinaya I), pp. 39-44; in Sanskrit it occurs in the Mahii-
vastu (Senart ed.) III, pp. 59-65. See also Andre Bareau, Recherches sur la biog-
raphie du Buddha dans les Siltrapitaka et les Vinayapitaka anciens: De la quite de l'iveil a
la conversion de Siiriputra et de jl;JaudgaTyayana (Paris: Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-
Orient, 1963), pp. 343-50. Also Etienne Lamotte, Le Traiti de la Grande Vertu de
Sagesse [Mahiiprajfiiipiiramitii-siistra ] (Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1949; repro
1967), Tome II, p. 623 ff., note 2 for the canonical occurrences ofthis legend in
Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources. That this legend was known in Central
India in the early medieval period is evidenced by Hsuan-tsang's account of
Magadha in his Hsi-yu-chi (MiskO, vol. 51, pp. 924c-925a); S. Beal, trans., The
Records qf the Western World (London, 1884; repro Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1981), Part II, pp. 178-9.
26. Cf. Alfred Foucher, The Beginnings qf Buddhist Art, trans. L.A. Thomas
and FW. Thomas (Paris-London, 1917), pp. II-12. More recently, Gerard
Fussman has remarked about similar finds from Gilgit: "Ces empreintes de
terre crue et ce stUpa-miniature sont donc, dans Ie monde du bouddhisme
indien, des objets d'une grande banalite. S'ils avaient ete achetes chez un anti-
quaire de Caboul, de Lahore ou de Delhi, rien ne permettrait de se pronouncer
sur leur provenance et ils meriteraient a peine la publication. Trouves a Gilgit,
ils tirent leur interet de leur banalite meme" ("Inscriptions de Gilgit," BEFEO
65 (1978): 7).
27. ]. Ph. Vogel, "Excavations at Kasia," ASIAR 1906-7, p. 60. Eighty
clay tablets with the "Buddhist creed" were found among the ruined stilpas at
Kasia. They were produced from eight different dies and range in date from the
7th to the II th century.
- 28. Daya Ram Sahni, Catalogue if the Museum if Archeology at Sarnath (Cal-
cutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1914), pp. 307-313.
29. Alexander Cunningham, Mahiibodhi or the Great Buddhist Temple under
the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gayii (London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1892 ), p. 52.
30. A large number of terracotta tablets and stone slabs with the ye
dharmii . .. verse have been excavated from Ratnagiri (Orissa). Debala Mitra has
discussed these finds in Ratnagiri (1958-61) [Memoirs if the Archeological Survey if
India, no. 80} (New Delhi, 1981), vol. I, especially pp. 27-32 (pIs. XIV; XIX,
etc.). Although the in situ context of most of the seals is not known, many were
found amidst the stiipa ruins that so inundate the site.
31. Debala Mitra, Buddhist Monuments (Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1971),
p.84. Clay seals with the figure of the Buddha or with the "Buddhist creed" in
characters of the 6th or 7th centuries were found at the base of the mound label-
led "N' at this site.
32. Hirananda Sastri, "Nalanda and Its Epigraphical Material," Memoirs
if the Archeological Survey if India, no. 66 (1942): 76-7, 106-13. See also H. Sastri,
"The Clay Seals ofNalanda," Epigraphia India 21 (1931-2): 72 ff.
33. Mitra, Buddhist Monuments, p. 142. At this important scholastic center
were discovered "many terra cotta tablets with the Buddhist creed in
of about the seventh century A.D.".
34. Maurizio Taddei, "Inscribed Clay Tablets and Miniature Stu pas from
GaznI," East and f}est n.s. 20 (1970): 70-86.
35. F. A. Khan, Mainamati: A Preliminary Report on the Recent Archaelogical
Excavations in East Pakistan (Pakistan, 1963), A large number of terracotta seals
with the pratztyasamutpiidagiithii, some with a small stiipa-figure in relief, were dis-
covered in the central shaft ofthe stiipas at the Kotila Mura site.
36. The singular importance of this posture in Buddhist art during the
period we are focusing upon is noteworthy. "Despite all the different events that
occurred at Bodh-Gaya which could have been depicted in art, the image of the
Buddha in bhiimisparfa-mudrii was almost exclusively rendered as the image of
the site during the Pala period" Oanice Leoshko, ed., op. cit., p. 34).
37. A. Cunningham, Mahiibodhi, p. 51 (see also Plate XXIV). We must
be very cautious in assigning dates to these seals strictly on the basis of paleog-
raphy. While Cunningham has frequently dated the various inscriptions at
Bodh-Gaya on the basis of the form of the briihmz letter "y", Marshall has exca-
vated seals with this verse that in fact exhibit "both the tripartite and the bipar-
tite forms of the letter ya" on the very same seal ("Excavations at Saheth-
Maheth," ASIAR 191O-11, p. 19).
38. J.H. Marshall and S. Konow, "Sarnath," ASIAR 1906-7, pp. 80-I.
39. Alexander Cunningham, Archeological Survey if India. Report for the Year
1871-72, vol. III (Calcutta, 1873), pp. 156-9. Cunningham discovered here a
large stiipa of solid brick known locally as Birdaban. On the west side of the
mound was excavated a large earthenware jar from a chamber that enclosed at
least 2,700 lacquer seals. Although four different kinds of seals were discovered,
at least one of the types is similar to the ones we noted above: "the figure of the
Buddha, the ascetic, seated under the holy pippal tree of Buddha Gaya, with
rows of small stupas on each side." Underneath, of course, is the ye dharmii . ..
verse, in characters that Cunningham dates to the 10th or II th century.
22
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
40. John Marshall, "The Monuments ofSanchl," ASIAR 1913-14, p. 22.
41. From StD.pa 253 were found six plaques with the Buddha on a lotus
seat in bhilmisparfamudra, outlined by a halo and flanked by bodhisattvas; branches
of the Bodhi tree project up in the background. Below i ~ the creed in three lines
in characters of the 9th or 10th century. See D. Mitra, Ratnagiri (1958-61), pp.
98-9 (pI. XLIX).
42 . .J. Ph. Vogel, "Excavations at Kasia," ASIAR 1906-7, p. 60.
43. Henry Cousens, "Buddhist Stupa at Mirpur-Khas,Sind," ASIAR
1909-10, p. 88. See also Cousens' summary of the Sind finds up to 1929 in "The
Antiquities of Sind with Historical Outline," Archeological Survey of India, vol.
XLVI, Imperial Series (Calcutta, 1929), pp. 92-3. An interesting feature of this
site is the discovery of coins with Arabic inscriptions amidst the same stilpa
ruins as the clay seals. Thus we know that the cult practice centered around this
stilpa contil)ued after the Arab conquest of Sind. Note also the eighth century
account of the Arab usurpation of Chach, the Indian ruler of Sind:
"When he [Chach] reached the temple, he saw the Samanl [Buddhist
priest] sitting on a chair, engaged in worship, and having some clay in his hand
with which he was making idols, he had something like a stamp with which the
figure of the buddh (sic) was made on the clay, and when it was finished he
placed it on one side." Sir H.M. Elliot, K.C.B., The History of India As Told By Its
Own Historians, Vol. I (London: Triibner and Co., 1867), p. 149. The author of
this account is not known; the work was translated into Arabic by Muhammad
'Ali bill- Hamid bin Abu Bakr Kufi in the early 13th century. See Elliot, p. 136ff.
for the dating of this account.
44. Charles Duroiselle, "Exploration-Burma," ASIAR 1926-7, pp. 182-
3. At this excavation in Prome were also found seals with the Buddha in the
"earth-witnessing" attitude flanked on each side by stilpas and containing the
"Buddhist creed" in characters of the 8th or 9th century.
45. G. Coedes, "Tablettes votives bouddhique du Siam," Etudes Asiatiques
publiies a l'occasion du vingt-cinquieme anniversaire de l'Ecole Franljaise d'Extreme-Orient
(Paris, 1925), pp. 145-67.
46. TaiskO 2087, vol. 51, p. 920a-b.
47. Daya Ram Sahni, Catalogue, p. 309. Many other miniature stilpaswere
found at Sarnath and recorded by Sahni; see pp. 309-10.
48. Alexander Cunningham, Mahabodhi, pp. 46-7. Also on p. 52, Cunning-
ham notes the discovery of a great number of small clay balls and miniature
stilpas containing unbaked seals with the Buddhist creed.
49. John Marshall, "Rajagrha and Its Remains," ASIAR 1905-6, p. 96.
During the excavation of a large mound west of New Rajagrha, a number of
miniature clay stilpas, two inches high and one inch in diameter, were found
within the remains of brick walls (The mound in question is marked H on Plate
XXXV). "The presence of these miniature stilpas suggest that a large stilpa, the
core of which was of earth and debris, was built over the remains of the brick
walls mentioned above. Inside each of them was a tiny tablet with the Buddhist
formula Je dharma hetu-prabhava, etc.' inscribed in characters of the eighth or
ninth century."
-50. Mitra, Buddhist Monuments, p. 243: ""Within the trapezoidal temple-
compound were noticed as many as one hundred and thirty-two votive stupas of
varying shapes and sizes, the largest and smallest being respectively 25 ft. and
2 ft. 9 in. in diameter. In the relic chamber of one of these stu pas were found sev-
eral thousands of miniature votive stupas of clay, each containing two circular
clay tablets with the Buddhist creed placed face to face."
51. Ram Chandra Kak, Ancient Monuments of Kashmir (London, 1933; repro
New Delhi, 1971), p. 107 ff (pI. XVIII). Amidst the stupa and chapel rubble, a
few clay tablets with miniature stu pas in relief were discovered. Below the
Kashmir-style stupas is the ye dharmii . .. verse in briihmz characters that Kak dates
to the 4th century. The quality of the plate makes it impossible to examine the
script, but we must be highly suspicious of such an early date in light of the
developments and collateral evidence traced above.
52. Maurizio Taddei, op. cit., p. 80: "the clay tablets are often placed
inside the miniature stu pas; their function would thus be that of consecrating the
other ts'a ts'as-in the form of mch 'od rtens-which in their turn could be placed
inside larger stupas."
53. F. A. Khan, Mainamati, p. 30 ff. From the central shafts of the main
stu pas at the Kotila Mura site were excavated several hundred clay miniature
stu pas which enclosed both bone relics and sealings upon which the ye dharmii . ..
verse was inscribed.
54. Gerard Fussman, "Inscriptions de Gilgit," BEFEO 65 (1978): 5 ff.
55. Fo-shuo tsao t'a kung-te ching
e
; TaiskO 699, vol. 16, p. 801.
56. There is however a Tibetan text that parallels Divakara's translation
quite closely and which N. Aiyaswami Sastri has reconstructed, not altogether
satisfactorily, into Sanskrit, known as the Aryapratztyasamutpiidaniima-mahqyiina-
sutra. See Aryii-Siilistambha sutra (Adyar Library, 1950), pp. 25-7.
57. Ti-P'o-ho-lo
f
; Divakara (613-688) was a monk-translator from Cen-
tral India. He resided at the monasteries of Mahabodhi and Nalanda while
young, and was quite probably at the latter when the famous pilgrim Hsiian-
tsang visited. He arrived in China sometime between 676 and 679 and trans-
lated at least 19 texts into Chinese under Empress Wu's patronage. The Sutra on
the Merit of Building a Stupa was translated at the Hung-fu monastery in Ch'ang-
an in 680. Divakara died February 4,688 at the Wei-kuo monastery in Lo-yang.
See Sung kao seng chuan, TaiskO 2061, vol. 50, p. 719a-b; K'ai-yuan shih-chiao-lu,
TaiskO 2154, vol. 55, pp. 563c-564a; Antonino Forte, "Divakara (613-688), Un
Monaco Indiano Nella Cina Dei T'ang, " Annali della Facolta di Lingue e Letterature
Straniere di Ca' Foscari XIII, 3 (1974): 135-64.
58. For the change in punctuation from the TaiskO edition, see John
Brough, "Thus Have I Heard ... ," BSOAS 13 (1949-50): 416-26.
59. Similar accounts of the making of miniature stupas are found in sev-
eral other canonical texts. Cf. Hisashi Matsumura, "The Stupa Worship in
Ancient Gilgit," Journal of Central Asia, vol. VIII, no. 2 (Dec. 1985): 135-7; Yael
Bentor, "The Redactions of the Adbhutadharmpiiryqya from Gilgit," JIABS vol. 11,_
no. 2 (1989): 21-52. Also, the Arya Pratztyasamutpiida-niimamahqyiinasutram which
parallels TaiskO 699 quite closely, enjoins the practice of making miniature stu pas
and installing theye dharmii ... verse within; The Tibetan Tripitaka (Peking ed.),
Edited by D. T Suzuki, voL 34 (no. 878), p. 307-3-5 ff:
. span-ras-gZigs-dbang-phyug rigs kyi bu'am rigs kyi hu mo dad pa can gang ta ta zhig
gis mi gans pa'i phyogs su mchod rten ni skyu ru ra'i 'bru tsam. srog shing ni khab tsam.
gdugs ni ba ku fa'i me tog tsam zhig byas la rten cing 'brel bar ba chos kyi dbyings kyi
tshigs su.bcad pa nang du bcug na de tshangs pa'i bsod nams bskyed par 'gyur teo
Whichever faithful son or daughter of a good family, AvalokiteSvara, who,
having made a stupa no bigger than an iimalaka fruit ('bru-seed?) at an unestab-
lished place (i.e., where there is no stupa) , with a mast (srog shing= no big-
ger than a needle, and with a parasol no bigger than a va kula fruit, and places
within the dharma-relic verse of the prat'ityasamutpiida, he would produce brahma
merit.
60. Skt. the four line verse motif has a long history in
Buddhist literature. In Mahayana literature, see among others Vaj 8, 11, 12, etc.;
SP 224,344,395, etc.; Kafyapaparivarta (von Stael-Holstein ed.) 159; Vimalak'irti-
nirdefa (Lamotte, trans., rendered into English by Sara Boin, London: Pali Text
Society, 1976) 250-1. For a discussion of the extent of this motif in other litera-
ture, see Etienne Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien: Des origines a {'ere Saka
(Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1958, repro 1967), pp. 546-7 and also Lamotte,
Le Traite de la Grande Jiertu de Sagesse, pp. 688-89.
61. On the generation of brahma merit, see Richard Salomon and Gregory
Schopen, "The Indravarman (Avaca) Casket Inscription Reconsidered:
Further Evidence for Canonical Passages in Buddhist Inscriptions," jIABS,
vol. 7, no. 1 (1984): 116 ff.
62. Although the ye dharmii . .. verse is rather formulaic in Sanskrit, with
only minor deviations, it has been variously translated into Chinese, and at
times, transliterated. HajimeNakamura has listed some of the renderings in his
Gotama Budda: shakuson no shifgaig [Gotama Buddha: The Life of Shakyamuni]
(Tokyo, 1969), p. 348. See also, Akira Yuyama, "Juni innenju oboegaki,"h
["Notes on the PratItyasamutpadagatha"], Indogaku bukkyogaku kenkyu, vol. XX,
no. 1 (Dec. 1971): 447 ff.
63. Louis de La Vallee Poussin, ed., Mulamadhyamakakiirikiis (St.
Petersburg: Imprimerie de l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences, 1913), pp. 503
and 542. On this verse, see also D.S. Ruegg, The Literature if the iVladhyamaka
School if Philosophy in India (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981), p. 17, note 39.
64. See AsP 86, 228, etc. for references to the prajiiiipiiramitii as the
"mother" of Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
65. P. L. Vaidya, ed., Prajiiiipiiramitii With Haribhadra's Com-
mentary Called Aloka, p. 361.13-18: caityabhuto vandaniidinii pUr!:JIopacayahetutviit piteva
pitr:bhuta ity upamiiviicakabhutafabdasyopiidiiniid anyacaityasamiinatvena sa
p!thiv'ipradefa ity eke. yalra hi niima pudgalanairiitmyadyotikayii ')e dharmii hetuprabhavii"
ityiidi giithayii stupo tatra
fikiiyii miitur stupo nitariim eva, ity siiksyeva iti tat-
svabhiivatve caityam eva caityabhuta iti Candragom'i.
66. Peking ed., voL 34 (no. 878), p. 307-3-3 ff:
de nas bcom ldan 'das kyis rten cing 'brel bar 'byung ba'i tshigs su bcad pa bka' stsal pa. ye
dha. rmii he tu pra bha bii he tun te siin ta thiiga to hya dat. te sii nyca yo ni ro dha e bam bii
d'i ma hii shra ma chos gang rgyu byung de dag gi. rgyu dang de 'gog gang yin pa' ang.
de bzhin gshegs pas bka' stsal teo dge slong chen pos de skad gsungs. spyan-ras-gzigs-dbang-
phyug 'rli lta ste. rten cing 'brel bar 'byung ba 'di ni de bzhin gshegs pa mams kyi chos kyi
sku yin teo sus rten cing 'brel bar 'byung ba mthong ba des de bzhin gshegs pa mthong ngo.
67. This dichotomy however should not be understood as a lay/monk
distinction. The monastic role in the cult of the relics remains a frequently mis-
understood topic in the scholarly literature on Buddhism. See Gregory Scho-
pen, "Two Problems in the History of Indian Buddhism: The Lay / Monk Dis-
tinction and the Doctrines of the Transference of Merit," Studien zur Indologie und
Iranistik 10 (1985): 9-47 and also Schopen, "Monks and the Relic Cult in the
Mahiiparinibbri1J.asutta: An Old Misunderstanding in Regard to Monastic Bud-
dhism," in G. Schopen and K. Shinohara eds., From Banares to Beijing: Essays on
Buddhism and Chinese Religion in Honor if Jan Yun-hua (Toronto, 1991, forthcoming).
68. Guiseppe Tucci,Stupa: Art, Architectonics, and fiymbolism [Indo-Tibetica I]
trans. by Uma Marina Vesci, (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1988), p. 84.
69. Walter Liebenthal, "Sanskrit Inscriptions from Yunnan I,"
Monumenta Serica 12 (1947): 1-40; see especially pp. 31-4 and 36 for the occur-
rences of the verse.
70. Ibid., p. 2 (emphasis mine); Liebenthal cites a late but very interest-
ing Tantric text from the Chinese canon, The Sutra on the Measurements if Building
an Image, that discusses the use of the "spiritual relic." Particularly noteworthy
is the list of the five kinds of dhiira1J.ls to be used as dharmakayafarlra, indu'ding
one called the shih-erh yin-yuan chou
i
which of course is our ye dharmii . .. giithii.
Also, in Shih Chih's Chinese translation of the Maiijufrlniima-saT[!gltl (TaiskO
1190), the pratltyasamutpiidagiithii is transliterated as this very dhiira1J.l; see Akira
Yuyama, "jllni innenju oboegaki," p. 445. ,
71. L. de La Vallee Poussin, ed., Bouddhisme: Etudes et NIateriaux (London:
Luzac & Co., 1898), pp. 192-3: OT[! namo bhagavate vairocanaprabhariijaya
tathiigatayiirhate samyaksaT[!buddhaya. tadyathii: OT[! 'samiisame prafiinte diinte ['}
samiirodhe 'niilambe. tarasva yafovati mahiibhaje niriikule nirvii1J.e.
sviihii. anayii dhiirar;.yii mrtpi1J.q.aT[! viilukiipi1J.q.aT[! vii. ekaviT[!fativiiriin parijapya
caityaT[! kuryiit. yiivantas tasmin paramii1J.avas kot[y] a[f] caityiini krtiini
bhavantfti. tadanu: ye dharmii hetuprabhavii hetuT[! tathiigato hy avadat tqiiT[! ca yo
nirodha evaT[!viidl anayii g iithayii
72. Stephan Beyer, The Buddhist Experience: Sources and Interpretations (En-
cino, CA: Dickenson Publishing Co., Inc., 1974), p. 59.
73. Yu-fo kung-te chingj (TaiskO 698, vol. 16, p. 800a). I Ching recorded this
very practice in the account of his travels to India and the Malay Archipeligo:
"[People in India] make [incense] paste caityas and paste images from rub-
bings. Some impress them on silk or paper, and venerate them wherever they
go. Some amass them into a pile, and by covering them with tiles, they build a
buddha-stUpa. Some erect them in empty fields, allowing them to fall into ruin.
Among the monks and laity ofIndia, they all take this as their practice. Further-
more, whenever they build images or make caityas, be they of gold, silver, cop-
per, iron, paste, lacquer, bricks, or stones; or when they heap snowy sand, at the
times they make them, they place inside two kinds of relics. One is called the
relic of the great teacher; the second is called the dharma-verse on causation.
This verse goes as follows: All dharmas arise from a cause. The Tathagata has
explained this cause. The cessation of the cause of these dharmas; This the great
Sramal).a has explained" (TaiskO 2125, vol. 54, p. 226c).
74 .. Tucci, op. cit., p. 53-5.
75. Tathiigatabimbakiirapa7Jasiltra (Gilgit Ms. no. J8) in Adelheid Mette,
"Zwei kleine Fragmente aus Gilgit," Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, vol. 7
(1981): 136, In. 22-3. I should also note that there exists a late Pali text (13th /
14th century), the by Siddhattha, that enumerates three kinds of
cetiya (Skt. caitya). Among them is the dhamma-cetiya, which is consecrated by
either the pratftyasamutpiida formula or by an image. See]. Minayeff, "Buddhist-
ische Fragmente," Bulletin de l'Acadimie Imperiale des Sciences de Saint-Pitersbourg
(1871): 78
76. ]. H. Marshall, "Excavations at Saheth-Maheth," ASIAR 1910-11,
pt. 2, pp. 10-12.
77. D. R. Sahni, ''A Buddhist Image Inscription from SravastI," ASIAR
1908-9, p. 133ff; see Plate VI.
78. Ibid.; Marshall proposes the 9th or 10th centuries, adding that
the verse was probably "added at the time when this relic of a long-past age
was being enshrined in the stilpa from which it has now been recovered" (op.
cit., p. 12).
79. See, for example, E. Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien, p. 547: "Des
lors la stance fameuse communique autrefois par Asvajit a Sariputra et qui res-
ume si bien les quatre verites saintes est elevee au rang de credo bouddhique .... "
80. M. Taddei, op. cit., p. 76. See also Johannes De Casparis, "Some
Aspects of the Expansion of NagarI Script in South and Southeast Asia," in
Graciela de la Lama, ed., Proceedings qf the 30th International Congress qf Human Sci-
ences in Asia & North Africa, South Asia I (1976), p. 127: "NagarI was used in the
Tamilnadu for such special purposes as inscribing the so-called Buddhist
'Credo,' coin and seal legends-all cases where legibility was not essential" (emphasis
mine).
81. Gregory Schopen has shown rather convincingly that a stilpa "was
not conceived of as 'un reliquaire,' but as a structure housing the living pres-
ence of the Buddha-any worship of 'it' would actually be of him." See "On the
Buddha and His Bones: The Conception of a Relic in the Inscriptions of Nagar-
junakol).ga," JAOS, vol. 108, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1988): 536. Also "Burial 'Ad San-
ctos' and the Physical Presence of the Buddha in Early Indian Buddhism: A
Study in the Archeology of Religions," Religion vol. 17 (1987): 193-225.
82. I am reminded here of Eliade's discussion of the gnostic/ mystic
dichotomy of early Buddhism in his Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 174-5: "In the course of time, all means
of approaching the Buddha by way of 'experience' will become equivalent; he
who learns and understands the canon assimilates the 'doctrinal body' of the
Buddha; the pilgrim who visits a stilpa containing relics of the Enlightened One
gains access to the mystical architectonic body of the same Buddha."
This equivalence is made explicit, as is well known, in the so called dharma-
kiiya symbolism of the stilpa, whereby each structure of the stilpa is related to a
specific dogma of the Buddhist canon. See, among others, Gustav Roth, "Sym-
bolism of the Buddhist Stilpa," in Anna Libera Dallapiccola and Stephanie
Zingd-Ave Lallemant, eds. The Stilpa: Its Religious, Historical and Architectural Sig-
nificance (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), pp. 183-209. While explana-
tions for this recurring symbolism have been varied and often rather weak, I
might tentatively propose that the symbolic correspondence between the stilpa
and the dharmakaya reflects another solution to the problem we traced above.
That is to say, it may have been part of the ongoing debate within the tradition
to define the relationship between the continued presence of the Buddha in, for
example, his relics, and his abstract presence in the dharma. To equate the
proper repository of the Buddha's corporeal remains with the body of his law is
to legitimate a specific definition of not only who or what the real Buddha was,
but where and how he continued to be. I hope to examine the symbolism of the
stilpa in more detail in the near future.
List of Chinese and Japanese Terms and Titles:
a. irfJJ
b.
c.
d.
J;IP =" '.!:. .l--l;!"rr-h /0\; :frX
e. IWp}?Ja 7'.rD' i1'
f. till *i
g. '::J -5' -:( . 7" ';; 5''' JfK
h. l.
1.
J. J;1] tm g
Notes on the Devotional Uses and
Symbolic Functions of Siitra Texts as
Depicted in Early Chinese Buddhist Miracle
Tales and Hagiographies
by Robert F Campany
In his magisterial study of the earliest period of Buddhism in
China, Erik Zurcher observes that, in the types of source mate-
rials available to us, there is little mention of "popular" and
"devotional" Buddhist practices. At one point, after describing
the "metaphysical and philosophical problems and discus-
sions" among Chinese Buddhist intellectuals in the late third
and early fourth centuries C.E., Zurcher writes:
There was, of course, the devotional aspect. Not much is
known about this side of early Chinese Buddhism. Simple faith
and devotion may have played a great role in the popular cult
about which hardly any information is available. Among the
sophisticated Buddhist gentlemen of the fourth century, both
monks and laymen, we very seldom hear emotional outbursts
about the Buddha's endless love and compassion.
1
Zurcher's point is undeniable: written sources tell us much less
than we would like to know about early Chinese Buddhist de-
votional practices both lay and monastic. Yet there do exist
types of textual sources that, if read imaginatively, yield con-
siderable insight into aspects of Buddhist life often neglected
in favor of "metaphysical and philosophical discussions."
The sources I will tap here are the earliest extant examples
of two closely related Chinese narrative genres: Buddhist
hagiographical or biographical accounts, and Buddhist "mira-
cle tales," each of them related in turn to the genre of "accounts
28
SUTRATEXTS 29
of the strange" (zhiguai
a
), which was put to use by Buddhist as
well as non-Buddhist authors.2 The main hagiographical col-
lection in question, the Lives qf Eminent Monks ( Gaoseng zhuan) of
Huijiao (496-554 C.E.), features monks and was written by a
monk. 3 The miracle tales studied here-some 264 of them, all
cited from pre-Tang (that is, pre-618) collections now mostly
extant as fragments in encyclopaedias compiled in the seventh
and in the tenth centuries-were written by laypersons; and,
significantly, more than twice as many of these tales' protagon-
ists are laypersons as are monks or nuns.
4
Yet the hagiograph-
ical and miracle-tale genres are closely related: authors of each
type of story are known to have drawn material from the other
type, and both groups of authors probably gleaned material
from other sources, such as mortuary inscriptions on stilpas and
temple records.
5
The questions I want to address here are two and, although
distinct, closely interrelated: First, what can we learn from a
careful reading of these sources about the various devotional
uses to which Buddhist sutra texts were put in China from the
late third to the seventh centuries? Second, how was the sutra
text as such-the very physical object-used as a Buddhist
symbol by the authors of these narratives?6
By the term "devotional uses" I mean to include all save
the most scholastic, and hence most often studied, uses of sutra
texts. Familiar "modes of reception" such as translation, tex-
tual studies and lectures in monastic contexts, and the writing
of commentaries are here deliberately excluded in favor of rela-
tively "unstudied aspects" of the Chinese appropriation of sutras
imported from India via Central Asia and Indochina.
7
The lat-
ter two phrases in inverted commas invoke exemplary attempts
to chart this field: Miriam Levering has recently called for
comparative studies of "modes of reception" of scriptures in
various traditions, and has provided a fine example of the
fruits comparative questions can yield when asked of Chinese
Buddhism; while Jan Yiin-hua has published on a largely "un-
studied aspect" of Buddhist practice, namely "the power of
recitation" of sutra texts as reflected in the early Chinese
hagiographies.
8
While none can deny their importance, scho-
lastic pursuits hardly exhaust the uses to which Chinese people
of the early medieval period put sutra texts or the range of ways
30
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
in which these sacred objects figured in the lives of monks,
nuns, laymen and laywomen.
The first order of inquiry pursued here-that of the sutra
text as a devotional vehicle or object-looks 'through the texts to
discern patterns of verbal, ritual, and gestural practice involv-
ing sutras in the world in which the narrative texts were written.
The second-that of the sutra text as a symbolic vehicle or
object-looks at the narrative texts themselves to see how they
employ the sutra as a literary symbol, a metonym for certain
aspects of reality or of the world in which the narratives were
created. In the first case, the "users" of sutra texts are protagon-
ists in the stories; in the second, the users are the authors of the
texts themselves. Although most of the protagonists mentioned
in the tales probably actually lived, and although we have doc-
umentation in other sources concerning some of them, their
historicity is not at issue here. What is at issue is how these nar-
ratives reflect-and perhaps shaped-the place of Buddhist
sutra texts in the religious world of early medieval China.
1. Devotional Uses: Sutra Texts as Vehicles and
Objects if Reverent Action
1. Recitation
The devotional use of sutras most ubiquitous in the narratives
is their recitation: the repeated chanting of all or some of the
words of the text. Many tales are careful to specify the number
of times a protagonist recited a sutra, ranging from hundreds to
thousands to, at least in one case, ten thousand recitations.
9
Others specify not the number of repetitions but the length of
time spent in continuous recitation, ranging from several days
to a month.
lO
Still others specify the number of words or syl-
lables recited, II or the frequency and speed of recital. 12
I t must be noted at once that, with the exception of some
hagiographies in the Gaoseng zhuan (especially those in the sec-
tions emphasized here, namely "Hymnodists" [jingshi
b
], "Can-
tors" [songjingc] , and "Sermonists" [changdao
d
]) which simply
speak of the skills of a monk specializing in recitation, most
stories involving sutra recitation focus on cases in which this
devotional act resulted in a miracle-a compassionate, salvific,
SUTRA TEXTS
31
and - clear intervention in human affairs by some powerful
being, typically the bodhisattva or buddha on whom the siitra
focuses.
13
This is true not only of the miracle tales but also of
many of the hagiographies.
By far the most commonly mentioned text in such tales is
that which now stands as the twenty-fifth (or twenty-fourth,
depending on the version) chapter of the Lotus Siitra, titled
Guanshiyin pusa pumenpin
e
(Universal Gateway [to Salvation) qf the
Bodhisattva Avalokitefvara) .14 This chapter (at least its prose por-
tion) was presumably translated into Chinese, along with the
rest of the Lotus, at least six times between 286 and 601.
15
It cir-
culated in China as an independent siitra text, and is often
referred to as "the Guanshiyin Siitra" (Guanshiyin jingf) .16 It de-
picts the Buddha as promising to anyone-even sinners-that
if they, finding themselves in any of the types of extreme diffi-
culty mentioned in the text, simply call upon the name of the
bodhisattva Guanshiyin, they will be swiftly and miraculously
rescued from danger by the bodhisattva's great power.
17
It is no
surprise, then, that each of the Chinese stories of this type tells
of a protagonist who, in dire straits and without means of
escape, recites the Guanshiyin jing and is saved. IS In miracle
stories involving recitation of the Guanshiyin jing, in other
words, the effect of the recitation is almost always extrication
from imminent peril.
For example, in chapter 25 of Kumarajlva's translation of
the Lotus, the Buddha declares: "Even if there is a man,
whether guilty or guiltless, whose body is fettered with stocks,
pillory, or chains, ifhe calls upon the name of the bodhisattva He
Who Observes the Sounds of the World, they shall all be
sever-ed and broken, and he shall straightway gain deliver-
ance." 19 The plots of at least thirteen miracle tales in the collec-
tions treated here are based squarely on this passage; Lu Gao's
collection alone contains eleven ofthese.
20
Here is an example:
Gai Hu was a native of Shanyang. Once he was impris-
oned and was due to die. With a perfect mind he recited the
Guanshryin Siitra for three days and three nights, without once
relaxing his mind. Suddenly in the darkness he had a vision of
Guanshiyin, whose emitted light shone upon him. At the same
moment his chains and fetters fell off by themselves, the door
32
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
[to his cell] opened up, and Hu was released and taken out. He
fled following the light to a point about twenty Ii away, where
the light vanished. Hu hid the rest of the night in the brush,
then continued his flight the next day and thus escaped.
21
This story, like its counterparts, is replete with devotional lan-
guage. The phrase "with a perfect mind" (zhixing), like other
phrases found in these texts, such as "with utter concentra-
tion" (zhinian
h
) , "continuously" (heng
i
) , "single-mindedly"
(yixini) , and "exclusively" (wei
k
) , emphasizes the devotee's
total absorption in the act of recitation. Some such phrase is
used in almost all the stories involving either the independent
Guanshiyin Siitra or the Lotus as a whole. 22 This usage echoes the
language of the Guanshiyin Siitra itself, which several times
repeats the admonition to "single-mindedly" (yixin) call upon
the name of Guanshiyin when in distress. Furthermore, as
noted above, it is common for these stories to mention the num-
ber of repetitions of the siitra or the length of time spent in its
recitation (here "three days and three nights"). In these ways
the stories characterize a specific devotional attitude and mark
the passage of devotional time.
Merely to list some of the other perils from which pro-
tagonists are saved in these tales is to document the pervasive
extent to which the bodhisattva was thought to respond to recita-
tions of "his" siitra. (1) One story tells of "a Daoist wine
libationer" who, though fifty years old, still had no son. At the
suggestion of a Buddhist monk, he ceased "serving the Dao"
and recited the Guanshiyin Siitra with perfect sincerity, after
which his wife bore him a son.
23
This and similar stories are
harbingers of one of Guanyin's most important religious func-
tions in later Chinese history, the granting of sons and of safe
childbirth to women.
24
(2) We have several accounts in which
people, both monks and laypersons, recite the siitra in order to
escape shipwreck during a storm.
25
(3) The monk Shi Huijin is
cured of illness-itself brought on by exhaustion due to fervent
recitation of the Lotus-by fulfilling his vow to recite a full one
hundred chapters of the siitra, undeterred by an attempted rob-
bery during his un broken recitaJ.26 (4) A mother and son sepa-
rated by war are reunited after the mother constantly lights
devotional lamps before an image of Guanshiyin and recites
SUTRATEXTS
33
his szUra. The mysterious lights that lead the boy home through
several nights behind enemy lines turn out to be miraculous
manifestations of the lamps lit by his mother many miles
away.27 Asimilar story is told in the same collection of a father
and son. 28. (5) There are several accounts of people saved from
attack by bandits, robbers, or cannibalistic barbarians by
reciting the Guanshiyin Siitra.
29
(6) People are said to have mirac-
ulously escaped fire by reciting the siitra.
30
(7) The monk Tan
Wujie and his disciples, on a pilgrimage in quest of scriptures,
are miraculously saved from attack by mountain elephants and
wild buffalo when he recites the Guanshiyin Siitra, calls on the
name of the bodhisattva, and entrusts their lives to him.31
Authors and collectors of such stories about the efficacy of
reciting the Guanshiyin Siitra apparently fashioned them quite
self-consciously to authenticate the siitra's claims for itself. In
fact, the authentication worked in two directions at once: on
the one hand, the records of actual miraculous events-which
unfailingly specify the names of the individuals involved and
often their place of origin and the date of the event-confirm
the efficacy of recital. On the other hand, the events described
in the tales are authenticated as miracles and their true signifi-
cance located by reference to the siitra; they are imbued with a
specific religious meaning and are thus distinguished from a
mere list of anomalies. Hence we find authors occasionally cit-
ing specific passages from the siitra in order to link them to the
miraculous event narrated.
32
And Lu Gao explicitly organized
his tales under eleven rubrics quoted directly from the Guan-
shiyin Siitra and from another early text on Guanyin, the Qing
Guanshiyin pusa xiaqfu duhai tuoluoni zhou jingl (Siitra qf Dhiira1Jl
Incantations for Imploring the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin to Dissolve and
Subdue Maleficent Phenomena) .33
While a full discussion cannot be given here, it should be
mentioned that the miracle tales and hagiographies contain
many examples of other siitras being recited in order to gain
relief from difficulty. In time of drought, for instance, powerful
monks are shown performing dhiira1Jl incantations and reciting
the Hailongwangjing
m
(Siitra on the Oceanic Dragon Kings, Siigaran-
iigarajapariJn:cchii-siitra, T 598); the recital causes the serpentine
creatures (Chin. longn, Skt. niiga) who control rain to appear,
form clouds, and release atmospheric moisture.
34
Other stories
34 lIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
tell of extraordinary responses elicited by sutra recitals in funer-
ary contexts on behalf of the dead.
35
Still others describe sutra
recitals for the purpose of driving off demons and ghosts.
36
2. Collection) Preservation) and Display:
Sutra as Sacred Commodity
Some stories yield a vivid sense of the extent to which sutras
were appropriated as objects of special value-that is, as com-
modities, objects cherished within an ideological regime of
value and circulated within a social matrix of exchange-in
early medieval China.
37
We read, first of all, of distinct sites for
the storage, display, and veneration of sidra texts: one story tells
of how a "sutra hall" and adjacent "thatch vihiira" were miracu-
lously spared from a fire that decimated the Wuxing comman-
dery capital; another tells of a solitary monk in Jingzhou who
had three separate chambers, one for images, one for sutras, .
and one for his own occupancy.38
The following two stories-linked by their compiler appa-
rently because of the similarity between them-afford a
glimpse of how particular copies of sutras acquired the status of
family treasures:
Zhou Min, a native of Run an, lived during theJin dynasty
and served as an officer of the guard. His family had observed
the Dharma for generations. During Sun Jun's rebellion [ca.
328 C.E.] people were rushing about wildly in the capital.
Min's family had a copy of the Mahii-prajiiaparamita-sutra writ-
ten on the back of an eight-zhang-long piece of plain white
silk. 39 In addition they had several shelves full of other sutras,
and the Maha-prajiiaparamita-sutra was somewhere among them.
At the moment when they were about to flee the troubles in the
capital they had to travel lightly and couldn't take everything;
but, although they especially regretted leaving behind the
Mahii-prajiiaparamita-sutra, they didn't know which shelf it was
on. Time had run out and [Min] was pacing about anxiously,
when suddenly this text emerged of itself, and, shocked and
pleased, Min took it and fled. The Zhou family has treasured
this text for generations, and it is said to be still extant.
Another story goes as follows: Zhou Gao's wife was of the
Humu clan. They owned a copy of the Mahii-prajiiaparamita-sutra
written on a strip of ordinary white silk. Although the silk strip
SUTRATEXTS 35
. was only five cun wide, the entirety of the sutra was contained
on it. They also had a relic (sheli
o
) which was kept in a silver
vase. Both [sutra and relic] were stored inside a deep chest. D u r ~
ing theyongjia troubles, when the Humu clan was about to leave
hastily to head south and escape the advancing troops,40 both
the sutra and the relic emerged of themselves from the chest; so
the family took them across the Yangzi River, hiding them
beneath their garments. On another occasion this family suf-
fered a devastating fire, in which everything was totally
destroyed; but the siltra and relic were found unscathed among
the ashes. Wang Daozi ofKuaiji once visited Gao and asked for
permission to make an offering to [these objects]; they met
again later at Xinzhu Temple. LiuJingshu said he once saw this
sutra himself: its characters were no bigger than sesame seeds
and had been inscribed with extreme skill. This Xinzhu Temple
is now known as Tianan [Temple]. This sutra text was probably
inscribed by the monk Shi Huize. Some maintain that it was
once read at the Jianjing Temple by the nunJingshou.
41
We note, first of all, the rare nature of these texts, which made
them all the more valuable: the first was gigantic, measuring
some eighty feet in length; the second was miniature, measur-
ing only six inches or so in width. Then there are the histories
of the two texts: each takes on a sort of "biography" interwoven
with the vicissitudes of the family which owns it and punctu-
ated by the notable people who have come into contact with
it.42 The link of ownership is symbolized by the texts' miracu-
lous emergence when their owners are about to flee. Thirdly,
we note in the second story the request to make offerings to the
text and relic-a clear indication of the fact that they both
served as vehicles of the Buddha's (or perhaps a bodhisattva's)
presence. Indeed, although offerings to sutra texts as acts of
merit do not figure prominently in the pre-Tang miracle tales,
they are certainly implied in these tales of careful collection
and reverent preservation. Offerings to sutras would assume
greater importance in Tang tales, in which acts ranging from
the simple joining of one's palms in reverence to the burning of
a finger or of one's whole body-all understood as offerings to
a sutra (most often the Lotus)-are pictured as supremely meri-
torious.
43
Finally, it is striking that no one in either of the
families is said to have read the texts. The protagonists are
described-by an author clearly sympathetic with, and desirous
of promoting, the practices he depicts-as owning the texts,
and storing them on a shelf or in a chest, but not reading them
or discussing their contents. Of course this does not prove that
reading sutra texts for meaning was unimportant even in lower-
ranking lay circles; we know that sutras such as the Vimalaklrti
were virtually required reading among the learned aristocracy
during these centuries. But it does suggest that reading was not
the only-and perhaps was not even the major-purpose for
which sutras were used. We are dealing with a world in which
the very ownership of certain texts is of great religious signifi-
cance, a point to which I shall return in the conclusion.
That the ownership and display of sutra texts were impor-
tant sources of merit, capable of stimulating miraculous "re-
sponses," can be seen from the story of Wang Vi. While still a
young cavalry officer, Wang was once miraculously led across
a swollen river by a mysterious white wolf which appeared
when he and his family, "having reached the point of utter
hopelessness," placed all their trust in the Three Treasures.
After narrating this event, the story continues:
Later Wang Yi became a minister in the Ministry onNar
[under the Jin dynasty] and served as Regional Inspector of
Xuzhou. Once when he was intending to serve a vegetarian
feast, and so had swept and washed his home, set out incense
and flowers, and displayed an abundance of sidra texts and
images, he suddenly heard the sound of pure and melodious
sutra reciting coming from the Dharma-hall (fotangp) in his
home. When he went there to look, he saw five frammJas in front
of the Buddha-seat (joZUOq) , of dignified yet unusual appear-
ance, radiating an air of spiritual attainment. Yi knew these
were no ordinary monks (janseng
r
) , and his heart was filled with
joyful surprise. The framar;as looked up from their recitations
but continued on; and then, while they were still chanting, they
suddenly flew up into the sky and departed. Counting all the
family members, guests, and friends who were present, there
were many who saw this; and all of them danced gleefully and
redoubled their efforts toward faith and enlightenment (MX]
43 [LX 480]; cf. FYZL 65 [78Sb-c]).
SUTRATEXTS 37
This tale of a layman ritually purifying his home and proudly
displaying the sutras owned by his family, along with images, in
a "Dharma-hall," clearly signals that to collect and revere
Buddhist texts was itself thought to advance one on the path
"toward faith and enlightenment."
Finally, the value of creating and acquiring these precious
commodities is stressed in stories of miracles attending their
translation, copying, and transmission, as well as accounts of
pilgrimages in ~ e a r ~ h of texts.
44
Some of the most famous
Chinese BuddhIst lIterature narrates the arduous quest for
scriptures-a motif most fully explored in the well known six-
teenth century novel, The Journey to the West.
45
This attachment of religious value to the sheer ownership
of texts should come as no surprise to anyone acquainted with
the sutras themselves, which are known for promising their
owners, copiers, transmitters, readers, and hearers untold
spiritual and bodily benefits. What the tales usefully illuminate
is the great extent to which, and the early period in which,
these promises became part of Chinese religious literature.
3. Texts U0rn on the Body: The Siltra as Amulet
I have found one instance-unusual in extant Buddhist
texts of this period and genre-in which the protagonist of a
tale is described as wearing a sutra text on his very person.
Knowing that the reciting, owning, and displaying of sutras
were viewed as acts capable of eliciting miraculous responses,
it should not surprise us to learn that sutras could be thus
treated as virtual amulets and, like images or relics, worn on
the head or at the neck. The story runs as follows:
Xing Huaiming, a native ofHejian, served as Adjutant to
the Major General under the Song during the yuanjia period
[424-453 C.E.]. He participated in the northern campaign led
by the Regional Inspector of Jingzhou, Zhu Mingzhi, whose
forces were defeated. Xing and others were captured alive by
the enemy.46 But, with a handful of compatriots, he managed to
escape. For three days they traveled by night and hid during the
day. Even so they feared being pursued and recaptured, so they
sent one man ahead to scout for enemies, and this man did not
return for several days. Then one dark and rainy night this man
38 JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
suddenly came back. On arriving he said in surprise: ''As I ap-
proached I could see very plainly the bright light of a fire, so I
came this way; how is it that when I arrive I find it completely
dark here?" The group marveled at this -and could find no ex-
planation for it. Now Huaiming had previously venerated the
Dharma; and .throughout the campaign he continuously carried
the Guanshiyirijing on top of his head, and recited it without ceas-
ing. Furthermore, he had been reciting it that very night, so
everyone suspected that [ this anomaly] was due to the divine
power of the sutra. With that they all developed prayerful hearts,
and after they had escaped they resided in a monastery.47
All extant versions of this story are careful to say that the pro"'
tagonist not only wore the sutra on his head but also recited it.
One version adds that he not only wore and recited it but,
while doing so, "was extremely diligent in fixing his thoughts"
(cunnian
s
), a term used, in texts of this period, to designate both
"concentration" (in this case almost certainly on the bodhisattva
Guanshiyin) and "visualization." These details suggest that
the authors understood the sutra to have been used not simply
as an amulet, the very words of which were by themselves effi-
cacious, but (also?) as a physical and symbolic vehicle for sus-
taining a level of mindfulness sufficient to elicit a :response from
Guanshiyin. That the sutra was worn on the head strongly
suggests that here, too, the text functioned as the symbolic
equivalent of the bodhisattva or of his image; for there survive
several tales of images of Guanshiyin worn on the head or at
the neck for protection against the swords of robbers and
executioners,48 and this seems only fitting since the bodhisattva
himself was both artistically represented and meditatively vis-
ualized-both in India and in China-as wearing a figurine or
transformation-body of the Buddha in his own headdress.
49
Here, then, as we have seen and will see again, the sutra text
performs a double religious function: on the one hand it is
thought of as a vehicle which can be used to make a bodhisattva
or buddha present; on the other hand, more radicallx, it stands
in the place of, and (functionally speaking) is, a bodhisattva or
buddha.
Now the Chinese locution which I here translate as "he
continuously carried the Guanshiyin jing on top of his head" is
quite literal and leaves little doubt as to its meaning. 50 How-
SUTRATEXTS 39
ever, Gregory Schopen's remarks on a somewhat similar Dia-
mond Sutra passage raise an interpretive problem which, for our
purposes, is important but insoluble at this stage of research.
He translates the relevant Vajracchedikii passage as follows:
"Those who will take up this discourse on Doctrine, will pre-
serve it, will declare it, will recite it, will master it ... , all those
living beings will carry my awakening on their shoulder."51 Cit-
ing similar passages from other Sanskrit Mahayana texts,
Schopen suggests that some should be taken only figuratively
and not literally, since the key phrase in most cases, firasii
pratigrhTJiiti, commonly means "to receive, accept ... 'with the
head'; i.e. 'humbly, obediently.''' However, he also finds cases
in which a figurative reading is almost certainly impossible,
and in which a person is clearly said to carry a scriptural text
on the head or shoulders. Since two of the passages Schopen
cites are from a Sanskrit edition of the Lotus Sutra, let us look
more closely at cognate expressions in Kumarajlva's Chinese
translation. - .
So far I have found three occurrences of the term dingshou
t
,
literally "to receive on the crown of the head," apparently a
translation of the Sanskrit firasii pratigrhTJiiti. In each case the
term is used to describe the reverential attitude with which a
Buddhist seeker should treat the sutra:
If there is a listener / Who with due rejoicing receives it
[i.e., the 'Dharma-seal' (foyinu) , that is, the scripture] upon the
crown of his head [dingshou] ...
. . . seeks the Dharma in all four directions, / With joined
palms receiving it on the crown of his head [hezhangv
dingshou] ...
As a man wholeheartedly / Seeks the Buddhasarlra, / So
may one seek the scriptures / And, having found them, receive
them on the crown of one's head [deyiw dingshou] ... 52
It now seems impossible to tell whether these canonical pre-
scriptions were originally intended literally or figuratively; the
text as it stands is vague. For our purposes, however, two things
are clear: for early medieval Chinese readers and hearers, the
phrase dingshou could have been understood literally, since it is
not obviously or exclusively metaphoric; and receiving the sutra
is made tantamount to receiving the Dharma in the second
40
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
passage and, in the third passage, to receiving Buddha relics-
further evidence of the sorts of functional equivalences that
have been noted above.
Furthermore, there are parallel passages in the Lotus. The
much less figurative term dingdai
x
occurs at least twice and
clearly (despite Hurvitz's translation of the first occurrence)
indicates carrying on the head: in the first case carrying the
Buddha on one's head as an offering to him, and in the second
case reciting and cherishing the Lotus as equivalent to carrying
the Buddha himself on one's head.
The World-Honored One in his great lovingkindness /
Uses a rare thing ... / To afford us profit. In incalculable mil-
lions of kalpas / Who could repay this? / Were he to sacrifice
his hands and feet, / Do obeisance with his head bowed, / And
make sundry offerings, / No one could repay this. / Were one
to receive him on the crown of one's head, / Carry him on both
shoulders [rUlryi dingdai; liangjian hifUY ] ...
If after the extinction of the Thus Come One anyone hears
this scripture and without maligning it raises up thoughts of
appropriate joy, be it known that this is a mark of his having
already achieved profound faith and understanding. How much
truer is this of one who reads and recites, accepts and keeps it!
For such a man thereby carries the Thus Come One on his head
[hekuang dusong shouchi zhi zhe; siren ze wei dingdai rulaiz], 53
The upshot of these passages is that the translated Lotus gave
its Chinese audience vague yet undeniable precedent for wear-
ing or carrying sutras, images, and relics on the head or shoul-
ders. Seen in this light, the story of Xing Huaiming does not
seem so strange. Another story translated below (p. 49)
describes a man as tying a sutra to his head while fording a
stream. Although one easily assumes he did so simply to pro-
tect his precious commodity from water damage, these prece-
dents suggest that he might also be seen as having done so to
protect himself.
4. Inviolable Texts: Miraculous Punishment
for Desecration qfSutras
The efficacy and sacrality attributed to sutras can be seen
as well in negative terms, that is, in stories about people who
SUTRA TEXTS 41
receive extraordinary punishment for abusing or desecrating
texts. For if sutra texts are depicted as objectified commodities
in the stories, they are no ordinary commodities: the stories
tacitly argue through didactic narrative that they deserve the
respect and veneration one would offer to the Buddha or to a
bodhisattva, and to desecrate them has the same effect as dese-
crating a Buddha-image or slandering the Buddhist teaching.
Here is an example:
The Song Dynasty nun Shi Zhitong belonged to the Jian-
jing Nunnery in the capital. 54 She was young and beautiful, and
her faith in the path was not very deep. In the ninth year of the
yuanjia period [432 C.E.J her superior died and she left the path
and was married to one Liang Qunfu of Wei Commandery. She
gave birth to a son. When he was seven years (sui) old the fam-
ily was extremely poor, and she had no materials to make cloth-
ing from. While Zhitong was a nun she had obtained several
rolls of sutra texts on plain silk, including the Wuliangshou
aa
[SukhavatfzryuhaJ, the Lotus, and others. She now sewed these
together to make clothes for her son.
A year later she grew sick, and she was terrified because
her body was covered with places where the skin had been torn
off and scalded as though she had been burned by fire. More-
over there were tiny white worms that multiplied on her daily
and caused excruciating pain, so that she howled day and
night. She often heard a voice in midair saying: "It is for ruining
sutra texts to make clothing that you are receiving this severe
retribution." In a little over a week she died (MXJ82 [LX 505J;
FYZL 18 [418cJ; TPGJ1l6.2).
In such stories, it is the sheer extraordinariness of the "re-
sponse" to the crime-here the unusual nature of the former
nun's affliction-that marks it, for the protagonist and for the
reader, as a punishment and not simply a coincidentally con-
tracted disease. As if to dispel any lingering doubt on the
reader's part, this story indubitably confirms her condition by
means of a clear message delivered by "a voice in midair."
Another such confirmatory device used in the stories is the
notation of things that should have happened but, quite strik-
ingly, didn't-events conspicuous by their absence. Here is one
such story, intriguing for its depiction of struggle between Bud-
dhist and Daoist adherents at the local level:
42
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Liu Ling lived during the Song Dynasty; his family's
native place is not known. He lived in Lucheng village to the
east of Jinling. He was rather observant of the Dharma, and
established in his home a vihiira (jingshe
ab
) where from time to
time he hosted vegetarian feasts and other gatherings. On the
27th day of the third month of the ninth year of the yuanjia
period [432 C.E.], his father died suddenly of illness. A shaman
(wu
ac
) and an invocator of spirits (zhu
ad
) both warned that his
family would soon experience three more deaths.
Now in a neighboring family there was a Daoist libation
master (daoshijijiu
ae
) named Wei Po who was always making
amulets and talismans (zhangfu
af
) and deluding the people of
the village. He told Ling: "The tragedies due to befall your fam-
ily are not yet over, and it is all because you have served a bar-
barian deity (hushenag). If instead you serve the Great Dao, you
will surely receive blessings; but if you do not change your
ways, your whole family will be exterminated." So Ling began
to perform wine libations and no longer observed the Dharma.
Po then instructed him further: "If you burn your siitra texts
and images, as is proper, then the calamities will be avoided."
So Ling closed up his vihiira and set it afire. It burned for sev-
eral days, but only the room itself was destroyed; the siitra texts,
images, banners, and painted scrolls
55
were completely intact,
and the images gave off a bright glow at night. 56
At that time there were more than twenty wine-libationers
in the area, and many of them, awed and cowed by this effica-
cious manifestation (lingyan
ah
), snuck away. But Po and his
closest disciples were not to be deterred. He tied up his hair and
performed the Paces of Yu, 57 and, brandishing a sword, com-
manded the Buddha to return to his barbarian country
(huguo
ai
) and forbade him to remain in China and continue
harming its people. That same night Ling felt as if someone
were hitting him, and he fell to the floor. When family members
lifted him up he still seemed to be breathing, but then he went
motionless. As for the Daoist master Wei Po, the insides of his
body developed ulcers at that same time, which multiplied
quickly, and within a month he had died a painful death. All of
his compatriots also grew ill.
One of [Liu Ling's] neighbors, Sui Qiuhe, the Governor of
Dongan, transmitted this story in good faith [to me?] at Dong-
yang; and there were also many witnesses (MX] 85 [LX 507];
FYZL 62 [760c]).
SUTRATEXTS 43
In the ordinary scheme of things, objects made offabric-such
as sutra scrolls, banners, and canopies-would naturally be the
first to burn in a fire, certainly in a fire lasting three days. So
the fact that these, along with Buddhist images (made of wood
or metal)., were the onlY' objects to survive points to the
superior power of that which they jointly symbolize or, to
speak more accurately, embody. 58 Extra confirmatory touches
are added by the simultaneity of the layman Ling's mysterious
death and the Daoist libationer's ulcer attack, as well as by the
closing mention of eyewitnesses, one of whom the author seem-
ingly claims to have contacted personally.
For our purposes, the message of such stories is clear: sutra
texts embody the beings whom they describe and whose words
they contain; to harm the texts is to harm the beings and to
incur the karmic retribution appropriate to such a heinous
act.59 Once more, as I remarked earlier in discussing the story
of Xing Huaiming, there are parallel stories involving images:
a person first maligns, destroys, steals, or alters an image,
often while openly mocking the Buddhist teachings; then, in-
evitably, the mocker gets his or her karmic desserts. And again,
as noted above, such accounts of retribution for desecration of
sutra texts are in direct agreement with some (at least) of the
sutras themselves: the Lotus, to cite perhaps the most famous
example, threatens those who malign its own reciters with a
punishment more grave than that meted out to maligners of
, the Buddha himself, 60 and it constantly equates itself as a text
with the presence-indeed the very body-of the Buddha.
51
. The Buddha, his teaching, Buddha images, and sutra texts: all
seem to have been regarded-or at least were represented -as
functionally interchangeable; and they were thus represented
'. not simply in translated sutra texts themselves but also in indi-
.. genous Chinese stories about sutra texts from at least as early
as the first half of the fifth century.
II. Literary Uses: The Sutra Text as Symbol
Until now I have attempted to peer through the tales in order
. to glimpse ways in which sutras were represented, at least, as
having been religiously appropriated in the social world
reflected there. I do not, and need not, claim that each nar-
rated event actually occurred as reported in a particular tale,
but simply that the tale corpus as a whole can be taken seri-
ously as a record of types or patterns of devotional practice
that made sense and possibly were followed in the society in
which they were written. Ultimately the probability of this
claim rests on the nature of the genre itself: these tales are obvi-
ously designed to argue the benefits of certain actions and
behaviors regarding sutra texts, and in order for the tales to
have served this purpose the actions and behaviors they
describe would have to have been intelligible and familiar to
readers, even if their alleged miraculous results were deemed
incredible.
But such a study as this would remain incomplete without
some consideration of the roles played by sutra texts in the
stories themselves taken as narrative texts. For, obviously, no
story is an empty, neutral container of messages; as a medium
it necessarily and profoundly shapes whatever messages it con-
veys. The question to which I now turn, then, is that of the
literary role of sutras as objects, symbols, perhaps even actors
in these narratives. In pondering this question I will select as
examples tales other than the ones already discussed, although
it should be clear that the role of the sutra in any of those tales
could also be analyzed here.
1. Miraculous Slitra Recitals fry Women as Symbols Jor the
Revelatory Transmission if Dharma
I begin with a pair of stories in which it is not the result of
reciting a sutra, but the very fact of recital under certain cir-
cumstances, that is presented as miraculous. Consider the fol-
lowing example:
During thejian'an period oftheJin dynasty,62 Ding Cheng
(courtesy name Deshen), a native of Jiyin, served as District
Magistrate ofNingyin. At that time the peasant women on the
northern boundary [of the district] were going to an outside
well to draw their water. A Westerner (hurenaj) with a long nose
and deep-set eyes came by the well and begged one of the
women for a drink of water. When he had drunk it, he suddenly
disappeared. The woman began having pains in her belly,
SUTRATEXTS 45
- which grew more and more intense. She shouted, then suddenly
stood up and began speaking Western language (huyu
ak
) and
pointing at the banners (hui
a1
). 63 Several dozen families
gathered in the town to watch her. She then called for paper
and a, brush, as if intending to write. When she got a brush she
at once wrote in Western script (hushu
am
): the text she wrote
ran horizontally, some characters looking like an.yi
an
, others
like aji
aO
[that is, like Sanskrit]. After thus filling up five sheets
of paper, she spread them on the ground and told the bystanders
to read this script. In the town there was no one who could read
it. But there was a certain young boy, perhaps ten years old,
whom the woman pointed out, saying he could read it. When
he was given the script, he at once read it aloud in Western
speech (huyuap), and the onlookers were shocked, not knowing
what to make of it. Then the woman told the boy to dance, and
he got up and moved his feet quickly about as his hands swayed
in mutual harmony.64 In a little while they both stopped.
All of this was then reported to [the magistrate J . Deshen,
who summoned the woman and boy and questioned them. They
both said that at the time [of these events J they had suddenly
become unaware of themselves. Deshen wanted to confirm the
reality of this event (yan qi shiaq) , so he sent a messenger to carry
the text to Xuxia Monastery and show it to an old Westerner
(jiuhu
ar
) there. The Westerner was greatly surprised, saying the
text was a missing piece of a Buddhist siitra, and that, since the
way [to IndiaJ was long, he had despaired of ever getting it;
although he had been able to recite it orally, this was not
sufficient. Since this script was precisely the [missingJ text, it
was left behind so that it could be copied (MX] 36 [LX 477J;
FYZL 18 [417a-bJ).
It is the triple identity of the siitra transcriber in this story as a
peasant, a woman, and an illiterate that forces the reader to see
the siitra's transmission to her as an extraordinary event. The
siitra, along with the Dharma it contains, is thus represented as
something that can be transmitted by revelation or possession,
much as Daoist texts were represented during the same period.
The foreignness of the text, of its mysterious carrier, of its
script, of the sounds attached to that script, and of the old
monk who confirms it as a missing segment of a siitra-all
emphasized by the fivefold repetition of the term hu, designat-
ing a foreign person or thing of Western (typically Indian) ori-
gin-only underscores that its transmission to an ordinary
Chinese peasant woman is nothing short of miraculous. And
that transmission in turn suggests something about what sutras
essentially are: their words are no mere contingent representa-
tions of truth but are themselves indissolubly bound up with its
fabric, and are communicable across boundaries of class, lan-
guage, literacy, gender, and culture. .
We might compare this with another story, in which the
father, son, and daughter of a family are diligent in following
the Dharma but the mother remains trapped in darkness. The
fourteen year-old girl dies of illness. She returns to life after
seven days with instructions for her family: they are to set up a
"high seat" (gaozuoas, on which more below) and place a copy
of the Wuliangshoujing (Sukhiivatfvyuha Sutra) upon it. This done,
the girl, who although she had kept the precepts and done her
devotions had never once in her life looked at a sutra text,
ascends the high seat and recites the sutra with a clear, resonant
voice. She then declares that she herself, her father, and her
elder brother upon death will all go to Amitabha's land to be
reborn there; but her mother will not escape punishment, and
so she has returned to warn them. Having delivered this pro-
nouncement, the girl expires again. Her mother from now on
believes in the Dharma.
65
This story is similar in structure to
the one just examined. Here, too, a sutra is transmitted across
a gap-another case of transmission by revelation. Here, it is
the ability to recite clearly that symbolizes the reality of the
protagonist's contact with Buddhist truth and of the Pure
Land; there, it was the ability to write Sanskrit. Here, the gap
spanned by the revelation is that between life and death; there,
it was that between India and China; both are bridgeable gaps,
and the bridging in each case symbolizes the ultimate reality
and the authority of the Buddhist teaching, as well as the skill
with which it is transmitted. Both stories end with a confirma-
tory device: here, it is the real effect on the mother that confirms
the revelation as genuine, as there, it was the old Westerner's
recognition of the automatically written text as an authentic
missing part of a sutra. In both cases, the action revolves around
a female protagonist who lacked any previous experience read-
ing or copying sutras, and it is this lack that gives the stories
their power. 66
SUTRATEXTS
2. Sutras as Symbols and Embodiments qfthe Bodhisattva's
Responsive Compassion
47
Earlier, I considered stories in which sutras are somehow or
other involved as vehicles for rendering the Buddha or a bodhi-
sattva present. But there are also stories in which sutras are not
represented as devotional vehicles but are symbols for-
perhaps replacements of-the personal response of a bodhisattva
to a human act of merit or a mind offaith. In one such story,
for instance, the pious people of a certain city, under threat of
an attack by a barbarian commander, together concentrate on
Guanshiyin. As a response, a copy of the Guanshiyin Sutra sud-
denly descends from the sky before the commander, who in his
joy at its teaching pardons the city.67 In another story, a lay offi-
cial imprisoned by enemies meditates on Guanshiyin, then
dreams that he ascends a high seat (gaozuo) and receives from
a monk a sutra listing the names of certain bodhisattvas. Upon
awakening from his dream, he finds his fetters loose. Three
days later, he is pardoned and released.
68
In this type of story,
sutras seem to respond as the bodhisattva would, and their ap-
pearance functions in the narratives precisely as the appear-
ance of Guanshiyin does in other stories.
Here .. are two stories in which this motif of "siitra as
miraculous response" is expanded upon.
Zhou Dang lived during the Jin dynasty and was a native
ofYan in Kuaiji. His family had observed the Dharma for gen-
erations. When Dang was sixteen years old he began eating
only vegetarian food and keeping the other dietary restrictions.
He also became skilled in chanting, after which he learned to
recite sutras. He kept the first month Long Fast and sponsored
Eightfold Fasts to which he invited monks as his guests.
59
On one of these occasions he went to Xiangshi Monastery
and requested the senior monk there, Zhu Sengmi, along with
Zhi Fakai and Zhu Forni, to come to his home and recite the
Smaller Prajiiiipiiramitii-sutra during the fast days. 70 When the day
arrived, the three monks proceeded to the meal but forgot to
take the sutra. Only when they had finished the noon meal and
wanted to begin the recitation did they realize that they had for-
gotten it, to their great regret. Dang's home was in the village
of Banyi, thirty li away from the monastery, and there was no
one to send back after it. People had even started to light
incense and pray, but the [Zhou] family members could only
regret not having the siitra, and [Zhu Seng]mi for his part paced
about nervously. Just then someone knocked on the door, saying
they had brought the sutra. Dang was surprised and delighted.
Opening the door, he saw a robed youth whom he had never
seen before and who did not behave quite like an ordinary
human being. Suspecting a miracle (shenyi
at
) , he prostrated
himselfto receive the siitra, hoping that [the youth] would enter
and be seated. But the youth did not enter, saying he would
return that night to listen to the siitra. vVhen the guest monks
went out [to see him], he suddenly disappeared, leaving behind
a fragrance that filled the whole house. When they looked
closely at the sutra, it turned out to be [Zhu Seng]mi's copy, at
which the monks and laity present were both surprised and
delighted.
The sutra had been securely stored in a locked chest within
a storeroom [at the monastery]; but when the monks, having
returned, inspected the lock, it was perfectly intact.
More than ten families in the village professed [faith in]
the Buddha because ofthis, and their love and respect for Dang
increased. Dang, for his part, left the household to become a
monk, taking the [Dharma-]name Tanyi and reciting many
sutras amounting to 200,000 syllables (MX] 24 [LX 469-70];
FYZL 18 [417c-418a]; TPG] 110.2).
Dong Ji of the Jin Dynasty was a native of Yuqian. His
family had observed Dharma for three generations, so by Ji's
time they were particularly zealous. He constantly adhered to
t ~ e dietary rules and precepts, and recited the Shoulengyanjing
au
(Sura'f(lgama [samiidhiJ sutra). Whenever anyone in his village was
sick, they would ask him to recite the sutra; and of those he went
to help, many were cured.
In the same district lived another layman named He
Huang. During the xianhe period [327-334 C.E.] this man con-
tracted an illness and was quarantined. Huang's older brother
worriedly sped to request Ji's aid. The homes of the Dong and
the He families were 60 or 70 Ii apart, and were, furthermore,
separated by a large stream; and it was now the fifth month,
when heavy rainfalls had begun. When Huang's brother first
crossed the stream, the high waters had not yet arrived. Ji, after
taking his noon meal, set out with him; but by now the waters
had flowed down from the mountains and the stream was
unfordable, and Ji couldn't swim. He paced back and forth
SDTRA TEXTS
49
. impatiently, then sat on the bank for a Icing while, wanting to
continue the journey but not daring to attempt to cross. Now Ji
was upright in his faith and longed to go on, so he conceived of
the following thought, which he declared aloud: "In saving
others from difficulty, I take no thought for my own safety. I
entrust myself to the Tathagata Mahasattva (rulai dashi
av
), that
he may look upon me and prove reliable." He then took off his
clothes and used them to fasten the sidra text and its enclosing
bookbag to the top of his head (bian tuoyi yi nangjing daizhi
toushang
aw
), whereupon [they both] ventured into the stream.
The water was neck high, but whenJi went across it only came
up to his knees.
But when they reached the other shore they were dismayed
to find that the siitra text and the bookbag had been lost. They
pro ceded on to Huang's home, where Ji apologized profusely
and tearfully blamed himself. Glancing upward, he saw the
siitra in the bookbag on the high seat (gaozuoax). Joyfully taking
it down and examining it, he found that the bookbag was damp
as if it had been dropped in water. But when he opened the
bookbag and looked at the siitra, he found it was dryas usual.
Upon hearing this, everyone in the village undertook to observe
the Dharma .... 71
In this latter story we not only see another example of the plac-
ing of a siitra text atop the head, a matter discussed earlier. We
also encounter a third instance in which a siitra text is de-
scribed as being placed -or else miraculously appearing-on a
"high seat" (gaozuo). I summarized above the story of a girl
who temporarily returns from death with instructions for her
family to set up a gaozuo and place a siitra on it; after the family
does so, the girl ascends this seat, reads and expounds the siitra,
and delivers a final warning to her mother. I also mentioned
the story of an imprisoned official who, having meditated on
Guanshiyin, dreams of ascending a gaozuo and receiving a siitra
there, after which he is pardoned and freed. In the story just
translated, the protagonist, having lost his siitra and its enclos-
ing bag in the stream, discovers that it has been mysteriously
transported to the gaozuo in his client's home. In each of these
stories, both the gaozuo and the text expounded from it or re-
ceived upon it become symbols of the Dharma and its author-
ity. When a siitra appears or is placed on the high seat, it is,
symbolically speaking, restored to its proper place of eminence
50 lIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
and also to the place from which it can effectively influence
beings, no longer merely a latent but now an activated force for
transformation.
According to standard reference works, a gaozuo was an ele-
vated seat or platform on which a teacher sat and expounded
the Dharma by reading and commenting on a scriptural text.72
Although this term does not appear in Johannes Prip-M011er's
classic account of Chinese monasteries, Prip-M011er does
describe elevated lecture platforms with decorated seats for lec-
turers and tables for the sutra texts. He also describes the cere-
monies preceding a lecture: the sutra to be expounded, covered
with embroidered silk, is carried into the lecture hall on a tray
with incense, then placed on the elevated table and uncovered
after the lecturer has thrice raised the incense to his forehead
as a sign of veneration. 73 Such practices may have been part of
the context in which our stories were written. But there were
also canonical precedents for ritually venerating the Dharma
by venerating the gaozuo from which it was expounded, and
for symbolically linking together the preacher, his seat, and
his sutra text as mutually embodying and conveying the Bud-
dhadharma.
Toward the end second-century translation
of the A.rtasiihasrikii prajiiiipiiramitii sutra, for example, much at-
tention is paid to the gaozuo on which the bodhisattva Dharmod-
gata (Tanwujie) expounds the Dharma in his city of Gandha-
vati.
74
The people of the city built it for him, setting it on a base
of gold, adorning it with precious fabrics, covering it with a
bejeweled canopy, and surrounding it with strewn flowers.
"The bodhisattva Dharmodgata, from atop this high seat, often
expounds prajiiiipiiramitii for the various bodhisattvs there, among
whom there are those who hear it, those who write it, those
who study it, those who recite it, and those who guard it."75
Later we read of a bejeweled, pointed tower, apparently built
near or over Dharmodgata's high seat,
constructed ... for the perfection of wisdom. Inside it is a
box made of purple stone
76
and yellow gold, and inside that box
is written the perfection of wisdom. The box [also] contains
many varieties of precious fragrances. The bodhisattva Dhar-
modgata daily makes offerings: taking the various flowers,
incense, lamps, hangings, banners, streamers, jewels from the
SUTRA TEXTS 51
. canopy, and music-taking all of these, he offers them to the
perfection of wisdom. And the other bodhisattvas there make of-
ferings to the perfection of wisdom in the same manner as this. 77
This passage is significant for our purposes because it suggests,
through architectural symbolism, a conflation of the high seat,
site of the exposition of Dharma and thus often a depositoryfor
sutras, and the stupa (suggested by "pointed tower"), a deposi-
tory for relics. Here then is another, and quite graphic, canoni-
cal precedeIit for the equivalence of Buddha and sutra and for
the association of both with the high seat.
This passage from the A1tasiihasrikii Prajiiiipiiramitii sutra in
turn is reminiscent of the eleventh chapter ofthe Lotus, in which
a jeweled stupa, adorned with precious objects and containing
"a thousand myriads of grotto-like rooms," wells up from the
earth in response to the Buddha's discourse.
78
This apparition
triggers the convergence of all the buddhas from the ten direc-
tions-who are but emanations (ftnshenay) of the one eternal
Buddha-on this Saha world sphere, now become a pure land.
Sakyamuni then opens the door of the stupa to reveal the Bud-
dha Prabhutaratna seated within on a "lion throne" (shizi zuo
az
);
and the two sit on this seat side by side, recalling the way in
which Sadaprarudita, in the A1tasiihasrikii, joins Dharmodgata
on his high seat and there gains various powers of concentra-
tion and discernment. This conflation of the high seat and the
hollow stupa sheds light on, and is reflected in, another Chinese
tale in which, during a sutra recital, an apparition of "a strange-
looking monk" manifests itself "inside the seat" (yu zuoneiba). 79
This, then, is the sort of scriptural background against
which the symbolism of the Chinese tales becomes explicable.
3. The Sutra as a Metonymic .$ymbol rf Buddhist Norms
Finally, I translate one example of a tale that uses a copy of
a sutra as a kind ofmetonym for Buddhist norms and teachings.
A governor ofWuxing district under the Song, .Wang Xizhi of
Langye, was a learned man who loved the [DaoistJ teachings
of Lao and Zhuang, did not believe in the Buddha, and devoted
himself entirely to animal sacrifices (wei shi zaisha wei zhi
bb
). At
the time when he had begun serving as Inspector of the West-
ern Division of the Gentlemen of the Palace
80
under the Jin
dynasty, he was fond of entertaining guests. Inside his quarters
he raised a pair of geese, toward which he felt very affectionate
and which he considered as having gradually developed per-
sonalities.
81
One night he dreamt that one of the geese was car-
rying a scroll of text in its bill, consisting of around ten sheets.
When [in the dream] he took the text and examined it, he
found that it concerned matters of [karmic] sin and merit. The
next morning he did in fact find the text [in his chambers], and
it turned out to be a Buddhist siitra. So from that moment he
ceased killing, and outstripped others in his faith. Later he
became wealthy and prominent (XYj 24 [LX 443J; cf. BZL
sec. 8, 539a).
Here the dream-text, an initial symbol of "matters of sin and
merit" which it would behoove the protagonist to take seriously,
becomes in waking reality-and is recognized as-a siltra. Its
narrative translation from the dream-world to the waking state
mirrors the protagonist's conversion from urbane courtier to
devout layman.
III. Conclusion
This study suggests the need for broader, comparative inquiry
into the status, role, and range of uses of religious texts in
medieval China. Careful comparisons with exactly contem-
porary Daoist uses and understandings of the nature of scrip-
tural texts, for instance, would be illuminating. In the case
of the Shangqing scriptures, first revealed by the gods to Yang
Xi in the late fourth century and compiled by Tao Hongjing
(456-536) in the late fifth and early sixth centuries, it has been
shown that, for many devotees, the sheer reception, possession,
and transmission of the texts was at least as significant as the
reading of them or the practice of the teachings they contained.
According to Michel Strickmann, possession of these textual
commodities-when gained by proper rites of transmission, not
by other methods such as theft (through illicit copying) and
forgery-"guaranteed as a rule the acquisition of an honourable
posthumous position in the complex hierarchy of the Unseen
World, even should the possessor never practise the operations
SUTRA TEXTS 53
set forth in the text." Furthermore, this guarantee was issued
by the Daoist divinities in the scriptures themselves; in no way
can it be dismissed, as it would naturally be by past generations
of scholars, as a mere practical (or popular) corruption of
orthodoxy. And here, too, the primary unit of ownership of
texts was often not an individual but a family or clan as a cor-
porate body; "texts received through authorised channels of
transmission," to quote Strickmann again, "became part of a
family's inalienable stock of goods," on the same plane as its
corporate stock of merit compiled in the unseen world.
82
As we
have seen, the narrative evidence gives ample reason to believe
that Chinese Buddhists saw their sutras in closely similar ways.
Furthermore, these Daoist modes of reception of scriptures
rested in part upon certain conceptions of what the Daoist
scriptures essentially were, and here again, comparisons with
Buddhist conceptions of the nature of sutra texts would be fruit-
fu1.
83
Further inquiry into how the uses and understandings of
sutra texts changed over time in China is also needed. In the
Six Dynasties tales surveyed here, for instance, there is little
(although there is some) mention of the efficacy of offerings to
sutra texts as such; nor is there much emphasis on the efficacy
of even a chance single hearing of a sutra recital. Both of these
motifs would become markedly prominent in Tang Buddhist
tales, a fact which prompts one to wonder whether this subtle
but important literary shift reflects a change in modes of piety
and Chinese notions concerning sutras, or is simply an epiphe-
nomenon of the fact that certain tales happen to have been pre-
served and others lost from each century. The tentative answer-
ing of such questions could be aided, in turn, by the study of
other types of Chinese Buddhist materials dealing with ritual
procedures for, and merits of, various uses of sutras and other
texts.
84
Finally, there remains the question of the relative extent
to which these uses and understandings of sutras are distinc-
tively Chinese or, on the contrary, are based squarely on
Indian precedents contained in canonical texts or in the archae-
ological record. These various issues are beyond the scope of
this paper but are the directions in which it points.
It is fitting to conclude with ruminations on a statement
made by Reginald A. Ray, though perhaps of a sort not
intended by him:
54 JIABS VOL 14 NO.1
Throughout its history, Buddhist tradition has maintained
a paradoxical attitude toward its sacred texts. On the one hand,
those texts have themselves been the objects of the utmost ven-
eration; and life, limb, and more have b'een sacrificed to ensure
their unaltered preservation .... At the same time, Buddhism
avers that the sacred text has, in and of itself, no particular
value. Its worth depends entirely on what is done with it.85
Ray's observatioh is confirmed by the narratives studied here.
For in them, paradoxically, it is when siitras are represented as
powerful commodities that can take the place of other entities
as the efficacious objects of utmost veneration, and thus are
placed at the very center of religious practice, that they seem
most empty of intrinsic value. In the world ofthese narratives,
very little turns on the appropriation of the doctrinal contents
ofsiitras, or, to put it differently, on the "own-being" of the
texts. By contrast, much depends on how they are used, on the
functional place they fill in a system of roles and relationships,
on how they are perceived, received, and socially constituted.
Little importance is attached to the texts as vessels of doctrinal
meaning; much importance is attached to the veneration in
which the texts are held, and, in turn, to the role this venera-
tion itself plays in the larger fabric of life. And this veneration,
even when it takes the form of recitation, is not essentially a
literary act but an act of faith and of a certain quality of mind.
Much, in sum, turns on Ray's "what is done with it," precious
little on the "it" taken in itself.
Yet-here the paradox turns back deliciously upon itself-
it is the contents of the siitra texts themselves that set up this
functional way of appropriating them. For, while they do not
enjoin readers to ignore their teachings and simply commodify
them as objects of veneration, many of the siitras mentioned in
the tales teach the efficacy of acts of veneration to themselves,
acts such as possession, copying, reciting, wearing, hearing,
and making offerings.
86
What is therefore most striking about
these narratives is that they document the seriousness with
which their authors and compilers, in the earliest centuries of
the Buddhist presence in China, took these translated siitras
J
self-presentations.
SUTRA TEXTS 55
A Primary Texts and Editions Used, with Dates;S? Abbreviations;
of Citation Methods
GSY Guangshiyin yingyan ji 1t tit 'ff.!l! Be
A Record qf Avalokitefvara's Responsive Maniftstations
Originally written before 399 by Xie Fu but lost in that year; partially
reconstructed by Fu Liang (374-426).7 tales + preface: RKKO ed.
XYj Xuanyanji 13
Records in Proclamation qf Maniftstations
Attributed to Liu Yiqing (403-444). 35 tales. LX ed.
XuGSY Xu Guangshiyinyingyanji
Continued Records qf Avalokitefvara's Responsive Maniftstations
Written by Zhang Yan in mid-fifth century. 10 tales + preface.
RKKOed.
MXj Mingxiangji
Signs from the Obscure Realm
Compiled by Wang Yan between 485 and 501. 131 tales + preface.
LXed.
Xi GSY Xi Guanshiyin yingyan ji Ill. tit 'ff!l! Be
More Records qf Avalokitefvara's Responsive Maniftstations
Compiled by Lu Gao in 501. 69 tales + preface. RKKO ed.
GSZ Gaoseng zhuan r'i'i ffjf {,J
Lives qf Eminent Monks
Written by Huijiao ca. 531. T2059, v.50.
Citations qf Marvels
Written by Hou Bo between 581 and 604. 10 tales. LX ed.
XYij Xiangyi ji Jk. Be
Signs qfthe Marvelous
ss
Author and date unknown; most likely pre-Tang. 2 tales. LX ed.
BZL Bianzheng lun fo$ IE
Essays on the Discernment of Right
Polemical treatise compiled ca. 627 by Falin'. T2110, v.52.
FYZL Fayuan zhulin
A Grove of Pearls from the Garden of the Dharma
Buddhist encyclopedia compiled ca. 668 by Daoshi. T2122, v.53.
LX Lu Xun, ed., Gu xiaoshuo gouchen, in Lu Xun sanshinianji (n.p.: Lu Xun
quanji chubanshe, 1941) t1 fJ\
Ancient Tales Rescuedfrom the Depths of Oblivion
Citations give the serial order of the tale in the particular collection
in which it appears, followed by the page numbers in this edition.
RKKO Makita Tairyo, ed., RikuchO koitsu Kanzeon okenki no kenkyu (Kyoto:
Hyorakuji shoten, 1970) t1 lll.-tEI: 0) lilt i:
A Study of Tales of Avalokitefvara 's Responsive j'vIaniflstations Surviving from
the Six Dynasties
Citations of tales first give the serial number of the tale in its partic-
ular collection, then the page number(s).
T TaishO shinshu daizokyo (Tokyo, 1924-34) * IE
Number following Tis the number assigned to the title in this edition
of the Chinese Buddhist canon; volume number is given next, fol-
lowed by page numbers; letters indicate register.
TPGj Taipingguangji (Shanghai, 1930)
Number before decimal indicates thejuan number; number after deci-
mal indicates the cited story's place in the series of stories contained
in that juan (e.g., 110.2 indicates the second item injuan 110).
DZ Zhengtong daozang (Shanghai, 1925-27) IE Jli
Number given is that of the fascicle (not the case) in which the text is
located.
HY Daozang. zimu yinde, Combined Indices to the Authors and Titles of Books in
Two Collections of Taoist Literature, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sino-
logical Index Series 25 (Peking, 1935). Number given is that assigned
by this index to the cited text.
SUTRATEXTS 57
DKW]T Morohashi Tetsuji, comp., Dai Kan-wajiten (Tokyo: Taishukan shoten,
1957-60)
Cited by volume number (followed by colon), page, and register.
BKDjT Mochizuki Shink6, Bukkyo daijiten (Tokyo, 1931-63)
Cited by page number (volumes are continuously paginated) .
. BKGD}T Nakamura Hajime, Bukkyago daijiten (Tokyo: Shosekikan, 1975)
Cited in same manner as DKWjT
NOTES
1. Erik Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest qfChina, 2 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
.1972), 1 :73. I would like to thank my colleague, Professor Gregory Schopen, for
his valuable critical comments on an earlier draft of this article.
2. The best overview of the miracle tale genre in its early period, includ-
ing translations of sample tales, is Donald E. Gjertson, "The Early Chinese
Buddhist Miracle Tale: A Preliminary Survey," JAOS 101.3 (1981) :287 -301. For
the genre's continuation into the early Tang period (from 618 on), see also
Donald E. Gjertson, Miraculous Retribution: A Study and Translation qf T'ang Lin's
"Ming-pao chi", Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series 8 (Berkeley: Centers for South
and Souteast Asian Studies, University of California, 1989), the introduction to
which contains additional translations of some pre-Tang tales. For examples of
Tang tales-in this case, a collection devoted exclusively to miracles associated
with the Diamond Sutra-see also Bruno Belpaire, T'ang kien wen tse: Florilege de
litterature des T'ang (Paris, 1959),223-45. Three tales from the largest extant pre-
Tang collection, the MXj, are translated in Karl S. Y. Kao, Classical Chinese Tales
qf the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1985), 164-75; for a study of the MXj, including a comprehensive listing of the
loci at which its items are now extant and the internal dates of the items, see
Shinohara Koichi, "Meishoki ni tsuite," TOyogaku shukan 22 (1969):41-65. On the
rise and early development of the zhiguai genre, see the introduction to Kao, ed.,
Classical Chinese Tales, as well as my Chinese Accounts qf the Strange: A Study in Religi-
ous Cosmography (forthcoming from State University of New York Press). For
additional Western-language studies of Chinese Buddhist tales and Indian
influence on them, see the works listed in Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Reli-
gion in Western Languages (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985), section on
"Popular Buddhism-Buddhist Stories," 255-57. Numerous studies have been
published of the continuation of the miracle tale genre in Japan, where it
flourished; the most relevant of these include but are not limited to the fQllow-
ing: Yoshiko K. Dykstra, "Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Siitra: The Dainihon-
58
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. "I
koku Hokkegenki," Monumenta Nipponica 32 (1977):189-210; idem, Miraculous Tales
qf the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan: The cDainihonkoku Hokekyokenki' if Priest
Chingen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983); idem, "Tales of the Com-
passionate Kannon: The Hasedera Kannon Genki,". Monumenta Nipponica 31
(1976): 113-43; Kyoko Motomochi Nakamura, Miraculous Stories from the Japanese
Buddhist Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); and Marian
Ury, Tales if Times Now Past: Sixty-two Stories from a Medieval Japanese Collection
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). For examples of texts that
stand on the fringe of the miracle tale genre in Japan, but are clearly related to
it, see Robert E. Morrell, Sand and Pebbles (Shasekishil) (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1985), and Royall Tyler, The Miracles if the Kasuga Deity (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1990). The relationships between these
Japanese texts and their Chinese models have yet, as far as I am aware, to be
fully explored.
3. A partial translation-of the large and important section devoted to
translators-is available: Robert Shih, Biographies des moines eminents (,Kao seng
tchouan') de Houei-kiao (Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1968).
4. The statement that the miracle tales were written by laypersons
needs two qualifications: (1) As in the case of hagiographies and, indeed, any
sort of text from this period, we have to deal with attributions of authorship,
attributions which in the case of these texts are likely to be accurate. (2) In
some cases these lay authors surely wrote the tales appearing in texts under
their names, based upon personal experience or hearsay; this becomes clearest
from their extant prefaces and biographies, for a discussion of which see my
Chinese Accounts, chaps. 3 and 5. In other cases, however, they copied versions of
tales from other sources both lay and monastic in origin and both textual and
inscriptional in nature. As for the encyclopaedias, the two most useful for study-
ing the tales are the seventh century FYZL and the tenth century TPGj (For a
key to all abbreviations and a list of editions used, see the Appendix.) On the
FYZL, see S. F. Teiser, "T'ang Buddhist Encyclopedias: An Introduction to Fa-
yilan chu-lin and Chu-chingyao-chi," T'ang Studies 30(1985):109-28. On the pur-
pose and circumstances of the compilation of the TPGJ, see Ssu-yii Teng and
Knight Biggerstaff, An Annotated Bibliography if Selected Chinese Rqerence Works, 3d
ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 125, and Etienne Balazs and
Yves Hervouet, eds., A Sung Bibliography (Bibliographie des Sung) (Hong Kong:
Chinese University Press, 1978), 341; for an analysis of its taxonomic scheme,
see Edward H. Schafer, "The Table of Contents of the T'ai p'ing kuang chi,"
Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 2.2 Uuly 1980) :258-63.
5. On HUlJlao's use of sources and the close interrelations between his
hagiographies and contemporary miracle tale collections, see Arthur F. Wright,
"Biography and Hagiography: Hui-chiao's Lives if Eminent Monks," in Silver
Jubilee Volume if the Zinbitn-Kagaku-Kenkyusyo, Kyoto University (Kyoto: Kyoto Uni-
versity, 1954),383-432. An informative, recent study that has done even more
to clarifY the complex interrelationships is Koichi Shinohara, "Two Sources of
Chinese Buddhist Biographies: Stupa Inscriptions and Miracle Stories," in
Monks and Magicians: Religious Biographies in Asia, ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi
Shinohara (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1988), 119-228, which includes
SUTRATEXTS
59
an exhaustive list of textual parallels between the GSZ and the miracle tale col-
lections. Shinohara finds. parallel passages concerning 36 distinct individuals.
6. Other topics in these narratives on which I am preparing articles
include notions of afterlife and mortuary and post-mortuary Buddhist prac-
tices, the use of images, and understandings of visualization and dreams.
7. One important "popular" mode of reception, excluded here because
it goes largely unmentioned in the tale literature on which this study is based, is
that oflectures or sermons to laity. Texts of these lectures (jiangjing wenbc)-some
of which may have been delivered to lay audiences-were found at Dunhuang;
a collection of them has been published in Wang Zhongmin, ed., Dunhuang bian-
wenji (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1984),2:411-700. .
8. See Miriam Levering, "Introduction: Rethinking Scripture," and
"Scripture and Its Reception: A Buddhist Case," in Levering, ed., Rethinking
Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1989), 1-17 and 58-101; and Jan Yun-hua, "The Power of Recita-
tion: An Unstudied Aspect of Chinese Buddhism," Studi Storico Religiosi 1.2
(1977) :289-99. An earlier, though less direct, inspiration for the line of research
reported in this article came from Gregory Schopen, "The Phrase 'sa Prthivl-
pradefaf caityabhilto bhavd in the Vajracchedikii: Notes on the Cult of the Book in
Mahayana," Indo-Iranian Journal 17 (1975):147-81.
9. In one mIracle-tale collection alone-the XiGSY by Lu Gao, com-
pleted in 50l-there are at least nine mentions of numbers of repetitions, includ-
ing one story in which a layman vows to recite the GuanshiJinjing ten thousand
times and indeed completes at least 7,000 recitations before his prayer is
granted.
10. The monk Shi Senghong is said to have recited the GuanshiJin jing
for a month while in prison, after which time-also having previously fashioned
a bronze image of the Buddha or perhaps of the bodhisattva Guanshiyin-he
was miraculously spared execution (XiGSY 22 [RKKO 35J; cf. MXJ 129 [LX
533-34J).
11. For example: the hagiography ofShi Fagong, in GSZ, songjing section,
item 11 (407c), states that he "recited sutras up to more than 300,000 words/
syllables." Compare the similar statement in the hagiography of Shi Daosong,
GSZ, songjing section item 16 (408b).
12. For example, Shi Zhaobian's GSZ hagiography (songjing section item
17, 408b) says that he recited the Lotus Sutra once a day for over 30 years as his
special vocation. Cf. the hagiography of Shi Senghou, who is credited with
often having completed an entire recitation ofthe Lotus, Vimalaklrti, or Jinguang-
ming (SuvarTj.aprabhiisa, T663) sutras in two days and with having continued this
practice for 60 years (GSZ, songjing section, item 19, 408c).
13. I follow Wright, "Biography and Hagiography," 405, in translating
the names of the categories of monks in the Gaoseng zhuan. On "Sanskrit chants"
in China during this period, see Zenryu Tsukamoto, A History if Early Chinese
Buddhism, tr. Leon Hurvitz (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1985), 1:326-30.
14. The literal meaning of his Chinese name, Guanshiyin, is He Who
Observes the Sounds of the World; Hurvitz translates it literally. I have here
written "Avalokitesvara" since that is the name of the corresponding Indian
figure; but in doing so I do not intend to enter into the dispute over the etymol-
ogy of the Sanskrit or, for that matter, the Chinese name. In what foliows I will
use the untranslated Chinese name unless quoting Hurvitz.
15. The first translation, that of D h a r m a r a k ~ a completed in 286, proba-
bly contained only the prose and not the verse sections or giithiis. The most
famous and perhaps the most widely circulated translation, that of Kumarajlva
(ca. 350-410) done in 406, is the one that will be referred to here; in it, the Guan-
shiyin pusa pumenpin stands as the twenty-fifth chapter.
16. The extreme importance of the Lotus in Chinese Buddhist thought
and practice needs no comment here; I merely note that as many as 1,048 copies
were found around the turn of the century in the sealed collection at Dunhuang,
by far the greatest number of copies of any sutra found there; and almost 200
separate copies of the Guanshiyin Jing recovered from Dunhuang exist today in
collections outside the People's Republic of China, with many more doubtless
preserved in Chinese collections. See Miyeko Murase, "Kuan-yin as Savior of
Men: Illustration of the Twenty-fifth Chapter of the Lotus Sutra in Chinese
Painting," Artibus Asiae 33 (1971):39-40.
17. See Kumarajlva's (ca. 350-410) translation, Miaqfo lianhua Jing (T
262, v.9, 56c-58b), and the English translation based on this version by Leon
Hurvitz, Scripture if the Lotus Blossom if the Fine Dharma (The Lotus Surra) (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1976),311-19.
18. Other stories picture the protagonist as simply calling the bodhisattva's
name out loud, as the Lotus text describes. Protagonists often perform other
devotions as well, such as vowing to build a stupa, feed monks, or join the
sangha if saved. The reader should note that the saving power of Guanshiyin
was promulgated not just in stories but also through visual media; see Miyeko
Murase, "Kuan-yin as Savior of Men" (cited above), as well as Cornelius P.
Chang, "Kuan-yin Paintings from Tun-huang," journal if Oriental Studies (Hong
Kong) 15 (1977):140-60 + 5 plates.
19. 56c, lines 20-22, following Hurvitz, Lotus, 312.
20. XiGSYitems 19-20,23,27, and 34-40 (RKKO 33-34, 36, 38, and 40-
43 respectively); MXj 84 (LX 506-7), on which XiGSY23 is based; MXj 119
(LX 528). In a closely related story type, the protagonist gains official pardon
from punishment for a crime he or she is alleged to have committed; see, e.g.,
XiGSY22 and 23 (RKKO 35-36).
21. XiGSY 19 (RKKO 33-34), following Makita's suggested readings
based on variants (notes 113-114).
22. Some stories of the latter category, in mentioning a "recitation of the
Lotus," may be using that title to refer not to the entire Lotus Sutra but only to the
GuanshiyinJing.
23. MXj69 (LX 498).
24. Cf. XiGSY 55 (RKKO 50), in which a son is born as a result of a vow
(not sutra recitation) on the eighth day of the fourth month (traditionally the
Buddha's birthday) and is named Guanshiyin; and the story of Wang Min's wife
in BZL sec. 8, 537c, also appearing in TPGj 110.4.
25. MXj96 (LX 513), the story ofGu Mao, a Song official; MXj87 (LX
508), the story of the monk Zhu Huiqing, also appearing in GSZ, songjing sec-
SUTRATEXTS
61
tion, item 7, 407b, and discussed by Shinohara, "Two Sources of Chinese Bud-
dhist Biographies," 139; and the story of the monk Shi (or, in some versions,
Zhu) Fachun transporting by water a column for a new temple, appearing in
(a) XiGSY 8 (RKKO 29), (b) GSZ, songjing section, item 3, 406c, (c) MXj 46
(LX 485). ~ n the various versions of the latter story, see Shinohara, "Two
Sources of Chinese Buddhist Biographies," 133-36.
26. XYij 2 (LX 432); MXj 125 (LX 532-33); GSZ, songjing section, item
13, 407c-:"408a.
27. XiGSY63 (RKKO 55-56).
28. XiGSY62 (RKKO 54-55).
29. See, e.g., GSY 3 (RKKO 15-16), which is translated in Donald E.
Gjertson, Ghosts, Gods, and Retribution: Nine BuddhistMiracle Tales from Six Dynas-
ties and Early T'ang China, Asian Studies Committee Occasional Papers Series
no. 2 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1978),5-6. Cf. XiGSY46 (RKKO
45-46), also appearing in MXj 47 (LX 485), in which a layman captured by
Qiang cannibals while gathering herbs in the mountains is the only one of his
party to escape being eaten. A tiger appears, chases offhis Qiang captors, and
frees him from the cage in which he has been held.
30. GSYI (RKKO 14), also MXJ12 (LX 461-62).
31. MXj73 (LX 500); cf. GSZ, 338b-339c. This figure is not to confused
with the character of the same name in T 224, discussed below, p. 50 (Tan-
wujie). Cf. XuGSY 3 (RKKO 20-21), in which the hermit-monk Huijian first
concentrates on Guanshiyin and then recites his siltra in order to subdue a
mountain spirit.
32. One story tells of how the monk Shi Sengrong, beset on Lu Mountain
by a group of ghosts (gui
bd
) who were angered by his insistence that "ghosts
and gods have no spiritual efficacy" (guishen wuling
be
), called out the name of
the bodhisattva Guanshiyin, and "before the sound of the last syllable faded
away" there appeared a tall figure clad as a general who killed one of the ghosts
and drove off the rest. The text then continues: "The siltra mentions that in some
cases [the bodhisattva] appears in the body of a general of the gods, to save [be-
ings] according to the appropriate means: is this not such a case?" (XuGSY6
[RKKO 22]; Makita [n.l7] notes that this story appears in six other places).
Here the author is clearly referring to the line in the twenty-fifth chapter of the
Lotus which occurs in a list of the manifold bodily forms which the bodhisattva
will display in order to convert beings of various. types and levels of conscious-
ness: "To those who can be conveyed to deliverance by the body of the general
of the gods he [Guanshiyin] preaches Dharma by displaying the body of the
general of the gods" (57b, lines 2-4; Hurvitz, trans., 314). Similarly, in the
rather famous story of how the monk Zhu Fayi (who was especially skilled in
reciting the Lotus) after singlemindedly calling on Guanshiyin for several days
was miraculously healed by a dream-figure who cut him open and removed,
washed, and replaced his intestines, the dream-figure is explicitly identified with
the "brahmaciirin framaTJ.a" mentioned in the siltra ( GSZ 350c-351 a; GSY7 [RKKO
18]; MXj32 [LX 474-75]; FYZL 95 [988b] and 17 [409b], although the latter
version fails to identifY the dream-figure with the one mentioned in the siltra;
TPGj lIO.3). See the discussions of the various versions of this story by Makita
(RKKO 82, nJO) and Shinohara ("Two Sources of Chinese Buddhist Biog-
raphies," 132-33). Gjertson translates one version (i"\lIiraculous Retribution, 18-19).
33. The first seven rubrics are from the Guanshiyinjing, the last four from'
the Qing Guanshiyin jing. According to Nanjio, the latter siltra, T 1043 (v.20,
34-38, Skt. $aqak.faravidyii-mantra?), was translated sometime in the late fourth
or early fifth century, then lost, then retranslated in 420; see Bunyiu Nanjio, A
Catalogue qf the Chinese Translation qf the Buddhist Tripitaka (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1883), p.83 (no. 326). Its contents are helpfully discussed in Kobayashi
Taichiro, "Shin To no Kannon," Bukkyo geijutsu 10 (1950): 14-15, and in Alexan-
der Coburn Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China (Ascona:
Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1959); 150ff. Like the Guanshiyinjing, it promises Bud-
dhist faithful that they have but to invoke the bodhisattva and he will instantly
rescue them from various perils. As its title implies, it contains several dhiira1Jls
the incantation of which renders Guanshiyin present. It puts its words in the
mouth not ofSakyamuni but of Amitayur-buddha, who is attended by the bodhi-
sattvas Guanshiyin and Mahasthamaprapta.
34. Two of the best examples are MXJ 13 (LX 462), based on FYZL 63
(764c), a story of how Huiyuan during a drought recited the siltra and secured a
rain at his monastic retreat on Lushan, erecting a "Naga Spring Vihiira
bf
" at the
spring from which the creature emerged and flew up to heaven; and MXJ 56
(LX 488-89), based on FYZL 63 (764b-c), in which the Indian monk Zhu
Tanyi recites the'same siltra and secures rain on behalf of General Liu Vi. The
latter story is particularly clear on the magical effects of the recital, keying
stages in the rainstorm's progress to points in the reading (e.g., "as he began to
recite, clouds began to form; when he reached midpoint, clouds began converg-
ing from all sides," etc.). In thus securing rain, monks were assuming a role
long occupied by shamans in China: see Edward H. Schafer, "Ritual Exposure
in Ancient China," Harvard Journal qf Asiatic Studies 14 (1951): 130-84. FYZL 63
is a rich mine of such stories. On Buddhist niiga lore, see esp. Lowell'vV. Bloss,
"The Buddha and the Naga: A Study in Buddhist Folk Religiosity," History qf
Religions .l3J (Aug. 1973) :36-53; Lowell K. Bloss, "Ancient Indian Folk Reli-
gion as Seen through the Symbolism of the Naga," PhD diss., University of
Chicago, 1971; and M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China andJapan (Amsterdam:
Johannes Miiller, 1913).
35. For example, MXJ 17 (LX 464) (based on FYZL 42 [616b-c)), in
which a deceased pious layman appears at the recital being conducted on his
behalf, having momentarily returned from the Western Land of Bliss, in order
to hear the siltras; and MXJ63 (LX 492-93) (based on FYZL 42 [616c-617a)),
in which, during the recital for a recently deceased foreign monk, a cloud sud-
denly appears from the southwest (i.e., the direction ofIndia) and a mysterious
object encircles the corpse and then disappears.
36. Examples are extremely numerous; one of the longest, most odd, and
most humorous is MXJ 80 (LX 503-4, based on a FYZL item which I cannot
locate), in which a virtuous dead man during his own funeral instructs his fam-
ily to recite the SilraT[lgamasamiidhi-siltra in order to expel a hungry ghost posing
as him. An example probably involving the Guanshiyinjing, though the title of
the siltra is never made explicit, is XuGSY3 (RKKO 20-21).
SUTRA TEXTS 63
37. On the theory of commodities I have benefited from Arjun Appadurai,
d The Social Lifo qfThings: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cam-
University Press, 1986); on specifically sacred commodities, see, irifra
alia the essay by Patrick Geary in that volume, as well as his Furta Sacra: Thrifts
qf RelicS in the (Princeton: Princ?ton Un.iversity Press, 1978).
On the histoncal reaha of Chmese book productlOn, which I do not address
here, see, irifra alia, Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1962), and now Frederick W. Mote and Hung-lam
Chu, Calligraphy and the East Asian Book (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), esp. (for
sutra texts) 5lff. On the mythology and symbolism surrounding writing tech-
niques in China and elsewhere, see my Chinese Accounts, chap. 2.
38. The first story is found in XYj 5 (LX 436-37), which is based on
TPGj 161.22 (13.4a). The second is Xu GSY3 (RKKO 20-21).
39. The text gives the sutra title simply as Dapinbg, which in clerical con-
texts would indicate a short name for the Larger Perftction qfWisdom Sutra (specifi-
cally in its 25,OOO-line version, the PaiicavirrLSatisiihasrikii-prajiiiipiiramitii-sutra).
On this identification, see John R. McRae, "Ch'an Commentaries on the Heart
Sutra: Preliminary Inferences on the Permutation of Chinese Buddhism," jour-
nal qfthe International Association qfBuddhist Studies 11.2 (1988):88 and 106 n.8, and
Tsukamoto, History qf Early Chinese Buddhism, 2:996 note k. In this story, the text
meant could be a version of any one of the titles now classified as T220-223.
40. This refers to the disastrous events leading up to and including the fall
of Loyang in 311 to "Hun" forces under Liu Zong. See Wolfram Eberhard, A
History qf China, 4th ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 123-25.
41. MXj 20 (LX 465-66); FYZL 18 (417b); TPGj 113.3. Liu Jingshu,
mentioned as having personally viewed this miniature sutra, is the reputed author
of an important zhiguai text, the Yryuan
bh
(Garden qf Marvels), now extant in a
reconstructed version of ten juan. I have not yet found any further information
on the nun Jingshou.
42. Fora stimulating study of "the cultural biography of things," see the
essay by Igor Kopytoff in the volume edited by Arjun Appadurai and cited
above (n. 37).
43. On this motif see Michihata Ry6shu, Chugoku bukkyi5 to shakai to no
ki5shi5 (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1980), esp. 94-111. On the giving of oneself as
an offering in China, see also Jan Yiln-hua, "Buddhist Self-Immolation in
Medieval China," History qf Religions 4 (1964-1965) :243-68, and Jacques Gernet,
"Les suicides par Ie feu chez les bouddhistes chinois du Ve au Xe siecle,"
Melanges de l'Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises 2 (1960) :527-88. For Indian paral-
lels, see J Filliozat, "La mort voluntaire par Ie feu et la tradition bouddhique
indienne," journal Asiatique 251 (1963):21-51.
44. An example of a story about copying is MXj 35 (LX 476-77), in
which a hermit copies the Shoulengyanjing (SuraT(!gama[samiidhiJ siltra, T642) by
hand. Afterwards, he was present at the White Horse Temple when a fire broke
out; all was destroyed save this siitra, which was miraculously preserved.
45. In the miracle tale corpus, examples of this motif include the famous
story of Emperor Ming of the Han (MXj 1 [LX 451J) and that of the monk
Shixing's westward travels to Khotan in search of texts (MXj3 [LX 452-53J),
.64
jIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
each discussed by Ziircher (in his Buddhist Conquest of China) at 1 :22 and 1:6lff.
respectively; MX] 11 (LX 461), concerning Kang (i.e. "the Sogdian") Falang's
journey to India; and lvIX] 73 (LX 500), concerning Tan (i.e., "the Indian's")
Wujie's journeys to "Buddhist countries" in search of scriptures, during the
course of which his devotion to Guanshiyin repeatedly saved him and his 52 dis-
ciples from attack by animals.
46. I have translated as "the enemy" the Chinese term lu
bi
, which in this
and other stories from these collections probably refers to any of several groups
of non-Chinese northerners who were in control oflarge regions of north China
during these centuries. Lu means "slaves" or "bondsmen," and may refer to
those in the lower echelons of the tribal organizations of these groups, on which
see Eberhard, A History of China, 109-47; here, however, it is more likely a term
of disdain, similar to the term fiibj ("bandits") as used in modern Chinese.
Whoever the lu were, they are ubiquitous in the pre-Tang Buddhist miracle
tales-and especially in the XiGSY-as relentless marauders of Chinese people;
they are often depicted as pursuing Chinese on horseback, capturing them, and
killing them or forcing them into servitude.
47. Translation based on a comparison of several extant versions: XiGSY
57 (RKKO 50-51); MX]92 (LX 511-12), which is based on FYZL 23 (459b).
The last two versions add a further story of Xing Huaiming which is omitted
here.
48. I will translate and discuss these in the article, now in preparation
and alluded to below, on the role of images in the early Chinese miracle tale and
hagiographic corpus.
49. On his coiffure in Indian artistic representations, see the classic study
by Marie-Therese de Mallmann, Introduction a l'etude d'Avalokitefvara (Paris:
Civilisations du Sud, 1948), 221ff. This iconographic feature was carried over
into China-though it is impossible to know how early-since on wall paintings
and silk banners recovered at Dunhuang and dating from the seventh to the
eleventh centuries, Guanyin is usually (though not always) represented with a
small figurine in his headdress: see the illustrations in Murase, "Kuan-yin as
Savior of Men," 39-74. Regarding meditation, Guanshiyin was visualized in
China from at least the early fourth century, during meditation practices under-
taken for rebirth in the Pure Land, as bearing a transformed Buddha on his
head-a practice based on the Guan Wuliangshoufo jing
bk
(T 365, Amitii)!ur-bud-
dhanusmrti-sutra [?], not to be confused with the sutra known in Chinese as
Wuliangshoujing
b1
[T 360] and for which there is an extant Skt. Sukhiivatfvyuha-
sutra), in which the locus classicus comes in the Buddha's instructions on how to
visualize: "On top of his head is a heavenly crown of gems like those that are
fastened (on Indra's head), in which crown there is a transformed Buddha
standing, twenty-five yoganas high" (quoted from J. Takakusu, tr., The
Amitii)!ur-dhyiina-sutra, in F. Max Miiller, ed., Sacred Books of the East xlix [1894;
rept. New York: Dover Publications, 1969], part ii, p. 182); see also de
Mallmann, 22ff.; Soper, Literary Evidence, 141ff.; and for the Chinese reception-
or, quite possibly, the independent Chinese origin-of this sutra see Fujita
Kotatsu, Genshijodo-shiso no kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970), 116ff., and
more recently his "The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A
SUTRA TEXTS 65
Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism," in Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed.
Robert E. Buswell, Jr. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), 149-73.
This head-carried Buddha-figure is the chief mark by which the visualizer dis-
tinguishes AvalokiteSvara / Guanshiyin from his counterpart Mahasthamap-
rapta; on this point see Kenneth K. Tanaka, The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Bud-
dhist Doctrine.: Ching-ying Hui-yuan's Commentary on the "Visualization Sutra" (Al-
bany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 170.
50. In the XiGSY and MX] versions the Chinese reads: toushang hengdai
Guanshiyinjing
bm
. The FYZL version simply gives chang
bn
("continuously") in
place of the synonymous heng but is otherwise identical.
51. Gregory Schopen, "The Manuscript of the Vajracchedikii Found at Gil-
git," in Luis O. Gomez_ Jonathan A. Silk, eds., Studies in of the
Great Vehicle: Three Nfahayana BuddhIst Texts (Ann Arbor: CollegIate Instltute for
the Study of Buddhist Literature and Center for South and Southeast Asian
Studies, The University of Michigan, 1989), 124. The passage occurs in a manu-
script found at Gi1git.
52. All three passages occur in the third chapter ("Parables"): (1) Hur-
vitz, tr., 76; cf. 15b, line 9; (2) Hurvitz, tr., 82; cf. 16a, line 27; (3) Hurvitz, tr.,
82; cf. 16b, line 2. Schopen translates the Sanskrit passage that apparently cor-
responds to the Chinese (3) thus: some man who searches for it would thus
preserve a relic of the Tathagata, just so, he who searches for such a sutra, after
having obtained it, would carry it on his head," the latter phrase being murdhani
dhiirayeta ("The Gi1git Manuscript," 136).
53. The first passage occurs at Hurvitz, tr., 98; cf. 18c, lines 26-27. The
second occurs at Hurvitz, tr., 252; cf. 45b, lines 24-25. Schopen translates what
appears to be the Sanskrit passage corresponding to the second of these as fol-
lows: "Then, he carries the Tathagata on his shoulder, who, after making this
discourse on the Doctrine into a book, carries it on his shoulder" ("The Gilgit
Manuscript," 136). The Chinese here reads quite differently. A bit further on
the Chinese text does mention the merits of writing the sutra or "making it into a
book" (shu
bo
read as a verb), but it does not link the writing of the text with car-
rying it on the head or shoulders. I mention two further passages that are rele-
vant, both involving corporeal rewards given by the Buddha to those who prop-
erly revere the Lotus: (1) One who reveres the Lotus is carried on the Buddha's
. shoulders: "If there is a person who shall read and recite the Scripture of the
Dharma Blossom, be it known that that person shall be of himself adorned with
the adornments of a Buddha; borne about on the Buddha's shoulders [rulai jian
suo hedanbp] ... " (Hurvitz, tr., 175; cf. 31a, lines 4-5). (2) One who reveres the
Lotus has his head caressed by the Buddha: "These persons ... shall have had
their heads caressed by the hand of the Thus Come One" [wei rulai shou rno qi
toUbq] (Hurvitz, tr., 178; cf. 31b, lines 25-26).
54. This nunnery is not mentioned in the sixth century Loyang qielanzhi
(Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Loyang) , the most complete and reliable pre-
Tang work on Chinese monastic establishments, translated by Yi-t'ung Wang as
A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984). It is, however, mentioned once in Shi Baozhang's Biqiuni zhuan (Biog-
raphies of Nuns, T 2063, v.50, 934-48), written in 517, of which there is also an
English translation, competent but under-annotated: Li Jung-hsi, Biographies if
Buddhist Nuns: Pao-chang's "Pi-chiu-ni-chuan" (Osaka: Tohokai, n.d.); cf. 45-47. I
find no mention of the nun Shi Zhitong in this text, which is to be expected
since the text was written to illustrate the virtues of exemplary nuns.
55. The Chinese for the last term is zheng
br
, on which cf. DKW JT4.481 b.
On the use of painted scrolls in lecture and devotional contexts, see Victor H.
Mair, T'ang TranifiJ17nation Texts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988),
and Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and its Indian Genesis (Hon-
olulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988).
56. Emending LX's fonghuo
bs
("emitted fire") and following FYZEs
jangguang
bt
("gave ofT light") .
57. A Daoist exorcistic dance in which the priest, mimicking the world-
ordering travels and labors of the proto-historical sage Yu, steps through the
nine zones of the ritual arena as Yu traveled through the nine ancient provinces,
sealing ofT each zone against demonic influence. For descriptions of the modern
version, see Michael R. Saso, Taoism and the Rite qf Cosmic Renewal, 2nd ed.
(Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1989), 74 and 87-88, and John
Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York: Macmillan,
1987), 99-102.
58. This story could thus also be analyzed as one of several instances of
the motif of "the miraculous preservation of sutras," often symbolizing the invin-
cibility of Buddhadharma. Compare, for example, the stories of sutras' miracu-
lous preservation from fire reported in MX]35 (LX 476-77, drawing on FYZL
18 [4l8a]). This is in turn a sub-motif of the larger motif of "miraculous pres eva-
tion of objects symbolic of Buddhism or of the Buddha (monasteries, stu pas,
etc.)." And perhaps one could add as a sub-motif under the motif of "miraculous
preservation of sutras" the motif of "the non-decay of the tongues of corpses of
people who recited the Lotus Sutra while living": seejY] 4, 7,and 9 (LX 539-40,
541, and 542 , respectively).
59. I cite one more, rather humorous, example: the monk Shi Huiyan,
complaining of its inordinate length, decides to trim down the Daniepan jing bu
(Sutra qfthe Great Decease) and then makes copies of his abridgment for distribu-
tion, which he shows to his friends; but on two successive nights he is warned
by an apparition about "the dangers of altering and taking lightly the sutras,"
and on waking the third morning he destroys all his abridged copies and thus
avoids punishment (MX] 120 [LX 528-29], FYZL 18 [418c]).
60. This passage occurs in chapter 10 ("Preachers of Dharma") of
Kumarajlva's translation; see 30c 1.29-31a 1.3, and Hurvitz, trans., 175: "0
Medicine King! If there is an evil man who with unwholesome thought shall
appear before the Buddha in the midst of a kalpa and constantly malign him,
his guilt shall be comparatively light. If there is a person who with a single mali-
cious word shall denigrate those who read and recite the Scripture of the
Dharma Blossom, be they within the household or already out of the house-
hold, his guilt shall be very grave." .
61. As seen again in chapter 10 (and elsewhere), 3lb lines 26-29, Hur-
vitz, trans., 178: "0 Medicine King! Wherever it may be preached, or read, or
recited, or written, or whatever place a roll of this scripture may occupy, in all
SUTRATEXTS
67
those places one is to erect a stilpa of the seven jewels, building it high and wide
and with impressive decoration. There is no need even to lodge sarzra [sheli
bv
,
relics] in it. What is the reason? Within it there is already a whole body of the
Thus Come One."
62. There was no such reign period during the Jin. jian'an was the name
of the last effective Latter Han reign period, 196-220 C.E. The text as it stands
could refer to this period, or it could perhaps be an erroneous reference to the
Western Jin period jianxing (313-316) or the Eastern Jin periods jianwu (317),
jianyuan ( 3 4 3 - 3 4 ~ ) , ?r xian'an (371-72). In his note, Lu Xun suggests that
jianyuan is the perIod mtended.
63. This term, given in both LX and FYZL, may be an error for the
nearly homophonous term more commonly used to designate Buddhist banners
in the tale corpus, namely wei
bw
, which has already been seen above (e.g., in
the story of the layman Liu Ling).
64. I take this passage as intending to describe some style of Indian
dance.
65. MXj71 (LX 499); FYZL 15 (400b); TPGj114.2
66. Somewhat different is the story of the nun Huimu who learns to recite
the Mahii-prajiiiipiiramitii-sutra at an early age, has visions of a divine monk-like
figure in her teacher's siltra hall, dreams while performing nocturnal recitations
of traveling to the Western Pure Land, and finally has a visionary audience with
(presumably Amitabha) Buddha, who expounds sutras for her and is in the pro-
cess of bestowing four scrolls on her when she is unfortunately awakened by a
fellow nun. See MXj 89 (LX 509-10), FYZL 15 (400a); compare her somewhat
parallel biography in Biqiuni zhuan,juan 2 no.9, 938c, translated in Li Jung-hsi,
Biographies of Buddhist Nuns, 60-61.
67. XiGSY 43 (RKKO 44); MXj 52 (LX 487); FYZL 17 (41Ob); TPGj
110.15.
68. XiGSY23 (RKKO 36); MXj84 (LX 506-7); FYZL 23 (459b-c).
69. "Long Fasts" (changzhai
bx
) were periods of special dietary restric-
tions and other observances carried out by pious monks and laity in the first,
fifth, and ninth lunar months; see Tsukamoto, A History of Early Chinese Buddhism,
1 :354. Similarly, "Eightfold Fasts" (baguanzhaiby) were four-day periods of con-
vocations of lay and clerical Buddhists, during which eight special vows of
abstention were observed; see Tsukamoto, History, I :353 and 605-6 note ad. The
monk Zhidun (314-366) has left three poems on the baguanzhai; see Guang hong- .
mingjibZ (T2103, v.52) ,juan 30, 350a-b.
70. The Chinese siltra title is simply Xiaopin, which in clerical contexts
would be-and probably is here as well-a shortened designation for the Xiaopin
banruo jing
ca
or one version of the Aitasiihasrikii prajiiiipiiramitii-siltra (T 227); cf.
Tsukamoto, A History of Early Chinese Buddhism, 1:372.
71. MXj 23 (LX 468-69); FYZL 18 (417b-c); TPGj 112.2. All give
exactly the same phrase describing Ji's placing of the siltra on his head. There
follows another story, omitted here, telling of how Dong Ji recited this same
sutra to subdue the demons at a mountain near his home.
72. SeeBKDjT1043; BKGDjTl:397a; DKWjT12:600a-b.
68
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
73. Johannes Prip-M011er, Chinese Buddhist Monasteries (Copenhagen,
]937; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1982),268-71, describing
a lecture Prip-M0ller observed at Huiju Monastery on Baohuashan in Jiangsu.
Cf. his description of the ceremonial "drying of the,sutras" (shaijing
cb
) on a spe-
cial platform each year on sixth day of the sixth lunar month (60-65).
74. See T224, Daoxing banruojing
cc
, v.8, 47Ic-478b. Conze has translated
a Sanskrit manuscript: cf. The Perftction of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and Its
Verse Summary, 2d ed. (Bolinas, California: Four Seasons Foundation, 1975),
279-300. Conze translates gaozuo (and its abbreviated form, zuo) as "pulpit."
The Chinese text contains passages and details not found in Conze's transla-
tion.On see Ziircher, Buddhist Conquest, 1 :35-36. On the textual
background of this sutra, see Andrew Rawlinson, "The Position of the A:j(asiiha-
srikii Prajiiiipiiramitii in the Development of Early Mahayana," in Lewis Lancas-
ter, ed., Prajiiiipiiramitii and Related Systems: Studies in Honor of Edward Conze (Ber-
keley: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1977),3-34.
75. 472a, lines 1-7; cf. Conze's translation of the corresponding Sanskrit
passage, 280-81.
76. The Chinese is zimo
cd
, a compound that probably designates some
mineral; I have been unable to identify it.
77. 473a, lines 23ff. The Sanskrit of Conze's manuscript must read quite
differently here, for he translates: "And in the middle of that pointed tower a
couch made of the seven precious things was put up, and on it a box made of
four large gems. Into that the perfection of wisdom was placed, written with
melted vaidurya on golden tablets. And that pointed tower was adorned with
brightly colored garlands which hung down in strips" (288).
78. 32b-34b; Hurvitz, tr., 183-94.
79. MXJ108 (LX 519-20, based on FYZL 17 [408cJ).
80. "Gentlemen of the Palace" translates sheng langzhong
ce
; cf. the descrip-
tion of this office given in Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Impe-
rial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), 301. Wang would thus
have held this position early in his career, after completing the exams but before
receiving an administrative appointment outside the capital.
81. The Chinese is yiwei de xingcf, which I take to mean that Wang
regarded his geese as having human-like natures, in the same way that many
people come to regard their pet animals.
82. Michel Strickmann, "The Mao Shan Revelations: Taoism and the
Aristocracy," T'oung Pao 63 (1977): 1-64; the first quotation above is taken from
p. 28, the second from p. 30. For a translation of one of the Shangqing scrip-
tures that promises divine rank to its possessors, see Michel Strickmann, Le
Taoisme du Mao Chan: Chronique d'une revelation, Memoires de l'Institut des Hautes
Etudes Chinoises 17 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1981), 209-224, a
translation of Shangqing housheng daojun liejicg (DZ 198, HY 442).
83. The Daoist canon contains vast, largely untapped resources for such
a study. Consider, for example, simply the following passage, only one among
probably hundreds of similar scriptural statements about the origins and
metaphysical status of scriptures: "The Jade Slips of the Five Old Ones"-a
humanly accessible version of which is revealed in the very text in which this
SUTRATEXTS 69
assig
e
appears-"are texts that were completely self-created in empty space.
are the S.even-Jewele.d Dark Tower within the Palace ofPur?le
Tenuity in the Spmt CapItal of the Nmth Heaven; they are guarded by the FIve
Thearch Divine Officials. In accordance with the Mysterious Regulations, they
emerge once every 40,000 kalpas." This passage is taken from a Lingbao Daoist
text probablY written in the fifth century, the Yuanshi wulao chishu yupian zhenwen
tianshujing
ch
(DZ 26, HY22), lao The entire scripture is taken up with a descrip-
tion of the primordial cosmic origins and initial divine transmission of itself. I
would like to thank my colleage, Professor Stephen Bokenkamp, for his com-
ments on this text during a seminar at Indiana University in 1990, as well as
other members of the seminar for their insights. .
34. In this connection, see, for instance, the excellent work by Daniel
Boucher, "Pratltyasamutpadagatha: A Study and Contribution of Two T'ang
Translations," M.A. thesis, Indiana University, 1939, which uses Chinese trans-
lations of two sutras (here translated into English), Xuanzang's and Yijing's
Indian pilgrimage accounts, and archeological evidence to paint a composite
portrait of the .widespr.ead practice of of
Gautama's basIc teachmg on codependent ongmatIOn wIthm mmIature stu pas,
alongside-or as a functional replacement for-relics. While Boucher focuses
on this practice in India, there is much in his study that is pertinent to China.
See also Boucher's "The Pratztyasamutpiidagiithii and Its Role in the Medieval
Cult of the Relics" in this issue.
35. Reginald A. Ray, "Buddhism: Sacred Text Written and Realized," in
Frederick M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor, eds., The Holy Book in Comparative
Perspective (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1935), 143.
36. Perhaps it is the twin notions of skillful means (on the epistemologi-
cal level) and emptiness (on the metaphysical level) that are most important in
establishing the ideological ground for this double understanding of the religi-
ous role of sutras. More study is needed of the relationship between the sorts of
devotional understandings studied here and the basic Mahayana doctrines.
Levering ("Scripture and Its Reception," 90-91) gives a brief but only prelimi-
njiry discussion of this issue, based on some of the doctrines contained in the
Awakening if Faith in the Mahayiina.
37. In matters of dating and textual history I follow Gjertson, "The
Early Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tale."
33. The character xiang
ci
("detail") in the title is probably an error for
the xiangcj ("sign") that also occurs in the title of MX] I translate accordingly.
70
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
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SUTRATEXTS 71
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Source Analysis of the Ruijing lu
(,'Records of Miraculous Scriptures") 1
byKoichi Shinohara
'1. Introduction
Toward the end of his life, the Vinaya master Daoxuan (596-
.... 667) of the Ximingsi temple in the capital city of Chang'an
H;compiled a collection of miracle stories, entitledJi shenzhou san-
..bao gantong lu ("Collected Records of Three Treasure Miracles
:A.n China"). In the colophon written by Daoxuan himself and
,cJit:tached to the end of this collection, Daoxuan noted, that he
completed this work on the 20th day of the sixth
;;:\Illonth of the first year of Linde (664); after remarking that the
is not a complete one, Daoxuan referred to the "re-
completed Fayuan zhulin ("Jade Forest in Garden of
c.Dharma") in one hundred fascicles (juan) by the Vinaya Mas-
ter Daoshi of the same Ximingsi temple.
2
Daoxuan and the
'compiler of the Fayuan zhulin, Daoshi (?-668?), were known to
... have been close collaborators.3
The Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu is in fact a collection of
. smaller collections of miracle stories. The Ji shenzhou sanbao gan-
tong lu in the Taisho collection consists of three fascicles.
4
The
first facicle begins with a brief preface, which ends by noting
that the work consists of three fascicles, listing first stiipa mir-
;acles, then miracles connected with Buddha images, and
. stories of supernatural events associated with temples,
. scriptures, and monks. The main part of the first fascicle con-
(hins stories about stiipa miracles: a collection of stories headed
by a table of contents listing 20 items is followe9. by a section
,Jhat bears its own titled preface and forms an independent col-
.}ection of miracle stories about stiiPas.. This is the Zhendan shen-
zhou fa sheli gantong xu ("Records of Buddha Relic Miracles in
73
74
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
China"), and it gives a list of miracle stories, possibly in an
abbreviated form. The second fascicle contains acounts of
miracles associated with images of the Buddha. It is headed by
a table of contents listing 50 items. The third fascicle begins
with a collection of stories about "supernatural temples" (shen-
si), which is followed by a titled collection of accounts of mira-
cles about scriptures (Ruijing lu) and a titled collection of mira-
cle stories about "supernatural monks" (Shenseng gantong lu
["Record of miracles concerning supernatural monks"]). The
classification of miracle stories in this work obviously has a
connection with its overall title: the title indicates that the work
is a collection of miracle stories associated with the Three
Treasures, i.e., the Buddha, the Teaching, and the Monastic
Community. The Buddha is here represented by relics and
images (the first and second fascicles), the Teaching, by scrip-
tures (Ruijing lu), and the Monastic Community, by stories of
supernatural temples and monks (the first part of the third fas-
cicle and the Shenseng gantong lu) .
The above cursory review of the contents of the Ji shenzhou
sanbao gantong lu suggests that this work was in fact a collection
of several smaller collections of specific types of miracle stories.
There is sufficient evidence to indicate that on a number of
occasions Daoxuan prepared similar lists or collections of mir-
acle stories. Towards the end of his life he appears to have
attempted to compile a more comprehensive collection of mira-
cle stories by revising these earlier lists / collections and bring-
ing them to a larger synthesis. The work had to be carried out
in a hurry, and the outcome was the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu
in three fascicles. His collaborator at the Ximingsi temple,
Daoshi, was at that time compiling the massive Buddhist
encyclopedia, the Fayuan zhulin, and was also compiling class-
ified collections of miracle stories as a part of this project.
There appears to have been a good deal of communication
between Daoxuan and Daoshi as they compiled their separate
collections of miracle stories.
One important evidence for this hypothesis is the fact that
the smaller units of miracle stories in the Ji shenzhou sanbao gan-
tong lu are reproduced as sets of related miracle stories in sev-
eral miracle story sections that are found in different parts of
the Fayuan zhulin. The Fayuan zhulin is a massive encyclopedia
RVIJING LV 75
. (lei shu) in which numerous excerpts from the canonical litera-
ture are arranged around one hundred topics. One of the dis-
tinctive features of this encyclopedia is the sections on stories
'of miracks that occurred in China ((Ganying yuan") that are
attached to virtually all ofthe one hundred topical sections. At
least one important part of the project of compiling this encyc-
lopedia must been a major to collect mirac.le
stories and classIfy them accordmg to the categorIes used m
this work. Daxuan and Daoshi appear to have been working
closely together in compiling the miracle story collections in
their respective works.
In the two earlier articles mentioned above (footnote 2), I
investigated the relationship between the Ji shenzhou sanbao gan-
tong lu and the Fayuan zhulin in some detail. The majority ofthe
smaller units of miracle stories in the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong
lu are found as comparable units in a variety of sections in the
Fayuan zhulin. The sources for the stories in these units in the
Fayuan zhulin are not noted in the text, a rather conspicuous fact,
.. since the Fayuan zhulin in the case of other miracle story collec-
. dons generally notes the sources for each story meticulously .
. In the light of other often quite unambiguous evidence, I inter-
.' preted this relationship between the passages in these two
works as follows: Daoxuan's collection was prepared first, and
Daoshi used this collection by Daoxuan extensively in compil-
ing his encyclopedia; since Daoxuan's collection generally
does not specify the sources of the stories included in it, Daoshi .
could not give the sources for each of the stories taken from
. there as he had for the miracle story sections of the Fayuan zhu-
lin; the material collected by Daoxuan was not yet titled when
Daoshi made use of it, or for some other unknown reason,
Daoshi chose not to give the title of Daoxuan's work, i.e., Ji
shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, as the source for the blocks of mate-
rial he copied from there as the main substance of many of the
groups .of miracle stories embedded in the Fayuan zhulin.
The detailed comparison of the contents of the Ji shenzhou
sanbao gantong lu and the Fayuan zhulin showed also that while
the relationship described above holds for the bulk of the mate-
rial in the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, an entirely different
relationship appears to exist between the contents of the last
two sections of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu and the Fayuan.
zhulin parallels to them. Both in the case of the Ruijing lu and
the Shensenggantong lu ("Records of Miracles about Super-
natural Monks"), the Fqyuan zhulin parallels are not found in
comparable collections of related materials. Parallels are found
in a more scattered manner in various parts of the Fqyuan zhu-
lin, suggesting strongly that Daoxuan and Daoshi worked with
the same body of source materials.
5
Furthermore, the Fayuan
zhulin indicates the sources of these scattered stories meticu-
lously, in the same manner in which it generally indicates the
sources of the miracle stories included in it. It appears that
when Daoshi compiled the Fqyuan zhulin, the two smaller c o l l e c ~
tions now attached at the end of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu
may not have existed as distinctive collections, at least in the
same way in which other collections in the Ji shenzhou sanbao
gantong lu did. It thus may be instructive to examine more
closely the relationship between these two collections and the
parallel material in the Fqyuan zhulin. Since the sources for the
Fqyuan zhulin parallels are noted rather meticulously for each of
the stories included in the two collections, it is possible to inves-
tigate this relationship in some detail.
The evidence from these two smaller collections is particu-
larly important for us, since these references in the parallel
Fqyuan zhulin passages enable us to trace the sources that either
Daoshi alone, or with Daoxuan, or perhaps even as a member
ofa team oflearnedmonks engaged in ajoint effort at the Xim-
ingsi temple, used to compile the relevant sections of the Fqyuan
zhulin (or, possibly, earlier sets of small collections which
Daoshi then used in compiling the corresponding parts of the
Fqyuan zhulin). The various parts of the Fqyuan zhulin containing
material paralleling the Ruijing lu were probably compiled at
different stages in the long and complicated process of compil-
ing this massive encyclopedia. Thus, in some cases the Fqyuan
zhulin parallels, compiled relatively early, might have been the
sources that Daoxuan used in compiling the Ruijing lu. In other
cases, Daoshi may have used Daoxuan's earlier collection (i.e.,
Ruijing lu), in compiling the parallel Fqyuan zhulin passages,
which were compiled relatively late in the compilation of the
encyclopedia. There is also the distinct possibility that Dao-
xuan and Daoshi may have collaborated closely, or that the
parallel passages might have been prepared by a team of monks
without any specific reference to either one of the two collec-
RUIJING LU 77
tions-. Below, I will attempt to throw some light on these com-
plex and in many ways obscure questions concerning the
sources and procedures that Daoxuan and Daoshi followed in
compiling their larger bodies of miracle stories.
In this _paper, I will concentrate my attention on the first of
these two smaller collections, the collections of miracle stories
associated with scriptures (Ruijing lu). This collection, in virtu-
ally identical form but with a title, Lidai zhungjing
yinggan xingjing lu ("Records of Mira?les
Scriptures that Occurred Under Vanous DynastIes In the
Past"), is also found in the tenth fascicle ofDaoxuan's catalogue
of Chinese Buddhist literature under the title Datang neidian lu (T.
Vol. 55, 338a-342a). The preface of the Datang neidian lu bears
the date of the first year of the Linde period (664-665) (219a3).
Since, as we noted above, the colophon at the end of the Ji shen-
'zhou sanbao gantong lu states that Daoxuan completed this work
on the 20th day of the sixth month of the same year, Daoxuan
appears to have produced both the Datangneidian lu and the Ji
". shenzhou sanbao gantong lu around the same time. Two stories in
;';the Ruijing lu (nos. 15 and 38) are absent in the Lidaizhungjing
,yinggan xingjing lu. Since no specific reason appears to explain
this absence, these two stories may have been added later, and
.... this would suggest that the Lidai zhungjingyinggan xingjing lu was
.. compiled first, and that this same collection was renamed Rui-
jing lu, slightly expanded with the addition of two stories, and
" incorporated into the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu. I will examine
the sources that lie behind this collection in some detail
through identifying the Fayuan zhulin parallels and tracing the
of the stories included there through the notes attached
Cto these Fayuan zhulin parallels. I will begin my detailed discus-
," sionby focusing on the sources mentioned in the Fayuan zhulin
.. passages.
2. Preliminary Observations Concerning the Relationship
Between the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin.
'The Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu does not generally indicate the
'sources from which the individual stories were taken. The Rui-
;ljing lu generally follows this practice and tells the stories without
'i identifying their sources, though in several cases the sources
78
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
are indicated as part of the main text, generally at the end of a
story.
6
The sources of each of the stories are meticulously indi-
cated in the Fayuan zhulin. Thus, the fact that there is some iden-
tification of the sources might in some cases serve as a clue as
to which of the compared versions was the original, if we can
determine on other bases that the two versions are directly
related to each other. In the cases where we can be certain that
the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin versions of the same stories
are directly related, and the Ruijing lu does not indicate the
sources for a story, the Fayuan zhulin versions of the stories them-
selves could not have been copied from the Ruijing lu. IfDaoshi
copied these stories from the present version of the Ruijing lu
versions, he would not have been able to specify the source of
the story without consulting other sources. 7
In a small number of exceptional cases, the relationship
between the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin is stated explicitly
in the Fayuan zhulin. The Fayuan zhulin mentions a work called
the Sanbao gantong lu as the source for its stories on Daoji (cor-
responding to Ruijing lu story no. 17), Yisu (no. 20),8 Shi Heshi
(Ruijing lu story no. 21), Linghu Yuangui (Ruijing lu story no.
22), Tanyun (Ruijing lu story no. 23), and the Scripture written
in the sky in Yizhou (Ruijing lu story no. 36).9 These six stories
are found together in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. The
Sanbao gantong lu must refer to the same work as the present Ji
shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, which appears also to have been
known as Dongxia sanbao gantong ji.lO Daoxuan's miracle story
collection, bearing either one of these known titles, must have
existed in some form when Daoshi compiled this section of the
18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. Furthermore, since these
. stories are not found elsewhere among the materials collected
in other parts of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, the work that
Daoshi used in preparing this part of the Fayuan zhulin must
have been the Ruijing lu. The text of these six stories in the 18th
fascicle in the Fayuan zhulin is virtually identical to that of the
Ruijing lu.
ll
The relationship between the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhu-
lin appears to have been rather complex. Since the Fayuan zhulin
passages containing stories that correspond to Ruijing lu stories
are found scattered in a number of different fascicles of that
massive encyclopedia, we can safely assume that these passages
RUIJING LU 79
may have been composed at in the
compilation of the encyclopedIa. Thus, It IS qUIte possIble, as
we noted above, that some of these Fayuan zhulin passages con-
taining stories very similar to those in the Ruijing lu were com-
piled earlier, before the Ruijing lu was compiled by Daoxuan,
and that Daoxuan used them as sources for the Ruijing lu. In
contrast, other Fayuan zhulin passages may have been compiled
later, well after the Ruijing lu had been produced as a part of
the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, and Daoshi may have relied on
the Ruijing lu in preparing these passages. This complex
relationship again suggests that Daoxuan and Daoshi must
have collaborated very closely in preparing their respective
miracle story collections.
A closer examination of the Fayuan zhulin stories that are
said to have come from the Sanbao gantong lu enables us to trace
the general process through which at least some of the stories,
which could not have been copied directly from the Fayuan zhu-
lin, came to be collected by Daoxuan before they were eventu-
ally included in the Ruijing lu. Four of the six stories under
examination here, i.e., the Daoji story (no. 17), the Yisu story
(no. 20) 1 the Shi Heshi story (no. 21), and the Tanyun story
(no. 23) are found in the Xu gaoseng zhuan. Passages that parallel
nos. 20 and 21 word-for-word constitute the Xu gaoseng zhuan
biography ofYisu ("reciters of scripture" section, 690ab) and
these stories are both about the tongues of reciters of the Lotus
Sfltra, which did not decay after burial.
l2
Story no. 17, about the
monk Daoji, is an abbreviated version of the Xu gaoseng zhuan
biography that appears in the "reciters of scripture" section
(the seventh in the section, 687c-688a).13 Story no. 23, about
the monk Tanyun, loosely parallels a passage (593b4-ll) in the
longer Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of the same monk ("medita-
tion masters" section, 592c-593c).
14
The other two stories, i.e.,
the story about Linghu Yuangui (no. 22) and the story about a
student called Xun, who wrote the Diamond Sfltra in the sky (no.
36), are stories about laymen, and therefore it is not surprising
that these stories are not found in Daoxuan's Xu gaoseng zhuan,
which, as its title ("Further Biographies of Eminent Monks")
indicates, was a collection of monks' biographies.
15
All of the
evidence suggests that Daoxuan must have played a central
role in the development and transmission of these stories: in
some cases he visited the site where the miracle had occurred
'and probably collected the stories at that time. He appears to
have been interested in such stories and had assembled them
over a long period while preparing his biographical collection.
. The Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of Yisu consists of two
stories about the tongues of the Lotus Sutra reciters Yisu and Shi
Heshi, which were dug out ten or more years after the death of
these two monks; the tongues had not rotted despite the passage
of time. Thus, this biography in fact consists in a small themat-
ically unified collection of miracle stories of the kind that Dao-
xuan later developed on a much larger scale in the Ji shenzhou
sanbao gantong lu. This example, thus, might serve as a minor
piece of evidence suggesting that the project of compiling a
large thematic collection of miracle stories began as a part of
Daoxuan's earlier project to compile a massive collection of the
biographies of monks. The story of Yisu's tongue must have
originated after the 11th year ofZhenguan (637/38), when his
body was exhumed and people learned that his tongue had not
decomposed. Elsewhere, the date of the fifth year of Zhenguan
period (631/32) is attached to the story of Linghu Yuangui. The
story must have originated after this date. Finally, the Xu gaoseng
zhuan reports that Tanyun died in the 16th year of Zhenguan
(642/43). These dates are significant in pointing generally to
the period in which Daoxuan may have begun collecting mira-
cle stories of the kind later used in compiling the Ruijing lu in
the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu.
As we noted briefly above, since there appears to have been
a close relationship between Daoxuan's miracle collections and
his collaborator Daoshi's encyclopedia, the Fayuan zhulin, the
notes attached to the Fayuan zhulin parallels to the Ruijing lu,
indicating the sources from which the stories were copied or ab-
breviated into the Fayuan zhulin, enable us to discuss the sources
of the corresponding Ruijing lu stories with greater precision as
well. These Fayuan zhulin parallels are found scattered in differ-
ent parts of the encyclopedia, and the sources mentioned are
also diverse. Yet, a detailed analysis of these complex materials
points to a general pattern, which in turn throws some light on
the nature of the Ruijing lu as a distinctive collection of miracle
stories. I will attempt to reconstruct, albeit in a highly specula-
tive and hypothetical form, the general process though which
Daoxuan appears to have compiled this collection.
RUIJING LU
81
3. Gaoseng zhuan stories in the Ruijing lu
The main text of the Ruijing lu begins with a statement "The
Gaoseng zhuan says ... "( 426b21), and first tells the story of Tan
Wujie. As we will examine more closely below, there are some
problems this to the .Gaoseng zhuan as the source
of Tan WUJle story, but RU1:JWg lu stones numbered 2 to 6, 8, and
10 are ultimately based on the Gaoseng zhuan.
There is a good possibility that this statement, "the Gaoseng
zhuan says," at the beginning of the main body of the Ruijing lu
was meant to apply not only to the Tan Wujie story but also to
the series of stories that follows it. The stories about Dao'an
(no. 2), Sengsheng (no. 3), Daojiong (no. 4), Puming (no. 5),
. Huiguo (no. 6), and Hongming (no. 8)16 all begin with the con-
junction you ("also") and are all ultimately based on the Gao-
seng zhuan biographies. The story about Huijin (no. 7) does not
have this conjunction at the beginning, and the passage identi-
cal to it in the 94th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin identifies its
source as the Mingxiangji.17 The only other stories for which the
Fayuan zhulin parallel designates the source as the Gaoseng zhuan
are the story about Daolin (no. 10), which comes after these
stories, and the story of the layman Sun Jingde, which is
known from a variety of sources, including the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
Since the stories that begin with the conjunction you are in fact
stories taken form the Gaoseng zhuan, and the one story that
interrupts this sequence appears to have been taken from a dif-
ferent source, it is probably safe to assume that these conjunc-
tions (you) were meant to indicate that the initial note, giving
the Gaoseng zhuan as source, was meant to apply to these sub-
sequent stories as well. If that is the case, we may have exca-
vated an earlier form of this section of the Ruijing lu: Daoxuan
began his compilation of the Ruijing lu with stories based on the
Gaoseng zhuan and listed the stories nos. 1-6, and 8;18 later he
inserted the story about Huijin (no. 7) between the stories about
Huiguo and Hongming, and possibly on yet another occasion
added the story about Daolin from elsewhere to its present pos-
ition.
In the earliest draft reconstructed here, then, the Ruijing lu
designated explicitly the sources for its stories nos. 1-6 and 8
(which were given as the first seven stories). Daoxuan may
even have begun this collection with the intention of designat-
82
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
ing sources for all stories to be included in the Ruijing lu. When
. he inserted the story about Huijin, however, he did not feel it
necessary to designate its source, and the conjunction you, left
hanging without explicit referent in front of story no. 8, about
Hongming, dropped offin some editions (as in the Korean edi-
tion on which the Taisho text is based). As Daoxuan continued
the draft for the Ruijing lu further, not identifying in detail the
sources for the stories included, the meaning of the word you at
the beginning also became unclear.19
If the Ruijing lu existed earlier in the form reconstructed
here, and if Daoshi had access to this early version, then he
could easily have compiled the corresponding passages in the
Fayuan zhulin by copying from this early version and providing
the note on the sources of stories from it. In connection with
the main body of the Gaoseng zhuan stories which appear in
closely related forms in the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin, we
cannot assume as elsewhere that the absence of a note on the
sources in the Ruijing lu precludes the possibility that Daoshi's
Fayuan zhulin versions could have been based on the Ruijing lu.
If the Ruijing lu existed in an earlier form as we reconstructed
." it here, explicitly identifying the stories as being based on the
Gaoseng zhuan, it is possible that Daoshi may have used it as his
source in compiling the corresponding sections of the Fayuan
zhulin.
Ruijing lu stories numbered 3 to 8 and 10 appear to be inti-
mately related to the corresponding biographies in the 12th fas-
cicle of the Gaoseng zhuan, and though only seven biographies
were chosen from the 21 biographies in this "reciters" section of
the Gaoseng zhuan, the items are given in the same order in which
they appear in the Gaoseng zhuan. 20 This fact may be significant.
If Daoxuan copied these stories directly from the Gaoseng
zhuan, he must have had the "reciters of the scripture" section
of the Gaoseng zhuan in front of him when he compiled this sec-
tion of the Ruijing lu. It also appears to suggest that the Ruijing
lu may have developed as an expanded and modified version of
the "reciters of scripture" section of the Gaoseng zhuan. Since
scripture miracles (or "miraculous scriptures," ruijing) are
commonly, though not exclusively, associated with the practice
of reciting scriptures, it is quite understandable that Daoxuan's
collection began in this manner by focusing on materials that
are found in the "reciters" section of the Gaoseng zhuan.
RUIJING LU 83
Yet, this very fact also might suggest that Daoxuan was in-
itiating a new development in Chinese Buddhist historiography
by compiling a collection that overlaps significantly with a
well-established category of the normative biographical collec-
tion. Daoxuan, who in fact compiled his own major collection
of monks' biographies as the second effort in the series of norm-
ative collections succeeding the Gaoseng zhuan, might have
come to recognize that there was room and possibly the need
for a different type of collection. Daoxuan's shifting sensitivity
might also reflect at least some of the changes that Chinese
Buddhism was undergoing in the middle of the seventh century.
In his monumental work on the history of early Chan his-
toriography, Yanagida Seizan calls attention to a number of
scripture miracle collections that appeared after Daoxuan had
completed his Xu gaoseng zhuan, stating that the early Chan
histories developed in the same environment. Yanagida is in-
terested in these collections as signs of profound changes in
Chinese Buddhism: the well-established tradition of Chinese
Buddhist historiography, represented most recently by Dao-
xu an's Xu gaoseng zhuan was transformed in these collections
ipto something new and different. Our discussion of the RuUing
lu shows that this new tradition of "scripture miracle collec-
tions" had its root in Daoxuan himself. 21
A comparison of the RuUing lu with the corresponding Fa-
yuan zhulin passages results in a complex set of observations. In
cases where the RuUing lu and the Fayuan zhulin versions of the
stories are identical and both of these versions diverge from the
Gaoseng zhuan originals, we can conclude that the RuiJing lu and
the Fayuan zhulin versions must have been directly related to
each other. However, as noted earlier, since both the RuUing lu
and the Fayuan zhulin indicate the sources for the particular
stories we have been considering, it is not possible to determine
which of the two versions of the same story was dependent on
the other.
If either the RuUing lu, as is generally the case, or the Fayuan
zhulin gives an abbreviated version of the Gaoseng zhuan story
which is reproduced more faithfully in the other, we might as-
sume that the fuller version of the story in that form could not
have been directly based on the abbreviated one; it must have
been based on the Gaoseng zhuan original. If for some specific
reason we can assume that one of the fuller versions and the ab-
breviated version are directly related to each other, we will be
. able to conclude that the abbreviated version was dependent
on that fuller version. Otherwise, we will not be able to deter-
mine whether the abbreviated version was based on the Gao-
seng zhuan original or its faithful copy in one of the two other
sources being compared.
a) The Tan Wujie story (no. 1)
The first story in the Ruijing lu, the story of Tan vVujie (no.
1), is an ambiguous case: the passage in the Ruijing lu is identi-
cal with that in the Fayuan zhulin (juan 65, 786a), yet the former
gives the Gaoseng zhuan and the latter the Mingxiang chi as the
source of the story. The version common to the Ruijing lu and
the Fayuan zhulin is a good deal shorter than the Gaoseng zhuan
passage (V,338b-339a) and concentrates on one incident told
toward the end of the Gaoseng zhuan biography.22 Unless the
Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin passages are exact copies of the
otherwise unknown Mingxiang ji passage, they are probably
directly related with each other. In this case, since both the
Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin passages give different sources,
there must have been a mistake in one of these identifications,
and we cannot say which of the two passages is more likely to
have been the original.
b) The story about Dao)an (no. 2)
The Fayuan zhulin contains a passage that is identical to the
Ruijing lu story about Dao'an (juan 18, 418a). The Dao'an pas-
sage in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin appears at the begin-
. ning of the section containing six stories which are said to have
come form the "Liang gaoseng zhuan or other records" (418b28).
This short passage on Dao'an is clearly based on one section
of the Gaoseng zhuan biography (especially, 353b17- 23).23 This
story is a good example of cases in which we can be certain that
the Ruijing lu story and the parallel Fayuan zhulin story are
directly related with each other, but we cannot determine which
of these two closely related versions was the original.
c) The story about Sengsheng (no. 3)
In this case again, the Ruijing lu and the corresponding
Fayuan zhulin passages appear to be directly related. The stories
RUIJING LU 85
. about Sengsheng in the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin (juan 18
["Paying respect to .the Teaching"], 418aI:) are clearly based on
the Gaoseng zhuan bIOgraphy and follow Its text word for word
. the most part. But the last section of the Gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphy is omitted both from the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin
". passage, and the two versions end in exactly the same way.
d) The story about Daojiong (no. 4)
,', A variety of sources concerning Daojiong's biography have
preserved, and the relationships among theses sources
;:.are rather complex.
24
The Fayuan zhulin contains three passages
","'on this monk: one injuan 17 (408c-409a), another in juan 35
',(567bc), and still another injuan 65 (784c-785a). The 35th fas-
,:;cicle version is explicitly said to be based on the Liang gaoseng
:,zhuan, and it is indeed a faithful reproduction of the Gaoseng
,'zhuan biography of this monk (407ab). The 17th and 65th fasci-
'{de stories appear to have been taken from the Mingxiangji, and
c:l;.'tell different stories. The Ruijing lu story (no. 4) of Daojiong
around two stories which are told together in the Gao-
zhuan biography, but separately in greater detail in the two
ji fragments. The phraseology of the Ruijing lu story
::;!.'/issimilar to that of the Gaoseng zhuan biography. Thus, it would
safe to conclude that the Ruijing lu story about Daojiong is
>',iran abbreviated version of the Gaoseng zhuan biography, either
directly from the Gaoseng zhuan itself, or possibly from its
in the 35th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. Since the Ruijing
[:;lu story is an abbreviated version of the Gaoseng zhuan/ Fayuan
,,/;;zhulin (juan 35) passage, the parallel passage in the 35th fas-
:;c"cicle of the Fayuan zhulin could not have been copied from the
,'Ruijing lu.
fil e) The story about Puming (no. 5)
The Fayuan zhulin parallel to the Ruijing lu story about Pum-
!.;/ing is found in the 17th fascicle, immediately after the story
/",about Daojiong.
25
This Fayuan zhulin passage is identical to the
f.f Gaoseng zhuan biography, and the Ruijing lu story matches the
half of this story in the Gaoseng zhuan and the 17th fascicle
l.}ofthe Fayuan zhulin. Again, since the Ruijing lu is an abbreviated
of a well-known story, the Fayuan zhulin version could
,l' Ilot possibly have been based on the Ruijing lu version.

