Qǐxìn lùn chāochū 起信論抄出
Extracted Digest of the Awakening-of-Faith Treatise by 尊辨 (Zūnbiàn / Sonben, 撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle question-and-answer extracted digest by the medieval Japanese Hossō scholar 尊辨 (Sonben), of KR6o0078 Dà-chéng qǐ-xìn-lùn 大乘起信論 (T1666), the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna attributed to Aśvaghoṣa 馬鳴 and translated by 真諦 (Paramārtha). Preserved in Taishō vol. 69 (no. 2283). The Japanese title is Kishin-ron shōshutsu. The work also engages closely with the Yìjì 義記 commentary of 法藏 (Fǎzàng) (KR6o0105).
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface. It opens directly with the first scholastic question, framing the central tension between nirvikalpa-jñāna (the non-discriminative wisdom) and the dharmas it cognises:
問。無分別智分別法相可云耶 答。爾也
付之。無分別智者。照如理一味。何云分別法相耶。是以説法之用預後得智。故報化二身説法。不論法身説法之義。若無分別智云分別法相者。可云法身説法也。如何
答。凡任高祖所釋。無分別智分別法相云事。實如御難。雖可云後得智ト無分別智是其本也。
“Q: May one say that the nirvikalpa-jñāna (non-discriminative wisdom) discriminates the dharma-lakṣaṇas? A: It may. — But: the non-discriminative wisdom illuminates suchness with a uniform flavour, how can it discriminate the dharma-lakṣaṇas? Hence the function of preaching the Dharma is assigned to the pṛṣṭha-labdha-jñāna (subsequently-attained wisdom); therefore the saṃbhoga-kāya and nirmāṇa-kāya preach the Dharma, while the dharma-kāya is not said to preach. If we say that the non-discriminative wisdom discriminates the dharma-lakṣaṇas, we would have to say that the dharma-kāya preaches. How is this to be resolved?”
The opening kana-style interlinear marks (ト, ヌレハ, ヲ) are characteristic of late-Heian Hossō scholastic annotation and locate the work in that period.
Abstract
Sonben’s Shōshutsu approaches the Awakening of Faith from the Hossō perspective: the central scholastic question is the relation between nirvikalpa-jñāna and pṛṣṭha-labdha-jñāna — the two-fold wisdom of the bodhisattva-path as developed in the Yogācāra-school Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra / Madhyāntavibhāga tradition. The Qǐ-xìn-lùn’s doctrine of one-mind-two-gates (一心二門) is recast through this Hossō lens, with the suchness gate identified with the nirvikalpa wisdom and the birth-and-death gate with the pṛṣṭha-labdha function.
This reading is methodologically distinct from the Huayan-Kegon reading of KR6o0105 Yìjì by 法藏 (Fǎzàng), which Sonben cites by short title as “高祖所釋” (“the lofty patriarch’s exposition”). Sonben does not reject Fǎzàng but augments him with the Hossō bùfēnzhì / hòudézhì taxonomy, producing a synthesis characteristic of late-Heian Kōfuku-ji scholastic method.
Composition window: c. 1100–1180, late Heian period.
Translations and research
- Hakeda, Yoshito S. The Awakening of Faith: Attributed to Aśvaghosha. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. — The standard English translation of the Qǐ-xìn-lùn; useful background for Sonben’s commentary.
- Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士. Heian shoki bukkyō shisō no kenkyū 平安初期佛教思想の研究. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1995.
Other points of interest
The Shōshutsu’s identification of the Qǐ-xìn-lùn’s “one mind two gates” with the Hossō two-fold wisdom is an important documentary witness to late-Heian Hossō engagement with the Awakening of Faith. The Hossō school had a longstanding doctrinal tension with the Qǐ-xìn-lùn (whose suchness-conditioned-arising doctrine sits uneasily with the Hossō ālaya-vijñāna doctrine), and the Shōshutsu’s attempt to incorporate the Qǐ-xìn-lùn doctrines into the Hossō framework is a notable instance of inter-school doctrinal accommodation.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Person Authority (Sonben): A001186