Greene, Eric. "Doctrinal Dispute in the Earliest Phase of Chinese Buddhism—Anti-Mahāyāna Polemics in the Scripture on the Fifty Contemplations." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 40 (2017): 63-109.
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Greene argues that the Pusa nei xi liu poluomi jing 菩薩內習六波羅蜜經 T778 is a Chinese composition. In Dao'an's catalogue, it is listed as an anonymous text. Greene notes that six stages of breath meditation discussed by the text are usually restricted in early texts to the works of An Shigao. In this text, these breath meditations are aligned with the six perfections --- which, conversely, never feature in the works of An Shigao. He also notes a sentence in which the word śīla is both transcribed (in a manner deriving from Lokakṣema) and translated or paraphrased, which he takes as another indication that the text cannot be a direct translation. He also refers to Nattier (2007), who shows that the text borrows a listing of the ten bodhisatva stages from Zhi Qian's T281. Greene also notes that the explanations of the pāramitās in the text are most likely rooted in a Mainstream understanding deriving from An Shigao's corpus, rather than the Mahāyāna understandings more typical for this rubric. |
99-101 |
Greene argues that the Pusa nei xi liu poluomi jing 菩薩內習六波羅蜜經 T778 is a Chinese composition. In Dao'an's catalogue, it is listed as an anonymous text. Greene notes that six stages of breath meditation discussed by the text are usually restricted in early texts to the works of An Shigao. In this text, these breath meditations are aligned with the six perfections --- which, conversely, never feature in the works of An Shigao. He also notes a sentence in which the word sila is both transcribed (in a manner deriving from Lokaksema) and translated or paraphrased, which he takes as another indication that the text cannot be a direct translation. He also refers to Nattier (2007), who shows that the text borrows a listing of the ten bodhisatva stages from Zhi Qian's T281. Greene also notes that the explanations of the paramitas in the text are most likely rooted in a Mainstream understanding deriving from An Shigao's corpus, rather than the Mahayana understandings more typical for this rubric. T0778; 佛說菩薩內習六波羅蜜經 |
Ascribed to An Shigao in Dao’an’s and Sengyou’s catalogues, the 五十校計經 Wushi jiaoji jing T397(17) is often erroneously regarded as lost by modern scholars because in the Taishō canon it is hidden in the Ratnakūṭa collection 大方等大集經 T397 under a different title, although it is in fact preserved as a separate individual text in all the woodblock-printed editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon, including the Koryǒ canon. Based on analysis of the linguistic style and doctrinal content of the text, Greene argues that T397(17) is very likely one of the earliest so-called Chinese Buddhist “apocrypha,” i.e. Buddhist texts composed in Chinese from scratch. Furthermore, it is the only known extant text in the entire Buddhist literature that explicitly criticizes (and eventually invalidates) the bodhisatva path. However, rather than simply casting T397(17) as an anti-Mahayānā text, did as Shizutani Masao 静谷正雄, Greene suggests we understand the polemics in the text as the result of its author(s)’ attempt to reconcile the two earliest strands of Buddhist teachings in China known to us: the mainstream teachings left by An Shigao and the Mahāyāna teachings left by Lokakṣema. Rather than completely rejecting the “bodhisatva path,” the T397(17) keeps the label but its definition of the correct path is essentially to cut off all desires and rebirths in this very lifetime, in other words, what usually is known as the arhat path in mainstream Buddhism. Since Lokakṣema’s group postdates An Shigao by almost a century, Greene deduces the text was produced by/in an intellectual community that was familiar with both. Given the striking parallels between T397(17) and works by the so-called “An Shigao school” active in the Wu kingdom, such as the Yin chi ru jing zhu 陰持入經註 T1694 and the Shi'er men jing 十二門經, Greene suggests their group as the most likely candidate for the authorship of the text [note, however he also qualifies this argument with the possibility that the text could be a hybrid of translation and commentary/”apocrypha”]. Among these parallels, the most notable is perhaps the doctrinal oddity of linking the sense organ of the mouth to both taste and speech/words (語言) as its objects. Whereas taste alone is consistently listed as the object corresponding to mouth in Indian Buddhist texts, pre-Buddhist Chinese texts often link speech to mouth in comparable rubrics of sense organs. Additionally, Greene suggests that another text, the Pusa neixi liu boruomi jing 菩薩內習六波羅蜜經 T778, shares this doctrinal anomaly with these texts, and also evinces attempts at reconciling teachings typical of An Shigao’s and Lokakṣema’s groups. |
Ascribed to An Shigao in Dao’an’s and Sengyou’s catalogues, the 五十校計經 Wushi jiaoji jing T397(17) is often erroneously regarded as lost by modern scholars because in the Taisho canon it is hidden in the Ratnakuta collection 大方等大集經 T397 under a different title, although it is in fact preserved as a separate individual text in all the woodblock-printed editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon, including the Koryo canon. Based on analysis of the linguistic style and doctrinal content of the text, Greene argues that T397(17) is very likely one of the earliest so-called Chinese Buddhist “apocrypha,” i.e. Buddhist texts composed in Chinese from scratch. Furthermore, it is the only known extant text in the entire Buddhist literature that explicitly criticizes (and eventually invalidates) the bodhisatva path. However, rather than simply casting T397(17) as an anti-Mahayana text, did as Shizutani Masao 静谷正雄, Greene suggests we understand the polemics in the text as the result of its author(s)’ attempt to reconcile the two earliest strands of Buddhist teachings in China known to us: the mainstream teachings left by An Shigao and the Mahayana teachings left by Lokaksema. Rather than completely rejecting the “bodhisatva path,” the T397(17) keeps the label but its definition of the correct path is essentially to cut off all desires and rebirths in this very lifetime, in other words, what usually is known as the arhat path in mainstream Buddhism. Since Lokaksema’s group postdates An Shigao by almost a century, Greene deduces the text was produced by/in an intellectual community that was familiar with both. Given the striking parallels between T397(17) and works by the so-called “An Shigao school” active in the Wu kingdom, such as the Yin chi ru jing zhu 陰持入經註 T1694 and the Shi'er men jing 十二門經, Greene suggests their group as the most likely candidate for the authorship of the text [note, however he also qualifies this argument with the possibility that the text could be a hybrid of translation and commentary/”apocrypha”]. Among these parallels, the most notable is perhaps the doctrinal oddity of linking the sense organ of the mouth to both taste and speech/words (語言) as its objects. Whereas taste alone is consistently listed as the object corresponding to mouth in Indian Buddhist texts, pre-Buddhist Chinese texts often link speech to mouth in comparable rubrics of sense organs. Additionally, Greene suggests that another text, the Pusa neixi liu boruomi jing 菩薩內習六波羅蜜經 T778, shares this doctrinal anomaly with these texts, and also evinces attempts at reconciling teachings typical of An Shigao’s and Lokaksema’s groups. Anonymous (China), 失譯, 闕譯, 未詳撰者, 未詳作者, 不載譯人 T397(17); Jiaoji jing 校計經; Mingdu wushi jiaoji jing 明度五十校計經; 十方菩薩品; 十方菩薩品, 五十校計經 |