'
------------------
f) The story about Huiguo (no. 6)
The 94th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin begins with a story
about Huiguo (983bc) that is very s i m i l ~ r to the Ruijing lu story
about this monk. The Fayuan zhulin story is said to be based on
the Gaoseng zhuan biography, and it is in fact identical with the
biography of this monk (407bc) in the "reciters of scripture"
section of the collection. The Ruijing lu story appears to be a
slightly abbreviated version of this biography. Here again, the
Fayuan zhulin is unlikely to have been based on the abbreviated
version in the Ruijing lu.
g) The story about Huijin (no. 7)
A passage identical to the Ruijing lu story about Huijin is
found in the 95th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin ("sickness,"
989ab), and here the source of the passage is given as the Ming-
xiang ji. The Gaoseng zhuan biography of Huijin follows this
Mingxiang ji story very closely, though there are some differ-
ences in phraseology and the former gives the date of the
monk's death as the third year of the Yongming period of the
Qi dynasty (585-486) and specifies his age at the time of death
more precisely as eighty-five. In this case, the Ruijing luand the
Fayuan zhulin stories appear to be directly related to each other.
h) The story about Hongming (no. 8)
The Fayuan zhulin contains two passages on Hongrriing (no.
8): one passage is found in juan 28 ("Miracles" [shenyiJ, 492bc)
and the other in juan 94 ("impurities," 983c). The notes give
the Tang gaoseng zhuan (498a29 injuan 28) and the Liang gaoseng
zhuan (983cl5) as their sources, but the Tang gaoseng zhuan men-
tioned in the 28th fascicle is clearly a mistake for the Liang gao-
seng zhuan, or simply Gaoseng zhuan. The 28th fascicle story is
clearly an abbreviated version of the Gaoseng zhuan biography.26
The 94th fascicle story, which tells the same story very briefly,
is identical to the Ruijing lu version. Again, the Ruijinglu pas-
sage and the corresponding Fayuan zhulin passage appear to be
directly related to each other.
i) The story about Daolin (no. 10)
The Fayuan zhulin story about Daolin (juan 42, 6l7a) is vir-
tually identical, word for word, with the Gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphy of this monk, and mentions the Gaoseng zhuan as its
RUIJING LU
87
'Ouree ("Liang gaoseng zhuan," 617a17); one difference is that the
aIlle of the scripture he recited is given as J#imo jing in the
: Fayuan zhulin version and as jing iri Gaoseng
;Yhe Ruijing lu story about Daolm IS an abbrevIated verSIOn of
the account in the Gaoseng zhuan and the Fayuan zhulin, and here
.'thename of the scripture is given asjingmingjing, as in the Gao-
zhuan -yve may assume that the lu story
is an abbrevIated verSIOn of the Gaoseng zhuan ongmal, and that
... the Fqyuan zhulin version was prepared independently on the
basis ofthe same Gaoseng zhuan original.
'; '. In five cases (Tan Wujie, Dao'an, Sengsheng, Huijin,
i Hongming), including the ambiguous case of the story about
:;: Tan Wujie, the Ruijing lu stories have identical parallels in the
Fayuan zhulin. These parallels indicate that there was some
direct relationship between the Ruijing lu stories and the corres-
';::ponding Fqyuan zhulin stories. In three cases (Daojiong, Pum-
ling, Huiguo), the Ruijing lu version is abbreviated, while the
Fqyuan zhulin parallels reproduce the Gaoseng zhuan origi-
,":nals faithfully. In one case (DaoEn), we could conclude that
Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin versions were' prepared inde-
:;ipendently of each other on the basis of the common Gaoseng
:;:;zhuan original. Since the parallel passages in the Fqyuan zhulin .
'care found scattered in different parts of the encyclopedia,27 the
;::relationships among the various parallel passages of the Ruijing
lu and the Fqyuan zhulin might not have been uniform. In fact,
:;-:
the evidence we have collected indicates that in five cases there
;;.was a direct relationship between the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
>,zhulin passages, but that in one case we can be reasonably cer-
. tain that there was no direct relationship between the parallel
.. ' passages in these two works.
28
In three cases, two stories that are found side by side or
close to each other in the Ruijing lu have their parallels again
side by side in the same order in the same fascicle of the Fayuan
l.':.zhulin (Dao'an and Sengsheng injuan 18 [418ab], Daojiong and
.Puming in juan 17 [408c-409a], and Huiguo and Hongming in
juan 94 [983bc]).29
aa) The stories about Dao'an and Sengsheng in the Ruijing
. and the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin are identical with
each other. Since both of these identical stories are different
from the original Gaoseng zhuan biographies, there is little
I'
88
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
doubt that the Dao'an and Sengsheng stories in the Ruijing lu
. and the Fayuan zhulin were directly related to each other.
bb) Both the stories about Daojiongand Puming appear in
an abbreviated form in the Ruijing lu, while the Fayuan zhulin, at
least in one passage (35th fascicle) in the case of Daojiong,
reproduces the Gaoseng zhuan original more faithfully. We must
note also that whereas the Daojiong and Puming stories appear
together in the same order as in the RuiJing lu in the 17th fasci-
cle of the Fayuan zhulin, the Daojiong story in that fascicle does
not appear to be directly related to the Ruijing lu version. In
fact, it is the 35th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin that reproduces
the Gaoseng zhuan story of Daojiong, which is clearly the basis
of the RuiJing lu story. In this case, therefore, it would be safe to
conclude that the parallel between the Daojiong a ~ d Puming
stories in the Ruijing lu and the 17th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin
was accidental, and that there was no direct relationship
between these two stories as distinct units of related stories. It
is more likely that the parallels between the Ruijing lu and the
Fayuan zhulin versions of these two stories occurred through
independent copying of the Gaoseng zhuan originals.
cc) The situation of the two sets of parallel stories in the Rui-
jing lu and the 94th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is more complex
than the two cases reviewed above. The Huiguo story in the
Ruijing ,lu is a shortened version of the Gaoseng zhuan biography,
which is also reproduced faithfully in the 94th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin. The other story in the 94th fascicle, the story of
Hongming, is identical with the RU,?jing lu version and distinct
from the Gaoseng zhuan biography of the same monk. Whereas
the Huiguo and Hongming stories appear side by side as the
first two stories in the miracle stories section of that fascicle in
the Fayuan zhulin, the story about Huijin appears between these
two stories in the Ruijing lu. As noted above, the Fayuan zhulin
parallel to the Huijin story (95th fascicle) is identical to the
Ruijing lu story, and gives as its source the Mingxiangji.
I t is difficult to interpret the significance of the complex
evidence of the 94th fascicle paraliels. None of the three logical
possibilities that need to be considered for cases where only the
Ruijing lu version is abbreviated can be ruled out conclusively:
RUIJING LU 89
(1) The parallel between the Ruijing lu and the 94th fascicle of
the Fayuan zhulin might have been accidental, as appears to
. have been the case in the parallels in the 17th fascicle discussed
above; (2) the Ruijing lu version might have been directly
dependent.on the Fayuan zhulin version, in which case Daoxuan
at some point must have revised this part of the Ruijing lu and
inserted Huijing's story between those of Huiguo and Hong-
wing; (3) the Fayuan zhulin version might have been based on
.' the hypothetical earlier version of the Ruijing lu, and the Ruijing
. 'lu underwent further revision later, and at that time the Huiguo
story was abbreviated and the Huijin story inserted.
. The biography of Huijin appears as the 13th biography in
the 12th fascicle of the Gaoseng zhuan, between those ofHuiguo
..... (10th) and Hongming (14th). It is conceivable that Daoxuan
;. was aware of the order in which the stories paralleling the "re-
of scriptures" biographies in the Gaoseng zhuan( 12th fasci-
." ele) were arranged in the Ruijing lu, and that he felt it necessary
},. to arrange them in the order in which they appear in the Gao-
;"!;'seng zhuan.
i:: It is somewhat puzzling, however, that Daoxuan, who
!}: .musdt thehn. be hen .. the r:aosenfg hzhuan
> use at t IS pomt t e lv.LZngxzang JZ verSIOn 0 t e story, m t e
(.<form in which it is reproduced in the 95th fascicle of the Fayuan
,."Zhulin, and not the Gaoseng zhuan version. Since his contempo-
rary collaborator Daoshi, who worked at the same Ximingsi
temple as Daoxuan, quotes freely from the Mingxiang ji, Dao-
.. xuan must also have had direct access to the Mingxiang ji him-
,'"' self, and it is conceivable that he used this version because the
Mingxiang ji stories date earlier and were used as an important
'.; source when Huijiao prepared his Gaoseng zhuan biographies. 30
:? The evidence reviewed above concerning the Gaoseng zhuan
i,stories in the Ruijing lu and the corresponding Fayuan zhulin pas-
.!....... sages is complex, and does not enable us to deduce one simple
}>conclusion concerning the relationship among these sources.
;.The fact that the main body of the Gaoseng zhuan stories in the
.<.Ruijing lu is drawn from the section of the "reciters of scrip-
}.tures" in the 12th fascicle of the Gaoseng zhuan and that the
'fstories appear in the same general order as the biographies in
section ofthe Gaoseng zhuan, appears to indicate that Dao-
' -
-------- --------------------------
90 ]IABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
xuan must have been consulting this section of the Gaoseng
. zhuan himself, when he compiled this section of the Ruijing lu.
The present text of the Ruijing lu suggests that the text may have
been revised at least once and on that occasion a Mingxiang ji
story corresponding to a Gaoseng zhuan biography was inserted
at a point where the biography in question appears in the "re-
citers of scripture" section of the Gaoseng zhuan ..
Later, I will present an argument, based on further evi-
dence concerning other parts of the parallels between the Riti-
jing lu and the Fayuan zhulin, that in compiling the 18th fascicle
of the Fayuan zhulin Daoshi appears to have copied certain
materials from the Ruijing lu. From this broader point of view,
it will become possible to conclude that at least in the case of
the two stories from the Gaoseng zhuan that are found in identi-
cal forms in the Ruijing lu and the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan
zhulin (stories about Dao'an and Sengsheng), it was the Ruijing
lu version that was the original.
4. The Xu gaoseng zhuan stories in the Ruijing lu
The Ruijing lu stories about SunJingde (no. 9), Zhizhan (no.ll),
the anonymous monk at the Wuhousi temple (no. 12), the lips
dug out of the ground at Mt. Dongkan (no. 13), the eunuch
who grew a beard (no. 14), Daoji (no. 17), Baogui (no. 18),
Kongzang (no. 19), Yisu (no. 20), Shi Heshi (no. 21), Tanyun
(no. 23), and Tanyan (no. 26) are based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
The Fayuan zhulin, juan 18 (419c-420a), contains a passage that
is identical to the story in the Ruijing lu (no. 16) of an anonymous
monk and a novice who returned from the realm of the dead
and specifies its source as the Tang gaoseng zhuan, but the story
does not appear to exist there. As in the case of Gaoseng zhuan
stories, the Ruijing lu stories based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan were
mostly, though not exclusively, taken from the "Reciters of scrip-
ture" section, and the order of the materials taken into the Ji
shenzhou sanbao gantong lu parallels the order in which they
appear, though not always immediately one after another, in
the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
31
(a) The Xu gaoseng zhuan biography qfZhizhan
Ruijing lu stories No. 11 to 14 were taken from the biog-
raphy of Zhizhan (the first biography in the "reciters of scrip-
RVIJING LV 91
ture" section in the 28th fascicle, 686ab). A note at the end of
the story about the eunuch (no. 14) in the Ruijing lu states that
"these were all (bing) taken from Hou Junsu's jingyi ji"
(427cl).32. Here, the referent of the note is ambiguous. It is
attached to the story about the eunuch, but the adverb "bing"
implies that there was more than one story preceding this note;
in the present context this adverb appears to suggest that the
.. " five stories listed before were also taken from the same source.
But we have seen above that the first of these five stories, that
ofDaolin, was actually taken from the Gaoseng zhuan.
33
In fact, this note about the jingyi ji appears to have been
copied verbatim from Zhizhan's Xu gaoseng zhuan biography
(686b14). The adverb "bing" ("all") in this Xu gaoseng zhuan
note indicates that all the stories listed there, possibly but not
. necessarily including Zhizhan's biography itself, were drawn
this work. Daoxuan compiled the ji shenzhou sanbao gantong
which contains the Ruijing lu in the third fascicle, toward the
of his life, in the first year of Linde (664-665), while the
draft of the Xu gaoseng zhuan was completed sometime after
19th year of the Zhenguan period (645-646).34 Though
is evidence indicating that Daoxuan kept working on his
biographical collection until the end of his life, the fact that the
adverb bing makes perfect sense in the Xu gaoseng zhuan but that
meaning becomes unclear in the Ruijing lu, enables us to
that Zhizhan's biography existed by the time Dao-
xuan compiled the Ruijing lu.
35
If there was any direct relation-
ship between these two passages on Zhizhan in the two sepa-
rate works compiled by Daoxuan, it was the Xu gaoseng zhuan
that was the source, and the Ruijing lu was dependent on it.
The date of Zhizhan's death is not given, but the biography'
states that his stilpa in Mt. Rentou still existed at the "present
" suggesting the possibility that Daoxuan himself had vis-
the location. The extraordinary phenomenon surrounding
Zhizhan's death was the fact that after he died one finger of
each of his harids was extended, indicating that he had
attained the "First Fruit" (the rank of the "stream winner") .
. The two stories that follow that of Zhizhan, about the anony-
monk of the Wuhousi temple and the lips and tongue dug
out at Mt. Dongkan (no. 12 an 13), both center around tongue
miracles; the last story (no. 14) in this small collection of mira-
cle stories attached to Zhizhan's biography is about the beard
. that grew ona eunuch.
We have seen above, in discussing the Sanbao gantong lu note
in the Fayuan zhulin on the Ruijing lu stories of Yisu and Shi
Heshi (nos. 20 and 21), that tongue miracle stories were
appended to a biography of the monk Yisu. Both the biography
ofYisu and that of Zhizhan are found in the "reciters" section
(the first and thirteenth biographies in the section). Daoxuan
was obviously interested in these miracles and was preparing
small collections of these stories as appendices to his Xu gaoseng
zhuan biographies of "reciters."
The Fayuan zhulin parallels to Zhizhan's biography and the
stories appended to it are found in two places: the 18th and the
85th fascicles. In the 85th fascicle, Zhizhan's biography and
three of the appended stories (corresponding to the Ruijing lu
stories, nos. 12b, 13, 14) are given as one block of material, just
as in the Xu gaoseng zhuan. This block of material appears as the
second large item in the miracle stories section of this fascicle,
and a note in small characters appended at the end of the
Zhizhan stories reads: "The above two stories appear (jian) in
HouJunsu's collection" (i.e., thejingyiji).36 I am inclined to
believe that the immediate source for the group of stories
associated with Zhizhan's biography in the 85th fascicle was in
fact the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of Zhizhan, and that the
note on jingyi ji as the source for the 85th fascicle stories was
copied from the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography. The use of the
expressionjian ("appear" or "seen in") in the note, to be dis-
cussed in greater detail below, is an important clue. If Daoshi
had collected these two stories directly from the jingyi ji, he
probably would have written this note using the verb chu
("come from") as he did consistently in writing the notes indi-
cating the sources of the miracle story passages he had col-
lected. When he edited the 85th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin,
Daoshi took these stories from the Xu gaoseng zhuan original and
understood the meaning of the note at the end of the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography of Zhizhan in the strongest possible sense as
indicating that both Zhizhan's biography and the appended
stories were taken from the jingyi ji. 37
Thus, the text of the Zhizhan story in the 85th fascicle
appears to be directly dependent on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biog-
RUIJING L U 93
,'raphY; it is a. abbreviated vet:"sion, but the text of
" "" parallel stones IS even closer to the Xu gaoseng zhuan verSIOn
, " " than the Ruijing lu version is. Since this 85th fascicle passage
'::'!'lncludes elements in the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography that were
}' "not included in the correspondirtg Ruijing lu passage (e.g., refer-
,"ence to GUJ;lavarman as the founder of the Xiancaosi temple
, ,.}.
(909c26; ref., Xu gaoseng zhuan, 686a4,5), it probably was not
,:,;, from the Ruijing lu. The reference to GUJ;lavarman is
" "also missing from the other Fayuan zhulin passage in the 18th
:;"?'rasCicle. Tdhus, thhe 8
18
5t
h
h d?ehs not appear to have
) "been base on t e t laSClC everSIOn, elt er.
The Ruijing lu passage on the anonymous monk of the Wu-
',J;'housi temple (no. 12) is marked as one story in the table of con-
,": tents given at the beginning ofthe Ruijing lu (426b 14), but this
\l'passage in fact consists of two stories: the story about the
':.:," > anonymous monk of the Wuhousi is followed by an indepen-
"dent story about a monk in Yongzhou, who retired into Mt.
:/j;i Bolu ("White Deer"). The version in the 85th fascicle of the
thehsecRond of tzhese sit dories, but not the
" ;' first. This III lcates t at t e " uijing u cou not have been
i;il::dependent on the 85th fascicle story. The 85th fascicle version
,';'; 'of Zhizhan's biography and appended stories appear to have
:'been independently based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography.
The passage on Zhizhan's biography and appended stories
;(in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is virtually identical to
);,'. the corresponding Ruijing lu passage. In this passage, however,
:i;the conjunctionyou ("again'" "and") that appears at the begin-
r;;; f.ning of the story about the anonymous monk of the Wuhousi
;"Ctemple (427b16) and the story about the eunuch who grew a
l#,',Sbeard (427b26) is in both cases changed to hou ("later")
';;.y:J418b19 and 29). Since the conjunctionyou also appears at the
points in the Xu gaoseng zhuan version (686a13,
"'b8), it might be safe to assume that it was the editor of the 18th
'ifascicle version in the Fayuan zhulin who changed the conjunc-
;::,;;,tionyou to hOU.
38
If this assumption is correct, the close parallel
the contents of these passages would indicate that the Ruijing
" lu was the original that was copied by the editor of the 18th fas-
dele collection of the Fayuan zhulin.
"" In the 18th fascicle, Zhizhan's biqgraphy and appended
""stories are given as separate items and immediately following
:{
;';?iclt:
three stories that can be shown to have been taken from the
. Gaoseng zhuan. 39 After Zhizhan's biography and the two stories
about tongue miracles a note is inserted stating that the six pre-
ceding stories come from "the Liang collection of the Lives of
Eminent Monks (Gaoseng zhuan) and other miscellaneous
records" (418b28). Since the three entries immediately preced-
ing this note, i.e., the stories about Zhizhan, the anonymous
monk of the Wuhousi temple, and the lips and tongue dug out
from the ground at Mt. Dongkan, are all based on the Xu gao-
sengzhuan biography of Zhizhan, this note giving their source
as Liang gaoseng zhuan is obviously faulty.
The passage on the eunuch (no. 14) immediately follows
this set of six stories, and the Jingyi ji is given as its source. In
editing this section of the miracle story collection in the 18th
fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin, Daoshi appears to have read the
now familiar source note (which ultimately goes back to the Xu
gaoseng zhuan) differently and taken it to refer only to the last
story among those appended to Zhizhan's biography. The note
itself is revised in the 18th fascicle and the adverb bing ("all")
is here dropped (427cl).
Daoshi's rewriting of this note makes some sense if we
assume that he was copying this material from the Ruijing lu
and if we take into account the two different contexts in which
the passage on Zhizhan and the appended stories appeared in
the Xu gaoseng zhuan and the Ruijing lu. In the Xu gaoseng zhuan,
where biographies of monks are listed one after another as dis-
crete units of the text, there is little room for misunderstanding
the reference of the adverb bing that appears at the end of
Zhizhan's biography: it refers either to the appended stories,
or, at most, to everything included in the section on Zhizhan's
biography. When the same note containing the same adverb
was copied into the miracle story collection Ruijing lu,
Zhizhan's biography was read as one of the many stories
included in the collection, and the stories appended to
Zhizhan's biography acquired independence from the biog-
raphy itself, because they too were read as stories of the type
collected in the Ruijing lu. One consequence of this transforma-
tion was, as we noted above in commenting on the text of Rui-
jing lu, that the reference of the note with the adverb bing that
was found at the end of this body of material became unclear.
RUIJING LU 95
If the reader is not familiar with the Xu gaoseng zhuan
background of these stories, there would be no reason to sus-
pect that the reference is meant to extend only to Zhizhan's
. story at most. When he copied the passage and the note into
the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin, Daoshi appears not to
have been aware of the Xu gaoseng zhuan background of these
stories and thus might have felt that the adverb bing, with its
indeterminate reference, was inappropriate here; he might
have chosen to read the note most conservatively as referring
only to the story to which the note was attached, and dropped
the adverb from the note; he would then have looked for the
sources for other stories elsewhere and introduced the error
mentioned above.
The analysis, of the way in which the note giving the source
for the group of stories under examination as jingyi ji appears
in the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography, the passages in the 18th and
.85th facicles of the Fayuan zhulin and the Ruijing lu, leads to the
following conclusions: (1) it was Daoxuan who collected this
material from the jingyi ji and this work was done when he
compiled the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of Zhizhan; (2) Dao-
xuan then abbreviated this material and included it together
with the mechanically copied note in the Ruijing lu; (3) Daoshi
used the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography itself as his source when he
compiled the relevant material in the 85th fascicle; (4) Daoshi
relied on the Ruijing lu without the awareness of its ultimate
dependence on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography when he com-
piled the relevant material in the 18th fascicle.
(b) The Sun jingde story
The reference to the jingyi ji also appears in a variety of
sources mentioned for story no. 9, about Sun Jingde's Avalo-
kiteSvara image. The same story, in virtually the same but
slightly more detailed wording, appears as well in the image
miracle collection in the second fascicle of the ji shenzhou sanbao
gantong lu (story no. 31, 420ab). Daoxuan thus included this
story twice, in two separate parts of the ji shenzhou sanbao gan- .
tong lu, first in the image miracle section in the second fascicle
. and then in the scripture miracle collection entitled Ruijing lu.
40
The last sentence in the Ruijing lu gives the source of this story
as "the Qi shu." In the image miracle collection in the second
fascicle, the source of this story is given as "Records such as
the Qi zhi and the Jingyi ji" (420b5). The story of Sun Jingde
also appears in the Xu gaoseng zhuan, among the image miracle
stories appended to Sengming's biography (692c22-693a9).
The source of the story is not indicated there. This Xu gaoseng
zhuan version is very closely related to the version found in the
image miracle collection in the second fascicle of the Ji shenzhou
sanbao gantong lu. The two versions are of equal length, giving
virtually the same details; the phraseology is identical for the
most part, though at a number of places the two versions make
the same points in different words. There is also an entry on
this story in Daoxuan's Shijia Jangzhi, compiled in the first year
ofYonghui (650)(T. Vol. 52, 972b18-28). This version, again,
is quite similar to the versions mentioned above, sharing the
same phraseology at a number of points, but it is significantly
shorter, and a distinctive feature of this version is the passage
at the end which mentions that there were numerous stories
about people who, during the period when Southern and
Northern China were divided and ruled by different dynasties
and kingdoms, had escaped from similar predicaments by re-
citing the names of the Buddhas. The ShiJia Jangzhi does not
indicate the source for this story.
The comparison of the four versions of the story of Sun
Jingde's AvalokiteSyara image in three works compiled by Dao-
xuan, i.e., two versions of this story in theJi shenzhou sanbao gan-
tong lu, the Xu gaoseng zhuan version, and the Shijia Jangzhi ver-
sion, suggests the following relationship among the stories.
(i) Since the longer version of the story in the second fasci-
cle of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu appears to be related to
the probably earlier version in the Xu gaoseng zhuan, it may be
safe to conclude that this was the earlier version, which Dao-
xuan abbreviated to produce the corresponding passage in the
Ruijing lu.
(ii) One sentence toward the end of the version in the sec-
ond fascicle of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu mentions that
after he was released Sun Jingde hosted a vegetarian feast to
honour the vow he had made earlier (420b3,4). This informa-
tion is missing in the Xu gaoseng zhuanversion, but is repeated
ina slightly modified form in the Ruijing lu version ("he hosted
a vegetarian feast and welcomed the image, i.e., brought the
RUIJING LU 97
image to the place where the feast was held," 427b1). This evi-
dence suggests that the Ruijing lu version was directly related to
the version in the second fascicle of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong
lu rather than to the probably earlier Xu gaoseng zhuan version.
, (iii) Daoxuan probably used the "records such as the Qi zhi
and the Jingyi ji," mentioned at the end of the version of the
story in the second fascicle of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, in
preparing this longer version of the story. This version might
well have been first written when he compiled the Xu gaoseng
zhuan appendix to Sengming's biography. The "Qi shu" men-
tioned in the note found in the Ruijing lu version probably refers
to the Qi zhi in the longer note in the second fascicle version,
and this might have been the principal source that Daoxuan
used in compiling the longer Xu gaoseng zhuan / Ji shenzhou sanbao
gantong lu, second fascicle, version.
(iv) The ShijiaJangzhi version was also an abbreviated and
revised version, prepared on yet another occasion, probably in
the first year of the Yonghui period (750-751) when the Shijia
fangzhi was compiled, assuming that the Xu gaoseng zhuan ver-
sion already existed by then.41 There appears to be no direct
relationship between the two shorter Shijia Jangzhi and Ruijing
lu versions. The comment on many similar miracles, a distinc-
tive feature of the Shijiafangzhi version, is missing from the Rui-
jing lu version.
In the Fayuan zhulin, the story appears twice: in the 14th fas-
cicle, it appears in a form identical to the version in the image
miracle section of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu; in this ver-
sion, the note on the source, identical to the one in the image
miracle section of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, is given in
small characters at the end (38gc). In the 17th fascicle, a shor-
ter version of the story is given; a note found at a later point in
the collection states that this story was taken from the Xu gao-
seng zhuan (411 bc). But this 17th fascicle version is in fact identi-
cal to the short version that is found in Daoxuan's Shijia Jangzhi,
mentioned above. I t is a shorter version than that of the Xu gao-
seng zhuan passage, though, as suggested above, the Shijia
fangzhi version might well have been originally produced by
abbreviating the Xu gaoseng zhuan account.
We have remarked that the note in the 14th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin on the source of Sun Jingde's story is given at the
end of the story in small characters. The miracle story sections
. of the Fayuanzhulin generally give the sources of the stories in a
note attached at the end of each story, and in smaller characters.
Thus, it might be tempting to conclude that here the version in
the 14th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is the original and that
Daoxuan, in copying this material into the 2nd fascicle of his
Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong Iu, neglected to give the source in
smaller characters. There is, however, another, stronger con-
sideration that points to a different conclusion. In the Fayuan
zhuIin, these notes are usually given in a standard formula
which uses the character chu ("to come from") in specifying
the source. The notes generally read as "the above one [or
more, according to the context] story comes from such and
such source." The note on the Sun Jingde story in the 14th fas-
cicle begins with a character jian (" [ this story] is found in")
(Fayuan zhuIin, 389c24; ref., Ruijing Iu, 427cl; Ji shenzhou sanbao
gantong Iu, 420b5). 42 The reference to the jingyi ji in the material
associated with Zhizhan's biography examined above also was
given in a note that begins with the character jian (Xu gaoseng
zhuan, 686b14; Fayuan zhuIin, 418c4, 91Oa24). In the case of the
stories given in Zhizhan's biography, we are relatively certain
that the reference to the jingyi ji first appeared in the Xu gaoseng
zhuan and then was copied into other versions, including the
two passages in the Fayuan zhulin. Furthermore, in the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography of Zhizhan, the reference to the jingyi ji is
given in regular characters as the last sentence of the main text
(686b14). In the two locations in the Fayuan zhuIin, i.e., in the
18th and 85th fascicles, the note on the jingyi ji is given in
smaller characters. Daoshi must have taken a sentence in the
main text of Daoxuan's Xu gaoseng zhuan biography and trans-
formed it into notes on the source of the quoted passage that
look very similar to other notes on sources that he composed
elsewhere in the Fayuan zhulin. If this analysis is correct, then it
was Daoxuan rather than Daoshi who first used the character
jian in giving the sources for the story attached to Zhizhan's
story. The use of the same character,jian, in the case of the Sun
Jingde story suggests therefore that Daoxuan may have used
this same character consistently in giving sources for the stories
he collected and that it was again Daoxuan who was the origi-
nal author of the source note mentioning the jingyi ji for the
Sung Jingde story. 43
RUIJING LU
99
Sun Jingde's story probably existed in one more or less
standardized form: the phraseology of the existing versions is
remarkably similar, though they mention different sources. At
the moment I am not able to determine what the titles Qi shu,
and Qi zhirefer to, but the standardized version may well have
been found in the Jingyi ji as well. In a more comprehensive
review of the development of stories concerning the Gaowang
guanshiyinjing, i.e., the scripture that is said to have been given
to Sun Jingde and to have saved his life in the end, Makita
Tairyo noted that it was Daoxuan who introduced the name
SunJingde into this story and that this same story had existed
by that time for roughly a hundred years as the story of an
event that befell another, more prominent person
44
It appears very likely, therefore, that it was Daoxuan who
produced the earlier versions of the story about Sun Jingde.
Daoshi copied the version of the story in the second fascicle of
the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu when he compiled Sun Jingde's
story in the 14th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. Daoshi seems to
have copied the ShijiaJangzhi version of the story when he COII).-
piled the story in the 17th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. As noted
above, this Shijia Jangzhi version might originally have been
prepared on the basis of the version found in the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography of Sengming. For a reason that is not clear,
Daoshi gave the Xu gaoseng zhuan as the source of the story of
Sun Jingde in the 17th fascicle version.
(c) The Sanbao gantong lu stories
Earlier, I discussed briefly the stories about Daoji (no. 17),
Yisu (Ruijing lu no. 20), Shi Heshi (no. 21), and Tanyun (no. 23).
These stories are ultimately all based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan,
but they appear side by side in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan
zhulin, where their source is explicitly said to be the Sanbao gan-
tong lu. The Fayuan zhulin contains other passages on the stories
about Daoji (juan 64, 779b), Yisu and Shi Heshi (juan 85,
91Oc-911a). In both cases the source is explicitly said to be the
Tang gaoseng zhuan.
The 64th fascicle story about Daoji is a slightly abbreviated
and in places extensively reworded version of the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography. In one place, the shorter version in the Ruijing
lu and the 18th fascicle preserves the original wording of the Xu
gaoseng zhuan biography (shi bu fu chou, Fayuan zhulin, 421al1;
Rui;jing lu, 427 cl9; Xu gaoseng zhuan, 687 c28), whereas the 64th
fascicle version shows a number of revisions (shi bu chou huai
~ ,
779b23, 24). This might constitute a small piece of evidence
pointing to the conclusion that the shorter version in the Rui-
jing lu I 18th fascicle was prepared directly from the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography.
The 85th fascicle story about Yisu and Shi Heshi is again
an abbreviated version of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of
Yisu. The beginning section of Yisu's Xu gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphy, reproduced in an abbreviated form in the Ruijing lui
18th fascicle version of this story, is entirely missing from the
85th fascicle version. This indicates that the Rui:jing lui 18th fas-
cicle version could not have been prepared on the basis of the
abbreviated version in the 85th fascicle. It was, again, pre-
pared directly from the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography.
To summarize the relationship between the Ruijing lu and
Fayuan zhulin parallels examined so far, in eight out of the nine
cases examined, I arrived at the conclusion that the Fayuan zhu-
lin parallels which can be shown to be directly related to the
Ruijing lu stories were copied from the Ruijing lu: the stories
about Zhizhan (no. 11), the anonymous monkofthe Wuhousi
temple (no. 12), the lips and tongue dug out from the ground
at Mt. Dongkan (no. 13), and the eunuch who grew a beard
(no. 14) use the expression hou ("later") instead of the usual you
("and"); the Fayuan zhulin parallels to the Ruijing lu stories
about Daoji (no. 17), Yisu (no. 20), Shi Heshi (no. 21), and
Tanyun (no. 23) state explicitly thatthey are based on the San-
bao gantong lu. In one case, that of the story about Sun Jingde
(no. 9), a closer examination indicated that the Ruijing lu ver-
sion was a rather independent, and probably late version, not
directly related to either one of the two Fayuan zhulin versions.
(d) Other parallels
The evidence is more complicated in the remaining three
Xu gaoseng zhuan stories in the Ruijing lu. Baogui's story (Ruijing
lu no. 18) appears in the 55th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin
(709b), where it is said to have been taken from the Tang gaoseng
zhuan. This Fayuan zhulin story about Baogui is in fact an
abbreviated and slightly reworded version of the Xu gaoseng zhuan
RUIJING LU
101
versIon. The Ruijing lu story about Baogui is an even shorter
version, but it contains phrases that clearly go back to the Xu
gaoseng zhuan biography (e.g., wu tafangshu, 427c22 [Xugaoseng
zhuan, 688a12], bushizhe zhong, 427c24 [Xu gaoseng zhuan,
688a21 J) which are not found in the longer version in the 55th
fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. Thus, the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
zhulin stories on Baogui appear to have been independently ab-
breviated from the common original Xu gaoseng zhuan biography ..
Kongzang's story (Rufjing lu no. 19) appears twice in the
Fayuanzhulin. Both thatinjuan63 (766a) andjuan85 (91Oc-911a)
are said to have been based on the Tang gaoseng zhuan. The 63rd .
fascicle version is virtually identical to the Ruijing lu story,
though it is slightly more detailed toward the end. One phrase
in the 63rd fascicle story preserves the phraseology in the Xu
gaoseng zhuan biography, and thus suggests that the 63rd fasci-
cle version might be the original copied by Daoxuan into the
Ruijing lU.
45
This evidence is rather fragmentary, and in itself it
is perhaps not quite sufficient to support this conclusion firmly.
But the Ruijing lu version of the story. does not specify its
source, and therefore, as I suggested at the outset of my discus-
sion, it is unlikely to have served as the source for its Fayuan
zhulin parallel (in this case the passage in the 63rd fascicle),
which specifies the source correctly as the Tang gaoseng zhuan.
Since the version in the 63rd fascicle and the Ruijing lu version
are very similar, and both are drastically abbreviated versions
of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography, we may conclude that the
63rd fascicle version was the earlier version that was copied by
Daoxuan with minor revisions into the Ruijing lu.
The 85th fascicle passage on Kongzang is also an abbrevia-
tion of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography. Interestingly, this pas-
sage focuses on the part of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography that
was not excerpted in the parallel versions in the Ruijing lu and
the 63rd fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. This 85th fascicle passage
on Kongzang appears as the first part of a clearly marked unit
of stories, which along with three preceding stories about
monks is said to have been taken from the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
Within this clearly marked unit, Kongzang's story is immedi-
ately followed by the stories about Yisu and Shi Heshi (nos. 20
and 21). We have noted that the Yisu and Shi Heshi passages
in the 85th fascicle appear to be independently excerpted from
I'i
, ,
, ,
102
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
the Xu gaoseng zhuan and not directly related to the 18th fascicle
version directly copied from the Ruijing lu. Thus, none of the
three stories about Kongzang, Yisu, and Shi Heshi in the 85th
fascicle appears to be directly related to the Ruijing lu. The Cor-
responding section of the Xu gaoseng zhuan (juan 28, 689b-690b)
contains the biographies of Kongzang, Huiquan, and Yisu
(with an appendix that includes the story of Shi Heshi). Thus,
the sections in the Ruijing lu and the 85th fascicle that contains
the materials on Kongzang, Yisu and Shi Heshi may have been
independently based on this Xu gaoseng zhuan passage. This
would explain why the stories about Kongzang, Yisu, and Shi
Heshi appear side by side in the Ruijing lu and again appear
side by side in the same order in the 85th fascicle.
46
The Ruijing lu story about Tanyan (no. 26) centers around
a miracle story: upon Tanyan's request, brilliant light appeared
from both ends of the shaft of the scroll on which the Nirval]a
Siitra was copied and from the large relic stiipa, and the light
reached the sky, illuminating everywhere in the four directions;
both monks and laymen everywliere around the temple
thought that a fire had started at the temple and came running
in great panic, only to realize their mistake upon arrival.
The story about Tanyan appears in the 24th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin (467 c), and his biography is found in the eighth
fascicle of the Xu gaoseng zhuan ("exegetes" section, 488a-489c).
The Fayuan zhulin story is obviously an excerpt from the Xu gao-
seng zhuan biography (488a3-5, a25-blO, 489b14-l6), and
both the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography and the Fayuan zhulin story
lack one detail of the story, that people mistook the miraculous
light for fire in the temple. There may have been some direct
relationship between the Ruijing lu and the Xu gaoseng zhuan/
Fayuan zhulin versions, but the phraseology of these two ver-
sions is significantly different. Thus, the Fayuan zhulin could not
have been based on the Ruijing lu version. Since the Ruijing lu
version tells the story about the miraculous light differently, it
might have been directly based on a different source that is
mentioned in the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography, i.e., Lii Shuding's
inscription or the Bie zhuan biography (489b29, c25). If this
happens to be the case, though the parallel Fayuan zhulin story
was based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography, the Ruijing lu story
would have been prepared independently from an earlier source.
RUIJING LU 103
If this is so, the Ruijing lu story about Tanyan would not have
been based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography, and we must
consider this case as not belonging to the group of stories in the
Ruijing lu that are based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biographies,
and which constitute the subject of the present investigation.
In summary, the Ruijing lu contains twelve stories that are
closely related to the Xu gaoseng zhuan biographies. In eight
cases, the stories about Sun Jingde (no. 9), Zhizhan (no. 11),
the anonymous monk of the Wuhousi temple (no. 12), the lips
and tongue dug out from the ground at Mt. Dongkan (no. 13),
the eunuch who grew a beard (no. 14), Daoji (no. 17), Yisu (no.
20), Shi Heshi (no. 21), and Tanyun (no. 23), the Ruijing lu ap-
pears to have been the source for the corresponding Fayuan zhu-
lin stories; in one case, the story of Kongzang, the Fayuan zhulin
story in the 63rd fascicle appears to have been the original that
was copied by Daoxuan into the Ruijing lu; in two cases, the
stories about Sun Jingde, and Baogui, the Fayuan zhulin stories
do not appear to have any direct relationship with the Ruijing
lu; the situation is rather unclear in one case, that ofTanyan, but
here again the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin versions were pre-
pared independently of each other, and the Ruijing lu story was
based at least partly on sources other than the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
This detailed examination of the materials in the Ruijing lu
that are ultimately based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biographies
shows again that the main part of these stories was taken from
the "reciters of scripture" section of that collection, and that
the majority, though not all, ofthese Ruijing lu stories were first
prepared by Daoxuan on the basis of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphies that he had himself compiled earlier. In these cases the
Ruijing lu story first prepared by Daoxuan was later copied by
Daoshi into the Fayuan zhulin .
. 5. The Mingbao ji stories
The third major source for the stories collected in the Ruijing lu
is the Mingbaoji, completed by Tang Lin (?600-659?) sometime
between the years 653 and 655.
47
Tang Lin, a high government
official who presumably was also a devout lay Buddhist, com-
piled this collection of miracle stories by collecting a large
104 jIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
number of stories that circulated as oral stories during his life
. time.
48
The title of this collection and its preface indicate that
Tan Lin collected these stories in order to show how karmic
retributions work.
49
Thus, Mingbaoji is a very different kind of
work from the Gaoseng zhuan and the Xu gaoseng zhuan men-
tioned above, and Daoxuan's reliance on this source needs to
be carefully taken into account in evaluating the nature of the
Ruijing lu.
Ruijing lu stories nos. 24, 25, 27-35 appear to have been
taken from this source. .
Ruijing lu story no. 24 is about the monk Sengche, and the
Fayuan zhulin contains an identical story in the 95th fascicle
(989bc), where the source of the story is given as the Mingbao
shiyi, Lang Yuling's collection that was probably completed
around 663.
50
The significance of the Fayuan zhulin's reference to
the Mingbao shiyi is not entirely clear. It is possible that the Fa-
yuan zhulin was mistaken in this attribution. A longer version of
this story is found in the Taisho edition version of the Mingbao
ji (788c-789a).51 In his reconstruction of the original Mingbao
ji,52 Gjertson lists it as the third story. It is also possible, how-
ever, that the version of the Sengche story reproduced in the
Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin was in fact taken from the Ming-
bao shiyi. As Gjertson explains in some detail, the Mingbao shiyi
often took stories that were found in the Mingbao ji, recapitulat-
ing their contents and adding further details to them. 53 Since
the Mingbao shiyi is no longer extant in its entirety, we cannot
investigate this possibility any further; Sengche's story is not
found among the list of Mingbao shiyi fragments collected by
Cen Zhongmian.
54
.The story about the nun from Hedong, "who was diligent
in practice" (Ruijing lu, no. 25) is also found in the 27th fascicle
of the Fayuan zhulin (486c), where the source of the story is said
to be the Mingbao ji. The Fayuan zhulin version is identical to the
Mingbao ji text reproduced in the Taisho collection (789ab),
except for the beginning and the end. In the Taisho Mingbao ji,
Tang Lin explains that he heard the story from the monk
Faduan, the other principal figure in the story, and adds a note
saying that he had forgotten the name of the nun. The Fayuan
zhulin passage begins by naming the nun as Faxin, and ends
with two lines commenting generally on the miraculous effects
RUIJING LU 105
f copying scriptures. These lines are not found in the Taisho
Mingbao ji text, and thus appear to ~ a v e been ~ d d e d by Daoshi,
along with the name of the nun whIch Tang Lm had forgotten,
when he copied the story from the Mingbao ji. 55 The Ruijing lu
version is an abbreviated version, which does not mention the
name of the nun Faxin, and ends with a note that says that
Tang Lin himself told the story. This Ruijing lu version appears
to be related directly to the Mingbao ji passage, and not copied
from the corresponding passage in the Fayuan zhulin. Gjertson
lists this story as the 4th story in his reconstruction. 56
The Fayuan zhulin does not contain any story about Daosun
that corresponds to the story about this monk in the Ruijing lu
(no. 27). A story about this monk is found in the Taisho text of
theMingbaoji (789b). Gjerston lists Daosun's as the 5th story. 57
Daosun's biography is included in Daoxuan's Xu gaoseng zhuan
Uuan 14 ["exegetes" section], 532c-533a). Though there are
frequent differences in phraseology, for the most part the Rui-
jing lu story parallels the Mingbao ji story. The Xu gaoseng zhuan
biography is a good deal longer, and in one passage tells what
appears to be an entirely different version of the Ruijing lui
Mingbao ji story (533b8-23). Thus, there is little doubt that
. Daoxuan compiled the Ruijing lu version of this story on the
basis of the Mingbaoji story.
The Ruijing lu story about Zhiyuan (no. 28) gives basically
the same account as the Zhiyuan story in the Fayuan zhulin
Uuan 18, 420c-421 a). The Fayuan zhulin story gives its source as
the Mingbao ji, and the corresponding passage in the Taisho
Mingbao ji text (789c) is virtually identical to the Fayuan zhulin
excerpt. The Ruijing lu version appears to have been an
. abbreviated summary of the Mingbao ji story. Gjerston lists
Zhiyuan's story as the 7th.
58
Van Gong's story in the Ruijing lu (no. 29) describes him as
a man of the Jiangzhou Prefecture. The 18th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin contains a story about Van Gong of the Yangzhou
Prefecture, which it says has been taken from the Mingbao ji.
The Mingbao ji story about Van Gong in the Taisho collection
(790bc) also describes the man as Van Gong of the Yangzhou
Prefecture. The Fayuan zhulin passage is a slightly modified
copy of this Mingbao ji story. The main body of this Mingbao ji
story is about a strange experience that Van Gong and his par-
ents had: Van Gong went to Yangzhou on a boat with 50,000
. pieces of money that his parents had given him. He bought
from the captain of another boat fifty large turtles that had
been destined to be sold at the market and killed. Van Gong
then set the turtles free. Later, the boat of the captain who sold
the turtles sank, and the captain was killed. On the same day,
fifty guests, all dressed in black, appeared at the home ofYan
Gong's parents and gave back the 50,000 pieces of money.
Upon Van Gong's return, everyone realized that the fifty guests
were in fact the large turtles that Van Gong had set free. It is
then said that Yan Gong and his parents moved to Yangzhou,
built a temple (jingshe) and concentrated on copying the Lotus
Siitra. The family prospered, and the building was expanded.
A large number of scribes worked for them. Several short
stories then follow. Gjerston lists this story as the 11 th story in
the reconstructed Mingbao ji. 59
The Ruijing lu story about Van Gong tells three of the stories
told in the last part of this Mingbaoji story, i.e., the story about
the 10,000 pieces of money reluctantly loaned to someone and
mysteriously returned following a shipwreck; the story about
the dream in which the god of the Gongting hu (Gong hu) lake
returned the offerings of a merchant, telling him to present
them to Yan Gong to cover the costs of copying the scripture;
and the story about the 3,000 pieces of money presented to Van
Gong by an apparition when Van Gong found himself'short of
money for buying paper. Another story then follows, which
describes how a fisherman who saw a floating flame in the river
and went to welcome it on a boat found a box containing a
scripture copied by the Van family. This story is not found in
the Mingbao ji story, neither in the original text nor in the
Fayuan zhulin copy of the story in the 18th fascicle. Since the Rui-
jing lu was a collection of stories about scripture miracles, it is
understandable why Daoxuan, when he prepared his entry on
Van Gong, chose to drop the long story at the beginning and
concentrated on the stories that were related to the Van fam-
ily's business of copying scriptures. The story about the fisher-
man, not found in the Mingbao ji version, suggests that Dao-
xuan used additional sources in preparing his Ruijing lu story
on Van Gong. The description ofYan Gong as a man of Jiang-
zhou may also come from a source other than the Mingbao ji.
RUIJING LU lO7
The Fayuan zhulin story about Li Shanlong (juan 20, 436abc)
that corresponds to Ruijing lu story no. 30 gives its source as the
Mingbao ji. The Taisho edition of the Mingbao ji contains the Li
Shanlongstory (795c-796b), and the comparison of the Fayuan
zhulin and the Mingbao ji passages indicates that the Fayuan zhu-
lin passage is in fact a copy of the Mingbao ji story. The Ruijing
lu story is an abbreviated version of the Mingbao ji story. Gj ers-
ton lists the Li Shanlong story as the 29th story in his recon-
structed Mingbao ji. 60
Ruijing lu story no. 31 is about Li Siyi. The story about Li
Siyi does not appear in the Kozanji manuscript of the Mingbao
ji, reproduced in the Taisho collection, but according to
Gjertson it appears in the Maeda manuscript, the other of the
four known manuscripts of this work that is relatively easily
accessible to scholars. 61 Consequently, Gj ertson lists this story
as story A in his reconstructed Mingbao ji. 62
The Ruijing lu story describes Li Siyi's experience in the
realm of the dead, and gives the date of this incident as the first
month of the 20th year of the Zhenguan period (646). The
Fayuan zhulin, juan 91 (p. 938), records a story about Li Siyi
which is said to have been quoted from the Mingbao shiyi. The
incident reported here occurred in the fifth month of the third
. year ofYonghui (654). At the beginning of this story in the Rui-
jing lu, it is said that what Li Siyi reported after the first time
he was revived from death, in the first month of the 20th year of
Zhenguan, is found in the Mingbao ji. Since the date ofthe inci-
dent in the Ruijing lu passage and this reference to the Mingbao
. ji story agree, there is little doubt that the original Mingbao ji
contained a story about Li Siyi, and that Daoxuan must have
taken his Ruijing lu story from that source. In a typical fashion
described by Gjertson, the Mingbao shiyi appears to have
supplemented this Mingbao ji story by reporting what hap-
pened Li Siyi later, and it was this later Mingbao shiyi story that
was reproduced by Daoshi in the Fayuan zhulin.
The story about Lady Doulu in the 18th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin (421 c) is a longer version of Ruijing lu story no. 29.
The Fayuan zhulin version gives its source as the Mingbao ji. The
story appears in the Mingbao ji text reproduced in the Taisho
collection (795bc). There is, however, one revealing difference
between the Fayuan zhulin version and the Mingbao ji text repro-
108
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
duced in the Taisho collection: the Mingbao ji at the end states
. that the subject, aged 80, was still alive at the time the record
is made (between 653-655) and that Tang Lin heard the story
from Lady Doulu herself; the Fayuan zhulin states that the sub-
ject died at the age of 80. Lady Doulu probably told this story to
Tang Lin when she was 80 years old, and she died in the same
year; Daoshi must have copied the story from the Mingbao ji
after Lady Doulu passed away, and since the story mentions
that her younger brother Lord Rui predicted on his death bed
that Lady Doulu would live until the age of 100, Daoshi might
have felt obliged to mention the fact that she died sooner, at age
80. Here again Daoshi appears to have added a new detail to
the Mingbao ji passage in his characteristic fashion, and Gjert-
son mentions this as a good example of this practice.
63
The Rui-
jing lu version is an abbreviation of the Mingbao ji / Fayuan zhulin
story. Neither the statement that Lady Doulu is still alive (Ming-
bao ji) nor that she died at age 80 (Fayuan zhulin) appears in the
Ruijing lu passage, and thus we cannot determine whether the
Ruijing lu was copied from the Mingbao ji directly, or from the
revised Fayuan zhulin copy. Gjertson lists this story as no. 28.
64
A longer version of the Ruijing lu story about Cen Wenben
(no. 33) is found in the Fayuan zhulin,juan 56 (712c-713a), and
its source is given there as the Mingbao ji. The version of the
story found in the Mingbaoji text in the Taisho collection (795a)
is virtually identical to the Fayuan zhulin version, which must
have been copied from it. The Ruijing lu gives an abbreviated
version of the Mingbao ji story. Gjertson lists this story as the
25th story in his reconstructed Mingbao ji. 65
The story about the maid servant seen by Su Chang (Rui-
jing lu, no. 34) is found in a fuller version in the Fayuan zhulin
(juan 18, 421c), which gives the source as the Mingbaoji. The
Taisho edition of the Mingbaoji reproduces the same story twice
(794b and 795a), with slight differences in phraseology and
content. Some mistake must have occurred in the transmission
of the version of the Mingbao ji that survived in the Kozanji
manuscript. The statement that the box containing the Lotus
Scripture became wet outside but remained dry inside (after it
had drifted in turbulent waters, being held on her head by the
pious maid servant) appears only in the second passage in the
Taisho text. This point is made both in the Fayuan zhulin and
RUIJING LU 109
(Fz
the Ruijing lu versions. The original Mingbao ji version of this
'.story must have mentioned this point, and both the Fayuan zhu-
:lin and the Ruijing lu versions must have copied it from there.
:::;'" The Ruijing lu story about Dong Xiong (no. 35) is virtually
::,identical to the Fayuan zhulin version of the same story Uuan 27,
;:.485ab), which gives its source as the Mingbao shiyi. The Taish6
of the Mingbao ji contains a version of the same story
:/(794c-795a), . but this ji version is more
"detailed and IS accompamed by a long note explammg how
'il'ang Lin, the compiler of the Mingbao ji, first heard about it
,Tfrom Li Jingxuan and then confirmed the story by speaking to
j:,'Dong Xiong himself. Gjertson lists this story as no. 24 in his
. .
r,::reconstructlOn.
: As I noted in earlier similar cases, the Dong Xiong story,
: 'which appeared in the Mingbao ji, might have appeared in an
version in the Mingbao shiyi as well, and it is possi-
that it was this abbreviated version that was copied by Dao-
i::kuan and Daoshi into the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin. In the
case, however, since the Ruijing lui Fayuan zhulin version
;;:1adds no further details, and even though it is clearly an
version of the Mingbao ji original, and preserves
original phraseology faithfully in the unabbreviated sec-
it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that the note
({in the Fayuan zhulin, giving the source of the story as the Ming-
:,:>bao shiyi, was a mistake. This would mean that the Ruijing lui
;:;Fayuan zhulin passage was directly from the Mingbao ji. If
:';rhis was the case, the Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin versions,
:':which are abbreviations of a single source and ate virtually
f:>identical with each other, must have been directly related to
other. .
: Furthermore, one minor difference between the Ruijing lu
frand Fayuan zhulin versions enables us to determine that the Rui-
lu must have been dependent on the Fayuan zhulin. The
:(;:story of Dong Xiong centers around a miracle. An Assistant
:jMinister of the Court of Judicial Review, Dong Xiong, who
involved in an incident that angered the Emperor greatly,
chained and placed in the same room as fellow prisoners
Jingxuan, another Assistant Minister of the Court of Judi-
:tcial Review, and Rectification Clerk Wang Xin. He had recited
Pumen chapter of the Lotus Siltra three thousand times, and
'<c'
when he was reciting the siitra in the middle of the night, his
chains spontaneously fell to the ground.
57
Investigating Censor
Zhang Shouyi, who was spending the night in official quarters
that night, was amazed, and having chained Dong Xiong and
locked the chain, he sealed the lock with .a paper. 58 But Dong
Xiong recited the siitra until five 0' clock in the morning, and
the chain fell to the ground again. Dong Xiong was afraid, and
he informed his fellow prisoners of what had happened. In the
Mingbao ji text in the Taisho collection, a somewhat obscure
sentence follows here; it probably means that the fellow prison-
ers said that they should not report anything to the jail officers,
and when they looked together after dawn, they discovered the
lock and the chain on the ground, separated from each other.
The lock was still closed and the paper seal unbroken. The Cor-
responding passage in the Fayuan zhulin is, if anything, even
more obscure, but it appears to indicate that his fellow prison-
ers told Li Jingxuan about what had happened and Li discov-
ered that the lock had been opened without breaking the paper
seal. 69 In the corresponding passage in the Ruijing lu, Dong
Xiong and his fellow prisoners are said to have told Zhang
Shouyi about the miracle in the morning, and it is Zhang
Shouyi who is said to have seen that the lock had been opened
without breaking the seal. The meaning of the passage appears
to have been changed dramatically: in the kIingbao ji, the fellow
prisoners did not wish the official to know about the second
miracle; in the Ruijing lu, the miracle was confirmed by the offi-
cial himself. I am inclined to believe that Daoxuan emended
the rather obscure passage in the Fayuan zhulin (or possibly in
the Mingbao shiyi summary copied faithfully by Daoshi into the
Fayuan zhulin) and that he could not have been aware of the
original Mingbao ji passage at this point, since, if he had he
known the original passage, it seems unlikely that he would
have changed the meaning into its opposite at this point. This
would mean that it was either Daoshi or the compiler of the
Mingbao shiyi who first abbreviated the Mingbao ji story, and that
Daoxuan then revised Daoshi's abbreviated version slightly in
producing his Ruijing lu version.
This review of the Ruijing lu materials drawn from the
Mingbao ji shows that in six out of a total of the eleven cases,
the Fayuan zhulin version, identical or very similar to the Ming-
'RVI]ING LV III

