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This document summarizes the rise of Buddhism in southern China under the Eastern Jin dynasty from 317-420 CE. It describes how after the fall of the Western Jin, scholar-aristocrats and Buddhist monks migrated southward, bringing Buddhist scriptures and philosophies influenced by Daoism to the new capital of Jiankang. This helped establish an aristocratic form of Buddhism among the elite that combined study of scriptures with Daoist ideas. While this syncretism was influential, aristocratic Buddhism was also criticized for lacking religious devotion and becoming too luxurious over time.
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Scan PDF of ch. 6 of Tsukamoto's out of print Early Chinese Buddhism
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Tsukamoto Zenryu Ch. 6 a History of Early Chinese Buddhism
This document summarizes the rise of Buddhism in southern China under the Eastern Jin dynasty from 317-420 CE. It describes how after the fall of the Western Jin, scholar-aristocrats and Buddhist monks migrated southward, bringing Buddhist scriptures and philosophies influenced by Daoism to the new capital of Jiankang. This helped establish an aristocratic form of Buddhism among the elite that combined study of scriptures with Daoist ideas. While this syncretism was influential, aristocratic Buddhism was also criticized for lacking religious devotion and becoming too luxurious over time.
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This document summarizes the rise of Buddhism in southern China under the Eastern Jin dynasty from 317-420 CE. It describes how after the fall of the Western Jin, scholar-aristocrats and Buddhist monks migrated southward, bringing Buddhist scriptures and philosophies influenced by Daoism to the new capital of Jiankang. This helped establish an aristocratic form of Buddhism among the elite that combined study of scriptures with Daoist ideas. While this syncretism was influential, aristocratic Buddhism was also criticized for lacking religious devotion and becoming too luxurious over time.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Verfügbare Formate
Als PDF, TXT herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE UNDER THE EASTERN TSIN A. Collapse of the Western Tsin and Buddhism's Southward Trek The Inauguration of the Eastern Tsin at Chien-k'ang. The rule of the Western Tsin, which had created a unified Chinese state, was not to endure very long. As has been said above, after the death of Emperor Wu (in 290), the court was characterized by the autocratic usurpations of the Chia clan, blood kin to the empress, who were tak- ing advantage of the new occupant of the throne, the idiot emperor Hui, while elsewhere there were seven years of feuding among princes of the blood who took turns in attacking the capital at Lo-yang in the hope of capturing the imperial power (the so-called Disturbance of the Eight Princes). In this way the governing power of the Tsin court was worn down to nothing, and to this was added a succession of crop failures, floods, and other natural calamities, with the result that the entire Middle Plain was converted into a virtual wilderness. Availing themselves of the op- portunity provided by this situation, there rose up in attack all over the land a variety of non-Chinese peoples in the north who, since the days of the Latter Han, had been moving to within the Great Wall and many of whom were now settled agriculturists. We are referring, of course, to the "Five Barbarian Nations" (wu hu), i.e., to the non-Chinese peoples among whom the best known were the Hsiung-nu, the Chieh, the Ti, the Ch'iang, and the Hsien-pi. Liu Yao, chief of the Hsiung-nu, who were the first nation to become aggressively active, at length reduced Lo-yang, taking Emperor Huai captive (in 311). Then Emperor Min, who succeeded him in Ch'ang-an, the other capital, was also taken captive by Liu Yao (in 317), and the Western Tsin, which had lasted only four reigns over a period of fifty-two years, perished. Thereafter, North China became the scene of a bewildering struggle for power among the Five, and there was ushered in the period of political turmoil known as that of the "sixteen states of the Five Barbarian Nations" (wu hu shih liu kuo). About the same time, one member of the imperial family, Ssu-ma Jui, who, with his base at Chien-k'ang, had, from Yung-chia 1 (307), attained the highest political-military rank south of the Yangtze and who, with the aid of men like Wang Tao, and Chou Yi, had also contrived to win the sympathies of most of the powerful families south of the Yangtze, was elevated, once the Western Tsin was no more, to imperial dignity by two groups, viz., the powerful families indigenous to the south and the aristocrats who, likeWang Tao, had come down from the north; and thus it is that the Tsin was restored (in 317). He is the man known to subsequent history as Emperor Yiian of the Eastern Tsin. Incidentally, Chien-k' ang is none other than the old Wu capital of Chien-yeh, whose name was changed in order to avoid the personal name of Ssu-ma Y eh, Emperor Min of the Western Tsin. The court of the Eastern Tsin maintained itself, through a period of 104 years (317-420, incl.), for eleven reigns, as diagrammed on the accompanying table, until BUDDIDSM's SOUTHWARD TREK 313 taken over by the Sung, first of the "Southern dynasties." If one may arbitrarily designate the first five reigns as the "former period" of the Eastern Tsin, then this former period, lasting a bit over 50 years, was one. in which scholar-aristocrats from the north, streaming southward in a steady succession to become officials in the service of the court at Chien-k' ang, or taking up residence in the K'uai-chi area, charmed by the loveliness of the southeast, brought with them into these two areas the metaphysical scholarship ("dark learning") and "pure talk," based primarily on the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, that had been so fashionable in the Middle Plain, and, with their predilection for the life of the recluse, established in the south a new fashion that was to carry all before it. At the same time, the Buddhist scriptures in Chinese translation that had gradually, in conjunction with the "dark learning" and "pure talk" just mentioned, come to be read by intellectuals and aristocrats in the Lo-yang region under the Western Tsin, particularly the Vimalakirtinirdea and the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, whose Chinese versions made use of expressions reminiscent of the philosophy of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, came at length to be interpreted within a framework of Chinese thinking. This produced Buddhists among the Chinese, including monks, who would with enthusiasm preach and prop- agate the doctrines of these scriptures. (1) Emperor Yiian (r. 317-323) (2) Ming (r. 324-325) II m II daughter ofYu Ch'en (empress regent for Ch'eng) (3) Ch'eng (r. 325-342)L(6) Ai (r. 362-365) -(7) Prince of Hai-hsi (Fei, r. 366-371) II m II daughter ofYu Yung -(4) K'ang (r. 343-344)--(5) Mu (r. 345-361) II II m II daughter of Ch'u P'ou (empress regent for Mu and Hsiao-wu) m II daughter of Ho Chun -(8) Chien-wen - - - - , - ~ - ( 9 ) Hsiao-wu (r. 371-372) (r. 373-396) II m Tao-tzu, prince of I (1 0) An (r. 397-418) -(11) Kung (r. 419- 420) II K'uai-chu Lady Li of Chih-fang Palace Among these Buddhist scholars and evangelists, both lay and clerical, were not a few who joined the southward move to Chien-k'ang. These scholar-aristocrats who read, memorized, and studied the Buddhist scriptures and their colleagues in the Buddhist clergy who combined in their own persons a mastery of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu as well as the Vimalakirtinirdda and the Prajfiaparamita are the ones who brought to bloom in the aristocratic salons ofChien-k'ang and K'uai-chi the flower of Buddhism, as modified by "dark learning" and "pure talk." This aristocratic Buddhism, together with the fashionable study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, laid the foundation for the spiritual culture of the Eastern Tsin, which, inherited later by the 314 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Southern dynasties, effected the absolute triumph of aristocratic Buddhism in South China. There were, of course, among the ethnically Chinese intellectuals and the powerful families rooted south of the Yangtze many who were, broadly speaking, heirs to the traditions of Confucian scholarship that had obtained since Han times, but even these so-called "southern" (nan jen) scholars could not remain uninfluenced by the new vogue of Lao-Chuang learning brought with them by the northerners' southward flight. Yet, the southern intellectuals, answerable to the Son of Heaven and charged with the responsibilities of government, however fond they might be ofLao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, and" dark learning," were not men to cast aside the "doctrine of propriety," based as it was on the Confucian classics and heir as it was to a long tradition. Nor were they the men to forget that in this doctrine of propriety resided the fundamental authority on which government and ethics had to rely. Chiang Tun (305-353), for instance, was a man who stood in a relationship of mutual friendship and respect with cultivated (jeng liu) gentlemen who were typical of the "dark learning" of their age, such that he is said (in the chapter on "character evalua- tion," p'in tsao, in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks) to have held as models "Wang (Meng) and Liu (Yen), who were worshiped by all who lay claim to being cultivat- ed." Equally the master of Confucianism and "dark learning," he is mentioned (in roll 56 of the Book of Tsin) as the author of an essay on "being consistently true to the Way and esteeming self-control" (T'ung tao ch'ung chien lun), in which he appears to have preached a syncretization of both disciplines, saying that "the behavior of the gentleman is something that must be based on propriety, and anything that succumbs to whim, casts off restraint, and ignores the canons of propriety is completely in- consistent with the Way." 1 Even Hui-yiian, who embraced Buddhism in the con- viction that the learned theories indigenous to China are nothing but "chaff," did not reject the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, going so far as to conduct read- ings in the classical canons of propriety (li) for members of the aristocracy. Con- sequently, while there were occasional counterattacks from Confucian quarters on the Buddhists, in reaction to the latter's successes with the aristocracy, there was no stopping the stream that was leading to the reinforcement of that same aristocratic Buddhism. The Shortcomings of Aristocratic Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin. What aristocratic Buddhism tends to lack is earnestness of religious practice, while the things that easily adhere to it, on the contrary, are a casual, playful character and the elements of rot that always accompany a life of extravagant luxury. Where the Buddhist church of Chien-k' ang is concerned in the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, such tendencies became pronounced within the clergy itself. In particular, as the conver- sion to Buddhism of ladies of the upper class progressed, the community of nuns developed, and the close contacts of these nuns with the powerful aristocratic clans and with the ladies of the aristocracy invited criticism from men rooted in the traditional (i.e., not very complimentary) Chinese view of womankind. Because of this, and because there were serious abuses in fact as well, from this point of view also serious attacks on, and even advocacy of the suppression of, Buddhism came to A : BUDDHISM's SOUTHWARD TREK 315 be voiced. In response to this, the air became filled with theories professing to see basic identity in Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, as well as with arguments about the relative worth of the three disciplines, about harmonizing their respective differences, etc. Yet, in all this, the era of the Eastern Tsin was one in which Bud- dhism, maintaining its doctrinal lead, invaded the Southern dynasties, thus con- stituting a special chapter in the history of the Chinese spirit. As the aristocratic Buddhism of the lower reaches of the Yangtze, an integral part of the cultural complex of the capital at Chien-k'ang, went from triumph to effeteness, then to decay, an effective monastic community disciplined in practice and study in a rigorously regulated life, composed likewise of refugees from the north, left its mark on its contemporaries in all quarters, as well as on later genera- tions. The community to which we refer is that ofTao-an, who lived in Hsiang-yang about the middle of the Eastern Tsin, and Hui-yiian (his disciple), who later made his home on Mount Lu in Hsiin-yang. What we intend to do now is to give a general description of Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin, devoting one section of the present chapter to each of the (admit- tedly rather arbitrarily selected) headings. Internal War and the Expansion of Buddhism in North China. A look back over China's history will reveal that the flight of ethnically Chinese refugees into remote areas from the Middle Plain, i.e., the Yellow River valley, and the whole area to the south of it, including the valley of the Huai, was something that took place repeated- ly from the disturbed end of the Han to the no less disturbed era of the infighting among the Three Kingdoms. In the midst of the turmoil that marked the latter half of the Western Tsin, this movement became all the more pronounced. The places in which the refugees took up residence were located as far to the west as Tun- huang, to the southeast as Han-chung and beyond that to Szechwan, or to Ching- chou in the middle of the Yangtze basin, or even farther south yet to Kiaochow (the Hanoi region). Now that the Eastern Tsin had established a capital at Chien- k' ang, however, it was only natural that a majority of the aristocratic clansmen and intellectuals who had visions of establishing themselves in the political world should move southward with the Chien-k'ang area as their destination. In order to ward off, to whatever degree possible, the dangers of a troubled time, whole fami- lies of the powerful would move, taking their retainers and dependents in tow, and the powerless commoners for their own part, when giving up the soil they tilled, would collect with the intention of moving under the protection of these same powerful families. Of the latter too there were not a few who would move in large groups, having first taken the dispossessed commoners under their protective wing, then converted them into hired laborers and/or private armies. While Buddhism in North China had at this time not yet reached a point at which one might speak of"fl.orescence," still there were, already by the end of the Western Tsin, not a few monasteries in Lo-yang, as well as monks to inhabit them, both thriving to the extent of inviting general criticism. Yang Hsuan-chih, in the preface to his well-known Record of the Sal'!fghiiriimas of Lo-yang (Lo yang ch'ieh-lan chi), notes 316 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE that "Buddhism, having arrived, gradually spread, and by Yung-chia in Tsin times (306-312) there were forty-two monasteries." Then, in the Correction of Error (Cheng wu lun), regarded as a work of the early Eastern Tsin, dating to the former half of the fourth century (and contained in roll 1 of the Hung ming chi), one reads varied at- tacks on Buddhism, saying, for example, that Shih Ch'ung, for all that he was a man of power, wealth, and family, as well as a devout Buddhist, died a violent death (ca. 301); that the sramal).as in the capital, in spite of their numbers, have never been known to have effected either a prolongation of the emperor's life or a plentiful harvest; that, in particular, "the men of the Way (i.e., the sa111gha) recruit the common people in large numbers to build stiipas and monasteries on a large scale, going to extremes in ostentation, luxury, and extravagance." This applies to other places as well as Lo-yang. In nearby Hsti-ch' ang as well as the Chung-shan area north of the Yellow River, then further west in such cities as Ch'ang-an, there were Buddhist monasteries, which had become centers for scriptural translation, pros- elytization, and the like. In Ch'ang-an, as we have already said, D h a r m a r a k ~ a and his fellows saw to the construction of monasteries, in which, aided by large numbers ofbelievers, both lay and clerical, they pursued their religious activities. In this way, in the metropolitan centers of Chinese civilization toward the end of the Western Tsin, Buddhism had already laid quite a respectable foundation for future evangelism, part of which consisted of monks from abroad as well as committed monks and laymen among both naturalized foreigners and native Chinese. Furthermore, Buddhism was already a phenomenon oflong standing in the valley of the Huai, near Chien-k' ang. In addition to the above, the following should be noted: The arrival of foreign monks continued. The propagation of Buddhism by naturalized foreigners pro- ceeded. Buddhists began to make their appearance even within the ethnically Chinese intelligentsia. As the evangelistic activity of these various sorts of Buddhists gained in intensity during this early period, there was an uninterrupted movement of large numbers of people from these areas to remote, outlying regions. Then, together with the traditional learning and ideas, and beliefs indigenous to the centers of Chinese civilization with their long tradition, Buddhism also spread to the new homes of the people just mentioned. Also, since, as already stated, their principal des- tination, the area of Chien-k'ang, the Eastern Tsin capital, had been since Wu times (during the era of the Three Kingdoms) the scene of missionary activity of both northern and southern origin, with the attendant construction of monasteries, there were active in Buddhist circles at Chien-k' ang under the Eastern Tsin not only the thinkers and scholars who had come south but also the newly added, purely Buddhist scholars of the Middle Plain. Intellectual Buddhism from the North. Now, once the Tsin court was reestablished at Chien-k' ang, then the members of the powerful families and the high-ranking officials who had served that court at Lo-yang, who had held power in the political circles there, and who had been most active there, both in order to escape the internal wars that plagued the north country and in order to regain their positions as active A :BUDDHISM's SOUTHWARD TREK 317 functionaries in that same court, now reconstituted at Chien-k'ang, formed an ever-increasing stream of refugees, from the time of the Yung-chia Disturbance on- ward, having the latter city and its environs as their destination, a development that was only to be expected. In this way, the