Dàshèng rùdào cìdì 大乘入道次第
The Stages of Entering the Path in the Mahāyāna by 智周 (Zhìzhōu, 撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle systematic treatise by 智周 Zhìzhōu (668–723), the third patriarch of the Cí’ēn-school, laying out the bodhisattva-path in stages (cìdì 次第 = krama) within the Yogācāra-Cí’ēn doctrinal framework. Preserved in the Taishō at T45n1864. Functions as an introductory practice-manual to the bodhisattva-path complementing Huìzhǎo’s KR6n0127 Quànfā pútí xīn jí.
Structural Division
CANWWW preserves the related-text relation T45N1864 ↔ KR6n0130 (T85N2823), pointing to its Dūnhuáng-recovered sub-commentary Dàshèng rùdào cìdì kāijué by 曇曠.
Prefaces
Authorship line: “Shāmén Zhìzhōu zhuàn 沙門智周撰.” Opens with a dedication verse: “I bow my head to the unequalled good charioteer / Who can pull beings out of the sinking suffering of birth-and-death; / The nature and characteristic of [his] empty-space [wisdom] are without coming-or-going — / Like a shadow following a form, responding to those to be transformed; / The single-flavour true characteristic, the wondrous sweet-dew…”
Abstract
The Rùdào cìdì is a compact didactic treatment of the Mahāyāna path, designed to be intelligible to monks beginning Yogācāra study. It systematically presents the path (dào = mārga) in its standard Yogācāra five-stage form — zīliángdào 資糧道 (path of accumulation), jiāxíngdào 加行道 (path of preparation), jiàndào 見道 (path of seeing), xiūdào 修道 (path of cultivation), jiūjìngdào 究竟道 (path of completion) — together with the analyses of the èrzhàng (twofold obscuration) cut at each, and the èrkōng (twofold emptiness) realised at each. The work is characteristic of the third-generation Cí’ēn-school’s effort to consolidate the doctrinal apparatus of 玄奘 and 窺基 into pedagogically accessible practice manuals.
The dating window 700–723 brackets Zhìzhōu’s productive period as third patriarch of the Cí’ēn-school. The work was sufficiently authoritative that the Héxī Cí’ēn-school monk 曇曠 composed an extended kāijué (decisional supplement) on it — KR6n0130 Dàshèng rùdào cìdì kāijué — at Dūnhuáng in the third quarter of the eighth century.
Translations and research
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻, Tonkō Bukkyō no kenkyū 敦煌仏教の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1990 — discusses the Tán-kuàng Kāi-jué and indirectly the parent text.