original, appears in an abbreviated form the Ruijing lu:
about the nun from Hedong (no. 25), Zhlyuan (no. 28),
;}Eti Shi:wlong (no. 30), Lady Doulu (no. 32), Cen Wenben (no.
and Su (no. 34). it is not possi-
&;;"ble to dete.rmme whether the RU1Jzng lu verSIOn was based on
.Li-he Mingbao ji original or the materials collected for compiling
Fayuan zhulin. But we noted in examining the story about the
from Hedong that the Fayuan zhulin version gives the name
nun which Tang Linhad forgotten, and lacks the note in
;I::,fhe Mingbao ji that explains the origin of this story; the Rujing lu
does .mention the name of the nun, but ends with a
on the ongm that appears to have been related to the
.,';J'Mingbao ji passage. The story of this nun in the Ruijing lu thus
W'a.ppears to have been directly based on the Mingbao ji version.
In one case, the Ruijing lu passage appears to be dependent
the Mingbao jil Fayuan zhulin version, but it also appears to
had other sources. The Van Gong story in the Ruijing lit
29) contains materia.ls paralleling sections of the Mingbao
passage on Van Gong, which in turn is reproduced more or
faithfully in the Fayuan zhulin, but it describes Van Gong as
of Jiangzhou, and not as a man ofYangzhou, as in the
ji I Fayuan zhulin version, and it also contains additional
toward the end.
In two cases, the Fayuan zhulin does not contain a story cor-
f(i(}responding to the Ruijing lu, and only a direct comparison with
Mingbao ji story shows that the Ruijing lu stories were taken
[<;from that source. Thus, Daoxuan must have copied the Ruijing
;i{s'Zustory of Daosun. (no. 27) directly from the Mingbao ji; he did
(It). so also in the case of Li Siyi, while Daoshi copied his story
Li Siyi from the Mingbao shiyi.
3,:;" In two cases, the stories about Sengche and Dong Xiong
lu nos. 24 and 35), the Ruijing lu stories are virtually
to the Fayuan zhulin version, which gives the source as
shiyi. The same stories are found in a, more detailed
in the Mingbao ji. We cannot determine whether (I) the
of the story common to the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
1,:Ji-r:.hulin were based on summaries of the original Mingbao ji
that were found in the Mingbao shiyi, or (2) the attribu-
2}ri.!ion to the Mingbao shiyi is mistaken, and the common versions
the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin were directly related to