mainstream of thought and scholarship centering about Lo-yang early in the Eastern Tsin moved to Chien-k'ang together with the intellectuals themselves, then further on to K'uai-chi, southwest of a Chien- k' ang in which the one-time refugees were now more or less settled, to flourish in both places. At the center of the thought and scholarship of the intellectuals of the Western Tin, needless to say, was the study of the Confucian classics, which had long been the basis ofboth government and ethics, but it had been somewhat squashed by a new vogue of scholarship, that of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the so-called "dark learning." Since Buddhism too became, at length, an object first of interest, then of acceptance on the part of these intellectuals through the intermediacy of "dark learning," the Buddhism that moved south to Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi was of necessity propagated in an intellectual society enamored of those two sets of ideas as a "Buddhism ofDark Learning," i.e., in conjunction with the ideas ascribed to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. Also, by joining streams with the vogue of seclusion (yin yi) and "pure talk" (ch'ing t' an) that had become fashionable in company with the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, it rapidly blazed the path to its own triumph among the intellectual aristocracy, and eventually was blessed with the opportunity to lay the foundation that was to lead to the total triumph of Buddhism under the Southern dynasties (primarily an aristocratic Buddhism, to be sure). Buddhism and the Family of Wang Tao. Now it is noted in the biography of Wang Tao (courtesy name Mao-hung), 2 that "the capital on the Lo toppled, and the ladies and gentlemen of the central provinces who fled trouble by going to the left of the River (i.e., south of the Yangtze) numbered six or seven out of ten." The family ofWang Tao was one of the distinguished families that moved south. It was a family fond of"pure talk" and "dark learning," fraternizing at the same time with the Buddhist sarp.gha, respecting its members, feeling inclined toward a belief in the Buddhist religion and, at the very least, affording it a sympathetic understanding. That same clan, as we will have occasion to tell later, also produced some influential WangLan- (Chu Fa-t'ai's sponsor) -Ts'ai---Tao-------,,,----Hsia 1 Hsiin (Tao's descendants all Buddhists) -Min -Shao - Tao-pao (Buddhist monk) -Chi-- 1 ,---Tun -Chu Tao-ch'ien -Cheng--K' uang----Hsi-chihlHsiian-chih (Hsi-chih' s descendants all t'ien shih Taoists) -Ning-chih 318 BUDDIDSM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE and effective members of the sarpgha, the most notable among them being Chu Tao-ch'ien, a man active in the aristocratic Buddhist circles of Chien-k' ang and K'uai-chi under the Eastern Tsin, one who furthered the conversion of the Chien- k'ang aristocracy to Buddhism. Let us now cite another clan that was one of the most powerful in the mass south- ward move, and that also made its weight felt in the aristocracy, in the bureaucracy, in the world of ideas, and also in the religious circles of the Eastern Tsin. The dan just referred to is, as can be seen from the chart, that of Hsi Chien, originally of Kao-p'ing (now Tsining in Shantung). 3 To begin with, he fled to Mount Yi in Lu at the head of over a thousand households native to that locality, but within three years those who fled south under his leadership numbered in the tens of thousands. This clan had power and influence enough to rank it alongside that ofWang Tao. Ever since late Han they had been believers in a Taoism that had been gradually developing as an organized religious movement. Yet, at the same time, it is to be noted that they produced from their own ranks the extremely zeaJous Buddhist scholar and practitioner Hsi Ch'ao (courtesy name Chia-pin). Even within Wang Tao's own clan, one family, that of Wang Hsi-chih, were in their majority believers in t'ien shih Taoism. The appearance in such numbers of believers either in Buddhism or in Taoism among both the Wang clan and the Hsi dan may presumably be interpreted to mean that at this time of civil war even the intellectual aristocrats, having experienced the turmoil in their very persons, when confronted with the issues of death and life, could not help seeking some spiritual prop or other, and that this was the golden opportunity for Buddhism or Taoism-or both, as the case might be-to capture their hearts. Now, while Emperor Yi.ian, first sovereign of the Eastern Tsin (r. 317-322), did accede to the throne, by the end of the Western Tsin the princes had no real power, being no more than "front men" for aristocrats such as Wang Tao. The real power in the domains of the Eastern Tsin south of the Yangtze came to be monopolized by powerful nobles, particularly those powerful noble families that made the move south of the Yangtze and occupied the key posts in the Eastern Tsin government, making the court into their puppet and becoming great landowners by letting their power speak for them and by taking possession of the most fertile lands south of the Yangtze, there again securing their position as distinguished families. As the aristoc- racy and the intellectual class moved southward, the "dark learning," i.e., the Lao-Chuang thought, that had come to flourish at Lo-yang under the Western Tsin, also moved south. Wang Tao, once he had moved south of the Yangtze, would speak of only three sets of ideas, those contained in two essays of Hsi K' ang, arguing that music in and of itself contains neither sorrow nor joy (Sheng wu ai lo A : BUDDHISM's SOUTHWARD TREK 319 lun) and the one on the cultivation of the life force (Yang sheng fun), and one by Ou-yang Chien (courtesy name Chien-shih) stating that words do express ideas fully (Yen chin yi lun). 4 Kuang Yi, also a refugee from the north, organized a group of "pure talkers," known as the "Eight Accomplished Ones" (pa ta), in imitation of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. 5 If only from these instances, one is in a position to understand that the intellectuals from the north had both respect and admiration for the scholarship and life at- titudes ofLo-yang under the Western Tsin. In fact , it would have been only human for persons so far removed from the old capital, the political and cultural center in which they had lived so long, to yearn for the old soil and, in retrospect, to idealize both the place and its way of life, including its polite accomplishments. As a matter of fact, under the Eastern Tsin the young exponents of the new Con- fucianism, which had incorporated the Taoistic ideas of Wei times, most notably those ofHo Yen and Wang Pi, were looked back to with admiration as illustrious thinkers, who had not been favored with worldly success, and their theories read with fond attachment. Not only that, but the study of Chuang-tzu that flourished in their wake, particularly that of late Western Tsin times, principally that of Kuo Hsiang, became a preoccupation, with the result that "dark learning" flourished more and more. Of course, men like Hsiung Yi.ian, giving stern warning against the vogue typified by the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove that prevailed early under the Eastern Tsin, with its contempt for the pedestrian duties of the statesman and its fondness for Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, for the life of seclusion (yin yi), and for "pure talk" (ch'ing t' an), cites one of the three faults of persons charged with political responsibility: Now those persons charged with office regard the management of [worldly) affairs [i.e., political duties] as [the work of] common clerks. The requirement to obey the law they regard as cruel. Scrupulous attendance to propriety they re- gard as sycophancy. Easy-going indifference they regard as sublime and subtle. Recklessness they regard as the mark of an accomplished gentleman, while ar- rogance is taken by them for gentility. 6 The mood of the age, however, was not to be arrested by memorials to the throne such as the one from which these remarks are quoted. This is why and how Bud- dhism, linked with the scholarly vogue of studying Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, was able to become current in aristocratic society. In this way, while North China was subject to an unending siege of civil war, with non-Chinese lording it over the Chinese, south of the Yangtze was fashioned a comparatively serene society ruled by the distinguished families of the aristocracy, into which was transplanted the aristocratic culture, specifically the "dark learn- ing," that erstwhile had been flourishing at Lo-yang. Consequently, even after the establishment of the Eastern Tsin there was a steady flow of persons from North China. In fact, whenever there was any upheaval in the north, the refugees would stream south of the Yangtze, creating a huge social problem for the court of the 320 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Eastern Tsin. According to recent researches, in the period of time ranging from the end of the Western Tsin to the end of the Liu-Sung, one-eighth of the popu- lation of North China moved to the south, and, as a result, one-sixth of the total population south of the Yangtze is alleged to have been of northern provenance. 7 Learned Chinese Monks Move South. Under the conditions just described, there were also among the sarpgha not a few who moved to south of the Yangtze, a typical case being Chu Tao-ch'ien (courtesy name Fa-shen), a man who entered the Buddhist order from one of the most highly placed, most illustrious families of the time, being younger brother to Wang Tun, the generalissimo who was the real powerholder under the early Eastern Tsin. Apart from these cases, there must also have been some who, being on close terms in the Middle Plain with gentlemen of distinction, went south in the retinue of their respective clans, as well as whole groups of monks, whether teachers and pupils, comrades, or simply countrymen, who moved together. Examples of the last named, a type of mass migration of monks that took place several times during the history of the Eastern Tsin, would be the cases of Sarpgha- r a k ~ a (Chu Fa-hu), who late in life left war-torn Ch'ang-an together with a whole following of monks; 8 Tao-an's following, a group numbering several hundreds, that went as far south as Hsiang-yang; 9 Yti Fa-Ian and his disciples, who crossed the Yangtze together; 10 and others. The monks who crossed the Yangtze, if only to stay alive, had first of all to place their reliance on the aristocracy and on the powerful families. Therefore their first destination was the capital at Chien-k' ang, but the second place they aimed at was K'uai-chi, situated southeast of the capital, a place well suited to the religious life because of its beautiful natural scenery, a place to which, in particular, the aristocracy was attracted, building permanent homes or villas in which they pursued the sophisticated pleasures of" dark learning" and "pure talk." K' uai-chi (the region of what is now Shao-hsing in Chekiang), being a focal point for illustrious families and powerful clans, was an important place, having close contacts with Chien-k'ang. So important was it, in fact, that the court of the Eastern Tsin created a prince of K'uai-chi and also stationed there a nei shih to take charge of the actual duties of political administration.b The post of prince of K'uai-chi was occupied, among others, by the man who was to become Emperor Chien-wen (r. 371-373), a man who enjoyed "pure talk" and the reading of Buddhist texts in the company of distin- guished scholars, both lay and clerical. In particular, the post was occupied by Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, who, with his grip on the political power, lived a life of extreme luxury and extravagance, performed Buddhist good works, and greatly advanced the cause of Buddhism, but who at the same time, because of his naive faith in the Buddhist clergy, brought the latter into the world of politics, thus launching the tendency toward decay that was to characterize the aristocratic Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang. The post of nei shih at K'uai-chi was occupied, among others, by such distinguished scholars as Ho Ch'ung, a Buddhist, and Wang Hsi-chih and Wang Ning-chih, both Taoists. It was thus a place favorable to the florescence of "dark A : BUDDHISM'S SOUTHWARD TREK 321 learning" and "pure talk," of both Buddhism and Taoism. In particular, there were present many distinguished scholars of noble family fond of Buddhism, who thus attracted many renowned monks to make their home there. The latter had the run of the mansions and villas of the aristocracy, whose partners they became in "dark learning" and "pure talk," as well as their teachers in the reading and propagation of Buddhist scriptures. The number of eminent monks who in this way played a leading role in the advancement oflearning and the arts at K'uai-chi was not small. In the former half of the Eastern Tsin, the centers for the advancement of Buddhism were Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, another center, one of a very different and special sort, being the Hsiang-yang monastic community headed by Tao-an. The effects of the latter's powers in teaching and conversion were felt as far away as Liang-chou (Kansu). During the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, in the face of the tendencies to- ward decay that characterized the aristocratic Buddhism of the two flourishing centers, Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, the evangelistic activity of monks of Tao-an's school made itself felt as far away as the upper reaches of the Yangtze in Shu (Szech- wan), and the entire Yangtze basin became, in fact , an area most favorable to the triumphant spread of Buddhism. Aristocratic Buddhism at Chien-k' an g. Now at the court of the Eastern Tsin, which maintained its sway for over a hundred years, the founder of the dynasty, Emperor Yi.ian (r. 317-322), from the time he was assigned to the area while still a prince, accorded favorable treatment to illustrious men, in keeping with the suggestions of Wang Tao and others. Even after his accession he continued the practice, conferring the favorable treatment both on the illustrious clans long settled south of the Yang- tze and on the outstanding scholar-gentlemen who had fled to the south, thus winning them as allies in defense of the Tsin ruling house. Since his successor, Emperor Ming (r. 313-325), in the company of ministers of state like the said Wang Tao and Yi.i Liang, men who esteemed both "dark learning" and Buddhism, did honor to distinguished guests and was fond ofliterary erudition, Chien-k'ang became a focal point for outstanding scholar-gentlemen from the very beginning of the Eastern Tsin, and "pure talk" flourished. The two sovereigns just mentioned laid the foundations of a triumphant era for learning and the arts, one in which "dark learn- ing," centered about Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, and Buddhism, which was accepted on the understanding that they were all of a piece, were to usher in their own glory together with the distinguished clans that had fled southward. Both of the said sovereigns, as well as Wang Tao and Yi.i Liang, were vitally concerned with Bud- dhism, and all four had fri endly contacts with the sramal).as. Chu Fa-chi, disciple to the Chu Tao-ch'ien who achieved such great things in the conversion to Buddhism of the court aristocracy of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi at the beginning of the Eastern Tsin, published a work entitled Lives of Eminent Reclus- es (Kao yi sha-men chuan), among whose surviving fragments one reads as follows: The emperors Yi.ian and Ming of the Tsin disported their thoughts in the obscure and the empty, consigning their feelings to a taste for the Way and honoring the 322 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE teachers of the Dharma as friends and guests. My lords Wang [Tao] and Yii [Liang] exhausted their feelings in deference to the latter, having the same [instincts as to] odor and flavor [i.e., the same preferences; cited from the commentary to roll 2A of Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks]. Since Emperor Ming, in particular, was a Buddhist or, at the very least, a ruler profoundly concerned with Buddhism, such that Hsi Tso-ch'ih, in a letter to Tao- an, says that in his veneration of Buddhism he fashioned an icon with his own hand, and that he tasted the true flavor of samadhi, the conversion to Buddhism of the aristocratic society grouped around the court at Chien-k' ang proceeded at great speed. In addition, after the reign of Emperor Ming there was a succession of boy emperors, including a feeble-minded sovereign too retarded to rule. The real power of government then went to the emperors' in-laws andfor to powerful ministers from other outstanding families. An example is Ho Ch' ung, who, having risen to power with the support of two devoutly Buddhist ministers, the Wang Tao and Yii Liang just mentioned, and whose power, for a time, carried all before it, spent the State's resources unstintingly in offerings to the clergy and in the construction of religious edifices. Since, further, there was a continued period of regent dowagers, a period in which most of these dowagers, as well as empresses and other high- ranking court ladies, were also Buddhists, the pro-Buddhist atmosphere that had its beginning at the very beginning of the Eastern Tsin, during the reigns of emperors Yuan and Ming through the exertions of Wang Tao and Yii Liang, continued and even flourished thereafter. The circumstances may be plainly deduced from Shih Tao-an's letter to the distinguished Hsi Tso-ch'ih, in which he says, in part, It is now more than four hundred years since Buddhism came to China. Yet, though there might, from time to time, be princes assigned to outlying regions, or gentlemen not serving in office, who would do homage to that religion, because it had been preceded in China by the teachings of the Saints and Sages of yore, there were not many Buddhists among the Chinese. Even when there were, they came from the lower gentry. Now, however, that Emperor Ming has become a Buddhist, the situation is such that there is no gentleman of distinc- tion or wisdom in the upper classes but takes refuge in the Buddha's Doctrine. If a monk of exalted virtue like yourself, Sir, were to propagate the Doctrine in the land ofTsin, then the conversion of our country to Buddhism would proceed all the further. n Aristocrats Confronted by Monks Who Speak No Chinese. Now the aristocratic Buddhism of the former half of the Eastern Tsin, the Buddhism of the capital at Chien-k'ang and of the K'uai-chi of which the aristocracy was so fond, was of course guided and developed by ethnically Chinese monks who had fled south from the Middle Plain, typical of these being the activi ties, as teachers and evangelists, of