Quànfā pútí xīn jí 勸發菩提心集
Compendium for Encouraging the Aspiration to Awakening by 慧沼 (Huìzhǎo, 撰)
About the work
A three-fascicle Táng Cí’ēn-school treatise by 慧沼 Huìzhǎo (650–714), the second patriarch of the Cí’ēn-school, on the bodhisattva-vow and the cultivation of bodhicitta. Preserved in the Taishō at T45n1862. Among the principal early Yogācāra-school bodhicitta-doctrine treatises in Chinese — a parallel within the Cí’ēn tradition to the better-known Tibetan and Pali bodhicitta literature.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not record sub-parts or related-text cross-references for T45N1862. The text is internally organised under nine mén 門 (gates):
- Míng púsà zhǒngxìng xiàng mén 明菩薩種姓相門 (illuminating the bodhisattva gotra characteristics — drawn from Yújiā shīdì lùn fasc. 35).
- Míng fāxīn yīnyuán mén 明發心因緣門 (illuminating the causes and conditions for arousing the [bodhi] mind).
- Xiǎn shèngfù lùn mén 顯勝負論門 (the gate of demonstrating victory and defeat in argument).
- Pìyù zàntàn mén 譬喻讚歎門 (similes and praises).
- Quànfā shèngliè chóngguǎng mén 勸發勝劣重廣門 (further-extended encouragement for both higher and lesser).
- Lìshì fāyuàn mén 立誓發願門 (taking-the-vow and arousing-the-aspiration).
- Fùshuō fāxīn jí āimǐn mén 復說發心及哀愍門 (further exposition of arousing the mind and of compassion).
- Zámíng xiūxíng jí tuìbùtuì mén 雜明修行及退不退門 (miscellaneous illuminations on practice and on retrogression / non-retrogression).
- Yī Guān Pǔxián púsà jīng chànhuǐ shòujiè mén 依觀普賢菩薩經懺悔受戒門 (repentance and precept-reception following the Guān Pǔxián púsà jīng 觀普賢菩薩經).
Prefaces
Authorship line: “Fānjīng shāmén Huìzhǎo zhuàn 翻經沙門慧沼撰” — by the translation-bureau monk Huìzhǎo. The text opens directly with the nine-gate outline.
Abstract
The Quànfā pútí xīn jí is the principal Cí’ēn-school treatise on the cultivation of bodhicitta — the resolve to attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings — within the Yogācāra doctrinal framework of the gotra (lineage / spiritual capacity, zhǒngxìng 種姓) doctrine. Huìzhǎo’s treatment is grounded in the Bodhisattvabhūmi section of the Yogācārabhūmi (cited explicitly under gate one) and integrates the standard Cí’ēn-school gotra analysis (the five-gotra doctrine: bodhisattva, pratyekabuddha, śrāvaka, indeterminate, and icchantika) with the practical bodhisattva-path materials drawn from the Daśabhūmika, the Yogācārabhūmi, and the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha. The ninth gate adapts the Guān Pǔxián púsà jīng repentance-and-precept ritual into a Cí’ēn-school liturgical form.
The dating window 700–714 brackets Huìzhǎo’s late-career period, when his major doctrinal works were composed at Cí’ēnsì and Dàyúnsì. The work is one of the principal Cí’ēn-school responses to the contemporary Tiāntái and Huáyán syntheses, distinguished by its retention of the gotra doctrine and its insistence on the icchantika category — both points where the Cí’ēn-school differed sharply from the universalist eka-yāna of the rival schools.
Translations and research
- Stanley Weinstein, “The Concept of Reference (āśraya) in Buddhist Idealism.” Journal of Religious Studies (1967) — discusses Huìzhǎo’s place in the Cí’ēn synthesis.
- John Makeham (ed.), Transforming Consciousness: Yogācāra Thought in Modern China. Oxford UP, 2014.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.