each other. In either event, we were able to determine that in
the case of Dong Xiong's story the Ruijing lu story was depen_
dent on the Fayuan zhulin version (which might be reproducing
the Mingbao shiyi summary faithfully), and not vice versa.
Four of the eleven stories under examination here appear
in the lSth fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin: the stories about
Zhiyuan (no. 2S), Van Gong (29), Lady Doulu (32), and Su
Chang's maid servant (34). In the case of three of these stories
(nos. 2S, 32, and 34), the Ruijing lu version of the story is
abbreviated from the longer version in the Fayuan zhulin and the
Mingbao ji in the Taisho collection. In one case (no. 29), the
Ruijing lu version reproduces a part of the longer version in the
corresponding Mingbao ji / Fayuan zhulin version, but contains
other materials that must have been taken from another
source. In the case of these stories, Daoxuan could have taken
his material for the Ruijing lu from the lSth fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin, or its earlier draft, abbreviated them, and in the
case of the Van Gong's story, added further material taken from
elsewhere. It is also possible that both the Ruijing lu and the
Fayuan zhulin (fascicle IS) were independently based on the
Mingbao ji original: the Ruijing lu version was abbreviated (and
expanded in other ways with other materials in the case of the
story about Van Gong [no. 29]), and the Fayuan zhulin was not.
Two stories, those about the nun from Hedong and Dong
Xiong, appear in the 27th fascicle. We have noted that the Rui-
jing lu story about the nun from Hedong appears to have been
copied directly from the Mingbao ji, and not made from its
revised Fayuan zhulin copy. The Ruijing lu story about Dong
Xiong appears to have been copied either from the Fayuan zhu-
lin version, or from the Mingbao shiyi version, which the Fayuan
zhulin passage gives as its source. In this case, therefore, the
evidence is somewhat contradictory, and does not point to any
close relationship between the Ruijing lu and the 27th fascicle
of the Fayuan zhulin.
Parallels to the other four stories, whose ultimate origin
can be traced to the Mingbao ji through their Fayuan zhulin ver-
sions, are scattered in different fascicles: the Li Shanlong story
(no. 30) is found in the 20th fascicle; the Cen Wenben story
(no. 33) in the 56th fascicle; Li Siyi story (no. 31) is referred to
RUIJING LU 113
briefly in the Fayuan zhulin excerpt from the Mingbao shiyi in the
91st fascicle; and the Sengche story (no. 24) is found in the
95th fascicle.
The accounts in the Mingbao Ji are of particular interest to
US because the origins of these stories, in many cases oral state-
ments by the parties directly involved in them, are indicated
carefully at the end of the stories. Many of the incidents
recounted in these stories had taken place relatively recently,
and stories often mention dates from the Zhenguan period: the
story about the nun from Hedong (no. 25) mentions the second
year (628-629), the Daosun story (no. 27) mentions the fourth
year (630-631), the story (no. 28) the 13th
year (639-640), the LI SIYI story (no. 31) mentIOns the 20th
year (646-647), and the Dong Xiong story (no. 35) speaks of
the "Zhenguan period." This part of the Ruijing lu, along with
the material to be reviewed below, gives the Ruijing lu a very
distinctive character.
6. Contemporary stories
The last two stories of the Ruijing lu (nos. 37 and 38) both bear
dates that are close to the date given for the completion of the
text: the story about a descendant of Gao Biaoren (no. 37)
begins with the date of the 27th day of the first month of the
third year of Longsu (February 27, 663); the story about Cui
Yiqi (no. 38) with that of the 20th day of the sixth month of the
same year (July 30, 663). Story no. 38 also mentions the even
.more recent date of the first month of the first year of Linde
(664). The colophon attached to theJi shenzhou sanbao gantong lu
(435b) gives the date of the compilation ofthe work as the 20th
day of the sixth month of the first year of Linde (July 18, 664).
I noted above that a version of the Ruijing lu-which
according to Daoxuan's note appears to have been completed
earlier, by the first month of the fourth year of Longsu (which
is the same year as the first year of Linde) -constitutes the last
section of Daoxuan's catalogue of Buddhist works, the Datang
neidian lu. In general, the two versions of this same collection
in the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu and the Datang neidian lu are
114
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
very close to each other, but rather significantly, story no. 38
. J
the last story in the Ruijing lu, is missing in the Datang neidian lu
version of the collection.
70
Obviously, story no. 38, which
describes an incident that took place during the vegetarian
feast at the residence of General Xie in the first month of the
first year of Linde (664), was not available to Daoxuan when
he was completing his compilation of the Datang neidian lu, in
the same month. Daoxuan then seems to have augmented his
text later in the sixth month of the same year when he com-
piled the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu and included the Ruijing lu
in the third fascicle ofthat work.
A variant and longer version of these stories is included in
the Foyuan zhulin. The note at the end of the Fayuan zhulin version
of Gao Fayan's story (no. 37) indicates that the story was widely
known at the time.
71
The note at the end of the story about Cui
Yiqi's wife, the daughter of Xiao Keng, indicates the location
of the residence, and states that Daoshi visited the place and
observed the articles used by the maid servant, who could recite
three scriptures (The Diamond, Bhai{ajyaguru, and Lotus sutras)
in Sanskrit (912a26, 27).
No literary sources are given for these two stories in the
Foyuan zhulin, and. their location at the very end of the Ruijing lu
probqbly indicates that they were supplementary material
added to a work that was for the most part based on well-known
literary sources. Daoxuan probably took two familiar contem-
porary stories of scripture miracles and added them one by one
to his collection, possibly by summarizing easily available (and
perhaps oral) versions of the stories in question. He may have
understood this practice, moreover, as a continuation of Tang
Lin's Mingbaoji project: as we saw above, Tang Lin had recorded
many miracle stories that he had heard directly himself. Many
of these stories, widely known among pious contemporary
Buddhists, were incorporated into the Ruijing lu and the Foyuan
zhulin. In incorporating the two stories under examination here
into the Foyuan zhulin, Daoshi used different longer versions, a
fact that may be interpreted as evidence of the fluid condition
of the stories, which must have been easily available in differ-
ent forms to these compilers.
RUIJING LU 115
'6. Summary and Concluding Remarks: The Fayuan zhulin parallels.
:".
,"We have examined the Fqyuan zhulin to the Ruijing lu
;'n order to reconstruct as far as possIble the process through
Daoxuan compiled Ruijing .lu. This same analysis,
however, also throws some hght on a dIfferent but related ques-
ition: how did Daoshi, the compiler of the Fqyuan zhulin, use the
'Ruijing lu material in compiling his encyclopedia? If, for exam-
,pie, the same is in the in the Ruijing lu
and the Fqyuan zhulzn, and If that form IS dIfferent from the form
',in which the story is told in the source identified in the Fqyuan
fzhulin, we might conclude that, in compiling the Fqyuan zhulin
:'version of the story, Daoshi copied directly from the Ruijing lu,
"and not from the source identified in the Fayuan zhulin passage.
li
lE
on the other hand, the Fqyuan zhulin version is identical or
to the form in which the story is told in the source the
iden.tifies, different from form in th.e
,story IS told III the RU1Jzng lu, then Daoshl must have copIed It
'f(or abbreviated it) directly from the source identified in the
{passage. With this slightly different focus, let me review briefly
:%e analysis we have conducted above.
;j) In many cases, the text of the parallel stories in the Fqyuan
fzhulin is closer to the Ruijing lu text than to the version given in
i'llie sources that the Fqyuan zhulin passage identifies:
:'ii no. 1, Tan Wujie story. The Ruijing lu and Fqyuan zhulin
,:versions are identical, but they give different sources for the
.:passage.
...... no. 2, Dao'an story. The Ruijing lu and Fqyuan zhulin versions
:are identical. This is particularly significant, since they are
both based on one small section of the Gaoseng zhuan biography,
it is highly unlikely that the Ruijing lu and the Fqyuan zhulin
excerpted this passage from a long biography independently.
no. 3, Sengsheng story. The Fqyuan zhulin text is corrupt,
b.utthe contents are the same as the longer Gaoseng zhuan ver-
sJOn.
no. 7, Huijing story. It is possible that both the Ruijing lu
the Fqyuan zhulin versions are based directly on the
?lingxiang ji, but more likely that the Fqyuan zhulin version is
:9pied from the Ruijing lu.
no. 8, Hongming story. The version in the 94th fascicle of
the Fayuan zhu lin is an exact copy of the Ruijing lzl version.
no. 11, Zhizhan story. The Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin
(18th fascicle) versions are identical. This is significant
because the text is an abbreviated version of the original Xu
gaoseng zhuan biography, which appears elsewhere in Fayuan
zhulin, 85th fascicle, in a differently abbreviated form.
nos. 12-14, stories about the anonymous monk of the Wu-
housi temple, the lips and the tongue dug out at M t. Dongkan,
and the eunuch of Wei who grew a beard. The Ruijing lu and
Fayuan zhulin (juan 18) passages are identical. The use of the
conjunction hou in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin indi-
cates that this version was copied from the Ruijing lu version.
no. 15, the story about the scripture coming down from the
sky during the persecution of Buddhism under Emperor Wu of
the Northern Zhou dynasty. The same text is f o u ~ d both in the
Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin (juan 419b), but neither passage
identifies the source. This story is not found in the version of
the Ruijing lu in the Datang neidian lu.
no. 16, the story about an anonymous monk in Yangzhou.
The same story appears in both the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
zhulin Uuan 18. 419c-420a). The Fayuan zhulin passage gives the
source of this story and that of the story that appears
immediately after it as the "Tang gaoseng zhuan" (420b 1), but
the corresponding passage is not found in the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
There appears to be a mistake in the Fayuan zhulin note, and the
source of this story is unknown.
no. 17, Daoji story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin (juan 18)
versions are identical, and both are based on the Xu gaoseng
zhuan, though the phraseology there is different. The Fayuan
zhulin, juan 64, gives a longer version of the same story, which
reproduces the Xu gaoseng zhuan original more faithfully.
no. 19, Kongzang story. The RuiJing lu and the Fayuan zhulin
(juan 63) versions are nearly identical, and there are some
reasons to suspect that the Fayuan zhulin (juan 63) version might
have been the original that was copied into the Ruijing lu. This
common version had been abbreviated from the Xu gaoseng
zhuan biography. Another part of this Xu gaoseng zhuan biography
was excerpted into the 85th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin, but
this version appears to be entirely unrelated to the Ruijing lu.
RUIJING LV
117