such gentry monks as Chu Fao-ch'ien and Chih Tun. Yet it is a fascinating fact that the conversion to Buddhism of the Chien-k' ang aristocracy was initiated, oddly A : BUDDIDSM' S SOUTHWARD TREK 323 enough, through wordless communications with Srimitra (Po Shih-li-mi-to-lo), a non-Chinese monk who had come south as a refugee and who spoke no Chinese. This too was possible only because the society of the time was one in which "pure talk" was fashionable, an aristocratic society where worldly affairs were held in low esteem, and here one can catch even at this early time a glimpse of what was to be the character of aristocratic Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin. Srimitra (a name traditionally rendered in Chinese as chi yu, "friend of good fortune"), who is also referred to as kao tso ("the occupant of the high throne"), is said to have been a Central Asian. The surname po would seem to indicate Kuchean origin, and his biography says that he was born the legitimate son of the king of Kucha, but that he entered the Buddhist clergy, surrendering his rights to his younger brother; also, that he was a man of striking appearance and manner. This is the sort of thing that apparently bewitched the Chinese aristocracy, given the esteem in which they held nobility of lineage and of appearance, and that assured him their respect even if he spoke no Chinese. He came to Lo-yang some time in Yung- chia (307-314), but, being confronted by civil war, he went south, where he took up residence at the Chien-ch'u-ssu, a monastery alleged to have been founded in Wu times by K'ang Seng-hui. (Since there was a great market in front of the monastery, it was also called the Monastery of the Great Marketplace [ta shih ssu].) The chancel- lor Wang Tao is said, upon catching a glimpse of him, to have been taken with him directly, remarking, "He is my sort!" From this one deduces that he became well known among the distinguished gentry, and he did in fact make an enormous impression on the aristocratic society of the time as an extraordinary personality, and this without resort to conversation or to preaching. Distinguished gentrymen, the real powerholders who controlled the Eastern Tsin, revered this "barbarian" monk who had fled south from Lo-yang, this Central Asian who spoke no Chinese, and took pleasure in consorting with him. In this class are included Yii Liang (289- 340, courtesy name Yiian-kuei), who held the rank of t'ai wei; Chou Yi (269-322, courtesy name Po-jen), whose rank was kuang lu; Hsieh K'un (courtesy name Yu- yii), whose rank was t'ai ch'ang; Huan Yi (276-328, courtesy name Mao-lun), whose rank was t'ing wei; Pien Hu (281-329, courtesy name Wang-chih), whose rank was shang shu ling; and Wang Tun (courtesy name Ch'u-chung), whose rank was ta chiang chiin. Huan Yi, in a eulogy to Srimitra, said that the epithet "outstanding and perspica- cious" (Ch. cho lang, almost Lat. praeclarus) would be fit praise for him, while Chou Yi, as occupant of a post charged with the selection of candidates for public office, is alleged to have said, awe-struck, "If only this were a tranquil age, one -that permit- ted one to select a distinguished worthy like him, indeed one would have no regrets!" When Chou Yi was killed by Wang Tun (in 322), Srimitra went to Yi's home to console his survivors. There he chanted three hymns, and the beautifully dignified echo of the Sanskrit chants penetrated the clouds. Next, without changing his facial expression, he pronounced several thousand words of incantations, then, with tears in his eyes, he expressed his feelings of sympathy, after which, withholding further 324 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE tears, he maintained his composure. The manner of this foreigner, with its extremes of sorrow and joy, of elation and depression, was what gained for him the extraor- dinary respect of an aristocratic society . 12 Incidentally, Chou Yi's younger brother, Chou Ch'ung, was also later put to death (in 323). Always a devout Buddhist, he is said, when facing the executioner, to have chanted from the scriptures endlessly and in unshakable composure. 13 Further, the Fa yuan chu lin (roll13) says of Chou Yi' s son Chou Ch'i, the General Who Protects the Armies (hu chiin chiang chiin), that his family had "for generations revered the Buddha." This leads one to suppose that the Chou family had been Buddhist at least from the end of the Western Tsin, and that its devotion to Buddhism continued even after its move southward. Srimitra, noted as a man skilled in the pronouncement of spells and as the trans- lator of Buddhist scriptures connected with spells, scriptures such as that of the Magical Spells of the Queen of Peahens (K'ung ch'iieh wang shen chou ching, Mahamayu- rividyariijfii?, now lost), a work in one roll; of the Assorted Magical Spells of the Queen of Peahens (K'ung ch'iieh wang tsa shen chou, presumably another version of the same, likewise lost), also in one roll; and of the Scripture of Anointment (Kuan ting ching, in twelve rolls (a work that survives, but the last three rolls of which seem a later addition), was also adept at the chanting of scriptures in San- skrit (fan pai), a craft that he transmitted to his disciple Mi-li and that survived into the Southern dynasties. Under Emperor Ch'eng, during the Hsien-k'ang period (335-342), he died at the advanced age of eighty-some years, mourned by aristo- cratic society. Wang Min, Tao's grandson (and Hsia's son), who had served him as a master, made a special point of composing a eulogy in honor of his foreign teacher, and the emperor himself saw to his burial on the hill called Shih-tzu-kang (or Yli- hua-shan-kang), where he had lived his ascetic life, and set a chattra to mark the place. Later, a monastery was erected in that place by sramal).as who had come from west of the Passes, and Hsieh K'un rendered them assistance. This was none other than the monastery known under the name Kao-tso-ssu, the "Monastery of(the oc- cupant of) the High Throne." Though it had not been possible for him to teach Buddhist doctrine by word of mouth to the court of the early Eastern Tsin and to the gentlemen of position and renown who gravitated to it, he is to be noted as a non-Chinese monk who had a great effect as teacher and evangelist through the example he set by his behavior and his manner. For example, when in close contact with Wang Tao, he would maintain the attitudes of a foreign monk, not altering his manner in any way. When, on the other hand, he saw Pien Wang-chih, the shang shu ling who attached much weight to Confucian propriety, his manner would undergo a revolutionary change. For he would, so we are told, adjust his collar and straighten his posture before answering him. We are also told that his contemporaries admired him as one who "behaved appropriately in every case." This nothing other than a form of tbe "pure talk" (ch'ing t'an) so beloved of the aristocracy, one in which the attitude of response, not dependent on the exchange of words, could change to suit the A :BUDDHISM'S SOUTHWARD TREK 325 circumstances, and it is for this tha.t he won the highest accolades from the world of "pure talk," those of "superlatively bright" (cho lang) and of "refined spirit profound yet manifest" (ching shen yuan chu). (C the chapter on "praise and appreci- ation," shang yu p'ien, in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks. 14 ) Also, of members of the sa111gha skilled in this sort of magic, the Lives of Eminent Monks lists, apart from him, Chu T'an-kai, Chu Seng-fa, 15 Chu Fa-k'uang, 16 and others, whose powers of evoking numinal responses (ling yen) are all mentioned. One is obliged to say that the influence of the Buddhist magician-monks, though mention of it in written records is not to be compared to that of the pure-talking, dark-learning Buddhism of the intellectual class, must have rendered an indelible service in the spread of Buddhism both in breadth and in intimate contact with the real life of gentry and commonalty in Eastern Tsin society, since at that very time south of the Yangtze there was current in both classes a Taoism in which there were likewise many magical elements. A Summary History of u Sanskrit Chants." We wish now to trace and briefly to describe the course of the "Sanskrit chant" (fan pai) south of the Yangtze under the Tsin 17 -i.e., of a style of chanting of hymns on the Indian model, imported into the Buddhist communities of China and Japan as part and parcel of Buddhist ritual as a whole under the rubric of the "science of sound" (sheng ming, standing for sabdavidya) and then undergoing further development in the lands of its adoption, in other words, a sort of Buddhist hymn transplanted on the soil of South China in the fourth century. Our reason for doing so is that these chants too have an extremely close connection with the development of aristocratic Buddhism, with the flowering of Buddhist ritual and particularly of arts and crafts, and, through these, with the spread of Buddhism in the society in general. The word pai is regarded as a transcription of Sanskrit patha ("reading") or, according to another theory, of Sanskrit b h a ~ a ("speech"), both meaning "hymn of praise" (tsan sung) or "chant" (ko yung).i The monks and pious Buddhist laymen who came to China in the early period would, when worshiping the Buddha or performing other rites, chant in Sanskrit or in their own respective languages, thus exciting the curiosity of the Chinese. The above-mentioned rites, in the course of which they humbly burnt incense and chanted before images of the Buddha (who, to the Chinese, was a "golden deity"), pronouncing a body of unintelligible syllables, must have won for them from the Chinese something quite unexpected, an attitude of veneration as magicians possessing inconceivable powers. The like- lihood is that these chants were in Sanskrit or in some other non-Chinese language when, as mentioned above, one notes that early under the Eastern Tsin Srimitra, when paying a condolence call on Chou Yi's survivors, "assis en face du corps, .. . psalmodia trois pieces d'hymnes bouddhiques. L' echo du son indien se repercuta sur les nuages," or when one reads as follows: ... Auparavant, le Kiang-tong [a savoir le bas Yang-tseu) n'avait pas de dharal).i. Sirimitra traduisit et publia le K'ong ts'io wang king [T 986 et T 987: Maham- 326 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE iiyurividyiiriijfii] et revela les dharal).i divines. En outre, il apprit a son disciple Mi-lika reciter a haute voix les hymnes bouddhiques qui ant ete transmis jusqu'a nos JOUrs. Since, on the other hand, many Buddhist scriptures had already been translated into Chinese, since it was already customary for Chinese Buddhists, both lay and clerical to recite these aloud, and since, in particular, there were many "verses" (chieh sung)' contained in them, it is likely that even among those Buddhists who were ethnically Chinese it became customary to recite or to chant verses and similar passages melod- ically in an imitation of the Indian manner. It was also inevitable that on the oc- casion of a specific religious ceremony one particular giithii would be chosen, then a hymn composed in Chinese and, finally, set to music and chanted. Still, there was a considerable difference in the chanting of Sanskrit hymns and of Chinese hymns, given the respective characters of the two languages, and there was need for rather ingenious manipulation to chant in the Indian manner a hymn whose words were Chinese. In roll 13 of the Lives of Eminent Monks, in the concluding essay (fun) on the ching shih ("chanteurs-compositeurs d'hymnes") one reads as follows : 18 . .. Where the songs of the Eastern Realm [China] are concerned, one links rhymes and thus forms chants; where the hymns of the Western quarter [India] are concerned, one forms giithiis and thus harmonizes sounds. Even though the [Chinese] songs and [Indian] hymns are different, yet both resort to harmonizing bell-chimes, to matching basic tones, for only then are they subtle and recondite. Therefore, when playing songs on [instruments of] metal and stone, one calls them "music" [yiieh]; when the hymns are modeled on woodwinds and strings, one calls them "utterances" [pai, a transcription of bhii1Ja?] . ... Once the Great Doctrine [of the Buddha] flowed eastward, translators of the texts were many, but those who transmitted the sounds were, in effect, few. Truly, this is because the Brah- manical sounds are multiple, while Han words are simple. If one were to use Brah- manical sounds to chant Han words, then the sounds would be clumsy and the giithiis oppressive. If one were to set Han tunes to the chanting of Brahmanic:1l poems, then the rhymes would be deficient and the words excessive. For t h ~ s reason, the golden words [of the Buddha] had their translations, but the Br: ""1- manical echoes had no transmission. The above is evidence of the difficulties involved, as well as of the then awareness of those difficulties. Yet already in the Buddhist community of the Southern dynas- ties it was customary to chant as fan pai such things as translated giithiis from the scriptures, to the accompaniment of woodwind and stringed instruments imported from the west. As to the beginnings offan pai in China, at the time of the Southern dynasties there was a tradition to the effect that during the era of the Three Kingdoms Ts'ao Chih, the Wei prince Ssu ofCh'en, while spending some time on Fisherman's. Mountain, was deeply touched by some Brahmanical sounds coming from Heaven and, moved A : BUDDHISM'S SOUTHWARD TREK 327 by these sounds, reduced in size and otherwise adjusted the text of the scripture of the Former Rise of Wondrous Responses (a life of the Buddha), producing therefrom a "science of sound" (sheng ming, representing a presumable sabdavidya) consisting of forty-two parts (or "harmonies"?, ch'i). Under the Western Tsin, Po Fa-ch'iao of the Middle Mountain (chung shan) took up the tradition inaugurated by Prince Ssu of Ch' en, continuing with una bating voice until the advanced age of ninety. All the night through he would chant hundreds of thousands of words from the scriptures, the lovely tones reaching the gods. His life came to an end north of the Yellow River, so we are told, late in the reign of Shih Hu (d. 349) of the Latter Chao (cf. the notice on him in roll13 of the Lives of Eminent Monks). In Chien-k'ang, under the Eastern Tsin, Chih T' an-yi.ieh, a man of Yi.ieh-chih origin, converted Emperor Hsiao-wu (r. 373-396), and the Jan pai created by this latter, verses in six syllables sung to a new tune, are alleged to have continued into Liang times (cf. ibid.). We are not about to insist on the historicity of the tale that Ts'ao Chih of the Wei perpetuated a Brahmanical chant that he had heard from Heaven on Fisherman's Mountain, but the fact remains that in Sung and Ch'i times he was looked up to as the man who originated sabdavidyii in China. We are also told that south of the Yangtze, in the kingdom of W u, also one of the Three Kingdoms, Chih Ch'ien, a Buddhist lay brother of Yi.ieh-chih origin born south of the Yellow River, com- posed three Jan pai, "linked bodhisattva-verses," based on the Sukhiivativyuha and the Middle Scripture of the Former Rise (Chung pen ch'i ching, likewise a life of the Buddha). Again, we are told that K'ang Seng-hui, who came to Chien-k'ang from Chiao-chih (the Hanoi area), "transmitted the sound of Nirval).a songs, which, pure and elegant, sad yet clear, became a model for the age." This, in addition to the evidence already given above, makes it evident that the chanting of these "Brah- manical tunes" on the part of foreign Buddhists in China may be regarded as fact. The early development of the Jan pai south of the Yangtze, in response to the flower- ing of aristocratic civilization from the Eastern Tsin onwards and in keeping with the florescence of a Buddhism focused on the aristocracy, appears to have developed fur- ther and spread with great speed into the Sung and Ch'i eras. Roll 12 of the Ch'u tsang chi chi (TSS. 92ab) lists the following twenty-one collections of Jan pai, c.':nposed by "reciters of scriptures and hymns" (chi11g pai tao shih) :t (1) Hymn [in which Men Pray] the God Sakra to Take Pleasure in Their Pan- Convocation."u Source: Middle Scripture of the Former Rise (Chung pen ch'i ching, a life of the Buddha). Ti Shih lo jen pan-che-se ko pai. (2) "Record of the Buddha's Praise of a [Acts of] Benefit [to Others]. Source: Sarviistiviidavinaya. Po tsan pi-ch'iu ch'i li yi chi. (3) "Easily Understood Explanation of the Excellent Hymn of the Mil- lion-Ears." Source: same. Yi erh pi-ch'iu shan pai yi liao chieh chi. ( 4) "Record of the Penetration to the World of the Brahman Gods of the Voice of the Deva." Source: Ekottariigama. T'i-p'o-pi-ch'iu hsiang ch'e Fan t'ien chi. (5) "Record of the Fine Voice of the Superior-Gold-Bell." Source: 328 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Scripture of the Wise Man and the Fool (Hsien yu ching). Shang chin ling pi-ch'iu miao sheng chi. ( 6) "Record of the B h i k ~ u Voice-Sound." Source: Mahiisiii'J'Ighikavinaya. Yin sheng pi-ch'iu chi. (7) "Hymn Recording the Fine Voice of the B h i k ~ u Dharma-Bridge, [a Voice] Giving Evidence of [the Faculty of] Response [to Supernatural Stimuli]." Source: Chih chieh chuan.v Fa ch'iao pi-ch'iu hsien kan miao sheng chi pai. (8) "Record of the Composition by Prince Ssu of Ch' en of a Hymn in Response to a Brahman Sound [Heard on] Fisherman's Mountain." Ch'en Ssu wang kan Yu shan Fan sheng chih pai chi. (9) "Record of the Brahmanical Hymn in Linked Verse Composed by Chih Ch'ien." Chih Ch'ien chih lien chu fan-pai chi. (10) "Record of the Nirvai).a-Hymn Handed Down by K'ang Seng-hui." K'ang Seng hui ch'uan ni-huan-pai chi. (11) "Record of the Brahmanical Chant [Pronounced in a] Loud Voice by Mi- li." Source: Suratapariprcchii. Mi-li kao sheng fan-pai chi. (12) "Record of Six-Syllable Brahmanical Chants Inspired by a Dream [Con- sequent upon the Concoction and] Refinement of Medicine." Source: Scripture of[That Which] Outpasses the Light of the Sun (Ch'ao jih ming ching). Yao lien meng kan Fan yin liu yen pai chi. (13) "Record of the Brahmanical Dance [to the Accompaniment of] Dharma- Music Composed by Emperor Wen of the Ch'i." Ch'i Wen huang ti chih fa yueh Fan wu chi. (14) "Hymn Composed in Dharma-Music [fa yueh tsan] by the Same Author." (15) "Words to a Song [to be Sung to the Accompaniment of] Dharma-Music, Composed by the Courtier Wang Jung at the Same Emperor's Command." (16) "Worshipful Brahmanical Hymn Composed by [Prince] Wen-hstian of Ching-ling." Ching ling Wen hsuan chuan Fan li tsan. (17) "Hymn Vowing to Exclaim Siidhuw [ch'ang sa yuan tsan] Composed by the Same Author." (18) "List of Names, Derived from a Preface to an Old Prajfiaparamita Trans- lation [?] Accompanied by a Memorial Inscription, of Monks Who Had Read That Scripture from Ytian-chia Times [151-153]x Onward." Chiu p'in hsu Yuan chia yi lai tu ching tao jen ming ping ming. (19) "Record of Scriptural Reading, Compiled at the Residence of Prince Wen- hstian ofChing-ling [?]