The Study Of South Version Mahaparinirvana-sutra

Mahaparinirvana-sutra is one of the important Chinese buddhist scriptures.Its central idea has three aspects like as "four Nirvana virtues", "Dhammakaya nitya-sthita", and "All living creatures have buddha-gotra".The four Nirvana virtues consists of permanence, joyance, personality and purity.They break the secular concepts of impermanence, suffering, impersonality and impurity which are from Hinayana. They also break the concept of reality nirvana which is from prajna, and they approve that the four Nirvana virtues is absolutely true.Dhammakaya nitya-sthita refers to the spiritual essence of the universe, the absolutely true nature of the universe. Its characteristic is that permanence never changes. All living creatures’goal is to attain permanent immortal dharmakaya into the great nirvana. All living creatures have buddha-gotra which having originally or having in the future is the most important issue in Mahaparinirvana-sutra. The issue is the key to be Buddha for all living creatures including icchantika.The important thoughts of Mahaparinirvana-sutra are showed by metaphor. Mahaparinirvana-sutra has a large number of metaphors. These metaphors are divided into three types which are rhetorical metaphor, story metaphor and avadana metaphor. Rhetorical metaphor has diversity of rhetorics and rich content. Story metaphor contains two types like as original stories and modified stories from other Buddhist scriptures. It has distinct structure, brightly character images and vivid stories. Avadana metaphor contains the birth stories of Shakyamuni in present life, past lives. Strong religious color and blowbacks are their characteristics.Metaphor has three functions. Firstly, interpretation of the buddhist from shallow to deep. Secondly, making the theory solemner and convincing people to believe and enjoy. Thirdly, Metaphor affects literati, Taoism and Zen Buddhism a lot.All kinds of figures in Hinayana Nirvana-sutra and Mahayana Nirvana-sutra is another feature. Through comparison of two kinds of figures, we can find their characters and status are different. This paper analyzes the deep reasons so as to explore the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures how to transform the Hinayana Buddhist scriptures.Mahaparinirvana-sutra spreads quickly in JinTang Dynasty. Research learning ethos of Nirvana prevails, Internal Buddhism, the monks and nuns read, chant, interpret, and annotate Buddhist scriptures. Outside Buddhism, literati and monks contacts with each other, interpret philosophical connotations, copy Buddhist scriptures from ordinary people. "Four Nirvana virtues", "Dhammakaya nitya-sthita", and "All living creatures having buddha-gotra" are also the ideological basis of miraculous story. Miraculous stories expand the faith of nirvana further.Xie lingyun and Emperor liangwu are representative case studies in the process of Mahaparinirvana-sutra spreading and accepting. Xie lingyun is the model of literati in buddhist faith of six dynasties. He contacts with monks who is proficient in Nirvana. He is closely related to Mahaparinirvana-sutra, such as changing and modifying Mahaparinirvana-sutra, debating philosophical connotations, explaining the pronunciation and literary creation. Emperor Liangwu, because of his identity and literary accomplishment, he involved in all kinds of activities, such as annotating Buddhist scriptures, playing Nirvana thoughts in literary creation, advocating vegetarian diet culture. Emperor Liangwu has most contributions on spreading Mahaparinirvana-sutra.By the spread of Mahaparinirvana-sutra, theory of Nirvana buddha-gotra is gradually into the people’s hearts. Theories of SiYi, epiphany to be Buddha, convenience are accepted by literary theory. As a result, literature concepts develops,and in details, word and cognition,view of natural disposition and intelligence,the controversies on form and spirit,the peaceful state.