Qǐxìn lùn yīxīn èrmén dàyì 起信論一心二門大意
The Great Meaning of the One Mind and Two Gates in the Awakening of Faith by 智愷 (Zhìkǎi / Huìkǎi, 作)
About the work
A very short composition (1 juǎn) attributed to the Chen-period 陳 monk 智愷 (Zhìkǎi, 518–568), Paramārtha’s principal disciple, presenting the Awakening of Faith’s “one mind, two gates” (一心二門) doctrine in dense aphoristic prose. The text is signed 楊州智愷作 (“composed by Zhìkǎi of Yángzhōu”). If genuine, this would be the earliest extant commentary on the Qǐxìn lùn tradition, written by someone within Paramārtha’s translation atelier.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not register this Xùzàngjīng entry, since CANWWW covers only the Taishō. The text relates to KR6o0078 (T32n1666), the parent Awakening of Faith.
Abstract
The text opens directly: “The Dharma-realm of the one mind is neither principle nor phenomenon. Because it is not principle, the whole substance gives rise to the phenomena of myriad images; because it is not phenomenon, the whole substance forms the principle of the single flavour” (夫一心法界者，非理非事。以非理故，舉體起萬像之事；以非事故，全體成一味之理). It develops the two gates — zhēnrú mén 真如門 (the gate of true thusness) and shēngmiè mén 生滅門 (the gate of arising-and-perishing) — as mutually-implying aspects of the single mind, each of which already contains the structure of the other.
The composition window is bracketed by Zhìkǎi’s career, c. 540–568 (he was active in the Chen capital and at Paramārtha’s translation centre). However, the attribution is contested: the text is not registered in early bibliographic catalogs (《歷代三寶記》, 《開元錄》), survives only in the Xùzàngjīng (Wànxù 卍續) tradition through Japanese manuscript transmission, and is much shorter than would be expected for a true Chen-period commentary. Several modern scholars have suggested it may be a later compilation extracted from longer commentaries and falsely attributed to Zhìkǎi to give it antiquity. The Xùzàngjīng editors print it without prejudice.
The text is preserved in the Wànxùzàngjīng 卍續藏經 Vol. 45, No. 754, the standard repository of Buddhist materials excluded from the Taishō.
Translations and research
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Daijō kishin-ron no kenkyū 大乘起信論之研究. Tōkyō, 1922. — Discusses the attribution problem.
- Liebenthal, Walter. “New Light on the Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra.” T’oung Pao 46 (1958): 155–216. — Treats the early commentarial tradition.
- No further substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The presence of this very short text at the head of the Awakening of Faith commentaries in the Xùzàngjīng reflects the genealogical principle of the canon’s organization: even disputed attributions to figures in Paramārtha’s atelier are placed before the more securely dated Tang and later commentaries.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority (Zhìkǎi): A001283