. Compiled by Shih Tao-hsing, [a Monk of the] Hsin-an- ssu." Ching ling Wen hsuan wang ti chi chuan ching chi. (20) "Record of the Karmic Backgrounds of the Reciters." Tao shih yuan chi. (21) "Three Chapters of the Older Version of the Dharmasai'J'Igiti, Drawn Up by the Dharma-Master [Tao-Jan."(?) An fa shih Fa chi chiu chih san k'o. The above twenty-one are all contained in the sixth roll of the Collection of Reciters of Scriptures and Hymns (Ching pai tao shih chi). These scriptural hymns, set to music, were probably part of an elaborate ritual, A : BUDDHISM'S SOUTHWARD TREK 329 conducted to the accompaniment of Central Asian woodwind and stringed instru- ments, quite apart from any other ways in which they may have been chanted. Background information on the composition of the works above cited is furnished by the section entitled ching shih p'ien ("chanteurs-compositeurs d'hymnes") within the Lives of Eminent Monks, which, following the biographical notices on Po Fa- ch'iao and Chih T'an-ytieh, has accounts of many such monks from Tsin, Sung, and Ch'i times (a total of eighteen, if sub-biographies are included). In the biography of Hui-jen, a monk of the Northern Prabhutaratna Monastery (pei to-pao ssu), one reads as follows: Prince W en-hstian of the Ch'i, after he had had his dream, gathered the chanters and, sifting with them through all the old discipline manuals of the "science of sound" (sheng ming, sabdavidyii), established a new and different science. In particular, the area of Hui-jen's greatest skill was the "forty-two sections of [the Scripture of] Miraculous Response" (Shui ying ssu shih erh ch'i, presumably a hymn from one of the lives of the Buddha), one that his disciples, more than forty in number, had transmitted to "the present day" (i.e., the Liang). The same source further cites eight Ch'i monks renowned for their skill in these matters, but the details of whose lives were not known, noting their respective excellences in musical performance and adding that the skills taught by them were actively put into practice east of the Che, west of the Yangtze, and in Ching, Shan, Yung, and Shu. From this one may deduce that in the Buddhist community from the Tsin into the Southern dynasties the musical chanting of scripture and the singing of hymns contributed greatly to the spread ofBuddhism by appealing to the sense ofhearing. One may also surmise that these hymns, most of which dealt with the life of the Buddha Gautama, easily facilitated the propagation of the Buddha's life story. Also, in the halls of worship in which these musical ceremonies were conducted there naturally developed depictions of the life of the Buddha in connection with the former, as well as depictions of scenes from the Vimalakirtinirdesa, a scripture much used as the subject of public readings or of "pure talk," and, above all, wall paint- ings. The Buddhist community centered about Chien-k'ang under the Eastern Tsin was also a breeding ground for the creation and development of Buddhist art and Buddhist hymns on the part of the Chinese themselves, and this in turn also aided the spread of Buddhism. One may say, in sum, that the Buddhist community south of the Yangtze from the Eastern Tsin onwards, characterized as it was by the chanting of magical charms and the introduction ofjan pai, brought about the development of Buddhist paint- ing, sculpture, and even music and dance, thus effecting an indelible achievement in the spread of Buddhism, this foreign religion, among the gentry and common- alty of China. Evangelism and Medical Science. In addition to the above, there were monks en- gaged in the practice of medicine. For example, Yti Fa-k' ai, the Prajfiliparamita scholar who was well versed in the Pancavii'J".Siitisiihasrikii and in the Saddharmapur:zqarkia and who would not yield to Chih Tun in the dispute over the doctrine of"emptiness identical with matter" (chi se k'ung yi), was also a skilled practitioner of medicine 330 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE who, among other things, took the pulse of Hsiao-tsung (r. 345-362). When asked why he practiced medicine, he replied, "By clarifying the Six Perfections I remove the diseases of the four lethal devils. By regulating the nine signs I heal the illness of chills caused by the wind. Surely it is a good thing thus to benefit both oneself and others !" 19 Y It certainly seems an answer in keeping with the time, a time in which the study of the Prajfiaparamita, tinged with "pure talk" and "dark learning," was in full swing. Even medical science was regarded, every now and again, as a sort of magic, and, in fact, practical, magical activities were conducted not only in the Buddhist church of the north, in the territories of the Five Barbarian Nations, but south of the Yangtze as well, the center being the foreign missionaries. This, presum- ably, contributed greatly to heightening a general interest in Buddhism, one pervad- ing aristocracy and commonalty. Hsi Yin, an aristocratic believer in t'ien shih Taoism, contracted a stomach illness that the physicians were unable to cure. Ironically, the following story is told about him: Hearing that YU Fa-k' ai, an ordained Buddhist monk, was skilled in the practice of medicine, he invited him to his home. After taking his pulse, Fa-k'ai said to him, "Your illness is the result of one thing, too much exertion." So saying, he adminis- tered a hot liquid medicine. That caused an enormous loose bowel movement in the midst of which were several crumpled balls of paper, each the size of a man's fist. Upon examination, they proved to be talismans (fu) that the fanatical Taoist had swallowed whole. (C the chapter on "technical competence," shu chieh, in World- ly Talk and Recent Remarks. 20 ) Srimitra may well be said to have been a typical missionary monk, one who instilled a breath of fresh air into Buddhism south of the Yangtze, a religion not confined to the "pure talk" circles of the aristocracy but a practical, magical relig- ion of the sort just described. Yet, when all is said and done, he remains a foreign monk to whom the Chinese language was alien. Those who successfully taught an understanding of Buddhism to the aristocracy of the Eastern Tsin, who moved the Buddhism of the aristocrats forward in gigantic strides by becoming their teachers and companions in "pure talk" and "dark discussion" (hsuan lun), were the widely learned, ethnically Chinese members of the sa111gha. We move now to a new sec- tion, in which we will describe the advance of aristocratic Buddhism during the first half of the Eastern Tsin, focusing on two typical members of the Chinese sa111gha, Chu Fa-ch'ien and Chih Tun. B. Monkish Recluses and the Community oj((Pure Talkers" and ((Dark Learners" at Chien-k' ang and K'uai-chi The Triumph of Aristocratic Buddhism South of the Yangtze. As we have said above, the association at Chien-k'ang under the early Eastern Tsin between the refugee aristocracy and Srimitra, the likewise refugee missionary-a sort of conversation without words or, at the very least, in broken language-was also something in the B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 331 nature of "pure talk". 1 Still, what furnished the principal force for the conversion of that aristocracy to Buddhism, by functioning actively in the "pure talk" and "dark learning" circles of the Middle Plain aristocrats who had fled to Chien-k' ang and K'uai-chi, was, needless to say, the refugee sa111gha, whose members were as steeped in Lao-Chuang study as the aristocrats themselves, who engaged in "pure talk" with the same veneration of the life of seclusion, and who lectured the aristo- crats on Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu as well as on Buddhism in Chinese translation. Of course, the refugee intellectual monk, however learned, however much a paragon of virtuous conduct he might be, was, in terms of his very calling as one who had left the household in order to cultivate the Way, a man without a means ofliveli- hood, and one who, in addition to all this, had forsaken the monastery of his origi- nal residence and the danapatis (donors) associated with it to flee to the south. (Of course there must also have been among them some who came south in the company of their danapatis, others who preceded their lay sponsors as religious precursors, so to speak.) Those of them, therefore, who had old friends now associated with the aristocracy south of the Yangtze, or who, in particular, were able to make new ac- quaintances among gentlemen of standing, among men who would provide them with the necessaries of life, among gentlemen renowned for their scholarship and their "pure talk," would gain immediate access, as respected friends, to the social circles of court and aristocracy. A good example is Chu Tao-ch'ien, a member of a top-ranking aristocratic family, the Wang clan ofLang-yeh, who contrived to lay the foundation for the conversion to Buddhism of the Chien-k'ang court and the K'uai-chi aristocracy during the reign of the first two sovereigns of the Eastern Tsin, emperors Yiian and Ming (r. 317-326). Those members of the sa111gha, however, who were not of distinguished back- ground were compelled to experience difficulties even in their daily lives. A monk of Central Asian extraction born in Ch' ang-an was K' ang Seng-yiian, a non-Chinese naturalized to the point that, "though his appearance was that of a Brahman, his speech was truly that of the Middle Realm," who recited from memory both the Paiicavilpsatisiihasrikii (Fang kuang) and (Tao hsing) prajiiiipiiramitii. During the reign of Emperor Ch'eng (r. 326-342), successor to Emperor Ming, he crossed the Yangtze together with K'ang Fa-lang and Chih Min-tu, but, having no acquaintances there, sustained himself by regularly begging for his food. In the course of this he was discovered by Yin Hao, a circumstance that enabled him to make himself generally known. 2 Another case is Chu Fa-t'ai, a colleague ofTao-an's who, after taking leave of him and his colleagues at Hsin-yeh, suffered a variety of hardships on the way to Chien-k'ang, then got the help of Huan Wen in Ching- chou, finally proceeded to the capital, where, benefiting by the friendship and assistance ofWang Hsia (Tao's son), he came ultimately to be held in general esteem. 3 Thus there were cases in which, in order simply to get enough to eat, it was necessary to match the preferences of individual aristocrats. It is said of Chih Min-tu that, when he was about to go south, he conferred with a friend, to whom he said, "If we go east (i.e., south) of the Yangtze with (nothing more than) the old (worn-out) 332 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE doctrines, we shall surely earn nothing to eat." Accordingly, so the story goes, he brought with him across the river a "doctrine of the non-existence of mind" (hsin wu yi), which he had concocted with an admixture of ideas of"voidness" and "non- existence" (hsu wu), derived from Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, and which he expounded for years on end after his arrival. 4 This may be taken as an indication of one aspect of a life attitude forced on the refugee monks by the mere need to stay alive. Among the monks just mentioned were not a few who had been active in the Bud- dhist community, i.e., in the world of ko yi, of the Western Tsin. Examples of these are Chu Tao-ch'ien, who had been giving readings of the and the Paiicavi'!lsatis. p.p. even before his southward move, 5 and Yii Fa-lan, who studied the scriptures, whose education and manner were both aristocratic, of whom it is said that "his air and his spirit were distinguished and quite separate from the ordinary, (his practice of) the Way much bruited about in the three River Areas, his repute making its way into all four extremities," and who further is alleged to have been fond of seclusion in mountain and forest. 6 Chih Min-tu's "doctrine of the non-existence of mind" also appears to have been a theory previously current in Lo-yang. In general, in fact, ko yi Buddhism, a product of Lo-yang, moved south together with monks of the type just mentioned, where, now south of the Yangtze, it was taken over and further developed. There it was welcomed by an aristocracy fond of "dark learning," i.e., of ideas in the tradition of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, and this in turn brought about the triumph of aristocratic Buddhism south of the Yangtze. On the other hand, among those who circulated in the well-known hills and mountains of the K'uai-chi region were numbered Yii Fa-lan and his disciples (Yii Fa-k'ai and Yii Tao-sui), as well as the monks listed in the section on the Lives of Eminent Monks devoted to practitioners of dhyana (hsi ch' an p'ien), to say nothing of Chu Tao-ch'ien, Chih Tun, K'ang Seng-yiian, and others who circulated be- tween there and Chien-k'ang, none of whom completely severed his ties with the aristocracy. Since K'uai-chi, favored as it was by natural beauty and accessible as it was to the capital, was a spot especially fit for the villas of aristocrats who took pleasure in "idling beyond the reach of grime" (ch'en wai chih yu), and since there was accordingly a large number of recluses there, the sarp.gha dwelt in monasteries donated by the former and, in the leisure left from educating their disciples, would engage in "pure talk" with the aristocrats who visited them. Consequently, the Buddhism of K'uai-chi, itself no more than an extension of that of Chien-k'ang, was nothing outside the realm of a religion of aristocrats. Thus the ko yi Buddhism of the Middle Plain that moved south on account of the collapse of the Western Tsin prospered before all else in conjunction with the aristocratic scholarship and training that had their centers in Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, gaining currency as something marked with a special character, one that entitles it to be called a "Buddhism of pure talk and dark learning," and proceeding to fashion an "era of aristocratic Buddhism," a unique phenomenon that permeated the history of Chinese civilization throughout the Eastern Tsin and the Southern dynasties. B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 333 Now it is possible to make clearer the character of Buddhism at Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi under the Eastern Tsin by choosing two monks, Chu Tao-ch'ien and Chih Tun, as typically representative of those who had the run of the aristocratic society of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, who engaged in "pure talk" and enjoyed "dark learning" together with the members of that society, who read and discussed Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu as well as the Buddhist scriptures in Chinese translation, who laid the foundation for Buddhism in that area by becoming teachers and friends to the aristocrats in the pursuit of the life of seclusion of which the latter were so fond and which they held in such high esteem, and who, finally, achieved a reputation throughout the Southern dynasties, thus heightening the triumph of aristocratic Buddhism in their territories. CHu T AO-cH'IEN Clm Tao-ch'ien (286-347), courtesy name Fa-shen (of which the second syllable may be written with one of two different characters). A member of the Wang clan of Lang-yeh, i.e., of the very cream of North Chinese society, he was in fact younger brother to Wang Tun, one of the top power-holders under the early Eastern Tsin. This Wang Tun, who was a man of outstanding achievements as well as of great power at the beginning of the Eastern Tsin, in 322 raised an army in revolt, with which for a time he reduced the political world of Chien-k' ang to chaos, only to be put down in 324 by one of his own kinsmen, Wang Tao. Yet this very Chu Tao- ch'ien, in spite of the importance he attached to being a recluse who had left the household, became the object of veneration of both royalty and aristocracy, as a distinguished member of the sarpgha, the leader of the aristocratic Buddhist church of Chien-k' ang and K' uai-chi, until his death at an advanced age close to ninety. The same Wang clan, the most renowned and at the same time the most powerful of the clans, produced other distinguished members of the sarpgha besides him, most notably Tao-pao, 7 younger brother to Wang Tao, and Tao-ching, 8 cousin to Wang Ning-chih. The pronounced partiality toward Buddhism of the Wang family, the most powerful family early in the Eastern Tsin (and including relatives by marriage from the mother's side), and, in particular, the successive emergence of devout Bud- dhists from the house ofWang Tao, a distinguished public servant later enfeoffed as duke of Shih-hsing, may be viewed as important elements facilitating the eventu- ally triumphant rise of aristocratic Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin and guarantee- ing its triumph. For example, from the lineage ofhis eldest son Yiieh, who succeeded him in the dukedom ofShih-hsing, came Wang K'uei, who late in the Eastern Tsin and at the beginning of the Sung attached himself as a devotee to Shih Chih-yen, a monk who made his home first at the Shih-hsing-ssu, then at the Chih-ytian-ssu ("Monastery of the Quince Grove"). Both of these monasteries were situated hard by the tomb of Wang Tao (c Chih-yen's biography). The Chih-ytian-ssu is said to have been built by Wang Tao's son Shao (c Shen Yiieh's inscription, entitled Chih yuan ssu ch'a hsia shih chi). Wang Hsia was of Tao's sons the one who distin- 334 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE guished himself the most, and his whole family was devoutly Buddhist, doing such things as supporting Chu Fa-t'ai, serving Srimitra, and listening to Sa111ghadeva's lectures. His own two sons, Hstin and Min, studied Buddhism from their youth, both becoming men with a considerable understanding of Buddhist doctrine (cf. their biographies, as well as the Lives of Eminent Monks). 9 Now Chu Tao-ch'ien forsook lay life at the age of eighteen (in 303), studying under the tutelage ofLiu Ytian-chen ofChung-chou and achieving fame throughout the Lo-yang area from quite an early age. His teacher, Liu Ytian-chen, was an outstanding Buddhist scholar in the tradition of "dark learning" under the West- em Tsin, as can be deduced from the fact that Sun Ch'o composed a eulogy (tsan) in his honor, also from the fact that Emperor T'ai-wu of the Northern Wei, in his famous edict of proscription, abused him to the following effect: The extreme degree to which Buddhism prospered under the Northern Wei can be traced back to the trust placed in the false words of foreign mendicants by the followers of Liu Ytian-chen, a Chinese of the Western Tsin, who then grafted these on to the learned theories of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. 