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 Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn and the 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
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- 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 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.