no. 20, Yisu story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin (juan 18)
are identical. A slightly different version appears in
;;cB5th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin. All these versions are based
the Xu gaoseng zhuan, but the phraseology there is different
J;,Jro
m
that of the parallel text in the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
ffthulin (juan 18).
no. 21, Shi Heshi story. The Ruijing lu and Fajuan zhulin
rUuan 18) versions are identical, and this common is
on the Xu gaoseng zhuan, though the phraseology IS often
there. The Fayuan zhulin 85th fascicle version is the
Dsame story with different phraseology. It is closer to the Xu gao-
'Is>::,.:".
zhuan verSIOn.
1," no. 22, Linghu Yuangui story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan
(juan 18) versions are identical. As I discussed in some
in a long note above (note 15), the source of this story ap-
to have been an oral report by Shentai, who was the chief
(sizhu ) of the Ximingsi temple.
no. 23, Tanyun story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin (juan
versions are identical, and this common is on
rlthe Xu gaoseng zhuan, though the phraseology IS often dIfferent
There is a related note in the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan
i"zhulin, which states explicitly that in the eleventh year of the
:litZhenguan period (637-638) Daoxuan saw the miraculous
copied by a supernatural being.
no. 24, Sengche story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin (juan
versions are identical, but the original version in the Ming-
(thao ji is longer.
no. 35, Dong Xiong story. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin
:LUuan 95) versions are identical, and this common version is
r;;pased on the Mingbao ji, which contains a slightly different ver-
;,t:;'
of the story.
no. 36, the story about the Diamond Siitra written in the
Yizhou. The Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin (juan 18) ver-
are identical. The source of this common version of the
is not known.

In some cases, the Fayuan zhulin parallels are closer to the
they mention than to the Ruijing lu versions:
no. 4, Daojiong story. The Fayuan zhulin gives three stories
this monk, one in the 17th fascicle, which is said to be