10 In the Buddhist community of North China and the Middle Plain, in the year of Chu Tao-ch'ien's birth (286), the SaddharmputJqarika (Chengfa hua ching) was trans- lated by D h a r m a r a k ~ a (Chu Fa-hu), then in 291 a translation was made, by Wu- ch' a-lo and Chu Shu-Ian, of the Paiicavii'J'Ifatis. p.p. (Fang kuang po-jo ching) sent back to China by Chu Shih-hsing, the Prajfiaparamita scholar ofLo-yang in the kingdom ofWei who went as far as Khotan in his quest ofDharma. It is to be noted that both were scriptures much awaited by the Buddhist church of China, both at the same time extremely important for the early advance of the Mahayana in that country, both propagated and read publicly, whether by the translators themselves or by other Prajfiaparamita scholars, both acquiring an unending stream of persons lay as well as clerical, who studied them, read them, memorized them, and sang their praises. Chu Tao-ch'ien at the age of twenty-four (in Yung-chia 3, i.e., in 309) began his public readings of these newly translated Mahayana scriptures, both so extremely important for the development of Buddhism in China, and his audience is said never to have dropped below five hundred. It is worthy of note that Chu Tao-ch'ien's activities after his southward move early became a vehicle for the introduction south of the Yangtze of the vitally important Buddhist scriptures most recently translated in the Middle Plain. He is alleged to have gone south early in Yung-chia. If his readings of the SaddharmaputJqarika and the Paiicavii'J'Ifatis.p.p. in Yung-chia 3 (309) at the age of twenty-four may be presumed to have taken place in Lo-yang, then one may suppose that he moved south about Yung-chia 4 (310), i.e., to escape the Yung-chia disturbances. Chu Tao-ch'ien Honored by the Aristocracy. Almost immediately after his arrival in Chien-k' ang, Tao-ch'ien was treated with honor and friendship by emperors Ytian and Ming, as well as by the chancellor Wang Tao, the military officer (t' ai wei) Yti Liang, and others, all of whom stood in awe ofhis air and his natural endow- B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "oARK LEARNERS" 335 ments. It is to this, presumably, that Tao-ch'ien's disciple, Chu Fa-chi, is referring when he says, in his Lives of Sublimely Secluded Sramm:zas (Kao yi sha-men chuan), Two Tsin emperors, Yi.ian and Ming, disported their thought in the obscure and the empty, entrusting their feelings to the flavor of the Way and courteously attending the Dharma master as guest and friend. My lords Wang [Tao] and Yi.i [Liang], exhausting their feeling for him, would move aside [to make room for him on] their seating mats. [Quoted in the commentary to roll 2B of Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks.U] He is also said to have been in the habit of entering the palace without removing his shoes, to which his contemporaries supposedly remarked, "This is because a gentleman who lives beyond the confines (of the ordinary) has native talents that (out)weigh (social conventions)." Since his biography says even about his manner and appearance that "his air and form ... were of an imposing dignity," it is likely that, quite apart from and in addition to his erudition in Prajfiaparamita and other scriptures, his bearing, which most befitted his aristocratic background, as well as the conduct of a man who prided himself on being a gentleman beyond the confines of the ordinary, endowed his personality with elements acceptable to the very cream of aristocratic society. As Hsi Tso-ch'ih says in his letter to Tao-an, "When the Emperor Ming ... began to revere this Way (of Buddhism), with his own hand he fashioned a likeness of the Thus Come One and savored the delicious taste of samadhi" (quoted from Hung ming chi 12). 12 As one can see from this, Emperor Ming took an active interest in Buddhism, his most profound inspiration in this direction coming, presumably, from Chu Tao-ch'ien. It is also to be noted that the latter, being a student of the Saddharmaput:z4arika and the Paiicavi'!'satis. p.p., both newly translated in the Lo-yang region under the Western Tsin, transmitted this new learning to the Buddhist community south of the Yangtze, a community that had developed under the doctrinal leadership of two Wu monks, K'ang Seng- hui and Chih Ch'ien. One reads in the biographical notice (in roll 5 of the Lives of Eminent Monks) on another Prajfiaparamita scholar, Chu Seng-fu, who, also com- ing south to escape the disturbances that marked the end of the Western Tsin, created a reading group in the Wa-kuan-ssu at Chien-k'ang, that "of the old, established sarp.gha at Chien-k' ang there was none who did not elevate him and submit to him." 13 From this it is evident that the influential and learned monks who came south at the end of the Western Tsin all injected a breath of fresh air into the other- wise tradition-bound Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang. Now Chu Tao-ch'ien, who had been active in aristocratic circles in Chien-k'ang, once Emperor Ming (325), Wang Tao (339), and Yi.i Liang (340) were dead, retired to Mount Shan by K'uai-chi, where for more than thirty years he would now ex- pound the Prajfiaparamita and other scriptures, now comment on Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, in both cases standing at the head of the learned community ofK'uai- chi, and many are those who are said to have come to school to him in admiration of this man who had such breadth of learning and knowledge in the realm of relig- 336 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE ious and secular knowledge fashionable at the time. About this time, at the earnest invitation of Emperor Ai (r. 362-365), he went to Chien-k'ang, where he gave a reading of the Paiicavi1J1satis. p.p. in the palace, to the praise of the emperor and all the courtiers. He gained, among other things, the fervent adherence of Prince Yti of K'uai-chi, the later Emperor Chien-wen, at whose invitation he visited the latter's princely dwelling. On one of those occasions he met at the prince's dwelling Liu Yen, the magistrate of Tan-yang, who was also a distinguished member of the world of"pure talk" and a close friend ofWang Hsi-chih. Liu Yen fired at him the question, "What is a man of the Way like you doing within these vermilion por- tals?" To which Tao-ch'ien retorted, "You may see vermilion portals, but I think of myself only as whiling my time in a sagebrush doorway." This story, as an example of the brilliant conversation held in the world of "pure talk," is recorded not only in his biography but also in the chapter on "language" (yen yii p'ien) in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks. 14 The Mighty Ho Ch'ung Is Converted. Not only did Tao-ch'ien win the adherence of Wang Tao and Yii Liang, the two most powerful aristocrats at the court of the early Eastern Tsin, he was honored, in a master-disciple relationship, by the devoutly Buddhist Ho Ch'ung (292-346), who even after the deaths of the two men just mentioned held the real political power at court, being related by marriage to the ruling family, being a member of the very top rank of the aristocracy, and having been recommended by both Wang Tao and Yii Liang during their lifetimes, a man of whom it is said that "among important ministers his authority dominated the whole age" (c the biography ofHo Chun in roll93 of the Book of Tsin). From this one concludes that Tao-ch'ien's skill at converting the Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi aristocracy to Buddhism was demonstrated more continually and more effectively than that of anyone else. The fact that he lived to the then rare age of eighty-nine (the majority, even of royalty and aristocracy, died young in those days, and the longing after, and veneration for, longevity was at the time extremely strong), the fact that in addition to this he was fond of a life of seclusion, and, finally, the fact that he chose the secluded retreats among the mountains and rivers of the K'uai-chi area as his dwelling place all enhanced his effectiveness, already great, in converting the aristocratic society of his time. Tao-ch'ien, fond as he was of the secluded life, took no pleasure in frequenting the court at Chien-k'ang, and eventually finished out his remaining days in his wonted retreat on Mount Yang in Shan, wandering at will through the mountain. 15 When, in Ning-hsing 2 (374) he died at the advanced age of eighty-nine, Emperor Hsiao-wu praised him in these terms: The Dharma-master Ch'ien had an intuitive perception of universal truth that was both free of preconceptions and far removed from the ordinary. A mirror of manners both pure and upright, he set aside the possible glory of becoming prime minister, donning instead the dyed garment of simplicity and poverty. Dwelling in the mountains apart from men, and earnestly striving without surcease [for the Buddhadharma], he rescued the common people by propagating the Way. B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 337 So saying, he donated a hundred thousand cash in his memory (according to the Lives of Eminent Monks). This man, who entered the monastic order from the very highest ranks of the then aristocracy, who also had the run of aristocratic society in both Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, was an absolutely classic leader-type in the sarpgha of the then Buddhist community of the aristocratic society south of the Yangtze. Chih Tao-lin comments, "Fa-shen's doctrinal scholarship is deep and broad, his fame long established. He is a Dharma-master, a propagator of the Way." 16 Sun Ch'o, in his Essay on Worthy Men of the Way (Tao hsien lun) , compares him to Liu Ling, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo GroveY Among his disciples are numbered Chu Fa-yi.i, Chu Fa-i.iyn, K'ang Fa-shih, and others, all of whom made their home in the K'uai-chi area, all of whom achieved fame as learned monks. One of his disciples, Chu Fa-chi, is the author of the Lives of Sublimely Secluded S r a m a ~ J a S . For all of these men Sun Ch' o has written eulogies (tsan). Even Chih Tun, to whom the next few paragraphs shall be devoted, and who became the leader of the aristocratic Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, is commonly believed to have been a follower and a pupil of Tao-ch'ien. (For further details, see the account of Chu Ch'ien in roll4 of the Lives of Eminent Monks.) CmH TuN Chih Tun (314-366). 18 Courtesy name Tao-lin, secular surname Kuan, he is re- ported alternately to have been from Ch' en-li u (the hsien of the same name in what is now Honan) and from Lin-Iii (Lin hsien in the same province). In either case, he was born toward the end of the Western Tsin in the vicinity of Lo-yang to a gentry family of the Honan area which, if one is to take at face value the statement in his biography that his family had "worshiped the Buddha for generations," had already adopted the Buddhist faith. He was born nearly thirty years after Chu Tao-ch'ien, who was active in the same place at about the same time, but only three years after Tao-an, who, born about the same time in North China, became an eminent monk of the very first rank, and later came to Hsiang-yang, a place which, though far re- moved from Chien-k' ang, was still within the territories of the Eastern Tsin, where he exercised not a little influence and inspiration on the decision-making intellectuals of that state. Since his biography says that his whole family fled south of the River (Yangtze) from the disturbances ofYung-chia, the likelihood is that he himself was born south of the Yangtze. At the very least, he was a man who grew up in a devout- ly Buddhist family that had experienced the bitterness of giving up its ancestral home and fleeing southward in order to live through a time of social disturbance. Whether because he had grown to adulthood under the religious influence of a household such as has just been described, or whether he was influenced directly or indirectly by the recluse atmosphere that had its center in and about K'uai-chi, specifically by Tao-ch'ien and the other eminent monks honored and respected by the aristo- crats, he early acquired an interest in Buddhism. Going into seclusion on Mount Yu- hang near K'uai-chi, familiarizing himself also with Buddhism in the tradition of 338 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE a missiOnary of the Latter Han, which had circulated south of the Yangtze in the previous generation, he savored and acquired intuitive insights into the p.p. and another scripture based likewise on the notion of Emptiness, the Tathagatajfianamudriisamadhisiitra (?),translated in the kingdom ofWu by Chih Ch'ien under the title Hui yin ching, and left lay life at the age of twenty-five (in 338). Just about this time there occurred a series of events that gave a considerable shock to the Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang or of K'uai-chi, which had had very favorable prospects, where the royal family and the aristocracy were con- cerned, thanks to the exertions of the aforementioned foreign missionary Srimitra and Chu Tao-ch'icn, the Chinese monk from the distinguished Wang clan. Th-e Society of His Time and the Church's Uncertainty. Emperor Ming, who had car- ried out the worship of the Buddha within the palace, whose contributions to the advance of Buddhism in and about Chien-k' ang had, as a consequence, been very great, died a young man of twenty-seven in 325, to be succeeded by his five-year- old son, who was to be Emperor Ch'eng. The latter was "assisted" in the task of government by Wang Tao and Yii Liang, while the regency was held by the latter's younger sister, who was the boy emperor's mother. Inevitably the power of the Yti clan, now the emperor's in-laws, waxed. At that time, however, an upstart soldier named Su Chiin launched an uprising on the pretext of "chastising" Yii Liang, contriving in 328 to invade Chien-k'ang itself, where he let his men loot at will. The palace offices were burnt, the State's treasure scattered, Yii Liang and other senior officials put to flight, to say nothing of other important functionaries (such as Pien Hu) who died in the fighting. The officials and their ladies who were taken cap- tive in Chien-k'ang were subjected to extremes of humiliation and cruel mistreat- ment by the rebel army, and the empress herself, the Lady Yii, lost her life. Thus Chien-k'ang, the once flourishing capital, became a wilderness, being reduced in a single stroke to extremes of chaos and misery such as remind one of the portrayals ofHeii.I 9 Su Chiin, luckily, was put down before long, but, with Chien-k'ang in ruins, there was talk of moving the capital. Because of vigorous opposition from Wang Tao and others, nod-ring came of such talk. On the contrary, in spite of the acute economic distress a new palace was built, and the emperor took up residence in the twelfth month ofHsien-ho 7 (332 or, by Occidental reckoning, early in 333, when Chih Tun was nineteen years old). Chih Tun left household life at the age of twenty-five, an age when the impressionable young man, born into a Buddhist family and reared in an atmosphere of genteel Buddhism, with its predilection for the life of seclusion, may well have been motivated by the misery and uncertainty of life in Chien-k'ang at this time. In fact, there was to be a whole series of events enough to shake any Buddhist. In 339, the year following Chih Tun's entry into the order, Wang Tao died, to be followed the next year by Yii Liang. Both men had been, as already stated, devoutly Buddhist ministers of state, who had acknowledged monks such as Srimitra and Chu Tao-ch'ien to be "gentlemen in seclusion" (yin yi chih shih), either associating with them as friends or revering them as teachers of the Buddha's Doctrine. How- B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 339 ever, after their deaths, the political power was taken over by Yti Ping, Liang's younger brother, and by Ho Ch'ung, whose career had been advanced by Wang Tao himself, but principally by the former, who was related by marriage to the reigning family. Now, while Wang Tao had exercised his government with le- niency and tolerance, the whole pattern of government changed radically and at once under Yti Ping, for the latter strove to rule by intimidation and the imposition of punishment. This affected his policy toward the Buddhist church as well, for he argued, "Let the sramai).as bow down before the king!" -a rigid policy premised on the denial of the proposition that the saiTlgha consisted of "gentlemen in seclu- sion." This was, in other words, a proposal to overturn the already indigenous customary practice of accepting at face value the saiTlgha's profession that its mem- bers were "gentlemen in seclusion" (yin yi chih shih), "sojourners beyond the con- fines" (fang wai chih pin), of thus leaving them outside the Confucian framework of a morality in which lord ruled over subject, senior over junior, and to compel them to adhere to the ranks of subjects expected to pay the full measure of vener- ation to their sovereign. Yti Ping's position was, in effect, as follows: Propriety is a grave thing, veneration a great thing, both being the very basis of government. No sovereign has any right to disturb this way of propriety and veneration, this very foundation of government, on the basis of a doctrine from abroad. The sramai).as are Tsin subjects just like anyone else. They must not be permitted to flaunt the proprieties due a King by claiming adherence to a "doctrine beyond the confines," or by using foreign manners as a pretext. A sramai).a should also bow down before a king! On the other hand, there was at the very center of the bureaucracy a person whose power was comparable to his own, and who was at the same time a passion- ately devout Buddhist, namely, Ho Ch'ung, who held the rank of shang shu ling. Not only Ho Ch'ung, but a number of other officials, such as the tso p'u yeh Ch'u She, the yu p'u yeh Chu-ko K'uei, and the two shang shu Feng Huai and Hsieh Kuang, opposed him in a body. 20 The position ofHo Ch'ung and his fellows may be paraphrased in these words: The saiTlgha, by rigorously keeping the Five Precepts, reinforces the converting power of the king. It prays for the welfare of the State. Its observance of the monastic code has much in common with adherence to Confucian propriety. In fact, those sramai).aS who are the most zealous in their adherence to the monas- tic code will not spare even their very lives. They are modest and self-effacing, scarcely the kind to fly in the face of propriety and veneration. From Han and Wei until our own Tsin times the sramai).as have been permitted to follow their own code, with no evident harm to the doctrine of propriety. If now all at once the saiTlgha should be compelled to bow down before kings, the result would be the collapse of the Buddhadharma. There can be no justification for destroying 340 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE under the present reign a Buddhadharma which was tolerated up to and includ- ing the reign ofHis Late Majesty. Arguments were exchanged several times between Yii Ping and Ho Ch'ung and their respective followers, the ministers in league with the latter all insisting that it was right to allow the sramaga to dispense with these