Study Of Huiyuan's And Fazang's Commentaries On On The Awakening OfF Aith In Mahayana

The purpose of this research is to find out contributions that have been done by Jingying Huiyuan and Fazang in their commentaries interpreting On the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana(Shortened as AFM).The dissertation is centered on four tasks:1.the featured interpretations have been made by Huiyuan and Fazang;2.featured interpretations of Huiyuan inherited by Fazang and Fazang's new interpretations;3.the status of AFM in their theoretical systems;4.the influence of their interpretations.The dissertation is divided into four chapters.Chapter One focuses on the history and literature concerning AFM.According to the records of historical and catalogical works,this discourse was first translated into Chinese in Liang Dynasty.This conclusion cannot be negated by current literature.Zhendi(Paramartha)not only translated this work,but also began to study and to teach it.According to available records,Shichanantuo translated this work for the second time in Tang Dynasty,which is an evidence of its Indian origin.This work has issued great influence upon schools and sects of Chinese Buddhism,among which the Mahayana-samgraha school,the Stages School(the Dasabhumika-sastra school),and The Flower Adornment Sutra School(The Avatamsaka Sutra School)were the most important disseminators.Chapter Two and Chapter Three respectively study Huiyuan's and Fazang's interpretations of AFM and its status in their theoretical systems.Huiyuan's interpretation displays theoretical characteristics of the Stages School.He manifests his abidance by the teachings of AFM in his understanding of the essence of the mind and in establishing his Dependent Origination of the true mind.The combination of theories of the Stages School and AFM results in his division of the true mind into two aspects.And he basically accomplished the Sinicizing process of Buddhist Dependent Origination by his transformation of Dependent Origination of Tathagatagarbha into the concepts of essence and function.Fazang expounds the thoughts of AFM from two levels of sudden enlightenment and of gradual practice.Mind of all beings and the true thusness are understood as the mind pure in its self-nature,and the true thusness has two levels of meanings,one the unspeakable that means sudden enlightenment in practice and the other the speakable that means gradual practice.He elucidates the Dependent Origination of Tathagatagarbha by means of the true thusness's two meanings:to remain unchanged and to be conditioned.And the elucidation consists of two levels:Manifestation of the Reality-nature,and Dependent Origination of Tathagatagarbha.He maintains that all beings share the same Buddha nature of true thusness.He advocates both sudden enlightenment and gradual practice,both being free from thoughts while in thoughts.The status of AFM underwent changes in Fazang's teaching classification systems.At his early stage he judged that AFM expresses three types of teachings at the same time:"the initial teachings","the final teachings",and "the sudden enlightenment teachings".In later years,Fazang judged the treatise as being "the single vehicle" that equals the status of "Flower Adornment Sutra.Chapter Four studies the relationship between Huiyuan's and Fazang's interpretations of AFM and the influence upon Chinese Buddhism of their interpretations.Huiyuan's interpretation exerted great influence upon Chinese Buddhism of later periods by his theories of the mind,of the essence and function,of Buddha-body and pure land,and of Buddha-nature.Fazang's "four teachings" system of classification was designed under the influence of Huiyuan's similar teaching classification;Fazang's was inspired in his theory of the true thusness's two meanings by Huiyuan's two aspects of the true mind.Huiyuan's concept system of the essence and function became the source of using the same concepts in interpreting Manifestation of the Reality-nature in The Flower Adornment Sutra School.Fazang's understanding of Dependent Origination of Tathagatagarbha as no obstruction between principle and phenomena influenced the later thoughts of his school and of Ch'an Sect.And this understanding led to his recognizing Dependent Origination of Tathagatagarbha as identity with Dependent Origination of dharma-realm.He inherited Huiyuan's and Yuanxiao's interpretations of the theory of practice of AFM,and absorbed Zhiyi's ideas of practice.Fazang mixed the thoughts of AFM and of The Flower Adornment Sutra in establishing his theory of observation,especially the Consciousness-only Observation of Ten Steps and the Observation of Ending the Falsity and Returning to Source,which made up the deficit of practice theory in his sect.This dissertation reaches the following conclusions:1.The two commentaries display distinctive features of their schools,i.e.,Huiyuan's commentary displays the feature of the stages school,while Fazang's of The Flower Adornment Sutra School.3.The two commentaries are related by inheritance,meaning many means of elucidation of Huiyuan are adopted by Fazang.Through the interpretations of Huiyuan and Fazang,AFM has brought far-reaching influence on Chinese Buddhism in terms of the theories of mind and consciousness,of Dependent Origination,of Buddha-body,of pure land,and of practice.of observation.