I,
based on the }.4ingxiangji, another in the 35th fascicle, which is
based on the Gaoseng zhuan biography, and the third in the 65th
fascicle, the source of which is not identified. The Gaoseng zhuan
biography of this monk appears to be 'based on the stories in
the 17th and 65th fascicles, and the Ruijing lu excerpt is based
on the Gaoseng zhuan biography. The Fayuan zhulin passages on
this monk could not have been based on the Rziijing lu.
no. 5, Puming story. Both the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhu-
lin stories are based on the Gaoseng zhuan biography, but the
Ruijing lu story corresponds to the first half of the Gaoseng zhuan
biography, while the Fayuan zhulin story includes the second
half. The note at the end of the Fayuan zhulin states that the
story is based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan, but this note is mistaken.
Though two biographies of Puming are found in the Xu gaoseng
zhuan, neither of these monks is the same monk as the Puming
who is the subject of the story in the RuiJing lu.
no. 6, Huiguo story. The Fayuan zhulin (juan 94) version of
this story is very similar to that in the Gaoseng zhuan biography,
while the Ruijing lu version is abbreviated.
no. 9, SunJingde story. Daoxuan appears to have been the
original compiler of several versions of this story. The Ruijing lu
version of this story appears to have been based on the longer
version that is found in the second fascicle of the Ji shenzhou san-
baogantong lu; the Fayuan zhulin (juan 14) version is identical to
the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu version, and the Fayuan zhulin
(juan 17) version is identical to the Shijiafongzhi version, which
appears to have been based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan version.
no. 10, Daolin story. The Fayuanzhulin version of this story
is said to have come from the Gaoseng zhuan, and the two texts
correspond perfectly. The Ruijing lu story, also clearly based on
the Gaoseng zhuan biography, is abbreviated.
no. 18, Baogui story. Both the Ruijing lu and Fayuan zhulin
stories are abbreviated from the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography.
But the Xu gaoseng zhuan original is abbreviated differently in
these two versions.
no. 25, the story about a nun from Hedong. The Fayuan zhu-
lin (juan 27) version is a slightly modified version of the Mingbao
ji. original; the abbreviated Ruijing lu version appears to have
been prepared directly on the basis of the Mingbao ji passage.
RUIJING LU 119
rio. 26, Tanyan story. The Ruijing lu versions differs slightly
from the Fa;yuan zhulin (juan 24) version that was taken from the
Xu gaoseng zhuan biography. The Ruijing lu version contains one
detail not found in the Xu gaoseng zhuan version, on which it
might be based for the mos.t part, and thus the Ruijing lu ver-
sion might have been based m part on another source.
no. 28, Zhiyuan story. The Fayuan zhulin version is copied
from the Mingbao ji. The note at the end of the Mingbao ji entry,
describing how Tang Lin confirmed this story in Youzhou, is
incorporated into the main text in the Fa;yuan zhulin with a
minor change. The Ruijing lu version is abbreviated, and thus
different from the Fa;yuan zhulin version.
no. 29, Yan Gong story. The Fa;yuan zhulin version is copied
from the Mingbao ji (minor differences in wording). The first
part of the note at the end of the Mingbao ji story is incorpo-
rated into the main text in the Fayuan zhulin. The Ruijing lu gives
a version of the story ofYan Gong different from the Fa;yuan zhu-
lin / Mingbao ji version.
no. 30, Li Shanlong story. The Fa;yuan zhulin version is
copied from the Mingbao ji. The Ruijing lu gives an abbreviated
version of the Mingbao ji story; the Ruijing lu version is thus dif-
ferent from the Fa;yuan zhulin version.
no. 32, the story about Lady Doulu. The Fa;yuan zhulin ver-
sion is copied from the Mingbao ji, with one minor difference:
the Mingbao ji states at the end that the subject, aged 80, was
still alive at the time the record was made (the Mingbao ji was
compiled between 653 and 655 [Gjertson, p. 295, note, 54J);
the Fa;yuan zhulin states that the subject died at the age of 80.
The Ruijing lu gives an abbreviated version of the Mingbao ji
story; the Ruijing lu version is thus different from the Fa;yuan
zhulin version.
no. 33, Cen Wenben story. The Fa;yuan zhulin version is
copied from the Mingbao ji (minor differences in wording). The
note at the end of the Mingbao ji, explaining how Tang Lin
heard the story, is turned into a part of the main text in the
Fayuan zhulin version. The Ruijing lu gives an abbreviated ver-
sion of the Mingbao ji story; the Ruijing lu version is thus differ-
ent from the Fayuan zhulin version.
no. 34, the story about Su Chang's maid servant. The
Fayuan zhulin version is copied from the second passage where
this story appears in the Taisho version of the Mingbao ji
(795a). The Ruijing lu gives an abbreviated version.
iii) Only in two cases are stories that correspond closely to the
Ruijing lu stories absent in the Fayuan zhulin (no. 27, the Daosun
story and no. 31, the Li Siyi story).
iv) In the case of the two last stories in the Ruijing lu, both Dao-
xuan and Daoshi appear to have relied on oral sources, and
thus the Fayuan zhulin does not specify the location of written
sources of these stories.
The following comments may be made on the basis of this com-
panson.
i) Of the 20 cases where the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin ver-
sions are closer to each other than to the source identified in
the Fayuan zhulin, 14 cases (nos. 2, 3, 11, L2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,20,
21, 22, 23, 36) are in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin, and
two (nos. 7 and 24) in the 95th fascicle, Others are scattered:
no. 1 (65th fascicle), no. 8 (94th fascicle), no. 19 (63rd fasci-
cle), and no. 35 (27th fascicle). The Fayuan zhulin parallels to
stories nos. 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 36 are explicitly said to have
been based on the "Sanbao gantong lu," which probably meant
the Ruijing lu section of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu. We have
discussed in detail the relationship between Ruijing lu stories
nos. 11-14 and their parallels in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan
zhulin, concluding that Daoshi probably produced the version
of these stories in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin by con-
sulting Daoxuan's Ruijing lu version. Two stories (nos. 15 and
16) are found only in the Ruijing lu and the 18th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin, thus indicating that two documents must be
closely related to each other. Four stories in this list of twenty
stories (nos. 1, 2, 3, 8) had been taken from the Gaoseng zhuan,
and two of these stories (nos. 2, 3) are found in the 18th fasci-
cle. In both cases, the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin stories are
closely related to each other, though we cannot determine
which of these versions is earlier.
These observations appear to indicate that Daoshi must
have consulted the Ruijing lu (possibly in an earlier form)
RUIJING LU 121
xterisive1y when he compiled the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan
e hulin, and copied its version of the 14 stories under examina-
here from the Ruijing lu into the 18th fascicle. A closer
examination of the manner in which the sources of these 14
stories are noted in the Fayuan zhulin serves to strengthen this
hypothesis. The Fayuan zhulin to.Ruijing lu stories nos.
17 20, 21, 22, 23, and 36 are explIcItly SaId to have been taken
the Sanbao gantong lu. If our reading of the conjunction you
("again") in the b:ginnin?" sectio?- of the Ruijing !u. is correct,
the Ruijing lu, or ItS earlIer versIOn, noted explIcItly that a
group of stories at the beginning of this collection was taken
from the Gaoseng zhuan. This would account for the fact that
Daoshi knew that stories nos. 2 and 3 had been taken from the
Gaoseng zhuan. Stories nos. 15 and 16 are clearly related to their
payuan zhulin parallels, but the Fayuan zhulin curiously fails to
note the source of story no. 15; the reference to the" Tang gaoseng
zhuan" (420b 1) for story no. 16 appears to be mistaken. Stories
ilOS. 11 to 14 are ultimately based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphy of Zhizhan, but, as we examined in detail above, in the
18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin Daoshi gives a version which
appears to have been based on the Ruijing lu, and he adjusts the
note that appears at the end of story no. 14 so that it would read
asa note that applies only to this last story in the series of
stories taken from the Xu gaoseng zhuan; he also places the ear-
Jier stories (nos. 11 to 13) in a larger group whose sources are
described vaguely as "the Liang gaoseng zhuan and other miscel-
laneous records." By reading the ambiguous note in the Ruijing
luin the way he did, he was left with no clues concerning the
sources of stories nos. 11 to 13, and he designated their sources
in this vague and misleading manner in the 18th fascicle.
ii) Of the 13 cases where the Fayuan zhulin version is closer
to the source they mention, four cases (nos. 28,29,32, and 34)
are in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin; two cases (nos. 4
and 5) are in the 17th fascicle. Others are scattered: no. 10 in
. the 42nd fascicle, no. 18 in the 55th fascicle, no. 26 in the 24th
fascicle, no. 30 in the 20th fascicle, and no. 33 in the 56th fasci-
cle. All four stories that are found in the 18th fascicle are origi-
nally from the Mingbao ji, and the Fayuan zhulin passages men-
tion their sources explicitly and correctly.
122
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
The 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is entirely devoted to
a collection of Chinese miracles (41 stories) that constitute the
last part of the section which begins i? the middle of the 17th
fascicle (411 c29) called "Treating the Teaching with respect"
(jingfa). Daoshi appears to have compiled this larger collection
partly on the basis of the Ruijing lu, but he also had the original
Mingbao ji in front of him when he compiled the 18th fascicle
collection, and where he decided to include the Ruijing lu
stories that were themselves based on the Mingbao ji, he substi-
tuted the Ruijing lu version of these stories with the original
Mingbao ji version. If we take into account that the "Teaching"
(fa) in the 17th and 18th fascicles refers to the Buddha's teach-
ing recorded in "scriptures" (jing) , we would be justified in
treating Daoshi's collection of the "jingfa" collection in the 18th
fascicle as an expanded version ofDaoxuan's Ruijing lu.
In my earlier article on the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, I
noted that its collection of image miracles in the second fascicle
is closely related to the miracle story collection in the 13th and
14th fascicles of the Fayuan zhulin, and, in fact, the Ji shenzhou
sanbao gantong lu collection appears to have served as a source
for the collection in 13th and 14th fascicle. 72 The 13th and 14th
fascicles of the Fayuan zhulin constitute the first half of the large
section called "Treating the Buddha with respect" (jingfl) that
ends in the middle of the 17th fascicle. In my article on the
Sengseng gantong lu, I noted that the short collection of stories
about "supernatural monks" that constitutes the last section of
Daoxuan's Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu is closely related to the
miracle story collection in the 19th fascicle of the Fayuan zhu-
Ii"'!, 73 The 19th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin contains the section
of the encyclopedia entitled "Treating monks with respect"
(jingseng). A general pattern of relationship between the mira-
cle story collections between the 13th to 19th fascicles of the
Fayuan zhulin and the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu emerges from
this analysis: the sections in the Fayuan zhulin that focus on the
theme of "treating with respect" the so-called "three treasures,"
the Buddha, the Teaching, and Monastic Order or monks, con-
tain miracle stories that appear to be closely related to impor-
tant sections of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu, or "Collected
Records of Three Treasure Miracles in China." Both Daoshi
and Daoxuan appear to have been organizing miracle stories
using the same framework of the "three treasures." 74
RUIJING LU 123
Another conclusion of my earlier studies was that the sec-
.' (on
s
of the Fayuan ;::,hulin that contain material parallel to the
lonte
nts
of the first two fascicles and the first section of the
:fhird fascicle of the Ji sanbao ga.ntong lu, were
compiled later by copymg and sometImes summanzmg the
", corresponding sections of the Ji shen;::,hou sanbao gantong lu. The
p'ayuan ;::,hulin parallels to the Shenseng garitong lu were compiled
earlier, and Daoxuan probably compiled the Shenseng gantong lu
using these Fayuan ;::,hulin collections as his sources. The above
analysis of the Ruijing lu suggests that the section of the Fayuan
zhulin most closely related to it, the miracle story collection in
'the 18th fascicle, was based in part on the Ruijing lu.
A general picture of the relationship between Daoxuan's
. collection, Ji shen;::,hou sanbao gantong lu, and the corresponding
sections ofthe Fayuan ;::,hulin emerges from this analysis. As his
colophon at the end of the Ji shen;::,hou sanbao gantong lu states
explicitly, Daoxuan compiled the Ji shen;::,hou sanbao gantong lu
quickly in the first year of the Linde period (664), a few years
.... before he ended his life, in the second year of the Qianfeng
',period (667). Since all the three known titles of this work
; include the reference to the "three treasures," Daoxuan himself
may have called the collection by a title that referred to the
"three treasures." 75
If Daoxuan was self-consciously preparing a collection of
"three treasure miracles," he may well have begun this project
.by preparing a collection of the Buddha relic and image mira-
cles (first two fascicles). He would then have proceeded to the
task of compiling a miracle story collection associated with the
Teaching, and for this he appears to have been able only to pro-
duce a shorter collection (Ruijing lu), which he used also in the
related project of compiling the Datang neidian lu, a project that
he was carrying out almost at the same time. It is possible that
this collection, the Ruijing lu, was first produced in connection
with the Datang neidian lu project and later incorporated into
the Ji shen;::,hou sanbao gantong lu. This would explain the fact that
this body of material is presented somewhat differently than in
the earlier sections on the Buddha relic and image miracles.
Here again, Daoxuan appears to have relied primarily on
materials he collected himself. But at this point, Daoshi's
124 ]IABS VOL. 14 NO. I
Fayuan zhulin project was well on its way to completion, and it
is quite possible that Daoxuan took some material from a draft
version of the collection.
76
Finally, perhaps running short of time, Daoxuan may have
quickly produced a collection of miracles stories about super_
natural monks (Shenseng gantong lu), which was intended, possi-
bly along with the "supernatural temples" (Shengsi) section in
the third fascicle, as the Monastic Order miracle stories, mak-
ing use of the material that had already been collected by
Daoshi for the Fayuan zhulin. Daoxuan's reliance on the mate-
rial that had been collected earlier for the Fayuan zhulin may
have something to do with his comments in the colophon,
where he invited readers to consult the Fayuan zhulin, which
had been "recently compiled by Daoshi of the Ximingsi tem-
ple."
However, the version of the Fayuan zhulin known to us had
not been completed in the first year of the Linde period. I sus-
pect that Daoshi incorporated the content ofDaoxuan's collec-
tion into relevant sections of the Fayuan zhulin before producing .
the final form of this encyclopedia. This would explain the fre-
quent duplication of materials that are found in the 18th fasci-
cle, parallel to the Ruijing lu, with material found elsewhere in
the Fayuan zhulin. In these cases, the material found elsewhere
is more directly related to the original sources than the stories
in the 18th fascicle, which are frequently copied directly from
the Ruijing lu. Daoshi appears to have been fully aware of the
basic scheme of the "three treasures" miracles that Daoxuan
used in organizing his collection, and incorporated the miracle
stories taken from Daoxuan's collection into the parts of his
own encyclopedia that deal with the treatment of the "three
treasures ."
RUIJING LU
R
' . ng lu stories and their parallels
.. U7J1
. 1 Tan Wujie Fayuan zhulin,juan 65, 786a (from the Mingxiangji).
t ~ s ; n g zhuan, juan 3, 338b-339a (especially, 338cl4-28).
Neidian lu, 338b.
125
nO. 2, Dao'an
Pajuan zhulin,juan 18, 418a (from the group of six stories said to have come from
the Liang gaoseng zhuan and other sources).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 5, 351c-354a (especially, 353bI7-23).
Neidian lu, 338bc.
Ref., Shenseng gantong lu, story no. 12 (432c-433a).
no. 3, Sengsheng
.. FO)uan zhulin,juan 18, 418ab (from the group ofsix stories said to have come
from the Liang gaoseng zhuan and other sources).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 406c-407a.
J.leidian lu, 338c .
. no. 4, Daojiong
FO)uanzhulin,juan 17, 408c-409a (from the Mingxiangji).
juan 65, 784c-785a.
juan 35, 567bc (from the Liang gaoseng zhuan as its source).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 407ab.
Neidian lu, 338c.
Ref., Shenseng gantong lu, story no. 21 (433c).
no. 5, Puming
FO)uan zhulin,juan 17, 409a (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Ga{)seng zhuan,juan 12, 407b.
Neidian lu, 338c.
no. 6, Huiguo
Fayuan zhulin,juan 94, 983bc (from the Liang gaoseng zhuan).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 407bc.
Neidian lu, 338c0339a.
no. 7, Huijin
Fayuan zhulin, juan 95, 989ab (from the Mingxiangji).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 407c-408a.
Neidian lu, 339a.
no. 8, Hongming
Fayuan zhulin,juan 28, 492bc (mistakenly mentions the Tang gaoseng zhuan as its
source).
126
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
juan 94, 983c (from the Liang gaoseng zhuan).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 408a.
Neidian lu, 339a.
no. 9, Sunjingde
Fayuan zhulin,juan 14, 389c ("Jian qi zhijijingyi dengji").
juan 17, 411 be (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 29, 692c22-693a9.
Shijia fangzhi, 972b 18-28.
Neidian lu, 339a.
Ref.,Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu,juan 2, 420ab.
no. 10, Daolin
Fayuan zhulin,juan, 42, 617a (from the Liang gaoseng zhuan).
Gaoseng zhuan,juan 12, 409a.
Neidian lu, 339ab.
no. ll, Zhizhan
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 418b (mentions the Liang gaoseng zhuan, etc., as the Source
of the group of six stories).
juan 85, 90ge ("jian houjunsuji", i.e., the Jingyiji) .
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 686ab.
Neidian lu, 339b.
no. 12, the anonymous monk of the Wuhousi temple
Fayuanzhulin,juan 18, 418b (mentions the Liang gaoseng zhuan, etc., as the source
juan 85, 91Oa4 ("jian houjunsuji", i.e., the Jingyiji) .
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 28, "Zhizhan zhuan", 686aI3-17.
Neidian lu, 339b.
no. 13, the lips and tongue dug out at Mt. Dongkan
Fayuanzhulin,juan 18, 418b (mentions the Liang gaoseng zhuan, etc., as the source
juan 85, 910a ("jian houjunsuji", i.e., the Jingyiji) .
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 28, "Zhizhan zhuan" , 686aI9-29.
Neidian lu, 339b.
no. 14, the eunuch of Wei who grew a beard
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 418bc (mentions the Liang gaoseng zhuan, etc., as the
source of the group of six stories).
juan 85, 910a ("jian houjunsuji", i.e., the Jingyiji) .
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 28, "Zhizhan zhuan", 686bO-14.
Neidian lu, 339b.
no. 15, the scripture coming down from the sky during the persecution of Bud-
dhism under emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou dynasty
RUIJING LU
. zhulin,juan 18, 419b (no source mentioned).
in the Neidian lu.
127
... "16 an anonymous monk in Yangzhou
'r;;ua; zhulin;juan 18, 419c-420a (in the group of two stories said to have come
from the Liang gaoseng zhuan).
Neidian lu, 339bc.
"no. 17, Daoji
. Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 421 a (from the Sanbao gantong lu).
juan 64, 779b (Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xugaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 687c.
]Veidian lu, 339c ..
18, Baogui
Fayuan zhulin,juan 55, 709b (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xugaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 688ab.
Fanyi mingyiji,juan 4, 1125ab.
lYeidian lu, 339c.
no: 19, Kongzang
'Fayuanzhulin,juan 63, 766a (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
....... juan 85, 910c-911a (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
"Xugaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 689b.
}feidian lu, 339c-340a.
no. 20, Yisu
F'ayuan zhulin,juan 18 (from the Sanbao gantong lu).
juan 85, 91Oc-911a (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 690a .
. Weidian lu, 340a.
no. 21, Shi Heshi
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 421a (from the Sanbao gantong lu).
juan 85, 911a (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xugaoseng zhuan,juan 28, 690b.
Neidian lu, 340a.
22, Linghu Yuangui
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 421 ab (from the Sanbao gantong lu; originally heard from
Shenji of the Ximingsi).
Neidian lu, 340ab.
no. 23, Tanyun
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18,421 b (from the Sanbao gantong lu).
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 20, 592a-593b (especially, b4-11).
Neidian lu, 340b.
128
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
no. 24,Sengche
Fayuan zhulin, juan 95, 989bc (from the Mingbao ji).
Mingbao ji, 788c-789a.
Ref., Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 20, 595bc.
Neidian lu, 340b.
no. 25, a nun from Hedong
Fayuan zhulin,juan 27, 486c (from the Mingbao ji).
Mingbaoji,789ab.
Neidian lu, 340b.
no. 26, Tanyan
Fayuan zhulin,juan 24, 467c (from the Tang gaoseng zhuan).
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 8, 488a-9a (especially, 488ab).
Neidian lu, 340bc.
no. 27, Daosun
Mingbaoji, 789b.
Xu gaoseng zhuan,juan 14, 532c-533c (especially, 533b8-23).
Ref., Xu gaoseng zhuan, 489b24.
Neidian lu, 340c.
no. 28, Zhiyuan
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18 (from the Mingbao ji).
Mingbaoji,789c.
Neidian lu, 340c.
no. 29, Van Gong
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 419bc (from the Mingbaoji).
Mingbao ji, 790c.
Neidian lu, 340c-341a.
no. 30, Li Shanlong
Fayuan zhulin,juan 20, 436abc (from the Mingbao ji).
Mingbao ji, 795c-796b.
Neidian lu, 341a.
no. 31, Lady Doulu
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18,421 c (from the Mingbaoji).
Mingbaoji,795bc.
Neidian lu, 341.
no. 32, Li Siyi
Related story in the Fayuan zhulin,juan 91, 958c (from the Mingbao shiyi).
Neidian lu, 341ab.
RVIJING LV
33 Cen Wen ben
" . f & u a ~ zhulin,juan 56,712c (from the Mingbaoji).
" Mingbaoji, 795a.
Neidian lu, 341b.
34, Su Chang's maid servant
Fa uan zhulin,juan 18,421 c (from the Mingbao ji).
Jngbaoji, 794bc and 795a.
Neidian lu, 341 b.
Yn
o
.
35
, Dong Xiong
FilJuan zhulin,juan 27, 485ab (from the Mingbao shiyi).
'.' Mingbao ji, 794c-795a.
Neidian lu, 341 bc.
no. 36, a scripture written in the sky in Yizhou
Fayuan zhulin,juan 18, 421 bc (from the Sanbao gantong lu) .
. >Neidian lu, 341c.
no. 37, Gao Fayan
Fayuan zhulin,juan 46, 640bc-641 a.
iNeidian lu, 341c-342a.
no. 38, Cui Yiqi
Fayuan zhulin,juan 85, 911 a.
Not in the Neidian lu.
NOTES
129
1. This paper has resulted from a project on Chinese Buddhist biog-
raphies supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council
. of Canada.
'. 2. I have commented elsewhere on the question of discrepancy in the
. dates of this colophon and that of the Li Yan's preface to the Fayuan zhulin, which
: gives the date of the completion of this encyclopedia as the 30th day of the third
,month of the first year ofZongzhang (668), that is, four years after the date of
: Daoxuan's colophon. See Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, eds., Monks
,and Magicians: Religious Biographies in Asia (Oakville, Ontario, 1988), p. 216, n. 110;
."Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu: Some Exploratory Notes," Kalyana-Mitta: Prqfissor
iHajime Nakamura Felicitation Volume, edited by V N. Jha (Delhi, 1990), p. 203 and
nA, and "Daoxuan's Collection of Miracle Stories about 'Supernatural Monks'
(Shenseng gantong lu): An Analysis of Its Sources," Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal,
: no, 3. (1990), p. 319.
3. Daoshi's close association with Daoxuan is mentioned in Daoshi's
biography in the Song gaoseng zhuan, 726cl6,17.
130 lIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
4. The Taish6 text, no. 2106, is based on the Korean edition, which Was
produced during the 15-year period between 1236-1251. The Song, Yuan and
Ming editions are used for listing the variant readings of the text. The original
Korean text, numbered as K 1069, is found in vol. 32, pp. 589c-635a of the
recently published photographic edition of the canon.
5. There are a few exceptions (no. 27 "Daosun" in the Ruijing lu; no. 25
"Liu Ningzhi" in the Shenseng gantong lu) in which the materials corresponding
to those in the two collections at the end of the ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu are
not found in the Fayuan zhulin.
6. These exceptions include the following: the story of Tan Wujie (no. 1)
is said to be a quotation from the Gaoseng zhuan; the Sun Jingde story (no. 9,
427ab) mentions a work called the Qishu; the story about the eunuch who grew
a beard (nO". 14, 427bc) is said to be based on the jingyiji; stories no. 22 and 23
indicate that the accounts were based on Daoxuan's personal experience as wit.
ness; the story about the nun from Redong traces the story to the monk Faduan.
I shall examine in some detail other clues in the Ruijing lu which enable us to
determine the immediate sources Of the stories included.
7. Even if we take account of the possibility that the Ruijing lu might
have evolved over a period of time, the fact that some of the stories in the present
form of the Ruijing lu mention their sources explicitly indicates that there is only
a very remote possibility that the sources of the stories were indicated in detail
in a manner similar to the corresponding Fayuan zhulin passages in this.
hypothetical earlier version of the Ruijing lu. If the sources were indicated in a
meticulous manner similar to the Fayuan zhulin in an earlier draft, and then
removed when the final version of the Ruijing lu was produced, why should only
a small number of source references have been left in the final version?
As we shall show in greater detail later, however, the Fayuan zhulin often
identifies a source in an obviously mistaken manner, and at least in some of
these cases, Daoshi did not appear to have had the correct information about
the source of the passages in question. Thus, we cannot always assume from the
source note in the Fayuan zhulin that Daoshi was copying the passages from the
sources named. In some cases Daoshi may have been copying from the Ruijing
lu, and yet at the same time mention a source which is incorrect. The principle
mentioned above, therefore, needs to be applied carefully, and in connection
with other evidence.
8. The Ruijing lu does not number the stories it contains, but I have
assigned a number to each story for easy reference, starting with no. 1 for its
first entry, on Tan Wujie, and continuing sequentially up to no. 38, assigned to
its last story, on Cui Yiqi. The name of the subject for the first ofthe five stories
attributed to the Sanbao gantong lu in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is given
there as Daoyu, but a corruption of the text appears to have occurred here. I .
am reading the name as Yisu, following the variant reading attested in all four
versions of the texts consulted in preparing the Taish6 edition. See n. 9 in T. Vol.
53,p.421.
9. The Taish6 edition of the Fayuan zhulin(no. 2106) reproduces the text
of the Korean edition (K 1406) as the base text and notes variant readings in
four other texts (i.e., Song, Yuan, Ming, and Kunaich6 Library editions) in the
RUIJING LU 131
;:tes. See ShOwa hObo somokuroku (reprint edition, Tokyo, 1979 [first edition:
p. 619c. The base text states that five stories in the 18th fascicle were
.... ken from the Sanbao gantong lu. The variant reading of this same passage,
in all four versions of the. text consulted, number of
based on the Sanbao gantong lu as SIX. If we follow thIS readmg, the set of stones
'the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin that was based on the Sanbao gantong lu
'. :gins with ?f Daoji: The. text of the Daoji story in the. 18th fascicle of
,j;'oyuan zhulin IS .vIrtually to that of the story on thIS figure (no: 17) :n
the Ruijing lu (l.e., the Jz shenzhou sanbao gantong lu), though the note gIVen m
small characters in the Fayuan zhulin version-which states that this monk is
called by a different name, Daoyuan, in another source-is not found in the Rui-
lu passage. I am here following the variant reading of this passage.
10. Fayuan zhulin, 1023c8; Datang neidian lu, 333a20.
11. Paradoxically, this explicit reference to the Sanbao gantong lu might
appear to suggest that other Fayuan zhulin passages that are clearly related to
corresponding passages in the Ruijing lu were not directly dependent on the Rui-
.'. Jing lu, since they fail to mention the Ruijing lu or the Sanbao gantong lu as their
sources. They refer instead to earlier sources on which both the Fayuan zhulin
and the Ruijing lu passages were ultimately based. Thus, in these cases the Rui-
'jing lu passage might appear to have come into being later and to be dependent
on the Fayuan zhulin passage. If the Fayuan zhulin passage was dependent on the
.. Ruijing lu in these cases as well, Daoshi might be expected to have indicated its
source as the Sanbao gantong lu in the same way inwhich he mentions this work
.... in the six cases discussed above. As we shall show in some detail below, the
relationship between the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin appears to be very com-
plex, and needs to determined for each story; the first question is of course
:vhether the stories appear to be directly related at all; the next question is
.. which of the two was the original. Thus, the consideration based on the explicit
.identification of the sources, or the absence of such identification, needs to be
examined in connection with other relevant evidence based on the examination
of the content ofthe stories themselves. On the basis of a detailed analysis pre-
sented below, I conclude that many other stories in the Fayuan zhulin were also
dependent on the Ruijing lu.
12. Shi Heshi appears to have been a lay practioner who recited the Lotus
Sfltra, and Daoxuan included his biography as an appendix to the monk Yisu's
biography. The stories about Yisu (the name given as Yiyu) and Shi Heshi
appear again in the 85th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin (91Oc-911 a). The source
for this passage in the 85th fascicle is given as the Tang gaoseng zhuan (9lla20) .
. The 85th fascicle passage is an abbreviated version of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biog-
raphy ofYisu.
13. Another passage on Daoji appears in the 64th fascicle of the Fayuan
ihulin (779b), where it is said to have been based on the Tang gaoseng zhuan
. (779cl9). This passage is more detailed than the one in the 18th fascicle, and
the first part of the story is a faithful copy of the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography.
Extensive differences in phraseology appear in the second half of the story.
14. The Ruijing lu and the parallel Fayuan zhulin passages on this monk
end with a related note indicating that Daoxuan saw the miraculous scripture
132
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
written by a supernatural being for Tanyun in the tenth year of the Zhenguan
period (636- 637) (428b20,21 in the Ruijing lu; 421 b22,23 in the Fayuan zhulin).
15. According to a corrupted passage that appears in slightly different
forms in the Ruijing lu (428b 7,8) and the Fayuan 'zhulin (421 b 10), the source of
the story about Linghu Yuangui appears to have been an oral report by the
chief administrator (sizhu) of the Ximingsi temple, Shentai. The name of the
monk is given as Shencha in the Ruijing lu and as Shenjiin the Fayuan zhulin. The
two characters that appear in these two names, cha and}i "are similar, and thus
there is little doubt that Shencha and Shenji are different versions of the same
name. According to a passage in the 39th fascicle of the Fozu tongji (367ab),
when the Ximingsi temple was built by the imperial order in the second year of
the Xianqingperiod (657), Daoxuan, Shentai, and Huaisu were appointed as
the head monk (shangzuo), the chief administrator (sizhu) , and the ceremonial
leader (weina) respectively. The character tai is also similar to the two charac_
ters cha and}i, and I suspect that the name given as Shencha and Shenji by Dao-
xuan and Daoshi is the same name as the one given as Shentai by Zhipan. I
have so far not been able to find further information about this monk. The
parallel note in the Ruijing lu and the Fayuan zhulin states that this monk saw the
miraculous scriptures that survived fire with his own eyes, and told this story
about the scriptures which Linghu Yuangui had arranged to have copied. Since
both Daoxuan and Daoshi resided at the Ximingsi temple, we cannot determine
from this note which one of the two versions of the story is the original one.
16. Here I am following the variant reading attested in the Song, Yuan,
and Ming editions. The Korean edition reproduced in the Taisho collection
lacks the you in front of Hongming's biographies but the variant reading that is
found in all other editions includes this character.
17. This work was compiled by Wang Yan toward the end of the fifth cen-
tury (some time between 485-501). A large number of fragments from this
work, including Wang Yan's preface (juan 14, 388c), have been preserved in the
Fayuan zhulin.
18. It is also possible that this collection of the Gaoseng zhuan was pro-
duced earlier by someone other than Daoxuan, and that in compiling the Rui-
ling lu, Daoxuan may have been simply using this earlier work as the basis of
the first part of his collection. There is no conclusive evidence on this matter. I
am inclined to believe that the person who began the main text ofthe Ruijing lu
following its preface and the table of contents with a statement "The Gaoseng
zhuan says ... " was Daoxuan himself
19. The conjunction "you" again appears at the beginning of the stories
about the anonymous monk of the vVuhousi temple (no. 12), the eunuch who
grew a beard (no. 14), and the Prajiiaparamita scripture seen in the sky (no.
15). Stories nos. 12 and 14 are parts of the long passage in the Xu gaoseng zhuan
biography ofZhizhan (686ab) from which Ruijing lu stories nos. 11-14 appear
to have been taken and the conjunctions are present in the original Xu gaoseng
zhuan text (686a13 and b8). Daoxuan appears to have used this expression fre-
quently in places where he listed stories that belonged to the same category
together.
RVIJING LV 133
20. They appear as biographies numbered 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, and 21 in
he section on "reciters of scripture."
t 21. Shoki zenshii shisho no kenkyii (Kyoto, 1967), p. 60. Yanagida mentions a
I rge number of new collections, including the Hongzanfohua zhuan compiled by
(not earlier than 706), the Fahua zhuanji compiled by Sengxiang
( robably after 754), the Huayan jing zhuan ji compiled by Fazang (first com-
in 690 and revised until Fazang's death in 712), the Huayanjing ganying
Phuan by Hu Youzhen (originally compiled by Fazang's disciple by Huiying, but
by Hu Youzhen in 783), and the Jingang banruo jiyanji by Meng Xian-
.zhong (718).
. 22. The Gaoseng zhuan passage parallel to the main story told in the Rui-
. yilg lui Fayuan zhulin passage is found in 338c24-28. The two passages are very
'similar, except that the reference to the Guanshiyinjing scripture found earlier in
the . Gaoseng zhuan biography (c23) is incorporated into the parallel passage in
the Ruijing lu (426b22 and 24) and the Fayuan zhulin (786a5,6, and 8).
23. We saw above that there are six stories in the 18th fascicle of the
Fayuan zhulin which Daoshi says explicitly come from the Sanbao gantong lu. The
payuan zhulin passage on Dao'an under discussion here is also found in the 18th
fascicle. It is likely that there was a close relationship between the Ruijing lu pas-
sage on Dao'an and the Dao'an passage in the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin.
24. I discussed the Gaoseng zhuan biography of Daojiong and its relation
to the },;[ingxiangji fragments on the same figure preserved in the Fayuan zhulin in
some detail in my earlier article, "Two sources of Chinese Buddhist Biog-
raphies: stiiPa inscriptions and miracle stories," Monks and Magicians: Religious
Biographies in Asia, ibid., pp. 136-139.
25. The note on this story, found at 409bl, gives the source as the "Tang
gaoseng zhuan," but this is clearly a mistake for" Liang gaoseng zhuan."
26. The two texts are identical except for one section toward the end of
the Gaoseng zhuan biography (408a17-21). This passage is missing in the version
..... in the 28th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin.
27. The Tan Wujie passage is found injuan 65, Dao'an and Sengsheng
passages in juan 18, Daojiong and Puming passages injuan 17, Huiguo and Hon-
.. gming passages injuan 94, Huijing passage injuan 95, and Daolin passage in
,juan 42.
28. This applies to the case of the story about Daolin. We noted above
that the story about Daolin appears to have been added later to the original list
of the Gaoseng zhuan stories in the Ruijing lu. For this reason the relationship
among the three sources compared here, the Ruijing lu, the Fayuan zhulin parallel,
and the Gaoseng zhuan original might have been somewhat different in the case
ofthis story.
29. In the Gaoseng zhuan the biographies of Dao'an and Sengsheng are
found separately in the 5th and 12th fascicles ("exegetes" and "reciters" sec-
tions). Those ofDaojiong, Puming Huiguo, and Hongming are all found in the
12th fascicle ("reciters" section) in the Gaoseng zhuan following the same order,
though in the Gaoseng zhuan, other biographies are found between each of these
four biographies.
134
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
30. We have seen earlier that the first story in the Ruijing lu, the story of .
Tan Wujie, is said in the Ruijing lu to be based on the Gaoseng zhuan and yet the
identical story in the Fayuan zhulin is said to be based on the Mingxiang ji.
Perhaps in Daoxuan's time, the Gaoseng zhuan's dependence on the Mingxiangji
was widely known, and the parallel versions of the biographies / miracle stories
that are found in these two works were not clearly distinguished by Daoxuan
and his contemporaries. Consequently, Daoxuan might have considered these
stories about Tan Wujie and Huijin as Gaoseng zhuan stories, rather than as
Mingxiangji stories, as indicated in the Fayuan zhulin, and used these shorter Ver-
sions of the stories as suitable summaries of the Gaoseng zhuan biographies when
he compiled the Ruijing lu.
3!. The Ruijing lu stories about Zhizhan (no. 11), the anonymous monk
of the Wuhousi (no. 12), the lips dug out from the ground at Mt. Dongkan (no ..
13), and the eunuch who grew a beard (no. 14) are found in the biography of
Zhizhan that appears first in the "reciters of scripture" section. The Ruijing lu
story about Daoji (no. 17) is based on the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of the same
monk that appears as the seventh biography in the same section. The story
about Baogui (no. 18) is based on the biography ofBaogui that appears as the
eighth in the section. The story of Kongzang (no. 19) is based on the eleventh
biography. The stories about Yisu and Shi Heshi (nos. 20 and 21) are based on
the biography ofYisu that appears as the 13th biography of this same section in
the Xu gaoseng zhuan.
32. A brief comment on this work appears in Gjertson, "The Early
Chinese Buddhist Miracle Tale: A Preliminary Survey," Journal qfthe American
Oriental Society, Volume 101, no. 3 (July-September, 1981), p. 294.
33. The story about Sun Jingde (no. 9) is accompanied by a note stating
that it was taken from a work called Qi shu; sources are not mentioned for the
four stories after that (stories nos. 10, 11, 12, 13); the story about the eunuch (no.
14) is accompanied by the Jingyiji note. The story no. 10 is about Daolin, which
had been taken from the Gaoseng zhuan.
34. Daoxuan gives this date in his preface as the latest point of the period
covered in the collection (425b22).
35. Daoxuan's additions to the 645 version of the Xu gaoseng zhuan are d i s ~
cussed in Maekawa Takashi, "Dosen no koshil kosOden ni tsuite: zoku kosOden tona kan-
ren," Ryilkoku shidan, 46 (1960), pp. 20-37.
36. The Taisho text of the Fayuan zhulin is based on the Korean edition,
and notes variant readings in other editions at the bottom of each page. Thus, .
we learn from the Taisho edition in the note giving the Jingyi ji as the source of
the Zhizhan stories in the 85th fascicle that the character for "two" is missing
in the Song, Yuan, and Kunaicho editions. The note reads: "The above story
appears (jian) in Hou Junsu's collection." This would imply that we do not
know the source of the first item in the miracle stories section of the 85th fasci-
cle, and that Daoshi probably copied the note on the source for the second item,
i.e., the Zhizhan biography stories, from the corresponding passage in the Xu
gaaseng zhuan biography. It appears quite possible that, since the source for the
first item is not specified by an independent note, someone assumed that the
source for the first item was also the Jingyiji, and changed the note for the item
RUIJING LU 135
...... cordingly, by inserting the character for "two" at the appropriate place. The
a\es in the miracle stories sections in the Fayuan zhulin typically follow the for-
n
O
at
of attaching a note at the end of last story in the series of miracle stories
fIl
ken
from a given source, saying that "The above such and such number of
come from such and such source."
.... The first" item in the miracle stories section of the 85th fascicle is a story
bout the Tinghu lake deity in Yangzhou. It is also possible, however, that this
a
tory
had in fact been based on the Jingyiji and when Daoshi prepared this sec-
{ion of the Fayuan zhulin, fascicle 85, he simply chose to indicate this fact by mod-
jfYing Daoxuan's original note on the second story slightly. In that case, we
'must assume that the character for "two" was dropped at some relatively early
stage in the transmission of the text.
37. As we noted in passing above, a note at the end ofa group of miracle
stories attached to Zhizhan's biography, in a collection of monks' biographies,
which says (bing) these stories are found in HouJunsu'sJingyiji," may be
tead to mean either that both Zhizhan's biography and the groups of stories
attached to it are found in the Jingyiji, or that only the stories and not Zhizhan's
biography itself are found in that work. Since the Jingyiji has now been lost, we
cannot determine which of these readings is in fact correct, though I am inclined
to believe that it was only the group of stories that was found in theJingyiji and
not Zhizhan's biography itself. The Jingyi ji was not a biographical collection,
and the Xu gaoseng zhuan generally does not mention the sources of the biog-
raphies included in it explicitly.
The section in the 85th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin where the biography of
Zhizhan and the attached group of miracle stories are found is itself not a bio-
gra.phical collection, but a collection of miracle stories. In this context, a reader
might naturally assume that the note that is found at the end of this material,
saying that these stories are found in Hou Junsu'sJingyi ji," was meant to
include all the stories, including Zhizhan's biography itself, as coming from the
]ingyi ji. Medieval Chinese miracle stories were frequently told in the form of
biographies, and Zhizhan's story does mention several miraculous events.
38. The Ruijing lu passage also uses the conjunction you at the beginning
bfthe story about the monk in Yongzhou (427bI8). This word is also found in
the corresponding 85th fascicle passage in the Fayuan zhulin (91Oa4), but does
not appear at the corresponding place either in the corresponding passage in
the 18th fascicle of the Fayuan zkulin (418b21), or in the Xu gaoseng zkuan biog-
raphy ofZhizhan (686aI5). Daoxuan used the conjunction you frequently in list-
ing stories one after another, and since we are reasonably certain that the 85th
fascicle passage was independently and directly based on the Xu gaoseng zkuan
passage, we cannot dismiss the possibility that this word you might have existed
in some earlier version of the Xu gaoseng zkuan, which was copied by Daoshi when
he prepared the 85th fascicle passage. The word could then have been dropped
at some point in the course of the textual transmission of the Xu gaoseng zkuan.
If we follow the analysis presented here that the passage in the 18th fasci-
Cle was prepared on the basis of the corresponding passage in the Ruijing lu, we
would have to assume that Daoshi must have simply dropped the you that fol-
lowed closely the earlier occurrence of the same word, rather than changing it
again into kou.
I'
I
The significance of these differences regarding the conjunction you in front
of the story about the monk in Yongzhou remains rather obscure. .
39. These Gaoseng zhuan stories correspond to Ruijing lu stories no. 2
(Dao'an) and no. 3 (Sengsheng) and Shenseng gantong lu story no. 2 (Zhu Shixing).
40. This fact again suggests that the main body of the Ji shenzhou sanbao
ganto'fl:g lu and the Ruijing lu may have been originally prepared on two separate
occasions and the Ruijing lu may have been appended to the main body oftheJi ,
shenzhou sanbao gantong lu either at the time the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu Was
compiled or later. As suggested earlier, the Ruffing lu might have been first pre- ,
pared as a part of the Datang neidian lu. '
41. If this was the case, it would probably mean that the collection of
miracle stories attached to the Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of Sengming existed "
by the time the Shijia Jangz,hi was compiled, in the first year ofYonghui (650-51).
42. The version in the 17th fascicle is given in the middle of a set of three .'
stories which are said to comeJrom (chu) the Tang gaoseng zhuan, using the stan-
dard formula used in the Fayuan zhulin. The Shijia Jangzhi version lacks note ,
that gives the source of this story using the verb jian, and therefore if Daoshi "
copied this version of the story from the Shijia Jangzhi, it is natural that the verb .
jian does not appear in the note on the source of this story in the 17th fascicle of
the Fayuan zhulin. '
43. In the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu Daoxuan appears to have used the
character ru ("as") as well asjian in referring to the sources where the story in
question appears. Thus the character ru appears in 404'a22 (no Fayuan zhulin
parallel), 4l3cll (The Fayuan zhulin parallel also gives ru, 383b13), 4l9b5
(source note dropped in the Fayuan zhulin passage) , 423a6 (no Fayuan zhulin',
parallel). In addition to the passages discussed in detail above, the character'
jian appears in 414a12 (The Fayuan zhulin also givesjian, 383a16), 432a (The'
Fayuan zhulin uses the word chu in a note that in a typical manner gives the:
sources for the group offive miracle stories taken from the Mingxiangji, 6l7a7). "
Thus, in one case the verb jian is preserved in the Fayuan zhulin version, and in
another replaced by a more typical formula for referring to sources used in that '
encyclopedia.
One notable exception to the pattern described here is the case of the
source note for the story about the Buddha's footsteps in the Xiangsisi in
Yuzhou: the source for this story is given with the verb chu in the second fascicle'
of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu (422a6, 7) and with the verb jian in the note in
small characters in the 14th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin(39l b12). Thus the usage
of chu andjian is reversed in this example. The same story also appears in the
Luelic datang yuwang guta li in the Guang hongming ji, compiled by Daoxuan .
(203ab), but the source is not indicated here. In spite of this one contrary exam-
ple, I am still inclined to believe it was Daoxuan who preferred to use the
verbjian in the context we are interested in here.
A brief survey of the references to bibliographical references in the Xu gao-
seng zhuan collected in the KosOden sakuin (ed., Makita Tairyo and Suwa Gijun,.
Kyoto, 1975) reveals that both the verb ru andjian are used frequently in men:';
tioning biographical and historical sources. For example, references to
dent biographies of monks, described by such titles as Bieji and Biczhuan, use the'
RUIJING LU 137
in a number of cases: 618c23 (Huiman's biography), 634b29,cl
biography) and 70lcll (Facheng's biography) use the verb jian
to the respective Bieji biographies; 489c25 (Tanyan's biography),
(concerning Shensu in Zhikuan's .biography), 558c 13 (Tanxiang's biog-
575b16 (Huizan's biography), 647a23 (Sengyi's biography) and 658a26
biography) used the same verb in referring to Biezkuan biographies.
"_aUmpr" the verb jian is used in referring to a work called Ganying zkuan
Shetisina's biography); to a work described as Baockang deng lu and the
lu (429a16,17 and 29 in Bodhiruci's biography); to Fei Changfang's
ji (as Suidai sanbao lu, 431a in Gounaluotuo's biography; as Fei
sanbao lu, 434c8 in Shenajueduo UnanaguptaJ's biography; as Feijie
560b9 in Xinxing's biography); to the jingyiji (686b14 in Zhizhan's
[a discussed above]); to the Suidaijing lu (i.e., the Zkongjing mulu com-
by Yancong [also known as Renskou lu], 434c22 in Shenajueduo's biog-
to Daoxuan's Neidian lu (434cl3 in Shenajueduo's biography); to a work
Leiwen (650b27 in the section on Fu Hong in Huiyun's biography). The
cku is frequently used in the Xu gaoseng zkuan in a different sense, to indicate
works that the subject in question had produced: e.g., 530a19 (Shensu's
,ioe:rarmy, 434b4 (Shenajueduo's biography), 455a22 (Xuanzang's biog-
18 (Huijing's biography), 596a13 (Sengche's biography), 428all
'T' __ ~ ~ . ' o biography), 434b4,5 (Shenajueduo's biography). In ~ n e passage
, the verb cku is used in a statement made by the subject of the biog-
Zhixuan as the verb preceding the source of information being discussed
the Emperor of the Northern Zhou dynasty and Zhixuan.
In the light of this evidence concerning Daoxuan's usage, I am inclined to
that the use of cku in the story ofXiangsisi mentioned above is truly an
:xcepu,on, and possibly a corruption of the original jian, which Daoshi copied
the Fayuan zkulin.
In an earlier article, I suggested that the story of the two floating images
Wu Commandary found in Fayuan zkulin, 13th fascicle, may have been the
which Daoxuan copied into theji skenzkou sanbao gantong lu: story no.3,
fascicle (413c-414a; especially, 414a12). See "Two sources of Chinese
Biographies: stilpa inscriptions and miracle stories," ibid., footnote
p. 222. This story is also accompanied by a note which gives thejingyiji as
of the two sources mentioned and begins with the verb jian. The analysis
here in connection with two otl::ter notes on the jingyi ji suggests that it was
again Daoxuan who composed the note on this same source for the
of the two floating images in the Wu Commandary, and that the Fayuan
version of this story might have been copied from the ji skenzkou sanbao
lu. My earlier observation in the above mentioned note needs to be mod-
accordingly.
44. Makita Tairyo, "Kiiiikanzenonkyii no skutsugen," Makita Tairyo, Gikyii
__ __ (Kyoto, 1976), pp. 272-287. The comment on Daoxuan's role is found on
_ 281-282. The following background to this story is particularly interesting
The name of the Gaowang guanskiyin jing appears for the first time in the
,;na-r"T,h" of Lu Jingyu in the fMii sku, compiled by Wei Shou in 554, and in the
ski, compiled by Li Yanshou in 659. Makita notes that the original fMii sku
138
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
biography of Lu Jingyu has been lost, and the current edition of the vVei shu
reproduces the Bei shu biography in its place. Makita believes, nevertheless, that
the original VVei shu story must have been very similar to the present version
based on the Bei shu (Ibid., 274). In this biography, the core of the story
associated with Sun Jingde in Daoxuari's accounts is told briefly in connection
with another figure, Lu Jingyu; the name of the scripture is given as Gao
wang
guanshiyin jing, iIi exactly the same manner as in Daoxuan's Sun Jingde story.
Thus, there is little doubt that the story in LuJingyu's biography represents an
earlier form of the same story. Falin's Bianzheng Iun (written in response to Fu
Vi's memorial in the fourth year of the Wude period [621]) mentions the same
story briefly as a event thatoccurred under the Qi dynasty (qishi yauyin) !juan 7
53 7bc). The reference to the Qi zhi and Qi shu in the notes in the Ji shenzhau s a n ~ .
baa gantang Iu may have some relationship to the reference to the Qi dynasty in
the Bianzheng Iu.
The name Xiao Xun appears in the Zhau shu in the account describing the
end of the Later Liang dynasty. After a brief description of the end of Xiao
Gong's reign, this passage lists the titles given to the sons of the first ruler of the .
Later Liang, Xiao Gha, and then those of the second ruler, Xiao Kui (the names
of the successors to the throne whose lives are described in detail earlier are not
mentioned here-thus Xiao Gong is not mentioned in the list of Xiao Kui's
sons). Among several others, the list of Xiao Kui's sons mentions Xiao Xun
who is said to have been appointed as the Prince of Nanhai, and Xiao Yu, w h ~
is said to have been as the Prince ofXin'an (p.866). The appointment ofXiao
Yu as Prince ofXin'an was also mentioned in the two biographies ofXiao Yu'
reviewed above. .
The biography ofXiao Gong appears in the Sui shu, juan 79, pp. 1793-94,
and the Bei shi,juan 81, pp. 3092-3093. Xiao Gong succeed his father, Xiao Kui,
Emperor Ming, as the last ruler of the Liang dynasty (or Later Liang, 555-
587). When the Sui emperor Wen abolished the state of Liang, Gong was given
the title of Duke ofJu. Later, Xiao Gong was favoured by the second Sui ruler,
Emperor Yang, and was appointed as Duke of Liang. In the end, he lost the
emperor's favour, and partly because he was close to Heruo Pi, and partly
because of a popular children's song that hinted at the resurgence of the Xiao
family, the Emperor ordered that Xiao Gong's family be exterminated (fei JU
jia, p. 1794, 1. 8). Xiao Gong ended his life shortly after that. The Sui shu,juan 79
(p. 1794) and the Bei shi, juan 81 (p. 3093) state that he had a son called Xuan,
who had served as the Vice-Governor of Xiangcheng. But he must have been
killed when the Emperor ordered Xiao Gong's family exterminated, and the
title of Duke of Liang was passed on to Xiao Ju, who was a son ofXiao Gong's
younger brother.
A short biography of Xiao Gong's younger brother, Xiao Huan, is
appended to Xiao Gong's biography: this biography states Xiao Huan called
himself the third son of Xiao Kui, and also mentions his other younger
brothers, Jing, Ghang, and Yu. This list is a little shorter than that in the Zhou
shu mentioned above, and most notably, the name Xiao Xun does not appear in
this passage in the Sui shu. We must also note that the title Duke of Liang is men-
tioned in connection with other figures in the Sui shu passage.
RUIJING LU 139
The discrepancies between the Sui shu and Tang shu passages on the Xiao
may reflect the different orientations of the two dynastic histories. The
ruler of the Later Liang dynasty, Xiao Cong, and his nephew, Xiao Ju, were
by Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty, and this special relationship may
why'the Sui shu passage describes Xiao Cong's life in some detail. Xiao
who also'had been close to Emperor Yang, responded to the invitation of
founding Emperor of the Tang dynasty, and served Emperor Taizong
This would explain why the Jiu tang shu devotes a long biography to
Perhaps' the Jiu tang shu chose not to mention Xiao Cong because of his
relationship with the Sui Emperor Yang.
',We noted above that the Xu gaoseng zhuan describes Huiquan's father as the
who served the Sui dynasty as the Lord of Liang. This description appears
the life ofXiao Cong as it is described in the Sui shu, rather than that of the
Xiao Xun (the Fayuan zhulin" 911a9, states that the biographies of both
of Song, i.e., Xiao Yu, and his elder brother, the taifusi,daqing are found
"dynastic histories [guoshi], but Xiao Xun's biography is not found in any of
" existing dynastic histories). In describing Huiquan's father as the Duke of
Daoxuan may have confused Xiao Xun with Xiao Cong who served the
, dynasty. Or, there might have been other complex stories behind these
accounts of the Xiao family in the Sui shu and the Tang shu. The iden-
of the father of Huiquan and Zhizheng still remains somewhat obscure.
of later members of the Xiao family are found in the 99th fascicle
Jiu tang shu and the lOlst fascicle of the Xin tang shl!'
45. The phrase is the description of Kongzang's death: zhongyu huichang,
zhulin, 766a19; Xu gaoseng zhuan, 689cl4,15; the corresponding passage in
Ruijing lu reads as mo yu jingsi, (428a9).
46. There may have been a complex relationship between the Xu gaoseng
. section on the biographies of Kongzang, Shi Huiquan, and Yisu (which
the section on Shi Heshi)(689b- 690b) and the Fayuan zhulin passage
Kongzang, which contains in the 85th fascicle (9lOc-912a) a long appendix
, the stories about Yisu, Shi Heshi, Duke of Song (911a8, 13) and his
brother, "Chief Minister of the Court of the Imperial TreasJiry" (taifusi
911a8,9, 16). This section in the 85th fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin is fol-
. by a long story about Cui Yiqi and his wife, who was the daughter of
Keng, a nephew of the Duke 'of Song mentioned above. The same story
in a shorter form at the end of the Ruijing lu (430ab). The relationship
these two versions of the story will be discussed below. What is of par-
interest to us here is the fact that the stories about the Xiao family
to have been carefully collected in this section of the Fayuan zhulin. Since
. Xiao family traces its background to Emperor Wu* of the Liang dynasty,
in later legendary traditions appears to have become a paradigmatic pro-
ruler in China, comparable in some regards to King Asoka in India,
interest that Daoxuan and Daoshi showed in stories associated with this
is worthy of some attention.
The Xu gaoseng zhuan biography ofBuiquan is, in fact, an extended account
eminent members of the Xiao family. Stories about the Duke of Song, Lord
Advanced (689c20), i.e., Xiao Yu, and about his older brother "Chief
Minister of the Court of the Imperial Treasury" (690a3) constitute a large part
of the second half of this biography (690a 7 -11 and 690a ll-14 respectively).
There are obvious parallels between the Xu gaoseng zhuan account of the
Xiao family and the passage about the Duke of Song and his older brother in
the Fayuan zhulin, suggesting that these two passages were intimately related to
each. other. The Xu gaoseng zhuan account is more extensive than that of the,
Fayuan zhulin, but the Fayuan zhulin account also contains information not found
in the Xu gaoseng zhuan account. This suggests that the two accounts might have
been based on a common source, from which Daoxuan and Daoshi excerpted
materials independently and rather freely. The material on the Xiao family is
placed in different places in the two sets of stories about the same subjects in
the Xu gaoseng zhuan and the Fayuan zhulin: it is found before the biography of
Yisu in the Xu gaoseng zhuan and after that biography in the Fayuan zhulin. The
reason for this difference is unclear.
Members of the Xiao family occupied important positions during the Sui
and Tang period, and their biographies are found in several dynastic histories.
Xiao Yu's biographies are found in the two histories of Tang dynasty: the Xin
tang shu, juan 101, pp. 3949-3952; theJiu tang shu,juan 63, pp. 2398-2404. Xiao
Yu's father was the Emperor Ming, and at the age of nine Yu was appointed as
the Prince of the Xin'an Commandary. TheJiu tang shu gives a short biography'
of a man called Xiao Jun, who is said to have been a son of Xiao Yu's older
brother Xiao Xun, the Duke of the state of Liang (p. 2405).
The Xu gaoseng zhuan biography of Huiquan states that Huiquan's father
was an older brother ofYu, Duke of Song, Lord Specially Advanced, and served
the Sui dynasty as the Duke of Liang (689c21); it also mentions that XiaoJun
was Huiquan's older brother (689c29). If we follow the Jiu tang shu passage
about Xiao Xun mentioned above, Huiquan's father, who is said to have been a
Duke of Liang, appears to have been Xiao Xun. The Xu gaoseng zhuan biography
notes further that Huiquan had a younger brother, a monk named Zhizheng
who lived in the same place as Huiquan. The father of the monk Zhizheng is
described separately as the older brother of the Duke of Song, the Chief Minis-
ter of the Court of the Imperial Treasury (taifuqing) (690a3). We have noted
above that this title is also mentioned in the Fayuan zhulin passage as that ofXiao
Yu's brother, who was also a pious lay Buddhist.
The name Xiao Xun appears in the Zhou shu in the account describing the
end of the Later Liang dynasty. After a brief description of the end of Xiao
Cong's reign, this passage lists the titles given to the sons of the first ruler ofthe
Later Liang, Xiao Cha, and then those of the second ruler, Xiao Kui (the names
of the successors to the throne whose lives are described in detail earlier are not
mentioned here-thus Xiao Cong is not mentioned in the list of Xiao Kui's
sons). Among several others, the list of Xiao Kui's sons mentions Xiao Xun,
who is said to have been appointed as the Prince ofNanhai, and Xiao Yu, who
is said to have been as the Prince ofXin'an (p.866). The appointment ofXiao
Yu as Prince of Xin'an was also mentioned in the two biographies of Xiao Yu
reviewed above.
The biography ofXiao Cong appears in the Sui shu,juan 79, pp. 1793-94,
and the Bei shi,juan 81, pp. 3092-3093. Xiao Cong succeed his father,Xiao Kui,
RVIJING LV 141
Ming, as the last ruler of the Liang dynasty (or Later Liang, 555-
When the Sui emperor Wen abolished the state of Liang, Gong was given
. of Duke ofJu. Later, Xiao Gong was favoured by the second Sui ruler,
Yang, and was appointed as Duke of Liang. In the end, he lost the
favour, and partly because he was close to Heruo Pi, and partly
of a popular children's song that hinted at the resurgence of the Xiao
the Emperor ordered that Xiao Gong's family be exterminated (jei yu
1794,1. 8). Xiao Gong ended his life shortly after that. The Sui shu,juan 79
. 1794) and the Bei shi, juan 81 (p. 3093) state that he had a son called Xuan,
had served as the Vice-Governor of Xiangcheng. But he must have been
when the Emperor ordered Xiao Gong's family exterminated, and the
of Liang was passed on to Xiao Ju, who was a son ofXiao Gong's
brother.
short biography of Xiao Gong's younger brother, Xiao Huan, is
to Xiao Gong's biography: this biography states Xiao Huan called
the third son of Xiao Kui, and also mentions his other younger
Jing, Ghang, and Yu. This list is a little shorter than that in the Zhou
above, and most notably, the name Xiao Xun does not appear in
passage in the Sui shu. We must also note that the title Duke of Liang is men-
in connection with other figures in the Sui shu passage.
The discrepancies between the Sui shu and Tang shu passages on the Xiao
may reflect the different orientations of the two dynastic histories. The
of the Later Liang dynasty, Xiao Gong, and his nephew, XiaoJu, were
by Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty, and this special relationship may
why the Sui shu passage describes Xiao Gong's life in some detail. Xiao
who also had been close to Emperor Yang, responded to the invitation of
founding Emperor of the Tang dynasty, and served Emperor Taizong
This would explain why the Jiu tang shu devotes a long biography to
Perhaps the Jiu tang shu chose not to mention Xiao Gong because of his
relationship with the Sui Emperor Yang.
We noted above that the Xu gaoseng zhuan describes Huiquan's father as the
who served the Sui dynasty as the Lord of Liang. This description appears
the life ofXiao Gong as it is described in the Sui shu, rather than that of the
Xiao Xun (the Fl1;Yuan zhulin, 911a9, states that the biographies of both
. Duke of Song, i.e., Xiao Yu, and his elder brother, the taifosi daqing are found
histories [guoshiJ, but Xiao Xun's biography is not found in any of
existing dynastic histories). In describing Huiquan's father as the Duke of
Daoxuan may have confused Xiao Xun with Xiao Gong who served the
dynasty. Or, there might have been other complex stories behind these
accounts of the Xiao family in the Sui shu and the Tang shu. The iden-
of the father of Huiquan and Zhizheng still -remains somewhat obscure.
. oflater members ofthe Xiao family are found in the 99th fascicle
tang shu and the 101 st fascicle of the Xin tang shu.
Gjertson, ibid, p. 295, n. 54. For a fuller and very informative discus-
ofthe Mingbaoji, see Gjertson's Ph.D. dissertation, A Study and Translation qf
"Ming-bao chi": A T'ang Dynasty Collection qf Buddhist Tales (Stanford Univer-
1975; UMI no. 76-5736).
'\
48. Gjertson reports that Tang Lin heard seven, of the 53 stories
members of his family (p. 105), four from Cen Wenben, a high government
. cial, and four from Lu Wenli, "a member of a prominent family" (p. 109).
more stories were heard from monks, and three were told to the compiler by
acupuncture doctor (p. 109). Only two stories in this collection were copied
from earlier written works, and some scholars even go so far as to suspect that
these stories might not have been part of the original Mingbaoji. (p. 112).
49. The text of the preface is found in Taish5, veil. 51, 787b-788a; it is
translated with extensive notes by Gjertson in his dissertation, pp. 200-215.
50. See Gjertson, ibid, p. 295; Dissertation, p. 174.
51. As Gjertson explains carefully, "the text ofthe Ming-pao chi as it
today is unfortunately not in its original state"; ibid., p. 112. For an explanation
of the text reproduced in the Taish5 collection, see ibid., pp. 123-124.
52. Dissertation, p. 131; translation, pp. 230-234.
53. Dissertation, pp. 175-177.
54. Cen Zhongmian, "Tang Tang Lin Mingbao ji zhi fuyuan" (A
struction of Tang Lin's Mingbaoji) , Lishiyuyanyanjiusojikan, no. 17, pp. 192-94.
The source of this list of Mingbao ji fragments is the Fayuan zhulin (and partly
Taiping guangji, which appears to have been dependent on the Fayuan zhulin).
Cen mentions the Sengche story on p. 194, and states that it should be excluded
from the list of Mingbao shi,yi fragments because it appears in the Mingbao ji.
Since, as noted above,(i) the Mingbao shi,yi often recapitulated Mingbao ji stories
and (ii) the versions of the Sengche story in the Fayuan zhulin story, attributed '
the Mingbao shi,yi, and the Sengche story in the Kozanji manuscript,
in the Taisho collection, are not identical, Cen might have been somewhat too
hasty in his conclusion.
55. Gjertson notes that Daoshi on more than one occasion added new
otherwise relevant details to the passages he copied from the Mingbao ji. See his
dissertation, pp. 178-179.
59. Dissertation, p. 132-133 (where a large number of variant versions of
the stories preserved ina number of sources are listed); translation, pp. 262-267.
61. Gj ertson discusses the four existing manuscripts of the Mingbao ji in
considerable detail on pp. 115-117 of his dissertation.
62. Dissertation, p. 140; the translation of the four stories that'
only in the Maeda manuscript is not included in Gjertson's
Gjertson also notes that a variant version of this Mingbaoji story appears in the
jingang banruo jing ji,yanji, compiled by Meng Xianzhong, Xuzangjing, vol. 149,
p.42b-43a.
63 .. Dissertation, pp. 178-179.
66. Dissertation, p. 135; Translation, 332-337.
RUIJING LU 143
'. 67. The Pumen chapter here refers to the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra,
hich is often called the Guanyin jing, or the AvalokiieSvara scripture. Many
'rraordinary examples of the assistance that this bodhisattva provides for those
, 0 recite his name are described in this chapter.
68. The name of this official is given as Zhang Jingyi (794cl4) it the
ingbao ji text in the TaishO collection; it. is given as Shouyi in the
uying lu (429cl3) .. the Fqyuan zhul:n (48?b3) verslO.ns. This rmght also
that RU1Jzng lu and Fqyuan zhulzn dIrectly r.elated .
. - , 69. ThIS sentence appears to be confused, SIllce III the preVIous sentence
'l'is said that Dong Xiong first told (Wang) Xin and (Li Jing)xuan (xin xuan,
"Sb6), and thus Li Jingxuan would have known about the second miracle
thout being told about it again in the morning.
, 70. The only other story missing in the Datang neidian lu is story no. 15,
"ch is about a copy of the 13th fascicle of the Larger Prajiiiipiiramitii Sutra that
s seen in the sky during the persecution of Buddhism under Emperor Wu * of
e Northern Zhou dynasty.
71. In this passage, the figure which is described as "a descendant of Gao
'aoren" in the Ruijing lu (430a6) is identified as Gao Fayan, described as a
'eat-great-grandson (xuansun) of Gao Jiong, a Chief Administrator during the
lli dynasty (640b28, 29). In the TaishO edition Gao Jiong's name is as
ao Ying, with a note indicating that the character ying is given as lei in the
unaicho edition. I inferred that the personal name of this figure must have
en "Jiong," as it is given in the 41st fascicle of the Sui shu (p. 1179). The Sui shu
ographynotes that one of his sons was called Gao Biaoren (p. 1184).
72. "Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu: An Exploratory Note," pp. 207-210.
73. "Daoxuan's Collection of Miracle Stories (Shenseng gantong lu): An
alysis ofIts Sources," pp. 325-335.
74. The organization of the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu is somewhat
Bcure. The first fascicle of this collection contains stupa and relic miracle
"ries; the second fascicle, image miracles; and third fascicle, stories
atural temples" (shengsi), "miraculous teachings" (lingjiao), and "supernatural
"onks" (shenseng). The section called "miraculous teachings" in the table of
ontents at the beginning of the third fascicle is in fact the Ruijing lu; the section
alled "supernatural monks" in the same table of contents is in fact the Shenseng
tong lu. The broad parallels with the 13th-19th fascicles of the Fayuan zhulin
gest that the Ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu was intended, as the title suggests,
a collection of "three treasure" miracles, and that the stories in the first and
second fascicles were probably intended as "Buddha" miracle stories, those of
:the Ruijing lu as the "Teaching" miracles, and those of the Shenseng gantong lu as
:J:he "Monk or Monastic Order" miracles.
, 75. As noted above, the collection appears also to have been known as
ongxia sanbao gantong ji, or simply as Sanbao gantong lu.
76. We noted above that the stories about Kongzang (no. 19) and Dong
iong (no. 35) in the Ruijing lu might have been based on the corresponding
assage in the Fqyuan zhulin (63rd and 27th fascicles).
"", The collection of miracle stories attached at end of each of the 100 topi-
"al sections of the Fayuan zhulin are all given under the heading "Ganyingyuan."
.'
I' :'
I t is probably significant that the" Ganyingyuan" section at the end is never men.
tioned explicitly in the table of contents that is given at the beginning of each of
these topical sections, nor is it included in the rather complex numbered head.
ings and subheadings used for each of these sections. Each" Ganying yuan" sec.
tion begins with its own table of contents. The first" Ganying yuan" section that
appears in the fifth fascicle of the Fayuan zhulin at the end of the section on
"gods" contains a rather long introductory essay (303bc). My suspicion is that
the Fayuan zhulin was originally conceived simply as a topical collection of rei.
evant passages from the scriptures and treatises, and that it was only later that
the collections of miracle stories were added to this basic framework. If the idea
of adding a miracle story collection arose later, then we could naturally assume
that this idea, and the work that was required to carry it out,must have been
closely related to Daoxuan's work on gathering miracle stories and producing
miracle story collections. Since stories in the main part of each of the topiCal
sections in the Fayuan zhulin are generally taken from translated Buddhist litera.
ture, they deal with Indian subject matter (one exception to this general pat-
tern is a long passage about Daoxuan's miraculous experience that is found in
the 10th fascicle, 353c-355b). By contrast, with few exceptions, the material in
the miracle story collections treats Chinese subjects. This difference in contents
might reflect a significant concern on Daoshi's part. In fact, both Daoxuan and
Daoshi might have been interested in miracle stories partly because the stories
. they collected were stories of miracles in China; they may well have been con-
cerned to show that the Buddhist teachings were just as effective in China as in
India. I am hoping to explore this general question further in the near future.
RVIJING LV
145
TOF CHARACTERS
deng lu