formalities and wrong to violate established precedents. When Yii Ping put this matter up to the ceremonialists for deliberation, even the doctors of propriety took the side of Ho Ch'ung, saying, in effect, "Since these men are acknowledged by the Tsin court to be one kind of 'gentlemen in seclusion' and 'sojourners beyond the confines,' and since they have customarily been permitted to dispense with these proprieties, it would best accord with the intentions of All-under-Heaven to follow the precedent of His Late Majesty [Emperor Ming] by not altering the sarpgha's rule that 'they who worship the Buddha and cultivate goodness need not bow down before kings.' " In this way, so we are told, this proposal to place the Buddhadharma in a position of inferiority vis-a-vis the Confucian doctrine of propriety and to subject the sramagas' code (vinaya) to Confucian restraints, a proposal put forth by a man newly risen to the position of supreme political power in the State, was quashed. It was, presumably, at a time like this that the aforementioned Tao-ch'ien left Chien- k'ang to seclude himself at K'uai-chi. The Favorable Religious Climate after His Entry into the Order. It might appear that Yii Ping was won over all too easily on the question of absolving the sarpgha from the requirements of civil etiquette, when one considers how unchallenged his power as prime minister was, how seriously he took his political responsibilities, and how harshly he governed, particularly by contrast with Wang Tao, who in the execution of his own duties had always been guided by kindness and magnanimity. (So harsh, in fact, was Ping as a governor that his political conduct was the occasion of a protest on the part of Yin Jung.) Still, the situation in whose midst he had to operate was, in our view, one in which it would have been difficult to break down the thick aristocratic wall by resort to the Confucian doctrine of propriety, of which the said aristocrats were none too fond, and to subject the sarpgha to regal authority. For the aristocracy of the time was very fond of the philosophy of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, held "pure talk" and "dark learning" in the highest esteem, took delight in Buddhism at the very same time, was most particularly fond of a Bud- dhism of a "dark learning" variety in which the Prajfiaparamita scriptures oc- cupied a central position, treated monks of the sort just described as teachers and friends, respected or befriended them as one sort of "gentlemen in seclusion,'' and, finally, were themselves pronouncedly inclined toward faith in Buddhism. The Chinese aristocracy of the time, Yii Ping included, was quite like our own Japanese court aristocracy of the Heian period. For, sitting cross-legged like them on enormous holdings of land, pampered by large numbers of servants, and moving back and forth between the palace and their own luxuriously appointed mansions and villas, given, in other words, to a style oflife in which luxury and extravagance B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 341 had become habitual, they had by now lost all will power, all power of decision and of the execution of decisions. I11 addition to this, they had come to prop them- selves on the mysterious powers of the by now very prosperous Buddhist religion. Under the circumstances, even Yti Ping would have lacked the strength of will and decision to exert on the church, in the face of opposition from most of the aristocracy, the pressure necessary to effect the desired reforms. It is also possible, even likely, that he was himself in the process of becoming a soft-hearted aristocrat, a man hesitant, even afraid, to exert pressure on the sa111gha or on the Buddhadharma. Be that as it may, by the time under discussion, thanks to the exertions of a darkly learning, purely talking sa111gha, now treated like "gentlemen in seclusion," and of their aristocratic sponsors, the elegant Buddhist church of Chien-k' ang had become a power that no Yti Ping could break. More than that, Yti Ping's policy toward the Buddhist church, once it had failed, may be said to have done the exact opposite of what its author had intended, by furnishing further impetus for the triumph of aristocratic Buddhism. It is at such a favorable time as this that Chih Tun was most active, being at once the darling and the leader of this aristocratic Buddhist church. 21 Furthermore, humiliation of the Chien-k'ang aristocracy and danger to its very life and limb, as well as the desolation of the capital, feuds over political power, and, finally, the imperiled position of the bureaucracy, all the results of uprisings of which that led by Su Chtin in 328 is typical, presumably drew the aristocrats, given the weight they attached to lineage and their preference for seclusion, more and more away from the metropolitan life in the direction of escape and retreat to such places as K'uai-chi. Also, the loss of social position and/or property, which so frequently plagued the middle and lower aristocracy, quite naturally strengthened the latter's leanings toward a Buddhism now on the rise, since aristocrats of middle and lower status, once in the sa111gha, could seize an opportunity to spread their wings even among the upper aristocracy. The time at which Chih Tun entered the order and was active at K'uai-chi was the best of times for such Buddhist activities, for such "pure talk" activities in the Lao-Chuang tradition, as these. The aristocratic company with which he associated, with which he discussed Lao-Chuang studies, or to which he gave readings of Buddhist texts such as the Prajfiaparamita scriptures or the Vimalakirtinirdesa, consisted of members of the Wang clan of Lang-yeh like Wang Hsi-chih and his sons Hui-chih and Hsien-chih, or Wang Tao and his sons Hsia and Hstin; of members of another Wang clan, that ofT'ai-ytian, such as Wang Meng, his son Hsiu, his grandsons Kung and Shu, and the latter's son T'an-chih; of Hsieh An and the entire Hsieh clan; and of other top-ranking aristocrats, such as Liu Yen, Ch'u P'ou, Ho Ch'ung, Sun Sheng, Sun Ch'o, and Hsi Ch'ao, all of whom he endowed with a heightened interest in Buddhism and a deeper religious faith. Let us now look at the insistence by certain Confucianists on the irreconcil- ability of Confucianism with Buddhism as another proof of the fact that this was Buddhism's golden age, a time of a triumph so complete that even Yti Ping, the supreme powerholder in the State, was unable to bring Buddhism, which he himself 342 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE characterized as a foreign religion, under the political restraints of a government based on the traditional Confucian doctrine of propriety, where he said it belonged. Contemporary with Yii Ping was a man such as Ts'ai Mu, who memorialized to the effect that Buddhism, being a "barbarian doctrine," should be banished from the public life of Chinese officials. Ts'ai Mu (courtesy name Tao-ming) was a mem- ber of a family from K'ao-ch'eng in Ch'en-liu, a family that had been outstanding for generations. Prince Hung of P' eng-ch' eng memorialized Emperor Ch' eng as follows: The Buddha-image of the Lo-hsien-t'ang, situated within the imperial palact. and fashioned by His Late Majesty [Emperor Ming], escaped destruction even at the time ofSu Chiin's uprising. One would do well to commission the writing of a paean to that image. Ts'ai Mu countered this proposal effectively by saying the following: The religion of the Buddha is a barbarian practice, not a teaching of the Sages on which the Middle Kingdom should rely. It would therefore not be proper to charge the officials publicly with the composition of a paean even to a Buddha-image fashioned by His Late Majesty. 22 However, this Ts'ai Mu, after Yii Ping's death in 344, Yii Yi's death in 345, and Ho Ch'ung's death in 346 (at a time when Chih Tun was thirty-three), attained the rank of ssu t'u, becoming, together with Prince Yii ofK'uai-chi (the future Emperor Chien-wen), a central powerholder and a direct assistant in the exercise of imperial power. In 350, however, he was stripped of his post and reduced to the rank of a commoner, then in 355 he died at the age of seventy-six. It is interesting that this one-time minister, who once said that "Buddhism is a barbarian doctrine, not a doctrine on which the Middle Kingdom should rely," became the sponsor for the con- struction of a metropolitan monastery, the Ch'i-ch'an-ssu. 23 Ts'ai Mu's son Hsi was friends with, and under the influence of, Chih Tun. 24 It is likely that the Bud dhistic atmosphere at court and in aristocratic society changed the father at some point into a Buddhist believer. From the fact that the anti-Buddhist plans of these two men, Yii Ping and Ts'ai Mu, either were smashed or, contrary to their authers' intentions, worked to the advantage of the Buddhists one deduces that the times had reached a point at which the speedy rise to triumph of Buddhism south of the Yangtze in the territories of the Eastern Tsin could not be arrested. Let us now tell in somewhat more concrete detail how the circumstances of the monk Chih Tun were at last moving in a direction favorable to his religious activ- ities. Worthy of mention before all else are Ho Ch'ung, who for sheer power had not his like anywhere else in the central government, and the furtherance of the fortunes ofBuddhism on his own part as well as that ofhis whole family. Ho Ch' ung (courtesy name Tz'u-tao) was son to the elder sister of Wang Tao's B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 343 wife, and his own wife was younger sister to Emperor Ming's consort. His younger brother, Chun (courtesy name Yu-t.ao), finally, was father to the consort of Emperor Mu (who acceded to the throne at the age of two). Ho Ch'ung had his cause promoted by Wang Tao, who recognized his talents and capacities, and was also friends with Emperor Ming. Not only this, but, once Wang Tao, late in life and joined by Yii Liang, recommended Ho Ch'ung to the emperor, saying that he if anyone was the man to whom the fortunes of the State were to be entrusted, then, upon the deaths of both men in successive years (339 and 340, respectively), he became, together with the Yii Ping mentioned above, the wielder of real power in the central government. Since, before becoming the powerholder just described, he exercised a local political power as nei shih of K'uai-chi, where Chu Tao-ch'ien and Chih Tun were making their home, he presumably had occasion to become close friends with them and with other distinguished members of the sarpgha. Ho Chun' s biogra- phy, contained among those of the reigning family's in-laws in the Book of Tsin, says that "Ch'ung, who occupied the weighty position of tsai Ju (a sort of chancellor), wielded an authority that dominated the whole age." The two Ho brothers, Ch'ung and Chun, were such committed Buddhists that the biography of the former says, "Since he was by nature a man fond of Sakya's canon and given to the respectful repair of Buddhist monasteries, his donations to the sramaQ.as numbered in the hundreds. Though the cost might run into the many hundreds of thousands, he would not stint," while in Chun's biography one reads, "He would have nothing to do with human affairs, confining himself to the recitation of Buddhist scriptures and to the building and repair of stupas and mausoleums." The two Hsi brothers, Yin and T'an, who, for their own part, were passionate believers in t'ien shih Taoism, are said to have been linked by Hsieh Wan, as men whose religious zeal exceeded proper norms, in these terms: "The two Hsi are abject flatterers of Tao, while the two Hoare sycophants of the Buddha." 25 The Tsin succession, following the death (in 325) ofEmperor Ming, who had had such a close connection with the advancement of Buddhism, fell to the youthful Emperor Ch' eng (aged five at the time of his succession), then to Emperor K' ang, who sat on the throne no longer than two years (dying in 344 at the age of twenty- three). Yii Ping's plan was then to install Emperor Chien-wen, but he was anticipated by Ho Ch'ung, the zealous Buddhist, who installed instead the two-year-old crown prince (Emperor Mu). The real power nominally wielded by these puppet emperors lay in the hands of"strong men" such as those of the Yii and Ho clans. Ho Ch'ung, once he had succeeded in installing Emperor Mu, occupied the position of supreme power until his death at fifty-five in 346, and applied himself zealously, together with his whole clan, to the furtherance of Buddhism. Another thing that took place together with the accession of the boy emperors was the regency of empresses dowager. In a milieu in which the palace was al- ready soaked in Buddhist proselytism, in which a sarpgha honored and respected by the majority of the aristocracy had the run of the court, the womenfolk were easily converted to the worship of the Buddha. 344 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Emperor K'ang's consort, the Lady Ch'u (P'ou's daughter), was a zealous Bud- dhist. In roll 8 of the Real Record of Chien-k' ang (Chien k' ang shih lu) one reads that during the reign of Emperor K'ang (r. 343-345) two monasteries were constructed in Chien-k' ang. One of them was the Yen-hsing-ssu ("Monastery for the Extension ofProsperity"), sponsored by Empress Ch'u; the other, the Chien-fu-ssu ("Mon- astery for the Establishment of Good Fortune"), sponsored by Ho Ch'ung. In due course, as the mother of Emperor Mu, who was two years old at the time of his accession, that lady became the latter's regent. She resumed the regency under his successor, Emperor Ai (r. 362-365), who, as a believer in recipes of longevity ascribed to the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu, abstained from cereals and was finally poisoned by an overdose of an alleged elixir of immortality, so that it was never possible for him to attend to the business of government. (Chih Tun died in 366.) The latter regency then continued into the reign of the next occupant of the throne, the deposed emperor (fei ti, the prince of Hai-hsi, r. 366-370; Chu Tao-ch'ien died in 374). However, at about this time Huan Wen, the mighty military dictator, having worked out a plan for usurping the Tsin throne, proceeded to put his plan into action by entering Chien-k'ang and deposing the emperor, whom he designated Prince of Hai-hsi. Luckily for the Tsin house, Huan Wen died when he was only inches away from occupancy of the throne, and the Tsin house contrived to prolong its life a bit. Its real strength, however, continued to be worn away, and, under the pressure of civil war and of the usurpatory tactics of Huan Wen's son Hsiian, the relative positions oflord and subject, gentry and commonalty, became completely dislocated. Even so, at the very time that Huan Wen had deposed the now prince of Hai-hsi, Empress Ch'u "was burning incense in the Buddha-tabernacle" (cf. her biography in the Book of Tsin), which means that in the very palace itself there was a room to house the Buddha. This fanatically Buddhist dowager, whose regency extended through the short reign of Emperor Chien-wen (r. 371-372) into early in that of Emperor Hsiao-wu, continued to take advantage, until her death at sixty-one in 384, ofher powerful position at court to live a devoutly Buddhist life. The Lady Ho who became the consort of Emperor Mu was the daughter of the devoutly Buddhist Ho Chun, and was herself, like her father and her elder brother Ch'ung, a Buddhist zealot, the sponsor of the Ho-huang-hou-ssu ("Convent of Empress Ho") and of the Yung-an-ssu ("Convent of Eternal Security"; both dating to 354). It was natural for these religious edifices, sponsored by a lady of the palace, to be places of residence for nuns, but this enables one at the same time to deduce the advances made by the community of nuns, as well as the household conversion of the palace aristocracy, particularly of its womenfolk. Two phenomena brought about by the conversion to Buddhism of laywomen, viz., that of close contact between these women and members of the sarp.gha and the increase in the number of nuns, i.e., of women who themselves joined the order, led inevitably to a serious discus- sion, whether from the standpoint of the Confucian view of womankind or from that of a male-centered system of ethics, of the possibility of the annihilation or, at the B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "oARK LEARNERS" 345 very least, of the disintegration through Buddhism of Chinese customs and manners. It is also a fact that the monks and nuns who had dose ties with the power of the court and of the aristocracy brought decline and corruption into the Buddhist com- munity in and about Chien-k'ang. Below, we will devote a separate section to these matters. Teacher and Frimd to the K'uai-chi Aristocracy. Thus many of the aristocracy were fond of the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu; studied the Buddhist canon, most particularly the Mahayana doctrine of emptiness (k'ung kuan, sunyaviida) preached in the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, the Vimafakirtinirdesa, and the like; held in very high esteem "dark discussion" (hsuan fun) and "pure talk" (ch'ing t'an), which exploited the two forms of knowledge just mentioned; and, escaping the dangers and troubles of the political world and of worldly affairs in general, took refuge amid the moun- tains and rivers of the lovely K'uai-chi area. These aristocrats too were moving toward a worship of the Buddha, toward becoming builders and sponsors of Buddhist religious edifices. As one example, let us cite the case ofHsi.i Hsi.in, an adept at "pure talk" and "dark discussion" and a most intimate friend of Chih Tun, who also sponsored religious building at K'uai-chi. We shall have occasion once again to mention the fact that the expositions, the objections, and the subtle repartee occasioned by the public reading of the Vimalakirti- nirde5a, an activity which, sponsored by the prince of K'uai-chi, centered about Chih Tun and Hsi.i Hsi.in, elicited sighs of admiration from their aristocratic audiences, and were long a fond memory and conversation topic in aristocratic circles south of the Yangtze-for this fact has a fame all its own. It should be mentioned, however, that Hsi.i Hsi.in, a man thoroughly versed in the Buddhist canon, was also a very devout Buddhist. He made his home in K'uai-chi, where he rubbed elbows with distinguished gentlemen such as Hsieh An and Wang Hsi-chih, as well as with Chih Tun. In the year 331 (Hsien-ho 6) he donated his two K'uai-chi residences to the saq1gha, renaming them Ch'i-yi.ian ('Jetavana") and Ch'ung-hua ("Monastery Where Conversion is Revered"). The two names are said to have been conferred by Emperor Mu (r. 345-351), the name Ch'i-yi.ian on his old Shan-yin ("North of the Mountains") residence, the name Ch'ung-hua on his new Yung-hsing ("Eternal Prosperity") residence. (Cf. the K'uai-chi Gazetteer.) He is also said to have built for his new residence, now the Ch'ung-hua-ssu, a four-storied stapa, in the course of the construction of which