大乘起信論

Dà shèng qǐ xìn lùn 大乘起信論

Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith by 馬鳴菩薩 (Mǎmíng púsà / Aśvaghoṣa, 造 — but see Abstract) and 真諦 (Zhēndì / Paramārtha, 譯)

About the work

The single most influential doctrinal treatise in the entire East Asian Buddhist tradition: a one-juǎn (in some divisions two-juǎn) compact systematic exposition of Mahāyāna doctrine, traditionally attributed to 馬鳴菩薩 (Aśvaghoṣa, fl. 80–150 CE) and translated into Chinese by 真諦 (Paramārtha, 499–569) under Liáng patronage. The text presents a unified doctrinal vision in which the Tathāgata-garbha (如來藏 / “embryo of the Tathāgata”) is the metaphysical ground of all phenomena, with the one mind (一心) opening into the “two gates” of suchness (真如門) and birth-and-death (生滅門). This framework — often labelled “the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha monism” — became foundational for the Tiāntái 天台, Huáyán 華嚴, Chán 禪, and Pure Land schools alike, and is one of the most-commented texts in the Chinese tradition.

The authenticity question — whether the text is an Indian Sanskrit original by Aśvaghoṣa, a sixth-century Chinese composition, or some hybrid — has been debated for over a century since Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨 first questioned the Indian provenance in 1898. Modern consensus is that the text is almost certainly a sixth-century Chinese composition (whether by Paramārtha himself or a contemporary Chinese disciple) presented as a translation; the underlying Sanskrit attested by 實叉難陀’s 實叉難陀 alleged Tang retranslation KR6o0079 does not survive and the textual evidence for an Indic original is essentially nil. The matter remains technically open in some Chinese-Buddhist circles but is settled in modern Western and Japanese scholarship.

Structural Division

CANWWW (T32N1666) does not record a chapter sub-division; the text is conventionally analysed under five sections:

1. Yīnyuán fēn 因緣分 — Conditions [for composition]
2. Lìyì fēn 立義分 — Establishment of the [main] thesis
3. Jiěshì fēn 解釋分 — Detailed explanation (the main body)
4. Xiūxíng xìnxīn fēn 修行信心分 — Cultivation of faith and practice
5. Quànxiū lìyì fēn 勸修利益分 — Encouragement [to practice] and its benefits

Abstract

The Taishō text is prefaced by the Dà shèng qǐxìn lùn xù 大乘起信論序 — a contemporary preface by Yángzhōu Sēng Zhìkǎi 揚州僧智愷, sometimes identified as one of Paramārtha’s principal disciples (also attested as the translator of a smaller sub-commentary KR6o0110). Zhìkǎi’s preface is the principal early documentary witness to the alleged Liáng-period circumstances of translation: the work is said to have been completed in the south after Paramārtha’s manuscript-arrival in Jiànkāng under Liáng Wǔdì 梁武帝 in 548, with the translation completed at Hèngshǔ 衡州 sometime between 550 and 553. Modern scholars (Demiéville, Liebenthal, Hakeda, Yoshimura, Lai Whalen, Grosnick) have shown that this prefatory account is not corroborated by independent evidence and should be regarded with some caution. The earliest secure citation of the text is in the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶記 of Fèi Chángfáng 費長房 (T2034, 597) — already half a century after Paramārtha’s death, with no contemporary documentation of the translation.

The text’s doctrinal influence on East Asian Buddhism is impossible to overstate. It introduced the term zhēnrú 真如 (suchness, tathatā) as the principal English-Chinese-translation equivalent for tathatā; it provided the categorical framework for both Tiāntái and Huáyán doctrinal taxonomies (the one-mind two-gates schema); it furnished the metaphysical ground for Chán’s “original mind” (本心) doctrine; and it remains canonical in Korean and Japanese Buddhist education to the present day.

Translations and research

• Hakeda, Yoshito S. The Awakening of Faith Attributed to Aśvaghosha. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. — Standard English translation with introduction; widely used.
• Liebenthal, Walter. “The Oldest Commentary of the Mahāyānaśraddhotpāda Śāstra.” Monumenta Nipponica 11 (1955–56). — Treats the early commentary tradition.
• Demiéville, Paul. “Sur l’authenticité du Ta-tch’eng K’i-sin Louen.” Bulletin de la Maison franco-japonaise 2 (1929): 1–78. — Foundational Western study of the authenticity question.
• Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Daijō kishin-ron no kenkyū 大乘起信論之研究. Tokyo, 1922 (and earlier articles 1898–1922). — The original challenge to Indian authorship.
• Lai, Whalen. “A Clue to the Authorship of the Awakening of Faith: Siksānanda’s Redaction of the Word Nien.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 3 (1980): 34–53.
• Grosnick, William H. “The Categories of T’i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence That Paramārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 12 (1989): 65–92.
• Girard, Frédéric (trans.). Traité sur l’acte de foi dans le Grand Véhicule. Paris, 2004. — Critical French translation.
• Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea: The Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra, a Buddhist Apocryphon. Princeton, 1989. — Treats the broader question of East Asian Buddhist apocrypha including the Qǐ-xìn lùn.
• Tarocco, Francesca. “Awakening Mahāyāna Faith: A Modernist Reconfiguration of the Awakening of Faith.” Journal of Chinese Religions 35 (2007).

Other points of interest

The text generated an unparalleled commentarial tradition: the catalog records at least nineteen commentaries on the Liáng version alone in KR6o (KR6o0100–0123), of which the most influential is 法藏’s [[KR6o0105|Dà chéng qǐ-xìn lùn yì-jì 大乘起信論義記]] (T1846), the foundational Huáyán reading of the text, and 元曉’s [[KR6o0101|Qǐ-xìn lùn shū 起信論疏]] (T1844), the foundational Korean reading. The text is one of two parallel Chinese versions in the canon — the Tang retranslation by Śikṣānanda (T1667) is the other — both ultimately stemming from substantially the same Chinese-textual base, regardless of the Indian-vs-Chinese-origin question.

Links

• CBETA
• Wikipedia
• Dazangthings date evidence (565): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/