llr.t

lun

Mz

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146 JIABSVOL. 14 NO.1
Daoji
Daojiong
Daolin
Daoshi
Daosun
Daoxuan
Daoyu
Daoyuan
Datang neidian Iu
Dongxia sanbao gantong ji
Dong Xiong
Dongkan
Dosen no koshu kosoden ni tsuite:
zoku koso den tone kanren
Doulu
fa
Facheng
Faduan
Fahua zhuanji
Falin
Fanyi mingyi ji
Fashang Iu
Faxin
Faxing
Fayuan zhulin
Fazang
Fei Changfang sanbao Iu
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RUIJING LU 147
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5.[,
ganyyuan

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Gao Jiong
rEJii
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. Gikyo kenkyu

Gonghu

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fSJm*fwt:
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guoshi
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hou
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1*B*
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Huaisu

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Huayanjing ganying zhuan
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148
. JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
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_nt
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Jlan J!
jian houjunsuji

Jiangzhou
Jing
Jl
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Jingang banruo jiyanji
jingfa
1ill*
jingfo
Jingming jing
Jmgseng 1ilfi
(,
jingshe
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Kosoden sakuin

RUIJING LU
Kazan]l
LangYuling
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lei shu
Leiwen
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tiYanshou
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. Lishi yuyan yanjiuso jikan
Liu Ningzhi
Longsu
LuJingyu
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152
jIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
Tang Tang Lin Mingbaoji zhi fuyuan
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153
154
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Zhang Jingyi
ZhangShouyi
Zhendan shenzhou fo sheli gantong xu'
Zhenguan Jl: fl
Zhikuan JI-
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zhong yu huichang
Zongzhang

pudgalavada in Tibet?
Assertions of Substantially Existent Selvesin
the Writings ofTsong-kha-pa and His Followers
byJoe Branford Wilson
Introduction
In a recent article on the Fallacies of Personal-
Istic Vitalism") 1 Matthew Kapstein argues, with respect to
research into Indian Buddhist philosophy, that the traditional
way of studying it as a facet of Buddhist religion "may bias in
c:ertain respects our study of Buddhist thought."2 This is the
cease, he says, because the issues current in Religious Studies or
Philosophy of Religion would tend to define the areas of in-
quiry. The remainder of his article is devoted to an analysis of
. the concept of personalistic vitalism as it is seen in the West
beginning in Plato's Phaedo through its criticism by Kant, and
as it is seen in India in the writings of the,
and in its criticism by the Buddhist writer Kap-
stein summarizes his approach to this material in the following
words:
3
To study these and many other topics in classical Indian
thought from the perspective here advocated does not require
our losing sight of the essential religious interests which moti-
vated and informed the Indian discussions with which we are
concerned; what it does require is an involvement in the history
of ideas quite broadly conceived. In this context, we should
recall that it is now possible to treat much of classical Indian
thought from a truly historical, and not merely doxographical,
vantage-point.
155
.1
156
]IABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Kapstein has cogently argued elsewhere that one should:
"[ rej ect] the prevailing of acc?rding'
to cultural and geographIc ongms. 4 :rhIS argument anses in
the course of a review of Steven Collins' Selfless Persons; in the
introduction to that book, Collins speaks of his own approach:5
In the pages which follow I will try to confront the native
English thinker with certain aspects of the mental universe as
it appears to the Buddhist mind. The result of thus placing one- "
self, for a moment, in a Buddhist world ... will be, I hope, to
widen a little the cultural horizons in which both oui' common_
sense and our philosophy set their ideas of the person of
selfhood.
Both Kapstein and Collins present challenges that Bud-
dhologists must try to meet, and in the present article-which "
treats one small part of the Tibeto-Mongolian philosophical '
discussion on personal identity-I shall try to do so. Following;
Kapstein, I hope that by clearly setting forth the positions ,,;
articulated by several late eighteenth and early nineteenth
tury writers, I will be presenting evidence demonstrating,
those who discuss the issue of personal identity in
philosophical traditions, that Buddhist and Western thought;t
are not incommensurable and, indeed, Buddhism may have'
contributions of its own to make to the global history of ideas.;
Following Collins, I am attempting to allow the Tibetan and'
Mongolian writers I discuss to speak for themselves, allowing,
the reader to enter the minds of at least some Buddhists.
This being said, it must also be said that my presentation
and analysis of assertions about persons will be done from
what will doubtless appear to comparative philosophers such
as Kapstein to be a largely doxographical and not a truly his-
torical standpoint. In part, this is because the state of the art
in Tibetan Studies does not approach that of Indian Studies ..
However, I do this mainly because the state of the art in the
study ofTibeto-Mongolian Buddhism will never approach that
seen in Indology if comparative philosophy and comparative
religion become the norm, and Tibeto-Mongolian systems of
thought and practice are not studied (and then discussed in
-print) in their own terms. Comparative studies are indeed
important, but not to the exclusion of all else. In order to
PUDGALAV ADA IN TIBET? 157

a topic in its own terms, it is necessary to present it,
well as we are. able, first as it to the Tibetan think-
who framed It, perhaps also as It IS understood by contem-
philosophers, and only then to recast it in
provmcially Western te.rms.
6

that the first step m understandmg BuddhIst philos-
rif()phies is to them in their own terms, the question
how IS thIS to be done? It has been nearly ten years
Paul Griffiths admonished us that "translation is very fre-
not the way of the task,
rarely realIzed by practIcmg Buddhoiogists, most of
Iffwhom stand transfixed in awe of their texts and are concerned
to transmit them by means of translation re&"ardless of
or not they have been understood."7 There IS a kernel
in Griffiths' provocative statement. It is possible to
texts philologically without much concern for their
meanings or implications, and the history of
Studies has not been examples of this.
not, however, be some mIddle way between a BuddhIst
which seeks to translate texts ;-vithout
lithe Jdeas presented m them and a BuddhIst StudIes whIch
merely to show how the ideas seen in the texts relate to
fJissues discussed in the history of Western philosophy?8 Further-
it is one of the tasks of the Buddhologist to stand in awe
the text at hand, in the sense of being open, at least tempo-
,%t:jl_"'
to its claims (as Collins cal!s for above). It is. the.n,
Gnffi ths says elsewhere, that ' [w] e do the tradItIOn a dIs-
if we refuse to move beyond the exegetical mode ofaca-
discourse to the normative, the judgemental."g
however, not merely ne-?"a-
iitive and CrItIcal Judgements but also posItIve and affirmatIve
.1judgements. As Robert Wilkens said in his presidential address
the American Academy of Religion, quoting a previous presi-
(Wendy Doniger) : 10
t?:f
She wrote: "Though it is deemed wrong to care for religion, it is
not wrong to care against religion." Since the Enlightenment
"hatred of religion has been a more respectable scholarly emo-
tion than love, particularly hatred of one's own religion."
158
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
Thus, as Buddhologists who "feel a duty not merely to
. municate with fellow specialists, but also with the wider
arly world and with the interested public"ll a twofold task is
set for us. As academicians who sturfy religions in an objective fashion
we must avoid both the reductive and the
extremes. We should fall neither to the extreme of reducing
Budsfhist ideas to those of other cultures nor to that of
ing a theology of our own. However, as individuals participating
in the intellectual historie,$ if our own cultures, we find that these
extremes are not entirely avoidable and even that such
ance is not entirely desirable. We must make the translation
from, for example, the world view of eighteenth century
Mongolian Buddhism to that of our own contemporary culture
(which is a necessarily reductionist enterprise), while at the
same time, constructively, we bring from our own cultures a
new critique to the Buddhist position and lay the groundwork
for a Buddhist critique of those cultures. The latter task is con-'
structive because it creates something new, something not
viously present either in Buddhism or in our own cUltures.
I have attempted such a middle way in the present article .
by combining an exposition of the presentations made by two
relatively recent Tibetan Buddhist philosophers on the nature .
of the person with my own reflections on the implications of .
their writings. The topic itself, in fact, is already constructive
in character because personal identity is not a traditional con- ".
cern of Buddhism. (Of course, any ethics or metaphysics
sumes something about what it means to be a person, no less
those of Buddhism. "However, the Buddhist concern-as has
been pointed out in this context many times-is with not the
sort of identity that persons have, but the sorts of identity they
lack. That is, the concern is with selflessness and not self.)
There is clearly much more that may and should be done of a
comparative nature with this material, but that is the subject
of a different and, I would argue, a later study.
The Place if Persons in Buddhist Philosophies
In terms of its ontology, Buddhism is above all a doctrine of
selflessness (anatman)-where selflessness, depending on what
Buddhist viewpoint we examine, is variously the rejection of
PUDGALAV ADA IN TIBET?
a permanent, partless, and independent self
(rtag gcig rang dbang cangyi bdag) ,
(b) a self-sufficient self
(rang rkya thub paJi rdzasyod kyi bdag) ,
(c) an inherently existent self
(rang bzhingyis grub paJi bdag).12
159
this is what set the Buddha's teachings off from
;lthose of the philosophers and, later, from the
f',8rthodox (astika). schools of Indian philosophy. Selflessness
has been seen as the basis of, Buddhist ethics by
su.ch as and when they
ltake it as the ratIOnale for unIversal compassIOn.
13
At another level, however, there is a tension in Buddhism
selflessness and ethics. If Ajatasatru murders his
;l;;ather (in his case, a regicide), surely Ajatasatru must reap the
:iifruits of his immorality as a harvest of suffering. This is the
of karma, as basic to Buddhism as selflessness, if not
ffIIlore so. But if there is really no Ajatasatru, who did the killing
lrid who will experience the consequences?
It clearly is impossible to imagine a Buddhism without a
for moral retribution, without a mechanism whereby an
li$ction of moral choice is able to produce an effect long after it
itself ceased. Thus, the question being addressed here is the
r;following: have Buddhist philosophers felt they must posit the
of persons (gang zag
J
pudgala) 14-existent selves-in
to be able coherently to present a relationship between
actions and their effects? And if they have so posited,
are we then to understand the commonplace that in Bud-
there are actions but no agents, that there is pain yet no
suffers?15
There was a school ofIndian Buddhism, the Vatslputrlyas,
to be a subschool of the (the Distinction-
16 who advocated the existence of a person. This person,
to commentators from sGo-mang College of 'Bras
monastery, is an inexpressible (brjod du med pa
J
anabhilapya) ,
(rdzas suyod pa
J
dravyasat) entity, neither the same as
different from mind and body.17 While the Tibeto-Mongo-
tradition does not remember the VatslputrIyas as heretics,
inordinate amount of space is devoted to explaining why
160
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
they are not. (This is not the time to discuss the question of ..
whether heresy is or has been possible in Buddhism in the .
same sense it has been seen in the, Abrahamic religions.)
to (pronounced
a philosopher is a Buddhist
philosopher by reason of accepting four propositions to he
true: 18 .
1 all compound things ('dus byas, samskr:ta) are impermanent;
2 all contaminated phenomena (zag bcas, sasrava) are
unsatisfactory;
3 all phenomena (chas, dharma) are selfless .
(bdag med pa, nairatmya);
4 nirvana is peace (zhi ba, santa).
The self asserted by the Vatslputriyas seems to violate the
third proposition, but It does not. The self rejected by all Bud-
dhist philosophers (and seen directly in meditation as nonexis-:
tent by all superiors ['phags pa, arya-defined as someone who ...
has had a direct meditative perception of reality]) is the
superficial one-a permanent, single, and independent self.
self asserted by the Vatslputnyas is the substantial self (subs-:.1
tantial in the sense of being self-sufficient) .19 j
It must be borne in mind that the Vatslputrlyas enjoyed
a great popularity from the fourth to the seventh centuries C.E.
in India; their assertion of such a self is not one remembered
as an easy-to-refute curiosity, but reflects a view once
accepted.
20
Turning to more recent Buddhist philosophy, that of the
dGe-lugs-pa (Ge-luk-ba) order of Tibetan Buddhism founded
by Tsong-kha-pa (Dzong-ka-ba), we seem again to see the as-
sertion of a real person, that is, a real self. If it is the case that
there is a person who is the agent of actions and the basis for
moral retribution, how does this person posited by the dGe-lugs
scholars of Mongolia and Tibet differ from the person
asserted-problematically-by the Vatslputriyas a millenium
before in India? Tsong-kha-pa's followers and the Vatslput-
rlyas are both "Proponents of a Person" (Pudgalavadins), but do
they speak of the person in the same way?
The present analysis of Buddhist views on personal identity
sbas
ed
primarily on the work of two scholars ofthe dGe-Iugs
rder of Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism who have addressed
heIllselves to this issue: a Tibetan, Gung-tliang
stan-pa'i-sgron-me (pronounced Gung-tang G6n:"chok-den-'
1762-1823), and a Mongolian, Ngag-dbang-dpal-
(Nga-wang-bel-den, b.l797) .21 In order to fully understand
c
e
context in which these two present their positions, it will be
to examine some of the ideas advanced by two earlier
upon whose works they saw themselves as commen-
Itators-the of their m_onastic order, Tsopg-kha-pa bLo-
(Dzong-ka-ba lo-sang-Q.rak-ba, 1357-1419)
the foundational thinker of their monastic college, 'Jam- .
-
(Jam-yang-he-ba, 1648-1721).22 The brief
i;O:verview of Indian and Buddhist philosophy written by dKon-
(G6n-chok-jik-me-wang-bo, 1728-
successor in terms of being his
_Jecognized incarnation (sprul sku)-has also been consulted.
23
himself was a student of dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-
liJlbang-po. .
I{ The dGe-Iugs-pas, of course, are well known as the most
of the orders of Tibetan Buddhism. (This is some-
I'tirnes offered as a compliment, sometimes not.) Although all the
of this order take the Prasangika-Madhyamika
!f(the Consequentialist Middle Way School) of the Indian Bud-
philosopher CandrakIrti as their own position and see
study of other doctrinal systems as precursors to an under-
of CandrakIrti, there is a good deal of variation
them. These scholastic rivalries are institutionalized in
:Hthe various monastic colleges, especially those associated with
major monasteries formerly located in Lhasa-'Bras spung
bLo gsal gling (Lo-sel-ling), and dGa' Idan (Gan-
Both and were
of the sGo-mang (Go-mang- Many Doors) Col-
of 'Bras spung. The Tibeto-Mongolian interpretations of
doctrine examined in this paper will, for the most
be taken from the distinctive assertions of this college.
Wi:;), There is a further source to be considered. As Stephan
lit"
noted almost twenty years ago, "a Buddhologist does not
I,
162
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
deal with Buddhism so much as he deals with Buddhists."24
Whether one is a philologist or a philosopher working with a
te:ct (or set of or an wo:rkin.g with living
TIbetans or SrI Lankans, the subject matter IS stIll Buddhists.
Buddhist texts are artifacts created at some point by Buddhists
and used (and understood) in certain ways by Buddhists in the
contemporary world. Thus, in terms of the present study, there
is another important source (which may be considered a text)
the oral commentaries by contemporary Tibetan and
lian philosophers on the written texts mentioned above.
The Taxonomy if Buddhist Doctrinal Systems
The standard Indo-Tibetan typology of four main schools
of Buddhist philosophies is wellknown. The four schools of
tenets (grub mtha', siddhiinta) , listed from what the tradition
siders to be least to most sophisticated, are:
Distinctionalist School 25
. Sutra School (Sautriintika)
Mind-Only School (Cittamiitra)
Middle Way School (Miidhyamika).26
Tibetan analysts of Indian philosophy like to speak not so
much of individual thinkers or writers as they do of these schools
of thought. They thus avoid the extreme of attributing a posi-
tion merely to someone indefinite (which, however, is not un-
common in Tibetan texts)27 and the extreme of citing a position
in terms of its author and the book in which it may be found
(which is also seen, although often as a citation of merely an
abbreviated book title).
It is this Indo-Tibetan penchant for speaking of schools of
thought rather than individual philosophers or commentators
.that leads to the use of the word "doxographical" in this con-
text. The term "doxographer," Websters tells us, means "a
collector and compiler of extracts from and commentator on
ancient Greek philosophies."28 Whereas "doxography" literally
means merely "writing about opinions," the inference I believe
we are supposed to make is that Tibetan doxographical writing
abstractive reporting of the assertions of Indian phil os-
c'!';JS . , h d h' 'I Th T'b h
WIt no regar concer,ns, e I, etan -
term for such IS mtha, (!frub pa't mtha', szd-
here as tenets ) and, III ItS most elementary
(as seen, for example, in dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-
Precious Garland,qfTenets) , it,is painting
picture of IndIan BuddhIst doctnne III the broadest of
IJtrokes, Its more sophisticated form, however, seen in 'Jam-
Great Exposition qf Tenets, presents us with
and often constructive (not abstractive) analyses of
taken by Indian philosophers by earlier Ti?etan
Even, however, were the TIbetan scholastIc tra-
ft;dition merely an exercise in reducing Indian Buddhist philos-
to easy-to-understand dogmatic positions, it would remain
interests as Buddhologists to examine it in its own terms
we introduce the concerns of our own intellectual history,
Returning to the subject at hand, in a further abbreviation
the Indian typology of four main Buddhist tenei: systems,
and his followers reduce Buddhist
into two categories, those who accept and those
reject true existence (bden par grub pa, satyasiddha) :29

':
.;
I Proponents of True Existence (dngos por smra ba) include:
the Distinctionalists,
the Sutra School,
the Mind-Only School,3
2 Proponents of Entity less ness, or of No Intrinsic Identity
i,e" rejectors of true existence, are the
Middle Way School, including both:
the Autonomists (rang rgyud pa, sViitantrika)
the Consequentialists (thaI 'gyur ba, priisangika)
first group, the Proponents of True Existence-who assert
at least some phenomena are truly existent-may be further
tAHivided into two groupS:31
I Proponents of [External] Objects (don smra ba) assert truly
existent external objects, and include the Distinctionalists
and the Siitra School.
164
]IABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
2 Proponents of Mind-Only (sems tsam pa, Cittamiitra) assert
that minds are truly existent but that objects which are dif-
ferent entities from the minds perceiving them are not; that
is, they reject truly existent externar objects.
I t should be noted that both the Middle Way School and the
Mind-Only School are said by dGe-Iugs-pas to deny the exis-
tence of truly existent external objects.
The Mind-Only School, however, denies the possibility of
functioning, that is, of acting as a cause or being an effect,
without being truly existent. According to them, whatever is
not truly existent is an imaginary.32 They differ from the Mid-
dle Way School in saying that any phenomenon that enters into
causal relationships, i.e., any dependent (gzhan dbang, paratan-
traJ phenomenon, is the same substantial entity (rdzas, dravya)
as the mind apprehending it and, therefore, is not a truly exis-
tent external phenomenon.
33
The Person in the Sarpyuttanikaya
In a section of his Responses to Questions on Doctrinal Assertions,
Gung-thang comments on the sutra passage in which the con-
vention "sentient being" (sems can, sattva) , or person, is identified
as a designation made in dependence on the psychophysical
aggregates (phung-po, skandha). 34 In presenting the aggregate or
aggregates which are the basis for this designation, Gung-thang
speaks not of the assertions of individual Indian doctrinalists,
but, rather, makes use of the traditional fourfold taxonomy just
outlined.
Ngag-dbang-dpal-Idan, on the other hand, is concerned
not only with the observed object (dmigs yul, iilambana) of the
correct apprehension of an existent person, but also with the
object of the innate misconception of self. This latter concern is
with what it is among the aggregates of body and mind that is
mistakenly held to be the self. Although the two scholars
approach the problem from different angles, they are discus-
sing the same phenomenon, the conventionally existent indi-
vidual. Gung-thang also concerns himself with this topic in his
Textbook on Fundamental Consciousness; there, the assertion that
,;
f?H:;-'j
fundamental consciousness (kun gzhi'i rnam par shes pa,
a substantially existent self i.s treated in detail.
The basIs for Gung-thang'spresentatIOn of the person In
to, f2:uestions on is the
describIng the way a sentient beIng IS a desIgnatIOn made
the psychophysical aggregates:
36
Just as a chariot is spoken of
In dependence on the collection of its parts,
So there is the convention, "sentient. being,"
In dependence on the [psychophysical] aggregates.
This passage is quoted by Buddhaghosa (5th century C.E.)
scriptural proof of the thesis that apart from mind and body,
is no being orperson.
37
Buddhaghosa concludes that al-
conventionally there is a person or sentient being, ultimately,
ffi;!.!there is no sentient being which is a basis for the conception of
I or ego; ultimately, there is only mind and body.38 Candra-
also quotes this passage, in the auto commentary on his
fJ};adhyamakiivatiira; the context is his refutation of a person
is merely the collection or combination of the aggregates
mind and body. 39 Thus, it is evident that the concern of both
views, within the spectrum of Buddhist doc-
are not close-is mainly to refute a self, not to establish
,ii}./
,;1'3: person.
:::" Why, then, do Tsong-kha-pa and his followers devote time
1.;to establishing the existence of the person? They do so in order
explain how cyclic existence and nirvana co-exist. It is clear
their works that while selflessness is very much the core of
doctrine, there must still be a coherent explanation of
s:llon-ultimates, of conventional truths. The central conven-
;]::;tional truth, of course, is the mind. And the relationship of
and body, and of mind and environment, is described by
doctrine of karma-the relationship between an intentional
that either helps or harms a sentient being and some
experience or state of mind and body. This is not as radi-
a move as it might seem, even in the context of Buddhist
It is, in fact, a highly conservative move, the reaf-
of the Mahayana dictum that cyclic existence is
and nirvii1Ja is cyclic existence. 40
I
166
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
What Tsong-kha-pa and his school assert is that ultimate
and conventional are compatible and do not harm or contradict
one another. Analagously, selflessness ,and the person are COm_
patible and provide a useful means of describing experience in
an integrated and coherent way. As Gung-thang writes-citing
Tsong-kha-pa's student mKhas-grub (Ke-<;iup, 1385-1438) :41
There is no proponent of tenets who would say the following:
the contradictions in my presentations of the two truths which
others speak of do exist; I myself assert that there exist con-
tradictions in my own presentation of the two truths; the con-
ventional is negated by valid cognition analyzing the ultimate.
This, then, is the context for examining the views ofGung_
thang and Ngag-dbang-dpal-Idan concerning the person. The
problem is, as noted above, that if it is the case that there is a
person who is the agent of actions and the basis for moral
retribution, does this person posited by these dGe-1ugs-pa
scholars differ from the person asserted-heretically-by the
Vatslputrlyas?
In order to determine this, we must examine the exposi-
tions made by Gung-thang and Ngag-dbang-dpa1-ldan of Bud-
dhist assertions concerning the persoll.
The Person According to Proponents qf Objects
Proponents of [External] Objects-the Distinctiona1ists and
the Sutra School-are actually proponents of. truly existent
sense objects which are not the same entities as the minds per-
ceiving them. According to Gung-thang, most Distinctiona1ists
and members of the Sutra School assert that the aggregates
which are the basis of the designation "person" are the five
individual aggregates of body and mind.
42
Just as a chariot is
spoken of in reliance on the collection of its parts, so the person
is posited in dependence on the collection of the individual
aggregates.
N gag-d bang-d pa1-1dan reports an explanation of the verse
from the San:zyuttanikaya (quoted above) in which the ]:(ashmiri
branch of the Distinctionalists and the Sutra School Abhidhar-
PUDGALAVADA IN TIBET? 167
.
(known as the Sutra School Following Scripture) are said
,.rn
I
. f h (. h .
t:tbas
sert
the contmuum 0 e I.e., t e contmuum
iff rnind and body) as the IllustratIOn of the person, whereas
of the following Dharmaklrti (the Sutra
Followmg Reasonmg) are held to assert the mental con-
to be the person.
43
';\"

qf Mind- Only
.
or
f::.that mmds and objects are truly eXIstent, but deny any eXIS-
at all to objects external to the minds apprehending
They hold that the meaning of the designation "person"
like the meaning of any designation, be findable when
Not only must one find a person, but one must find it
its bases of designation-the psychophysical aggre-
Those of the Mind-Only persuasion who assert eight
;i;consciousnesses, the followers of Asanga (called Followers of
iiScripture), assert the fundamental consciousness (iilayavijfiiina)
be the illustration of the person.
45
The Followers of Reason-
t}hg, following the six-consciousness School of DharmakIrti,
said to hold the mental consciousness to be the illustration
tiofthe person.
46
{Aoponents qfNo Intrinsic Identity (Middle Way School)
i?fibetan scholars divide the Middle Way School into two
camps, those of the Autonomist School whose most prominent
;members were Bhavaviveka and and those who
Candraklrti's Consequentialist Middle Way. The two
{differ greatly in regard to their assertions on the person.
fIndeed, the Consequentialist Middle Way School differs from
;leaH other schools of Buddhist doctrine in their assertion that
lexistents exist only conventionally, only nominally. Unlike
!()ther systems of Buddhist doctrine, they say that the search for
,Jan imputed phenomenon is an ultimate analysis-one that
reaches the final nature of existence of that thing. According to
168
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Consequentialists, a phenorr:enon. car;not. be foun? when
sought among its bases of deslgnatIOn, Dut IS merely Imputed
by thought.
47
,
Autonomists, on the other hand, say that phenomena can_
not be merely imputed by thought, but must be posited through.
the force of their appearance to un mistaken consciousnesses.
Additionally, phenomena, including the person, must be estab_
lished not merely through imputation, but from the side of the
basis of imputation.
48
Ngag-dbang-dpal-Idan says that the
Autonomists who follow Bhavaviveka (the Sutra School Auton-
omists) assert, as the illustration of the person found among.
the bases to which it is imputed, the mental consciousness.
49
The other branch-the Yogic Practitioner Autonomists who fol-
low that the person is the continuum of the
mental consciousness.
5o
Gung-thang explains that the phrase
from the sutra quotation, "In dependence on the aggregates,"
is interpreted by Autonomists as an indication that (I) nega-
tively speaking, the person has no existence without reliance
on something other than it, an other that establishes its exis-
tence and (2) positively, the basis of designation of the person
must be established from its own side.
5
!
Candraklrti's Consequentialist Middle Way rejects all
other Buddhist assertions on the person through insisting on a
rigorous analysis of the meaning of the SaT[lyuttanikaya passage.
If the person is posited in dependence on the aggregates, they
say, it can be neither the aggregates as a whole nor anyone of
them.
52
Nothing can depend on itself. For Consequentialists,
an object designated cannot be found among its bases of desig- ...
nation. All non-Consequentialist Buddhist doctrinalists hold,
on the other hand, that a phenomenon is found when sought
for among its bases of designation. Consequentialists agree
with other Buddhists that the psychophysical aggregates are
the basis of the designation of a person, as well as being the
basis of the false view of self, but they disagree with the others
when they say that this person cannot be found among its bases
of designation. 53
This does not mean that Consequentialists refute the per-
son. In his commentary on Candraklrti's Madhyamakiivatiira,
Tsong-kha-pa says:54
The assertion by others that the aggregates or the mind are the
self is a case of positing a self or person in the context of search-
ing for the meaning of the imputation of that [person], without
understanding that [the person] is merely posited by the power
of convention.
is more specific in his commentary on Nagarjuna's (Miidhya-
The self which is the basis of observation when Devadatta
thinks "I" without distinguishing selves of former and later
'[lifetimes], is the mere-I which has operated beginninglessly.55
from looking at these various assertions about the person,
principal models emerge.

..
'
ie
1 The position of most Buddhist doctrinalists-the Sutra School,
the Distinctionalists, the Mind-Only School and the Auton-
omist Middle Way School-is that there is a substantialf:y existent
illustration qfthe person (either the continuum of the aggregates,
a subtle mental consciousness, or the fundamental conscious-
ness [iilqyavijfiiina]) and this substantially existent illustration
of the person is find able among the bases of designation of
that person.
2 The position of the Gonsequentialist Middle Way School is
that whereas there is no find able person, and no substantial
existence anywhere, there is an imputedf:y existent mere-I which
is the illustration of the person.
'l/:,L
1nAs Gung-thang and other later dGe-Iugs-pas present the latter
the person is by definition an imputed and not a sub-
existent phenomenon; it is "a phenomenon imputed
one or another of the four or five psychophysical aggregates."56
qualification "four or five" takes into account the Formless
!l;IRealm, where there is no aggregate oHorm (that is, no physical
and thus there are not five but four aggregates.
Whereas the SaT[lyuttanikiija verse quoted by Gung-thang
presents the imputedly existent person-in its words,
convention 'sentient being"'-Gung-thang and Ngag-
liidbang-dpal-Idan assert that there is, concomitant with tnis
self, a substantially existent person. Their assertion
i:3