his funds were exhausted, so that he was obliged to leave the new monastery without a "wheel dewpot" (lu p'an hsiang fun; c roll8 of the Real Record oJChien-k'ang).q Given this atmosphere of a flourishing aristocratic Buddhism, as these aristocrats began to construct religious edifices, there would be an increasing tendency to seek out "darkly learning" monks, thoroughly versed in Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, as teachers and friends to these aristocrats. At any rate, Chih Tun, a monk adept in both Buddhism and the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu and absolute master of a facile tongue and a subtle mind, made his debut in the aristocratic Buddhist circles of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, as a child of fortune lucky enough both to have 346 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE benefited by the teaching of Chu Tao-ch'ien and his fellows and to be able to transmit it to others, at a time best suited to the display of his talents and learning. Now Chih Tun the monk, by joining the "pure talk" of the K'uai-chi aristocracy, made a free display of his talent and learning in his associations with almost all of the top-ranking gentlemen of the day, men like Hsieh An, Wang Hsia, Liu K'uei, Yin Hao, Hsi.i Hsi.in, Sun Ch'o, Hsi Ch'ao, Wang Hsi-chih, Huan Yen-piao, Wang Ching-jen, Ho Tz'u-tao, Wang Wen-tu, Hsieh Ch'ang-hsia, and Yi.ian Yen-po. As one of the most cultivated men of the Eastern Tsin, a man many of whose bons mots are among those most frequently quoted in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks and other such works, he left behind for posterity the great achievement of having transmitted the doctrine of the Buddha to the most distinguished gentlemen of his time. Let us now, by citing some stories about Chih Tun and Yin Hao, the latter being a man distinguished both for his "pure talk" and for his "dark learning," have a look at the position occupied by the former in K'uai-chi's Buddhist community and in its world of ideas. Yin Hao (courtesy name Shen-yi.ian), a man who had a dazzling reputation from youth, was most skilled at "dark language" (hsuan yen). The chapter on "praise and renown" (shang yu p'ien) in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks, citing the Book of Restoration (Chung hsing shu), says, "Hao was master both of words and of the abstract truths (embodied in them), subtle and refined in his discussions, and consummately skillful at (interpreting) Lao-tzu and the Canon of Changt:s. Persons of sophistication therefore all regarded him as an authority." It is thus evident that he was a person of the highest rank in the world of"dark learn- ing" and "pure talk," and that was in fact the atmosphere in whose midst he learned to read the Buddhist scriptures. It was, most particularly, after his retirement to Tung-yang in the K'uai-chi region, when, having run afoul ofHuan Wen, he had been relieved of his post, that he familiarized himself thoroughly, through study, with the Prajtiaparamita, the Vimalakirtinirdesa, and other Buddhist scriptures. The chapter on "literary refinement and learning" (wen hsueh p'ien) in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks also has the following to say: Having moved to Tung-yang, he did much reading in the Buddhist scriptures, understanding them all thoroughly. He could not, however, understand the numbered categories [such as the Five Skandhas, the Twelve Ayatanas, the Four Noble Truths, the Twelve Causes and Conditions, etc.] or the doctrines arranged numerically [ekottara, etc.]. Then he met a man of the Way, to whom he put all these questions, and who explained them quite satisfactorily. Upon reading the he allegedly found as many as two hundred doubtful passages, about which he proposed to question Chih Tun. The latter, for his own part, fully intended to go to him with an open mind, but abandoned the idea, so we are told, upon the advice of Wang Hsi-chih. (The source for this is the Forest of Words [Yu lin], as cited in the commentary to the aforementioned chapter in World- ly Talk and Recent Remarks.) The Lives of Sublimeiy Secluded tells the follow- ing (according to the same commentary): B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 347 Yin Hao, able as he was to discuss names and the abstract truths [that underlay them], would find places that he could not penetrate. When this happened, his wish was to question Chih Tun about them, but, to his profound regret, he was never able to meet him. Such is the extent to which Chih Tun was esteemed by men of renown. 26 While Yin Hao and Chih Tun appear never to have confronted each other in doctrinal debate, one gathers that "dark learners" of the very first class regarded the latter as an authority on Buddhist doctrine second to none, and one can surmise for oneself how much respect the leading intellectual aristocrats of the K'uai-chi region had for his Buddhist scholarship and "dark learning," also how much praise they presumably heaped on him. The Lives of Eminent Monks (specifically Chih Tun's biography in roll 4) lists them by name: Wang Hsia, Liu K' uei, Yin Hao, Hsi.i Hsi.in, Hsi Ch' ao, Sun Ch' o, Huan Yen-piao, Wang Ching-jen, Ho Tz'u-tao, Wang Wen-tu, Hsieh Ch'ang-hsia, and Yi.ian Yen-po, all men of the greatest renown for their time, maintained with him an association beyond the grime [of the world]. Since Chih Tun, in his reading of the Buddhist scriptures and of such secular texts as Chuang tzu, did not hold himself to the exegesis of each individual word and phrase, but consistently expounded the general outline, he was held lightly by the learned monks of the old "parsing school," but Hsieh An, on the other hand, praised him, saying, "He is like the great Po-lao of antiquity, who would reject a piebald horse in favor of a swift one." 27 The significance of the horse in this case is that Tun, Buddhist monk and all, kept both horses and cranes. He was, in other words a monk of the aristocracy, of the cream of society, leading his life within a tiny, closed, specifically Chinese circuit of fellow-aristocrats, something that set him off quite sharply from an Indian sarpgha whose members went about with their alms bowls begging for their food. Chih Tun's Study of ((Chuang tzu". The "dark learning" of the time, removing itself from the exegetical scholarship of the Han, preferred to engage in an overall discussion of the broad meaning of the classics and to deal logically and philosophi- cally with principal themes, such as the question of the Sage (sheng), the question of good and evil, etc., thus enabling the flowers of discussion to bloom in the garden of "pure talk." Tun's readings of the scriptures were entirely of a piece with this, matching the mood of the aristocracy perfectly. That is the reason for the exag- gerated praise lavished on him by aristocratic society. Together with this, he was thoroughly versed in Chuang tzu, a cardinal text for the "dark learners," and once, at the White Horse Monastery in Chien-k'ang, he engaged, with Liu Hsi-chih and others, in a debate concerning the first chapter in that book, the one on "untram- meled Wandering" (hsiao yao yu), an argument in which both sides took acutely par- tisan positions regarding the realm of"Untrammeled Wandering." Hereupon, so we are told, he withdrew to compose a commentary to that chapter, regarded as the 348 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE most difficult in the whole book, and in doing so he enunciated new views so far in advance of the interpretations ofKuo Hsiang and Hsiang Hsiu as to amaze scholars in general and the adherents of the traditional interpretations in particular. 28 Wang Meng, the father of Emperor Ai's consort, praised him to the effect that he was "not inferior, in the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, even to Wang Pi." 29 Sun Ch'o, comparing him in his Essay on Worthy Men of the Way (Tao hsien lun) to Hsiang Hsiu, the Western Tsin's great authority on Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, says, "Chih Tun and Hsiang Hsiu both hold Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu in the highest esteem. The two men, though different in time, were, in their airs and their preferences, mys- teriously the same." 30 Even Wang Hsi-chih, though at first distrustful of Chih Tun's after hearing his views on Chuang-tzu's chapter on "untrammeled wandering," was so struck that he begged him to take up residence at the Ling- chia-ssu, where they could associate with each other. The aristocracy and sarpgha of Chien-k'ang, for its own part, did not leave Chih Tun in isolation. When he did it is not known, but he proselytized in that city as well. In Chien-k'ang it was at the Wa-kuan-ssu and the Tung-an-ssu that Chih Tun gave scriptural readings. (C the chapter on "literary accomplishments and learning" in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks.) However, late in life-though the year is not known-he returned to Wu, where he built the Chih-shan-ssu. Next he retired to Mount Shan by K'uai-chi, where he busied himself with the instruction of his pupils, where he also, as teacher and friend to the aristocrats who took pleas- ure in their K' uai-chi retreat, deepened their commitment to Buddhism. In the monastery he built on the "small peak" (hsiao ling) in Wu-chou by Mount Shan there is said to have been a sarpgha of more than a hundred in constant attendance and study. Anyone who neglected his studies, so we are told (in his biography), had his name inscribed on a list to the right of the teacher's seat, and would then be encouraged with a severe reprimand. In K'uai-chi at the same time was Chu Tao-ch'ien, his senior in the order and the scion of a distinguished family. Since Chih Tun's monastery, located in the same area, had a community of scholars whose number by then exceeded a hundred, one con- cludes that the total number of monks at K'uai-chi was not small, and that the influ- ence of Chih Tun's scholarship on the Buddhist church of Chien-k'ang and K'uai- chi, i.e., of the very center of the Eastern Tsin, was by no means slight. Finally, late in life he moved to Mount Shih-ch' eng and established the Ch'i-kuang-ssu, where he adhered consistently to an ascetic vegetarian regime, and where he de- voted himself single-mindedly to writing and to the cultivation of dhyana. The writings just mentioned included commentaries to the Aniipiinasmrtisutra and a scripture on the Four Dhyanas, as well as Essay on Disporting Oneself in the Obscure [Realm Where Emptiness Is] Identical with Matter (Chi se yu hsuan lun), Essay 011 the Sage's Abstention from Knowledge with Discrimination (? Sheng pu pien chih lun), End Point of the (Tau hsing chih kuei), Admonition to Students of the Way (Hsueh tao chieh). His collected literary works, entitled Wen han chi, were widely current until Liang times (fifth century), but then perished, and all that survives are fragments, B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 349 in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks (Shih shuo hsin yu), Hung ming chi, Kuang hung ming chi, and Lives of Eminent Monks (Kao seng chuan), of such works as Preface to a Selection of Comparative Excerpts from [the Prajfziipiiramitii in] the Greater and Smaller [Number of] Chapters (Ta hsiao p'in tui pi yao ch' ao hsu),x the Chapter on the Subtle View (Miao kuan chang), and the Essay on Untrammeled Wandering (Hsiao yao lun). Excerpts of these may be found in such collections as the Complete Prose Works of Tsin (Ch' uan Chin wen), in addition to a collected corpus of his, entitled the Chih Tun Collection (Chih Tun chi), printed in two rolls with one roll of addenda (pu yi). 31 As we see it, Chih Tun about the age of forty, when he was presumably in retreat at K'uai-chi, was an extremely strict recluse, devoted to silent contemplation and the cultivation of his religion, aspiring to the model of and Nagarjuna, two Indian monks of the Mahayana, both men of letters and philosophical thinkers, and leader of a learned community of over a hundred zealous monks in an ascetic pattern of life. About this time his ideas matured, he became more and more the object of veneration on the part of the K'uai-chi aristocracy for his sharp wit and his eloquence, and he contrived to develop great powers of conversion as the teacher and friend of those aristocrats who were themselves fond of a life in retreat at K'uai- chi. Then, at fifty-three, he died. The thing that must be noted here is the attitude toward the life of seclusion entertained by these aristocrats who owned such vast lands and such great wealth in and about K'uai-chi. Life of the K'uai-chi Aristocracy. In K'uai-chi at this time there lived in retirement persons who could not gain admittance into central government circles, as well as other aristocrats who had run away from involvement in political power struggles. Here, living in intimate contact with mountains and rivers aglow with natural beauty, they enjoyed a life of indolent self-satisfaction. Typical of them is Wang Hsi- chih, who gave up his official position in order to get away from the feuds of the powerful families and in order not to bring harm upon his own household, or Hsieh An, who would not serve in an official capacity even when summoned to do so. Their life at K'uai-chi was a peaceful, rustic one, in which they "planted mulberry fruits, then, taking their children with them and carrying their little grandchildren in their arms, would wander among them and look at them" (as stated in the Book of Resto- ration, cited in the commentary to the chapter on "elegant measure" [ya liang p'ien] in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks). It was a pure form of self-amusement, wherein they would "go out to cast their fish lines, then go in to chat and to compose literary pieces." It had nothing in common with the ancient and proverbial bitter life of renunciation, a life in which men would "let their hair grow wild and feign madness, soiling their bodies and leaving behind them a heritage of filth." Nor were they recluses of the type that would wear simple clothes and eat simple fare, making their homes on crags and in caves, cultivating the Way of the superhuman and presumably immortal sylph, casting aside the riches and the pleasures of the world. Theirs was rather a seclusion to which they aspired, for which they longed, and which was to be enjoyed. From their point of view, even the sramary.as, free 350 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE as they were from the restraints of official life, free as they were to disport themselves in the midst of the natural beauty of mountains and rivers, to seek freedom from any kind of restraint, and beyond the mundane as they might be, were men bound by a doctrine and denied the freedom of their own feelings. Their type of seclusion was born in the midst of the social position and economic security that owed their existence to the establishment of an aristocratic society under the Eastern Tsin. 32 The recluses of K'uai-chi conducted their "pure talk" and their discussions of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu in the midst of a life of self-satisfaction such as has been described above, and their concern with Buddhism also was deepened under these conditions. Hsieh An sent Chih Tun a letter, in which he said, "Nowadays there are virtually no more sophisticated pursuits, and I am depressed the day long. If only I could chat with you, one day would be worth a thousand years !" 33 Chih Tun, who had returned from Chien-k'ang to Mount Shan in the neighborhood of K' uai-chi, became himself a sort of aristocratic recluse, enjoying at will the natural scene, the composition of prose and verse, and "pure talk" in the rich and plentiful surroundings of these great landowners. Rather, he became the principal teacher and friend of a group that enjoyed the so-called aristocratic, sophisticated life, and ushered in the triumph of K'uai-chi Buddhism, a religious phenomenon in which these aristocrats occupied a central position. "Vimalakirtinirdesa" and the Conversion of the Aristocracy. The aristocrats, while mingling with the srama!)aS and holding discussions with them in the social spheres of "pure talk," were also busily engaged in reading the Buddhist canon. Yin Hao, for example, when, relieved of his office, moved his residence to Tung-yang in the K'uai-chi region, read much in the Buddhist scriptures and commented on them minutely, placing a marker wherever there was a doubtful point and questioning the srama!)as about it, to the point that he found difficulties that Chih Tun himself is alleged to have been unable to resolve. 