Huáyán fā pútí xīn zhāng 華嚴發菩提心章
Treatise on Generating the Mind of Awakening in the Huáyán [Sūtra] by 法藏 (Fǎzàng, 述)
About the work
The Fā pútí xīn zhāng 發菩提心章 in 1 fascicle is 法藏 Fǎzàng’s treatise on the bodhicitta-utpāda — the “generation of the mind of awakening” — as it is set out in the Avataṃsaka. The doctrine of bodhicitta (菩提心) is one of the foundational topics of Mahāyāna soteriology, and the Avataṃsaka’s articulation of it — particularly in the Shízhù pǐn 十住品 and the Rù fǎjiè pǐn 入法界品 — became the canonical East Asian Mahāyāna source.
Prefaces
No formal preface.
Abstract
The work is conventionally datable to 法藏 Fǎzàng’s mature period, c. 670 – 712 CE. The bracket adopted here reflects this window. The doctrinal substance — the structure, occasion, content, and consequences of generating bodhicitta — connects directly to the later devotional liturgy of the [[KR6e0046|Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn]] and the [[普賢十大願|Pǔxián shí dà yuàn]]. The work was widely studied in subsequent East Asian Mahāyāna scholasticism.
The Taishō text (T1878) is established on the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Cook, Francis H. Hua-yen Buddhism (1977).
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Sakamoto Yukio 坂本幸男. Kegon kyōgaku no kenkyū (1956).
Other points of interest
- Fǎzàng’s Fā pútí xīn zhāng and Amoghavajra’s later [[發菩提心論|Fā pútí xīn lùn]] (T1665) constitute the two principal Tang treatises on the bodhicitta doctrine; the comparative reading of these two works — Huáyán-school versus Esoteric-Buddhist articulations of the same doctrine — has become an important topic in modern Buddhist studies.