'71

170
lIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
goes back to Tsong-kha-pa and rests on the general principle
that for all except Consequentialists, there must exist at least
one of all existent imputations, an illustration find-
able among its bases of imputation. Just as any illustni.tion of
table-for instance, wooden table-must be a table, so the
illustration of the person must be a person. We read in Tsang_ :
kha-pa's Illumination qf the Thought (his commentary on C andra_
kIrti's MadhyamakiivatiirabhiifYa) :57 .
This master [Bhavaviveka], because he does not assert a funda_
mental consciousness [says] that the consciousness which
appropriates the body is the mental consciousness. The others
who do not assert a fundamental consciousness are similar to
him. Those who do assert a fundamental consciousness say
that it is just this fundamental consciousness. that is the illustra-
tion of the person.
Furthermore, although these [non-Consequentialist] sys-
tems [of Buddhist doctrine] assert that Hearers [fravakas] and
Solitary Realizers [pratyekabuddhas] of the Modest Vehicle [kina-
. yana] realize the non-existence of a substantially existent per-
son, they do not realize the non-existence as a substantial entity
of [either of] those two consciousnesses [i.e., the mental con-
sciousness or the fundamental consciousness]. Hence, the posi-
tion that the person is not substantially existent in the sense of .
being self-sufficient is an assertion made within the context of
the self-isolate [rang-ldag] of the person [-that is, the person
itself]. There is no such assertion made concerning the con-
sciousness which is the illustration of the person.
When it comes time to posit something which is the person
imputed to the psychophysical aggregates, an illustration must
be presented. In the case of Asanga's Yogacara School, this is
the fundamental consciousness (iilayavijfiiina). Although the
fundamental consciousness is the illustration of the imputed
person, it is itself substantially existent. Moreover, since it is an
illustration of the person, or self, it is a person or self. It must,
therefore, be said to be a substantially existent self.58 What is
being rejected by Tsong-kha-pa and his followers is a self
which is substantially existent in the sense of being self-
sufficient (rang rkya thub paJi rdzas yod).59 The substantially exis-
tent self asserted by the VatslputrIyas is said to be such a self. 60
PUDGALAV ADA IN TIBET? l7l
dGe-lugs-pas hold that Buddhist philosophers, with the
exception of Consequentialists, do not reject substantial exis-
tence-more precisely, whereas they reject one kind of substan-
tial existence, they accept another, at least for some
phenomena. At sGo-mang College, the distinction is made
between the following types of substantial existence:
51
1 substantial existence in the sense of self-sufficiency (rang skya
thub paJi rdzas yod), where this is taken to mean an ability on
the part of a thing to stand by itself without depending on
bases of designations or on parts;
2 substantial existence in the sense of being self-sufficiently ap-
prehensible (rang rkya Hzin thub pa)i rdzas yo d) , taken to mean
the ability to appear as an object of consciousness without
reliance on an other entity, for example, the prior elimination
of an object of negation.
A pot, for example, is the second but not the first. It is self-suffi-
ciently apprehensible because it may be directly perceived (by,
for instance, a visual consciousness) without the prior elimina-
tion of an object of negation. It is, however, not self-sufficient,
because it is not established independently of its parts.
52
All of
the illustrations of the person presented by Gung-thang and
Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan on behalf of the various Buddhist doc-
trinal systems would, for sGo-mang scholars, be substantially
existent in the sense of being self-sufficiently apprehensible,
but none would be substantially existent in the sense of self-
sufficiency; all depend on their parts.
We thus see dGe-lugs-pas claiming that all Buddhists save
Consequentialists assert two types of persons:
(a) an imputedly existent person
(b) a substantially existent person which is the illustration
ofthe imputed person.
The imputed person, the person itself, is an imputation made
to some basis or bases of imputation among the psychophysi-
cal aggregates. That person in no way substantially exists;
since something whose entity is other than the person-the
aggregates-must first appear as a basis for the designation
172
]IABS VOL. 14 NO. I
"person." However, the illustration of that person-the mental
consciousness or the fundamental consciousness-does sub.
stantially' exist; it is self-sufficiently apprehensible and not
merely a designation made in dependeflce on something else.
The person or self that is refuted in the doctrine of selfless.
ness is the self-sufficient person; although it appears to exist
among the aggregates that are its bases of designation, it can
be shown that there is no self-sufficient person there.
63
The
Consequentialist Middle Way School additionally refutes even
the substantially existent person the other schools accept.
They say that when an illustration of the imputedly existent
person is sought, nothing substantial will be found; there are
merely imputedly existent aggregates with no substantial
basis.
64
The Consequentialist assertion, according to dGe-Iugs.
pas, of a person which is a merely impui-ed "mere-I" (nga tsam)
serves the same function as other Buc1 ... hists' assertion of a sub ..
stantially existent consciousness or continuum of aggregates as .
the person. For, their mere-I exists on a par with other
phenomena; in Consequentialist philosophy, everything that
exists is merely imputedly existent.
The Person as Agent
Both the substantially existent illustrations of the p e r ~ o n , such
as the fundamental consciousness, and the imputedly existent
mere I of the Consequentialists are posited as transmigrators-
takers of rebirth from life to life. Thus, they are posited for the
sake of presenting a basis whereby intentional moral and
immoral actions (karma) may be connected with effects at a
later time, typically after the death of the one doi?g the action. 65
Gung-thang makes the point that whereas Sariputra's fun
damental conciol.lsness is a transmigrator, it is not a monk
(even though Sariputra, of course, is a monk). A transmigrator
is a person posited from the viewpoint of the psychophysical
aggregates as karmic fruitions; a monk, however, is an instance
of an imputed person-the monk is dependent on having a pre-
ceptor, assuming and keeping certain vows, and so forth.66
Similarly, if my own fundamental consciousness were a human
or were Joe Wilson (both of which are imputations and neither
of which are substantially existent), it would have a mother, yet
it is absurd to speak of a consciousness having a mother. 67
Gung-thang places this in the context of ethics when he says
that although Ajatasatru's fundamental consciousness is an
o that is an illustration of Ajatasatru and, thus, an ego that
illustration of a patricide, his fundamental consciousness
. a patricide.
68
To say that the fundamental consciousness
an ego that is an illustration of something is not to say that if
one searches for that thing, one finds the fundamental con-
sciousness.
69
When one says that Aj atasatru's fundamental con-
sciousness is the ego that is the illustration of a killer, this
'means that if one seeks the killer of Bimbisara, Ajatasatru will
.. be turned up, but not his fundamental consciousness. The fun-
. damental consciousness is not the killer; however, the I or ego
that is the killer is the fundamental consciousness. A funda-
mental consciousness, Gung-thang says, is neither an agent
.nor an experiencer. It can only be the ego found when the
. agent or experiencer is sought among its bases of designation.
Consequentialists disagree with other Buddhist doc-
trinalists when they say that the mere-I that is Ajatasatru's
basis of conception of I exists beginninglessly. The others say
that if the basis of designation of the imputedly existent I is
sought it will be found among the aggregates of this lifetime.
For non-Consequentialists, Ajatasatru and his aggregates are
contemporaneous.
70
Consequentialists speak of the mere-I as a
shared I that exists over many lifetimes, past, present, and
future.
7l
They say that this mere-I is the basis of the thought
"I" when someone clairvoyantly remembers a former lifetime
and is the basis of that person's acting ethically due to fear that
he will suffer in a future lifetime should he do otherwise.72 An
individual such as Ajatasatru is not this mere-I. "Ajatasatru's
I" is only a particular instance of the mere-I of his continuum;
.' Tsong-kha-pa calls it "the minor self of an individual rebirth."73
Conclusions
.Certain things have become evident in this brief examination
of assertions on selves and selflessness. First, it is clear that
there are many different senses in which the word "self" is
used, even when used in the term "selflessness."74 Within the
selflessness of persons, a division is made into coarse and sub-
tle selflessnesses. Vatslputrlyas are able to maintain their
174 jIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
standing as Buddhists because, while they do propound a self-
sufficient person, they reject the coarse self-a permanent
partless, and independent person. The Tibetan and
writers examined in this article are able to assert the existent
self as they do because they clearly differentiate it from the sub_
tle nonexistent self. That is, they interpret non-Consequen_
tialist Buddhist doctrinalists to be rejecting a self-sufficient self
but (at least from the viewpoint of sGo-mang College) to be
asserting a self-sufficiently apprehensible illustration of the per-
son. The distinctions they make within substantial existence
particularly that between self-sufficiency and
apprehensibility, seem to be novel to them; if they have their
origin in the works of such Indian scholars as Asanga, it must
be said that such origin is by way of suggestion or implication
rather than explicit indication.
I t is further apparent that there are some similarities and
some dissimilarities between the analyses of person and per-
sonal identity made by these modern Tibeto-Mongolian
philosophers and analyses of personal identity made by mod-
ern Anglo-American philosophers.
Both are clearly identifying an entity within the context of
moral responsibility, but from different viewpoints. However,
where Western philosophers regard the person as being a
rational, responsible entity, a self-aware being who is an actor
in the moral sphere,75 the Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist
philosophers examined in this paper hold a position that
implies a different perspective. Whereas one can speak of a
designation-the imputedly existent person-which is an actor
and is therefore morally responsible, once one turns and seeks
an illustration of this person, what is found is not an actor and
therefore not morally responsible.
This is because what is found is either nothing (according
to the Consequentialists) or is a subtle type of consciousness
that is neither virtuous nor nonvirtuous-i.e., not morally
definitive (lung du ma bstan pa, myakrta) -such as the fundamen-
tal consciousness.
76
Actions are for most Buddhists really
fulfilled intentions, and thus mental in nature. 77 This, however,
is not enough: moral actions must definitively be either virtu-
ous or nonvirtuous. The substantially existent person, which is
the ground of personal continuity and thus the entity that car-
the seeds left by actions / intentions, must be neither virtu-
nor nonvirtuous. Were it otherwise, it would not be able to
while its opposite was present; for, virtuous minds
nonvirtuous minds are incompatible and cannot coexis.t at
same time in the same place.
78
Were the person one or the
it would cease as soon as its inimical opposite arose and
"UJ''''--'
that case personal continuity would be lost.
Buddhists posit substantially existent persons within the
sphere, but they are not actors. They do, however, serve
make moral responsibility possible. Illustrations of the per-
such as the fundamental consciousness, the basis carry-
the seeds left by moral and immoral actions, are merely
mechanisms by which an action can bring about a later
They are persons because they survive over time; they ,
not selves (that is, as the term is used in "selflessness")
within that continuity they change and because they
of temporally discrete parts, and therefore not
1. Journal qf Indian Philosophy 17:43-59 (1989).
2. Ibid., p. 43.
3. Ibid., pp. 55-56.
4. Matthew Kapstein, "Collins, Parfit, and the problem of personal
in two philosophical traditions-A review of Selfless Persons by Steven
and Reasons' and Persons ,by Derek Parflt" (Philosophy East and T#st 36/3
289-298), p. 295.
5. Steven Collins, Selfless Persons (Cambridge: Cambridge University
1982), p. 3.
6. Roger Corless says, in his recent book, The Vision qf Buddhism (New
York: Paragon House, 1989), p. xx: "It is my contention that history, a western,
post-Christian, academic discipline, is non-Buddhist, even anti-Buddhist ... and,
hence, any attempt to explain Buddhism primariTy by means of its history
obscures, and sometimes destroys, the reality, that is, the Buddhism that it is
trying to study and explain."
7. "Buddhist Hybrid English: Some Notes on Philology and Hermeneu-
tics for Buddhologists" (pp. 17-32 in Journal qf the International Association qf Bud-
Studles4/2 [1981]), p. 20.
8. The former extreme may be seen in many translations published by
Western centers of Tibetan Buddhism, whereas the latter is seen in Kapstein's
article, on the Fallacies of Personalistic Vitalism."
176
lIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
9. On Being Mindless. Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem (La
Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986), p. XIX. . . . . "
10. "Who Will Speakfor the RehglOus TradltlOns? (Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 57: 699-717), p. 701. Wilkens is quoting Doniger in "The
Uses and Misuses of Other Peoples' Myths" Uournal of the American Academy if
Religion 54: 219-239).
11. Griffiths, "Buddhist Hybrid English," p. 21.
12. See 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa, Grub mtha' chen'mo, 131b.6-132a.l_
there he distinguishes the or Distinctionalist School from the Sau_
trantika or Sutra School; the former reject only a permanent, partless, and inde_
pendent self whereas the latter also reject a substantial self. See also Joe vVilso
n
,
Chandrakfrti's Sevenfold Reasoning: Nfeditation on the Selflessness of Persons (Dharam_
sala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1980), p. 14.
13. Candraklrti, Madhyamakiivatiirabhiirya-the commentary on the basic
verses (Madhyamakiivatiira) 1.3-4; see the translation ofTsong-kha-pa's commen_
tary in Jeffrey Hopkins, Compassion in, Tibetan Buddhism (Valois, New York:
Gabriel! Snow Lion, 1980), pp. 116-125. Santideva implies that an understanding
of selflessness underlies compassion in his discussion of self and other at Bodhi-
ciiryiivatiira 8.99ff. (pp. 162ff. in the Bibliotheca Indica edition ofVidhushekhara
Bhattacharya [Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1960]).
14. The Tibetan is given here prior to the Sanskrit following a format
suggested by Leah Zahler ("Meditation and Cosmology: The Physical basis of
the Concentrations and the Formless Absorptions According to dGe-lugs Tibetan
Presentations," pp. 53-78 in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies 13/1 [1990]), note 1, p. 73). I am not presenting Tibetan philosophical
analyses merely as an aid to an understanding of Indian Buddhist writers, but
in their own right. The Sanskrit is given as a point of reference for the conveni-
ence of those with no Tibetan.
15. See, for example, Etienne Lamotte, Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien (Lou-
vain-la-neuve: Institut Orientaliste, 1976), p. 671.
16. 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa, Grub mtha' chen mo, 126a.5-6 and 130b.3-4.
Vasubandhu's commentator Yasomitra (in the commentary on the ninth-chapter
refutation of the self in the Abhidharmakofa) seems to equate the Vatslputrlyas
and the Sal!lmatlyas. See Yasomitra, Abhidharmakofasphu{iirthavyiikhyii (edited by
Swami Dwarikadas Shastri [Bauddha Bharati Series No.5] as Abhidharmakofa &
Bhiirya of Acharya Vasubandhu with Sphutiirtha Commentary of Acarya Yafomitra
[Banaras: Bauddha Bharati, 1970]).
17. dKon-mchog-'jig-med-dbang-po, Precious Garland of Tenets (Grub pa'i
mtha'i rnam par bzhag pa rin po che'i 'phreng ba [Mundgod, India: Drepung Loseling
Printing Press, 1980], p:7) identifies the self asserted by the Vatslputrlyas as
one that exists substantially in the sense of being self-sufficient. 'Jam-dbyangs-
bzhad-pa discusses this in Grub mtha' chen mo (13 7b.l-139a.5). The relevant an-
notation is in Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan, Annotations for (jam-yang-s,..hi-ba's [Jam-
dbyangs-bzhed-paJ) "Great Exposition of Tenets," Freeing the Knots of the Difficult Points,
a Precious Jewel of Clear Thought (Grub mtha' chen mo'i mchan 'grel dka' gnad ndud grol
blo gsal gces nor [Sarnath: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press, 1964]), vol. dngos,
.16a.4-
21b
.6. On this school, see also A. K. Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi:
. 11 tilal Banarsidass, 1980), pp. 240-242.
o 18. See, for example, dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-po, Grub mtha rin che
;hhreng ba, p. 17.
19. Kapstein's translation of atman as "substantial self" seems ill consi-
ered, given that Buddhist differentiate among so many different
)rts of atman, only one of whIch IS a rdzas yod kyi bdag.
20. See Lamotte, Histoire, pp. 600, 673-4.
21. The main source for the assertions on personal identity presented in
:Us article is Gung-thang's On a variety qf Responses to Questions on Doctrinal Asser-
ons (literally, various Answers to Questions Concerning Assertions in the Four Tenet
,rns-Grub mtha' bzhi'i 'dod tshul sogs dris lan sna tshogs kyi skoT, pages 127-170 in
ne Collected liVorks qf Gun-than Dkon-mchog-bstan-pa'i Sgron-me [New Delhi: Nga-
rang Gelek Demo, 1972], Volume III)-abbreviated as Grub mtha' dris lan. The
laterial relevant to personal identity is seen at 3b.4-7a.3 (that is, pp. 132-139).
I.ilother important source is Gung-thang's Textbook on Fundamental Consciousness
KY.ngzhi'iyig cha). The full name ofthis work is A Fordfor the WIse: An Explanation
(the Difficult Topics qf (Tsong-kha-pa's) "[Extensive Commentary on the Difficult ToPics
o Mentality and Fundamental Consciousness" (Yid dang kun gzhi'i dka'i gnad rnam par
shad pa mkhas pa'i 'jug ngog [Buxa: 1965 J). I t has been translated in Joe Wilson,
rhe Meaning qf Mind in the Buddhist Philosophy qf Mind-On{Y (doctoral dissertation:
lniversity of Virginia, 1984). My source for Ngag-dbang-dpal-Idan's positions
s his Annotations for Uam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa's ['jam-yang-sM-baJ) "Great Exposition
f Tenet!;," Freeing the Knots qf the Difficult Points, a Precious Jewel qf Clear Thought
'Grub mtha' chen mo'i mchan 'grel dka' gnad mdud grol blo gsal gees nor [Sarnath: Plea-
ure of Elegant Sayings Press, 1964])-abbreviated hereafter as Annotations.
22. 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa, Explanation qf [the Basic Verses Called] "Tenets,"
:Un oj the Land qf Samantabhadra Brilliantly Illuminating All qf Our Own and Others'
renets and the Meaning qfthe Profound, An Ocean qfScripture and Reasoning Fu{filling All
30pes qf All Beings (Grub mtha'i rnam bshad rang gzhan grub mtha' kun dang zab don
mchog tu gsal ba kun b.zang zhing gi nyi ma lung rigs rgya mtsho skye dgu'i re ba kun skong
[Musoorie: Dalarna, 1962])-known as (and abbreviated here as) Grub mtha'
'chen mo.
23. dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-po, Precious Garland qfTenets (Grub pa'i
mtha'i rnam par bzhag pa rin po che'i 'phreng ba [Mundgod, India: Drepung Loseling
Printing Press, 1980J)-known as (and abbreviated here as) Grub mtha rin che
'phreng ba.
24. Stephan Beyer, The Cult oj Tara: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (Berkeley;
University of California Press, 1973), p. xvi-quoted in Paul Griffiths, On Being
Mindless, p. 146 (note 8). Griffiths confesses to difficulty with this idea, asserting
that Buddhist texts are as much a part of the study of Buddhism as Buddhists.
25. According to 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa (Grub mtha' chen mo, p. 132a.l-5),
the word vaibhajika derives both from the fact that these writers are followers of
.', the Mahavibhaja and from the fact that they make distinctions among subs tan-
, tial entities (rdzas, dravya).
26. See 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa, Grub mtha' chen mo, 124b.6-126a.3.
178
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
27. Many positions are identified in ambiguous ways-as those of kha ci
("someone"), or la la ("someone"), or bod pa snga ma ("a previous Tibetan"), e t c ~
28. Websters' Third New International Dictionary (Chicago: Merriam-Webster
1981). '
29. Ngag-dbang-dpa1-1dan, Grub mtha'mchan, vol. stod, 20.4-6.
30. 'Jam-dbyangs-bzhad-pa, Grub mtha' chen mo, 249.5.
31. Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan, Grub mtha' mchan, vol. stod, 20.7.
32. dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-po, Grub mtha rin che 'phreng ba, p. 45.
See also Geshe Lhundup Sopa and Jeffrey Hopkins, Cutting Through Appearances:
Practice and Theory if Tibetan Buddhism (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1989), pp. 260-267.
33. dKon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-po, ibid., page 50.
34. Grub mtha' bzhi'i 'dod tshul sogs dris lan sna tshogs kyi skor (pages 127-170
in The Collected U0rks if Gun-than Dkon-mchog-bstan-pa'i Sgron-me [New Delhi:
Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1972J, Volume III), 3b.6-4a.l (that is, pp. 132-133).
35. The full name of this book is A FordJor the Wise: An Explanation if the
Difficult Topics if (Tsong-kha-pa's) "[Extensive Commentary on the Difficult ToPics qfj
Mentality and Fundamental Consciousness" (Yid dang kun gzhi'i dka'i gnad rnam par
bshad pa mkhas pa'i 'jug ngog [Buxa: 1965 J. It has been translated in Joe Wilson,
The Meaning if Mind in the Buddhist Philosophy if Mind-Only (doctoral dissertation:
University of Virginia, 1984). See especially pages 513-519 and 561-581 of the
translation.
36. Gung-thang, Grub mtha' dris lan, 4a.1 (p. 133.1). Gung-thang's source
for this passage is probably Candraldrti's NIadhyamakiivatiirabhiiva (commentary
on Madhyamakiivatiira 6.135ab, where this as well as the immediately preceding
verse of the sutra are quoted. The Tibetan (Dharamsala edition [Tibetan Pub-
lishing House, 1968], p. 198.7-9; Bibliotheca Buddhica edition of Poussin, p.
258) reads: Ji ltar yan lag tshogs rnams lal brten nas shing rtar brjod pa ltar I de bzhin
phung pa rnams brten nas I kun rdzob sems can zhes bya'o I. The original is San:zyuttani-
kqya I, page 135 (Pali Text Society edition [reprinted 1973J): yatha hi angasamb-
hara II hoti saddo ratha iti I I evam khandhesu santesu I I hoti satto ti sammuti I I .
37. The Vzsuddhi-Magga if Buddhaghosa, edited by C.A.F. Rhys Davids
(London: Pali Text Society, 1975), p. 593; translation in Bhikkhu Nyanamoli,
Path if Purification (Berkeley: Shambhala, 1986), p. 688 (Visuddhimagga
XVIII,25-26) .
38. Ibid., XVIII, 28; Pali text, p. 594.
39. Madhyamakiivatiirabhiiva (Dharamsala edition), p. 198; commentary
on Madhyamakiivatiira 6.135. See Tsong-kha-pa, Illumination if the Thought: An
Extensive Explanation if (Candrakirti's) Madhyamakiivatiira (Dbu ma la 'jug pa'i rgya
cher bshad pa dgongs pa rab gsal [P6142, volume 154J-Sarnath: Pleasure of Elegant
Sayings Press, 1973), pp. 379-80. Abbreviated hereafter as Dgongs pa rab gsal.
40. See Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness (London: Wisdom Publi-
cations, 1983), p. 415.
41. Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, 21a.4-5. The passage quoted is trans-
lated following the citation in the Buxa edition and not the Lhasa edition which
erroneously reads brdzad pa for brjod pa. I have been unable to find this quotation
in Mkhas-grub's Stong thun mig 'byed; however cf. 214b.2 in Lha-mkhar Yons-
B"stanpa-rgyal-mtshan [ed.], Stoh thun chen mo qf Mkhas-grub Dge-legs-dpal-
.. :g and other texts on Madhyamika philosophy (New Delhi: 1972).
t,an 42. Gung-thang, Grub mtha' dris lan, p. 133.2-3.
43. Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan, Grub mtha'mchan, vol. dbu 25b.8-26a.l.
44. Gung-thang, Grub mtha' dris lan, p.l33.3-S.
45. Ibid.'
46. Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan, Grub mtha'mchan, vol. dbu 26a.l.
47. See Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, pp. 170, 173, 192.
48. Gung-thang, Grub mtha' dris lan, pp.l33.S-134.2.
49. Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan, Grub mtha' mchan, vol. dbu 26a.l.
50. Ibid., 26a.l-2.
51. Gung-thang, Grub mtha' dris lan, pp.l34.l-2.
52. Gung-thang presents the Prasangika refutation of the other systems
mtha'dris lan, ,4b.2-5a.4.
53. See Wilson, Chandrakrrti's SeverifOld Reasoning.
54. Tsong-kha-pa, Dgongs pa rab gsal (Sarnath), p. 373.6-8.
55. Tsong-kha-pa, Ocean qf Reasoning: An Explanation qf (Niigiirjuna's)
on the Middle Wlry" (Dbu ma rtsa ba'i tshig le'ur byas pa shes rab ces bya ba'i mam
ad rigs pa'i rgya mtsho [Sarnath: Pleasure of Elegant Sayings Press, 1973]),
'.215.8-10. Abbreviated hereafter as Rigs pa'i rgya mtsho.
56. This is the definition of person (gang zag) presented orally by contem-
IWi,nnr,"rv dGe-lugs-pa scholars.
Tsong-kha-pa, Dgongs pa rab gsal, p. 368.3-9.
Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, 49b.6.
See Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, p. 303; Wilson, Chandrakrrti's
pp. 16-17; and Gung-thang, Kungzhi'iyig cha, 50a.3-Sla.3.
Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, SOa.4-5.
Ibid., SOb.S-6.
Ibid.,50b.6-Sla.l.
See Tsong-kha-pa, Dgongs pa rab gsal, p. 368.l0ff., 391.12ff.
Ibid., pp. 404.17-405.6.
See Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, 28a.1-2, 28b.5-29a.2.
Ibid., 27b.5-6.
lowe this insight to the Abbot Emeritus of Go-mang College, Geshe
... ,,, Nyima.
68. Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, 24b.3.
69. Ibid., 24b.1.ff.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid., 28b.6-29a.2-quoting Tsong-kha-pa, Rigs pa'i rgya mtsho,
pp. 237.16-238.l.
72. Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'i yig cha, 28b.5-6.
73. Tsong-kha-pa, Rigs pa'i rgya mtsho, 21S.l2-13-quoted in Gung-thang,
cha, 28b.S.
See Wilson, Chandrakirti's SeverifOld Reasoning, pages 13-15 for an
See, for example, Daniel Dennett, "Conditions of Personhood" (pp.
in Amelie Oksenberg Rorty [ed.], The Identities qfPersons [Berkeley: Uni-
180
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
versity ofCa1ifornia Press, 1976J), pp. 177-178 where six "familiar themes" are
enumerated: (1) persons are rational beings; (2) persons are beings to which
states of consciousness are attributed; (3) persons are treated in certain special
ways; (4) persons are capable of reciprocating this treatment; (5) persons are
capable of verbal communication; (6) persons are distinguishable from other
entities by being conscious in some way.
76. Concerning the morally neutral nature of the fundamental conscious_
ness, see Gung-thang, Kun gzhi'iyig cha, pp. II b.6-12a.l and30a.l-30b.1.
77. See Etienne Lamotte, "Le traite de l'acte de Vasubandhu: Karmasid_
dhiprakaraI).a" (pp. 151-288 in Melanges chino is et bouddhiques 4 (1935-36)),
pp. 166--171.
78. This is, according to the Mind-Only philosophers, one of the reasons
one must assert a fundamental consciousness or something functionally equiva_
lent to it. See Wilson, "Meaning of Mind," pp. 321-325.
II. REVIEWS
The Dawn if Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine: Ching-ying Hui-yuan's
Commentary on the Visualization Sutra, by Kenneth K. Tanaka,
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. 304 pages, Appen-
dL'(, Notes, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.
This book is an important study in the history of Chinese Pure Land
Buddhism. It clarifies the role of the oldest surviving commentary on
the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching (Visualization Svira, Contemplation Sutra,
or Meditation Sutra) ,1 the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching i-shu, compiled by
the sixth century Buddhist exegete Ching-ying Hui-yuan (523-592).
It corrects a biased assessment of Ching-ying Hui-yuan and of his
relation to the better known Pure Land master Shan-tao (613-68l) .
. It raises several interesting issues in the history of Chinese Pure
Land piety, some intentionally and some unintentionally. And it con-
tributes an accurate and readable translation of an influential
Chinese Buddhist text, Ching-ying Hui-yuan's commentary on the
Kuan ching.
Ching-ying Hui-yuan was one of the most prominent clerics of
his age. He is called Ching-ying Hui-yuan-Hui-yuan ofChing-ying
Temple-to distinguish him from his more illustrious predecessor,
Lu-shan Hui-yuan (334-416), Hui-yuan of Mount Lu. A disciple of
Sangha Supervisor Fa-shang (495-580), Ching-ying Hui-yuan was
a prolific writer and important thinker. His works include commen-
taries on a n u m ~ e r of important texts such as the Nirviir;a Sutra, the
Vimalakfrti, the Srzmiiliidevf, the Sukhiivatzvyuha and the Awakening if
Faith in the Mahifyiina, and, of course, on the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo
ching. In addition, he compiled a large encyclopedia of Buddhist
terms, the Ta-ch'eng i-cha'T!g. He survived the suppression of Buddhism
during the years 577-580 to emerge as one of the so-called Six
Worthies of the early Sui Dynasty (581-618). While Ching-ying Hui-
. yuan has traditionally been associated with the She-lun or Ti-lun
schools, Tanaka maintains that this ascription is inaccurate and that
he is more correctly described as an eclectic thinker interested in
. Yogacara thought who preceded and provided a transition to the
more narrowly focused founders of the Buddhist schools of the early
T'ang period (618-906).
Although Tanaka translates the title of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo
ching ("Sutra of Contemplation/Visualization on [the Buddha of]
Immeasurable Life") as Visualization Sutra, we will refer to this text
181
182
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
as the Contemplation Sutra> a title used by Tanaka himself elsewhere
(Fujita 1990).2 Ching-ying Hui-yuan's Commentary on the Contemplation
Sutra is the oldest surviving commentary on this text, and is a work
which, as Tanaka demonstrates, had a major impact on Pure Land
devotionalism in China. It is one of two Pure Land works produced
by Ching-ying Hui-yuan. The other, as mentioned above, is a Com-
mentary on the Sukhiivativyuha or Larger Pure Land Sutra> or more
exactly, on the fifth century translation of the Sukhiivatzvyuha titled
Wu-liang-shou ching.
In spite of his impact on Chinese Pure Land piety, the character
of and the motivation for Ching-ying Hui-yuan's interest in Pure
Land devotionalism-a subordinate interest at most-remains ob-
scure. According to Tanaka, Ocho Enichi and others have proposed
that the severe persecution of Buddhism to which Hui-yuan was sub-
jected convinced him of the arrival of the final age of the dharma> and
that this stimulated his interest in Pure Land piety. Tanaka rejects
this motivation, however, because Hui-yuan's writings do not
express a belief in the advent of the final age of the dharma. Tanaka
proposes instead that Hui-yuan's association with the Hui-kuang
lineage helps account for his interest in Pure Land piety. Hui-kuang
(468-537) was a disciple ofBodhiruci-the same Bodhiruci who con-
verted the well-known Pure Land master T'an-Iuan (c. 488-554) to
Pure Land faith-and a teacher of Fa-shang, C h i n g ~ y i n g Hui-yuan's
teacher. Although both Fa-shang and Hui-yuan were more inter-
ested in Yogacara teachings than any other, Hui-kuang apparently
aspired to rebirth in Amitabha's Pure Land, and Tanaka points out
that Hui-kuang and his lineage had considerable interest as well in
another important Pure Land text, the Wu-liang-shou-ching yu-po-t'i-
she yuan-sheng chieh ("Discourse on the Sutra ofImmeasurable Life and
Verse on Rebirth") ascribed to Vasubandhu, the eminent Yogacara
master. Tanaka does not discuss, however, the character ofHui-yuan's
Pure Land piety. We will return to this point below. (In passing, we
should note that in his Glossary Tanaka mistakenly assigns the
graphs for Hui-ch'ung to Hui-kuang. In fact, the whole sequence of
graphs between "Hui-ch'ung" and "Hui-kuang" is misaligned.)
The major contribution of Tanaka's book is to show how Ching-
ying Hui-yuan's Commentary on the Contemplation Sutra enhanced the
status of the Contemplation Sutra and contributed substantially to the
subsequent discourse on Pure Land themes derived from that siUra.
The Contemplation Sutra is a well-known text, interesting for both its
origins and contents. Tanaka, summarizing the researches of Fujita
Kotatsu and Yamada Meiji, presents convincing evidence that it is
an apocryphal work.
3
Although Tanaka does not come to this conclu-
REVIEWS 183
. 'on it seems clear from his discussion of the research on the subject
this text was compiled in China by the Central Asian mission-
.. ry-m
onk
Kalayasas and a Chinese assistant between 424 and 442,
several kir:ds of pre-exist:nt Asian Chinese n:ate-
ials. Tanaka pomts out that whIle thIS sutra was wIdely used for htur-
purposes, prior to its treatment by Ching-ying Hui-yuan it had
as yet attracted little scholarly interest. In the approximately one
.. >hundred years between its compilation and Hui-yuan's commentary
it had received only the attention ofT'an-luan, who refers to and dis-
cusses it several times in his commentary on the Discourse on the Sutra
of Immeasurable Lift and verse on Rebirth ofVasubandhu, and of Ling-yu
(518-605), apparently authored a on the Contem-
plation Sutra may have preceded Hm-yuan s commentary but
no longer survIVes.
The Contemplation Sutra opens with a dran:atic prologue on the
tragic situation of Lady Vaidehi, presents Sakyamuni Buddha's
. instructions to her on forming thirteen contemplations on various
aspects ofthe Pure Land, Amitabha Buddha and his bodhisattvas, and
then presents three additional "contemplations," which are actually
descriptions of the rebirths into the Pure Land of nine grades of per-
sons. The first thirteen contemplations are instructions in contem-
plative buddha-reflection (kuan-fo), and the nine grades present vari-
ous means or causes of rebirth, such as meritorious acts, types of
faith and especially invocational buddha-reflection (ch 'eng-ming nien-
fl). It is thus a text very rich in instructions on praxis, including
forms of ethical conduct, the cultivation of devotional attitudes and
descriptions of buddha-reflection, and moreover praxis ranging in
difficulty from detailed visualizations culminating in buddha-reflec-
tion samadhi [nien-fo san meiJ to simple utterance of the name of
Amitabhajust ten times.
Subsequent to Ching-ying Hui-yuan's commentary, the Contem-
plation Sutra became the subject of considerable scholarly attention.
Commentaries and treatments by Chi-tsang (549-623), Tao-ch'o
(562-645), Shan-tao and others followed in rapid succession.
Tanaka lists twelve extant commentaries or treatments dating
through the Sun period (960-1279). And from the Sui period on, the
Contemplation Sutra became a basic scripture of the lay devotional
movement led by Tao-ch'o, Shan-tao and their successors. The Con-
templation Sutra was therefore at the very center of the development of
Pure Land piety in China.
Tanaka's study of Ching-ying Hui-yuan's Commentary on the Con-
templation Sutra clarifies the process of this development in a number
of ways. Tanaka claims that Hui-yuan's commentary interjected the
184
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. I
Contemplation Sutra into Buddhist scholarly discourse. In spite of the
fact that thissutra had not received much scholarly attention hereto_
fore, Ching-ying Hui-yuan gave it the same careful treatment and
subjected it to the same formal commentarial format as he had
already applied to several major Mahayana texts. Tanaka points Out
that this tended to give to the Contemplation Sutra the same high status
as these major texts and bring it to the serious attention of other
scholars. Tanaka further claims that Hui-yuan's commentary inte-
grated the Contemplation Sutra into Mahayana doctrine, first by giving
it a "doctrinal classification" (Fan-chiao )-a position within a sys-
tematic schema of all Buddhist doctrines-and secondly by assign_
ing to the persons of the nine grades of rebirth locations upon tradi-
tional Buddhist soteriological path-structures.
In addition to enhancing the status of the Contemplation Sutra,
Tanaka points out that in his Commentary Hui-yuan made important
contributions to Pure Land thought as well. One type of contribution
was in defining the major problems or issues to be treated in the
sutra. Another was devising the nomenclature utilized in his own and
subsequent commentaries on the sutra. Some of the major problems
or issues defined by Hui-yuan were the essential teaching (tsung) of
the sutra; the soteriological status of the interlocutor, Lady Vaidehi;
the types of sentient beings for whom the sutra was preached; the
causes of the rebirth of the nine grades of persons; the soteriological
status of the nine classes of persons reborn; and the ontological
status of the Pure Land and its Buddha. Nomenclature utilized by
Hui-yuan which subsequently became standard for Pure Land doc-
trinal discourse include such terms as "ordinary person" (fan-ju) .
and "saint" or "sage" (sheng:jen), and meditative good works (ting-
shan) versus non-meditative good works (san-shan). These issues and
terms were utilized not only in subsequent commentaries on the Con-
templation Sutra which agreed with Hui-yuan's interpretation, such as
the Chi-tsang and T'ien-t'ai commentaries, but also in commen-
taries and treatments such as the Shan-tao commentary and Tao-
ch'o's An-lo chi which disagreed with many of the conclusions of the
Hui-yuan commentary.
Finally, a third form of influence wielded by Hui-yuan's com-
mentary upon the Pure Land movement was to offer interpretations
of the sutra which endured and became widely accepted, even by the
popular or lay Pure Land movement led by Tao-ch'o and Shan-tao.
Tanaka points out, for example, that contrary to the view of most
modern scholars, Ching-ying Hui-yuan considered the Contemplation
Sutra a teaching for ordinary persons and not for saints or sages, and
moreover that he designated invocation of the name of Amitabha
Buddha as one of several possible causes of rebirth in the Pure Land.
REVIEWS 185
An additional concern of this book is to clarify the relation of
Ching-ying Hui-yuan's commentary on the Contemplation Sutra to the
'better known commentary of the T'ang period Pure Land Buddhist
Shan-tao. Shan-tao. is the most important Chinese Pure. Land
thinker and evangehst. From around 650 C.E. he took up resIdence
in the capital and vigorously propagated Pure Land piety. In addi-
tion to composing several liturgical works setting out hymns and
''rituals for congregational worship and painting dozens of depictions
of Amitabha and the Pure Land as objects of devotion, he produced
'an extensive commentary on the Contemplation Sutra. This commen-
,tary and Shan-tao's other writings vigorously propagated Pure Land
,.faith and also clarified and systematized Pure Land doctrines and
practices.
Shan-tao's commentary presents a quite different interpretation
of the Contemplation Sutra than that found in the Hui-yuan commen-
tary. Tanaka discusses in detail the major differences between the
two. From this discussion and an examination of the two commen-
taries it is clear that whereas Ching-ying Hui-yuan interpreted the
. sutra primarily as instruction in meditation for advanced practicers,
. though also as encouragement to aspiration for rebirth, Shan-tao
interpreted it as a revelation of the availability of Pure Land rebirth
for even the most unworthy, as well as instruction in meditation. Yet,
although Shan-tao's view ofthe soteriological import ofthe sutra was
quite different from Hui-yuan's, Tanaka points out that the Shan-tao
commentary owes a great debt to Hui-yuan. First of all, since Hui-
. yuan's commentary had established the Contemplation Sutra as the pri-
mary vehicle for discourse on Pure Land themes, Shan-tao's very
choice of the Contemplation Sutra as a text to elucidate was probably
, influenced by the Hui-yuan commentary. Moreover, consistent with
the influence of Hui-yuan's work on subsequent treatments of the
Contemplation Sutra, Shan-tao's commentary utilizes nomenclature
devised by Hui-yuan, treats many of the same problems as had Hui-
yuan, and even adopts some ofHui-yuan's interpretations.
The above points constitute the major contributions of this
book. While making these observations, Kenneth Tanaka also en-
deavors to correct a bias in Pure Land Buddhist studies which has
not only obscured Ching-ying Hui-yuan's contributions to the
Chinese Pure Land movement, but has also distorted our under-
standing of the scope and process of development of that movement.
Tanaka points out that most modern scholarship on Chinese Pure
Land has been conducted by Japanese scholars, and by Japanese
scholars affiliated with the major Japanese Pure Land denomina-
tions, the Jodo Shu and theJodo Shinshu. For these denominational
scholars authentic or "orthodox" Chinese Pure Land tends to be con-
186
lIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
fined to the thinkers who have been designated as the patriarchs and
forerunners of these denominations. Consequently, figures, not
included in this lineage, such as Ching-ying Hui-yuan, have been
neglected or misunderstood. For most Japanese Pure Land Buddhist
scholarship, Ching-ying Hui-yuan has been seen as merely a mis-
taken interpreter of the Contempation Siitra whose views were sub-
sequently corrected by the Pure Land patriarch accepted by the
Japanese, Shan-tao.
This study thus applies a valuable corrective to a field which has
long been dominated by biased sectarian scholarship. Unfortu_
nately, however, Tanaka's study itself is cast in a sectarian mold. In
reaction to the sectarian bias he so laudably and capably corrects
Tanaka shapes his own study around a distinction between figure;
he calls "orthodox Pure Land Buddhists" and "those of Pure Land
Buddhism." (Tanaka defines Pure Land Buddhism as "a set of
beliefs and practices that espouses for its aspirants the realization of
the stage of non-retrogression ... either in the present life or through
rebirth in a Buddha land or realm ... called 'Sukhavat!' .... ") The
orthodox Pure Land Buddhists, he identifies as T'an-Iuan, Tao-ch'o
and Shan-tao. Those categorizable under "the larger rubric Pure
Land Buddhism" he designates as Lu-shan Hui-yuan, Fa-chao
(c. 763-804), and other figures such as Ching-ying Hui-yiian who,
though not related to the Japanese denominational lineages, wrote
Pure Land commentaries or treatises. While Tanaka realizes that the
"orthodox Pure Land Buddhists ... neither espoused a uniform set of
ideas ... nor constituted a direct line of transmission," nonetheless
his application of this termilJology to Chinese Buddhist history is
distorting.
The problem is partly that the term orthodox means much more
than "espousal ofa uniform set of ideas," or constitutive of "a direct
line of transmission." It means true teachings and implies normative
status within an established religious community. While the figures
Tanaka labels orthodox Pure Land Buddhists are certainly accorded
such status by Japanese Pure Land Buddhists, they held no such posi-
tion in China. Quite the contrary, the three figures called orthodox
Pure Land Buddhists by Tanaka were in general not well-known in
their own times, were not patronized by the state as were the founders
ofT'ang period schools, and their thought was criticized as deviant
by exponents of other Buddhist traditions.
4
The use of the term
orthodox to describe these Chinese figures tends to shape Chinese
religious history according to a Japanese paradigm and to that
extent to distort the Chinese phenomena. Though Tanaka has
adopted this terminology primarily for purposes of providing "con- .
REVIEWS 187
. uity with past scholarship and a common framework for carrying
U:
t
the objectives of this analysis," nonetheless its use is regrettable.
o Tanaka's larger goal is to broaden our understanding of the Pure
,.' Land tradition by including within its boundaries figures such as
'. Ching-ying Hui-yuan who have generally been excluded by sectar-
. 'an scholarship. This is commendable and a necessary corrective.
~ d here again there is a problem. While both the "orthodox Pure
. Land Buddhists" and "those of Pure Land Buddhism" were no doubt
'. participating in the same broad movement, there remain important
differences betwen them. That Honen and Shinran perceived their
. origins in the thinkers Tanaka refers to as "orthodox Pure Land Bud-
dhists" reflects not only their subjective judgments, but also actual
differences in the religious messages of these "patriarchs" versus the
teachings of other figures not accorded patriarchal status. In other
words, perceptions are not substance, but can-and in this case do-
reveal substance. It is becoming increasingly clear that in the his-
. . tory of Chinese Buddhism there was a broad movement characteriz-
..... able as Pure Land devotionalism which encompassed a spectrum of
views and practices ranging on the one extreme from those who were
concerned primarily with the Pure Land rebirth of the vast majority
,.of humankind, the laity, through the agency of the compassionate
...... savior Amitabha Buddha, to those on the other extreme who utilized
.' Amitabha-centered meditative or devotional practices chiefly as a
. propaeudeutic-as a preparatory or preliminary means-for achiev-
ing personal religious objectives more highly valued than Pure Land
rebirth. The former orientation we can tentatively call lay Pure Land
piety, the latter, monastic Pure Land piety. In more detail, these
orientations differed in the following ways:
(1) In the breadth of their concern: Lay-oriented Pure Land
piety, though led by clergy, focused on the spiritual well-being of the
average person involved in the ordinary life of society, whereas those
.. who participated in monastic Pure Land piety were clergy con-
cerned primarily with their own spiritual progress.
(2) In their views of history and the human condition: Whereas
lay Pure Land piety was convinced that the final age of the dharma
had arrived and that almost all contemporary persons were ordinary
mortals destined, unless they availed themselves of Amitabha's com-
passion, to endless sarp.saric suffering, those involved in monastic
Pure Land piety either rejected the identification of their age with
the final age of dharma or, in the conviction that spiritual. realization
through self-effort was nonetheless quite possible, insisted on the
necessity for even greater effort during such a degenerate time.
(3) In their practices, especially forms of buddha-reflection (nien-
fl): While both forms of Pure Land devotionalism valued a broad
188
JIABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
ar:ay of on lay
orIented pIety emphasIzed the aVaIlabIlIty and effectIveness of invo_
cational buddha-reflection, the practice of calling on the name of
Amitabha, and monastic piety favored contemplative buddha-reftec_ .
tion, i.e., meditating upon an icon or a mental image of Amitabha.
( 4) In their soteriology: Pure Land piety addressed to the laity
sought first and foremost Pure Land rebirth, emphasizing the vows
of Amitabha as the primary enabling condition, a sOteriology which
can be characterized as posthumous and bestowed; monastic Pure
Land piety sought a hierarchy of soteric goals, first and foremost a
transforming mystical insight characterizable as an imnianentalist
soteriology, but also Pure Land rebirth as a lesser objective.
This is an ideal typology, and very few historical figures would
conform exactly to either orientation. Even Shan-tao, a typical rep-
resentative oflay Pure Land piety, was very interested in buddha-con_
templation (kuan-.fo).
The final point we would like to make is that the Pure Land
piety of Ching-ying Hui-yuan was clearly of the monastic orienta-
tion, and was thus quite different from that of Shan-tao. Yet, in spite
of their differences, we must be cognizant, as Kenneth Tanaka has
so ably demonstrated, that these two leaders of differing orientations
to Pure Land piety interacted in a creative fashion.
This book enhances our understanding of Pure Land Buddhism
in China in a number of ways, and this reviewer for one is grateful
for the insights and valuable resources it provides for thinking and
rethinking the character and history of this field of study.
Allan A. Andrews
NOTES
I. See References for bibliographic details.
2. While Tanaka renders kuan as "visualization," nien-fi as "Buddha-
contemplation" and ch'eng (-ming) as "recitation" ("of the Buddha's name"), we
prefer "contemplation" for kuan, "buddha-reflection" for nien-fi and "invocation
of" or "calling on" ("the name of the Buddha") for cheng (-ming).
3. This research is summarized in Fujita 1990 and Ryukoku 1984.
4. Though Shan-tao was given a governmental appointment late in his
life, it seems that is was in recognition of his stature as an artist and not as a
leader oflay Pure Land piety.
REVIEWS 189
REFERENCES
An-lo chi ("Passages on the Land of Peace and Bliss"), T #1958, by Tao-ch'o.
Buswell, Robert E. Jr., ed. 1990. Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha. Honolulu: Univer-
. sity of Hawaii Press.
Commentary on the Contemplation Siitra by Ching-ying Hui-yiian.
See Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching i-shu.
Commentary on the Contemplation Siitra by Shan-tao.
See Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching shu.
Commentary on the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching.
See Commentary on the Contemplation Siitra by Ching-ying Hui-yiian.
Contemplation Siitra.
See Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching.
Discourse on the Siitra of Immeasurable Life and Mrse on Rebirth.
See Wu-liang-shou-chingyu-po-t'i-she yuan-sheng chieh.
Fujita Kotatsu. 1990. "The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A
Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism," Translated by Kenneth K.
Tanaka, in Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, edited by Robert E. Buswell,Jr.
Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching ("Sutra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Im-
measurable Life"), T #365.
Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching i-shu ("Commentary on the Sutra of Contemplation on
the Buddha ofImmeasurable Life"), T #1745, by Ching-ying Hui-yiian.
". Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching shu ("Commentary on the Sutra of Contemplation on
the Buddha ofImmeasurable Life"), T #1753, by Shan-tao.
Ryukoku University Translation Center, trans. 1 9 8 ~ . The Siitra of Contemplation on
the Buddha of Immeasurable Life as Expounded by Siikyamuni Buddha. Translated
and annotated by the Ryukoku Translation Center under the direction of
Meiji Yamada. Kyoto: Ryukoku University.
T See Taisko shinshii daizokyo.
Ta-ch'eng i-chang ("Mahayana Encyclopedia"), T #1851, by Ching-ying Hui-yiian.
Taisko shinshii daizokyo. 1924-32. ("TaishO Period Revised Edition of the Chinese
Buddhist Canon"). Ed. by Takakusu Junjir6 and Watanabe K., 100 vols.
Tokyo: TaishO Shinshu Daiz6ky6 Kank6kai.
Visualization Siitra.
See Kuan Wu-liang-shou-fo ching.
Wu-liang-shou ching ("Sutra of [the Buddha of] Immeasurable Life"), T #360.
Wu-liang-shou-ching yu-po-t'i-she yuan-sheng chieh ("Discourse on the Sutra of
Immeasurable Life and Verse on Rebirth"), T #1524.
190
]IABS VOL. 14 NO. 1
CHARACTER LIST
ch'eng-ming nien-fo
fan-fu
}L:1<::
fIui-ch'ung .R
Hui-kuang

IC/.'
kuan

kuan-fo

nien-fo san-mei

nien-fo

p'an-chiao

san-shan

sheng-jen

ting-shan

,=..
tsung

Three Recent .Collections: The Buddhist Heritage, ed. Tadeusz
Chinese Buddhzst Aprocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr.; and Rejlectzons
on Tibetan Culture, ed. Lawrence Epstein and Richard Sherburne
What follows is not actually a review-probably no Buddhologist
.. ould claim the competence to review three such disparate vol-
\nes-but simply a listing ofthe contents of three unusually promis-
recent collections of articles, in hopes that such a list may be of
. value to the Journal's readers .
. ' The Buddhist Heritage: Papers delivered at the of the same name
convened at the School of Oriental and A.frican Studies, University of London,
November 1985, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski. Tring, UK.: The Institute of
Buddhist Studies, 1989, xi + 276 pages.
D.L. Snellgrove, "Multiple Features ofthe Buddhist Heritage"
H. Bechert, "Aspects of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and
Southeast Asia"
KR. Norman, "The Pali Language and Scriptures"
.AH. Christie, "Buddhism in Southeast Asia: An Anecdotal
.. Survey"
JK. Locke, S.]., "The Unique Features ofNewar Buddhism"
E. Zurcher, "The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Culture in an His-
torical Perspective"
R. Whitfield, "Buddhist Monuments in China and Some Recent
Finds"
L.R. Lancaster, "The Rock Cut Canon in China: Findings at Fang-
shan"
Youngsook Pak, "Excavations of Buddhist Temple Sites in Korea
Since 1960"
Ree-Sung Keel, "Word and Wordlessness: The Spirit of Korean Bud-
dhism"
T. Kubo, "Contemporary Lay Buddhist Movements in Japan: A
Comparison between the Reiyukai and the Soka Gakkai"
A. Piatagorsky, "Buddhism in Tuva: Preliminary Observations on
Religious Syncretism"
D. Seyfort Ruegg, "The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute'
(tathagatagarbha) as a Problem in Hermeneutics"
Russell Webb, "Contemporary European Scholarship on Buddhism"
191
192
JIABS VOL. 14 NO.1
Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawaii Press, 1990. ix + 342 pages. Appendix, list of Con_
tributors, General Index, Index of Texts.
Robert E. Jr., Prolegomenon to the Study.
of BuddhIst Apocryphal Scnptures"
Kyoko Tokuno, "The Evaluation of Indigenous Scriptures in
Chinese Buddhist Bibliographical Catalogues"
Michel Strickmann, "The Consecration Siitra: A Buddhist Book of
Spells"
Stephen R. Bokenkamp, "Stages of Transcendence: The Ehiimi Con-
cept in Taoist Scripture"
Kotatsu Fujita (tr. Kenneth K. Tanaka), "The Textual Origins of the
Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching: A Canonical Scripture of Pure Land .
Buddhism"
Whalen Lai, "The Chan-ch'a ching: Religion and Magic in Medieval
China"
Mark Edward Lewis, Suppression of the Three Stages Sect:
Apocrypha as a Political Issue"
Antonino Forte, "The Relativity of the Concept of Orthodoxy in
Chinese Buddhism: Chih-sheng's Indictment of Shih-Ii and the
Proscription of the Dharma Mirror Siitra"
Paul Groner, "The Fan-wang ching and Monastic Discipline in
Japanese Tendai: A Study of Annen's Futsiijubosatsukai koshaku"
Ronald M. Davidson, "[Appendix:] An Introduction to the Stan-
dards of Scriptural Authenticity in Indian Buddhism"
Rdlections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory if Turrell V. /i:1jilie, ed.
Lawrence Epstein & Richard F. Sherburne. Studies in Asian
Thought and Religion, vol. 12. Lewis.ton [N.Y.] / Queenston [On-
tario] /Lampeter [Wales, U.K.]: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990.
xiv + 350 pages. Abbreviations, References.
[Geography]
Elena De Rossi Filibeck, "A Guide-Book to Tsa-ri"
Jeffrey D. Schoening, "The Religious Structures at Sa-skya"
[History]
Hugh E. Richardson, "The Mgar Family in Seventh Century Tibet"
Leo E. Rose, "Modern Sikkim in an Historical Perspective"
Elliot Sperling, "Ming Ch'eng-tsu and the Monk Officials of Gling-
tshang and Gon-gyo"
REVIEWS 193
[Philosophy and Textual History]
William L. Ames, "A Translation of Chapter Sixteen, 'Examination of
Bondage and Liberation,' from Tsong-kha-pa's Rigs pa'i rgya
mtsho"
David P. Jackson, "The Earliest Printings ofTsong-kha-pa's Works:
The Old Dga'-ldan Editions"
Per Kvaerne, "A Preliminary Study of the Bonpo Deity Khro-bi
Gtso-mchog Mkha'-'gying"
Karen Christina Lang, "Spa-tshab Nyi-ma-grags and the Introduc-
; tion ofPrasangika Madhyamaka into Tibet"
janos Szerb, "Two ~ o t e s on the Sources ofthe Chos-'byung of Buston
: Rin-chen-grub
Mark Tatz, "Whom is Tsong-kha-pa Refuting in His Basic Path to
Awakening?"
[Language]
W. South Coblin, "A Reexamination of the Second Edict ofKhri-s
rong-Ide-btsan
Roy Andrew Miller, "Case-grammar in the First Two Tibetan Gram-
. matical Treatises"
[Monasticism]
.Ter Ellingson, "Tibetan Monastic Constitutions: The Bca'-yig"
Melvyn C. Goldstein, "Religious Conflict in the Traditional Tibetan
State"
Ngawang 1. Nornang, "Monastic Organization and Economy at
Dwags-po Bshad -gru b-gling"
[Foreign Scholars]
Nancy Moore Gettelman, "Karma-bstan-skyong and the Jesuits"
Joseph M. Kitagawa, "Kawaguchi Ekai: A Pious Adventurer and
Tibet"
cRichard F Sherburne, "A Christian-Buddhist Dialog? Some Notes on
Desideri's Tibetan Manuscripts"
[Comparative Studies]
.. Christopher!. Beckwith, "The Medieval Scholastic Method in Tibet
. and the West"
,Lawrence Epstein, "A Comparative View of Tibetan and Western
Near-death Experiences"
CONTRIBUTORS
Prof. Allan A. Andrews
Dept. of Religion
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405
Mr. Daniel Boucher
Dept. of Oriental Studies
Williams Hall 847
Univ.ofPennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305
Prof. Robert F. Campany
Dept. of Religious Studies
Indiana University
Sycamore Hall 230
Bloomington, IN 47405
Prof. Roger Jackson
Dept. of Religion
Carleton College
Northfield, MN 55057
Prof. Koichi Shinohara
Dept. of Religious Studies
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8S 4K1
Prof. Joe Bransford Wilson
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
Univ. of North Carolina at Wilmington
Wilmington, NC 28403
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