34 The scriptures of which the aristocrats were most fond were the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea, both of which preached the doctrine of emptiness (sunyaviida), and Yin Hao's scholarship itself proceeded from the latter to the ~ t a s . p . p . In the Vimalakirtinirdea in particular, the devout Buddhist layman Vimalakirti, a man with wife and children, wealth and property, a man with a high degree of education and a profound knowledge of Buddhism, who in his understanding of Emptiness, i.e., in his attainment of the state of release, far outstripped men like Sariputra, senior monk among the Buddha's disciples, was the very ideal to which the K'uai-chi aristocracy aspired. This lay brother, Vimalakirti, is on his sickbed. The Buddha designates by turns disciples from Sariputra on down to visit the sick man as the Buddha's representatives, but each declines on the grounds that he is not the man to confront Vimalakirti. The scripture proceeds to construct, then to elaborate, a highly dramatic plot, in which at length the grave mission of visiting the sick man as the Buddha's representative is undertaken by Mafijusri, while three thousand disciples follow along, thinking to hear the Dharma-talk that shall transpire between Vimalakirti and Maiijusri. In Vimalakirti's sickroom, in his "cell,"z there is unfolded, in the presence of the B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 351 three thousand disciples, a philosophic discussion concerning the "gateway of the non-dual Dharma" (pu erh fa rnen, representing advayadharmamukha?), in which subtle wisdom is freely manipulated this way and that. This Vimalakirtinirdesa, literary piece that it was, was read eagerly and with predilection by an aristocracy fond of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. The structure of the scripture was quite in keeping with the mood of "pure talk" society. The lay brother Vimalakirti was a perfect model of the distinguished, "purely talking" gentle- man, and his exchanges with Mafijusri were a living ideal of the "pure talk" in which they themselves were engaged. Consequently, there were frequent public readings of this scripture, to which the aristocrats were so attached, and these were used as arenas for "pure talk." At these Vimalakirtinirdesa readings, sponsored by the prince ofK'uai-chi, Chih Tun, as " lecturer" (chiang shih), i.e., as the principal functionary, and Hsii Hsiin, as "overseer" (tu chiang), i.e., as questioner, would put on a display of rapid-fire questions and answers. Hsii Hsiin would pose a question, a difficult one touching on a vital point, and the audience, hearing it, would get excited, think- ing, "Aha! Chih Tun will never be able to answer that!" Then Chih Tun's elegant diction would flow forth, clarifying increasingly profound philosophic truths. The audience would sigh, thinking, "Hsii Hsiin's objections have been silenced now!" when the next moment another pointed objection would be made. This Vimalakirti- nirdea reading, in which a monk and a layman would make the freest use of their broad knowledge and their keen intelligence to comment on the scripture by argu- ment and counterargument, was as unending as the flow of a valley stream. The dis- tinguished aristocrats present were thoroughly bewitched, so that all they could do was sigh in admiration. In this way, in the social world of the aristocracy living in K'uai-chi, such Bud- dhist scriptures as the Vimalakirtinirdea had become, together with Lao tzu and Chuang tzu, required knowledge. Also, as one sees from the conduct of these meet- ings, the readings of the Buddhist scriptures were occasions on which the lecturer- protagonist and the questioner-antagonist would arrive at the scriptural meaning by confronting each other, and on which members of the audience might also hurl objections and conundrums at the lecturer. Scriptural readings of this type, conduct- ed as they were in the form of disputations, developed an uninterrupted series of new interpretations, and were at the same time much prized by an intellectual aristocracy that held in high esteem "dark learning" and "pure talk" that were philosophically liberated. Consequently, they may be presumed to have made a great contribution toward broadening knowledge of, and belief in, Buddhism in the society in question. Chih Tun's Prajfiiipiiramitii Scholarship. It1 this way, Chih Tun, trained as he was in both the Buddhist canon and "dark learning," by bringing into the latter the Bud- dhist doctrine of emptiness-that of the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea in particular-gave a new dimension to the interpretation of Chuang tzu, and, by us- ing the logic of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu in interpreting the Buddhist canon and thus harmonizing Mahayana doctrine, principally that of the Prajfiaparamita scrip- tures, with Chinese thought, furthered the understanding of the Chinese upper classes. 352 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE He thus became a missionary leader of the K'uai-chi aristocracy, one who led to a study of Buddhism, even to a belief in Buddhism, the aristocrats who were the bearers of the civilization of the Eastern Tsin. In interpreting the emptiness (k'ung, sunyatii) of the Prajfiaparamita corpus, an activity that had become central for the learned Buddhist community of the time, Chih Tun established a "theory of identity with matter" (chi se yi), 35 thus exerting great influence on the Buddhist learned community of pre-Kumarajiva Ch'ang-an. When he had composed the Essay on Identity with Matter and Wandering in the Obscure, he showed it to Wang T' an-chin. T' an-chih did not say a word. Chih Tun attempted to prod him with a quotation from the Analects of Confucius, saying, "Are you un- derstanding this in silence?" To which Wang T' an-chih retorted on the spot with a paraphrase from the Vimalakirtinirdea: "There being no (bodhisattva) Mafijusri, how can anyone perceive or see?" (The story is as follows: To Mafijusri's question, "What is the ' gateway of the non-dual Dharma?' " the lay brother Vimalakirti did not say a word, but simply sealed his mouth in absolute silence. Mafijusri, understanding his meaning perfectly, then slapped his knees and exclaimed, "Good! Good!") The story of this brilliant exchange circulated in aristocratic society as a good example of "pure talk." 36 Tun also wrote the Panegyric, with Preface, to an Image of the Amita- buddha (A-mi-t'o-Jo hsiang tsan ping hsu), in which he demonstrated his longing for Amita's Pure Land (Sukhavati). He does say, however, that "in that Land there is neither royalty nor official title, the lord being the Buddha and the regulations the Triple Vehicle, men and women being born from lotuses without the defilements of conception and parturition. The dwellings and palaces are all made of the Seven Jewels, taking shape of themselves, the work of no human artificer." 37 This coincided with the ideal realm of the "no-ado" and the "self-so" (wu wei tzu jan) as conceived of by Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, a land free of the restraints of the doctrine of pro- priety; it was the kind of Pure Land that an aristocrat of the time, an aristocratic Bud- dhist in particular, was likely to picture for himsel However, it would never do to take Chih Tun as a mere "dark learner" who disported himself "purely" with the aristocracy and discussed with them Buddhist scriptures such as the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea or Taoist classics such as Lao tzu and Chuang tzu. He was an earnest monk, a seeker of the Way, since his birth into a family that had been devoutly Buddhist for generations. He early familiarized himself with the Buddhist canon, himself diligently studying and understanding much, until at the age of twenty-five he shaved his head and left his household. With him as the central personage, there were held earnest convo- cations for the practice of the Buddhist religion, the so-called Eightfold Fast (pa (kuan chai),ad at which twenty-four persons, lay and clerical, would gather on the twenty-second of the tenth month at the foot of the T'u-shan Mausoleum in Wu hsien and engage in such earnest religious practices as fasting, rigorous adherence to the monastic code, and penance until their adjournment on the morning of the fourth day. (C the three poems on the T'u-shan convocation and the preface to B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 353 them, T'u shan hui chi shih san shou ping hsu.) One is also led to surmise that he did not neglect to do honor to the Buddha's birthday on the eighth day of the fourth month (cf. the Poem in Praise of the Buddha on the Eighth Day of the Fourth Month (Ssu yueh pa jih tsan Po shih], and the Three Hymns to the Eighth Day [Yung pa jih shih san shou]), also, on the basis of the Ode to the Long Fast in the Fifth Month ( Wu yueh ch'ang chai shih), that he busied himself with the special observances-and with the actual practices associated with them-that marked the three "long fasts" (ch' ang chai), those of the first, fifth, and ninth months. He was, in other words, no mere polished scholar, adept at "dark learning" and "pure talk," but also a serious practi- tioner of the Buddhist religion and an earnest seeker after Buddhist enlightenment. In truth, it was Chih Tun who was the "dark learner," earnest in his quest of enlight- enment and eager to propagate the Buddhist faith, most suited to a "purely talking" aristocracy. 38 Evangelism in Chien-k'ang. Even Chih Tun, though he had left Chien-k'ang to se- clude himself at K'uai-chi and eventually to become the leader of that city's Bud- dhist community, once Emperor Ai acceded to the throne (in 361), found himself the object of frequent requests to return to the capital, and at forty-nine (in 362) he went once more to Chien-k'ang, where, at the Tung-an-ssu, he gave readings in the Tao hsing po-jo ching, succeeding to the chair once occupied by Tao-ch'ien. Still, he could not stop longing for the old life at K'uai-chi, and after three years of residence he presented a memorial in which he displayed his true feelings in words to this effect: "I, poor in virtue [p'in tao] as I am, [formerly] escaped into the fields among the east- ern mountains, where [my sense of] success was different from that of the world. Keeping to maigre fare atop the tall hills, I bathed in streams in the clean valleys. In rags for the balance of my life, I ceased to look to the imperial staircase." Having bared his innermost feelings, he goes on after a bit to phrase his earnest petition ele- gantly as follows: "I humbly beg Your Majesty to grant me the special favor of letting me go, of sending me back to my forests and thickets, where I may be a bird feeding birds, and where I may glory (in the destiny] that [I chance to bear]." (Cf. his biography in roll4 of the Lives of Eminent Monks.) Granted permission, he returned to Mount Shan, where in a very short time his quiet life came to an end (d. 366). When he left Chien-k' ang, not only did the emperor provide him with lavish gifts, but the most distinguished men of the time also bade him a sad farewell at the Pavilion (Commemorating the) Chastisement of the Barbarians (cheng lu). This tells us what a magical effect he must have had on the aristocrats and intellectuals of the Eastern Tsin. ( C the Lives of Eminent Monks.) Hsi Ch' ao, born into a distinguished clan and into a household of believers in t'ien shih Taoism, having been converted by Chih Tun and others like him, became a fervent Buddhist. Hsi Ch' ao said in a letter to a friend, "The Dharma-master (Tao-Jlin is the one man who more than any other in the past several hundreds of years has maintained and clarified the Great Dharma and kept the Absolute Truth from becoming extinct." 39 As Hsi Ch'ao says, Chih Tun and he alone was the man who stood at the pinnacle of the aristocratic Buddhist church in the middle Eastern Tsin, being its truest representative in all senses. 354 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Other Leaders of the Satpgha. There were many monks besides Chu Tao-ch'ien and Chih Tun who achieved fame by rubbing elbows with the aristocracy and partici- pating in "pure talk." Among these monks are included some non-Chinese monks as well. An interesting case is one already mentioned, that ofSrimitra, surnamed Po by the Chinese, who, though he spoke virtually no Chinese, maintained a close association with the chancellor (ch'eng hsiang) Wang Tao and the military commander (t'ai wei) Yti Liang (courtesy name Ytian-kuei), as well as with Chou Yi (courtesy name Po- jen), Hsieh K'un (courtesy name Yu-yti), and others, by all of whom he was admired and honored as the "Man of the Way Who Occupies the High Throne" (kao tso tao jen), and many of whose "pure-talk" conversations are conveyed in anecdotes in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks. A no less interesting case, by contrast, is that of K' ang Seng-ytian, the Chinese-born son of naturalized foreigners and a man perfectly at home in the Chinese language, who was likewise befriended by Wang Tao and his fellows and who, as the teacher and friend of aristocrats in the Chien-k' ang and K'uai-chi areas, advanced the cause of Buddhist conversion at the beginning of the Eastern Tsin. Born in Ch'ang-an to parents who had come from Samarcand, he was skilled in the use of the Chinese language, and was fond of reciting from the Fang kuang (Paficavitpsatis.) and Tao hsing recensions of the Prajiiaparamita. During the reign of Emperor Ch'eng (r. 326-342) he went south together with such Prajfiaparamita scholars as K'ang Fa-ch'ang and Chih Min-tu (the latter the pro- ponent of the "theory of the non-existence of mind," hsin wu yi), and, having been discovered by Yin Hao, he associated with Wang Tao and Yi.i Liang in their later years, as well as with some of their friends. Later, when he built a monastic dwelling in the striking natural setting of Mount Yi.i-chang, a place belted by the River (Yangtze) and leaning against a mountain range, where pine and bamboo luxuriated, eminent monks and distinguished gentlemen flocked to him in admiration. 40 K'ang Fa-ch'ang, who came south of the Yangtze together with Seng-ytian, always walked the streets with his fly-whisk (chu wei) in his hand, stopping for a "pure-talk" chat, with any gentleman he happened to meet, until the sun went down. Once Yti Liang (courtesy name Ytian-kuei), a man who by virtue of his owD family connections, his relation by marriage to the reigning family, and his official position was the supreme powerholder in the land, asked him, "Why do you always have that fly-whisk with you?" To which he allegedly retorted, "A modest man will not ask for it, and to a greedy man I will not give it. That is why I always have it!" The most important topic in "pure talk" was the evaluation of character, and Fa- ch'ang did in fact publish an essay entitled ]en wu shih yi lun. 41 ae Chu Fa-t' ai and His Community at the Wa-kuan-ssu. When treating the more in- fluential Chien-k' ang evangelists, one may not bypass the Wa-kuan-ssu community led by Chu Fa-t' ai, a fellow-disciple of Tao-an who several times found himself obliged to flee from the warfare and upheavals brought on by non-Chinese peoples in North China. This Chu Fa-t'ai (320-387, and for more details see the chapter on Tao-an), who, after parting with Tao-an at Hsin-yeh, went from Ching-chou to B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 355 Chien-k' ang together with forty of his disciples, chief among whom were T' an-yi and T'an-erh, became friends with Wang Hsia, Wang Hsi.in, Hsieh An, and others, taking up residence and establishing a reading seminar on the Paficaviyt1satis.p.p. at a famous monastery commonly called by the name W a-kuan-ssu. (The building, orig- inally used as a pottery by Wang Tao-whence the name- was converted by the sramaQ.a Hui-li into a monastery some time during Hsing-ning in the reign of Emperor Ai, i.e., 363-365, then gradually became a place for scriptural readings attended by monks of renown.) The seminar is alleged to have been attended by Emperor Chien-wen as well as by the upper aristocracy (wang hou kung ch'ing), not one of whom stayed away. It became, in fact, a center ofChien-k'ang Buddhism, at which, "on the day the reading commenced, the black and the white (i.e., clergy and laity) would come to watch and listen, gentry and commonalty forming a positive herd. The place would be full of disciples who had come to receive the teaching, and those who had arrived from the three Wu areas to learn numbered over a thou- sand."af While the Wa-kuan-ssu at the time of his arrival consisted merely of a hall (t'ang) and a stupa (t'a), monastic cells (fang yu), and a double gate (ch'ung men) were added to them, and the place became an important center of Buddhist study at Chien-k'ang, as well as an arena for aristocratic "pure talk." 42 Hsieh An, who held the rank of t' ai ju, as well as Wang Hsia, Wang Hsi.in, and other outstanding rep- resentatives of powerful families, are said to have honored him without limit. When in T' ai-yi.ian 12 (378) he died at the age of sixty-eight, Emperor Hsiao-wu, in mourn- ing him, issued an edict which said, in part, "The Dharma-master [Fa-lt'ai was one whose Way spread in all eight directions, whose beneficence shall flow to later generations." He is also said to have contributed a hundred thousand cash toward his funeral costs. Furthermore, while at Ching-chou, holding Tao-heng's Prajiiapara- mita theory-that of the non-existence of mind (hsin wu yi)-to be a heresy, he argued against and vanquished him. Also, a work of his, in which he discussed the theory of fundamental non-being (pen wu yr) with Hsi Ch'ao, was much touted. 43 One is no doubt right in surmising that there was mutual influence in the area of ideas between Chih Tun and those other Prajaiiapramita scholars who had come south together with him. Be that as it may, one would do well to note that Chu Fa- t' ai, a northerner and a colleague of Tao-an, occupies an important position in the history ofPrajiiaparamita study, which reached an apex of glory under the Eastern Tsin. Among the monks who, making their homes in that city ofK'uai-chi, were at the same time friends and rivals of Chih Tun, also being engaged with him in a sharing of ideas, were Yi.i Fa-Ian, his disciples Yi.i Fa-k'ai and Yi.i Tao-sui, and Fa-k'ai's pupil Fa-wei. Of these, Yi.i Fa-k'ai was a student of both the Paficaviyt1satis.p.p. and the Saddharmapu1J4arika, as well as a practitioner of medicine. Going to Mount Shan near K'uai-chi, he frequently argued with Chih Tun about the doctrine of empti- ness (k'ung yi, sunyaviida), gaining as an adherent to his notion of"consciousness con- tained" (shih han yi) the devout Buddhist layman Ho Mo of Lu-chiang, while Hsi Ch'ao ofKao-p'ing championed Chih Tun's views, or so we are told. Yi.i Fa- 356 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE k'ai's disciple Fa-wei, on instructions from his master, attended Chih Tun's readings of the where he posed many objections, occasionally bringing even the great Chih Tun to his knees (notice contained in the biography ofYli Fa-k'ai in roll 4 of the Lives of Eminent Monks). Fa-wei too was on friendly terms with Hsieh An, Wang T' an-chih, and their fellows. There was in the K' uai-chi area a byword that said, "Shen [i.e., Chu Tao-ch'ien, courtesy name Fa-shen] has scope, [Yli Fa-] k'ai has thought, Lin [i.e., Chih Tun, courtesy name Tao-lin] has eloquence, [K'ang Fa-]shih has memory."ah This was a comment, summing up in a few well-chosen words the characters and the peculiarities of four eminent monks of the aristocratic Buddhist community south of the Yangtze. Such was the degree to which these in- tellectual monks were welcomed as paragons of"pure talk" into aristocratic society that a byword such as this could be coined about them. 44 Buddhism in North and South. Buddhism south of the Yangtze, with its aristocratic contacts, with its economic assistance from the aristocracy (for which see more below), and with its adoption of the Lao-Chuang ideas of which the latter were so fond, quite naturally fashioned a religion of a character different from that of the north at the time of the Western Tsin and the Five Barbarian Nations. One of the most striking manifestations of this difference was the failure to produce much scriptural translation in the face of the very vigorous pursuit of that activity in North China. Of course, toward the end of the Eastern Tsin there took place even at Chien- k'ang, at the hands ofFa-hsien, back from his pilgrimage to India, and a number of foreign sramal).as, translation of some important Buddhist scriptures. There shall be occasion to comment on this later, but from the beginning into the middle of the Eastern Tsin absolutely nothing is known of scriptural translation, whether on the part of Chinese monks such as Chu Tao-ch'ien and Chih Tun or on the part of non-Chinese monks such as K' ang Seng-ylian. For this there are a number of reasons, one of them being that, cut offby the southward move from the east-west overland highways, there was no conveyance of Sanskrit texts and very little arrival of monks from abroad. Another reason is that a new age had dawned, one in which the bearers of government and civilization, beginning with the aristocracy and extending down through the intelligentsia even to the lower gentry (shih), were read- ing Buddhist scriptures, now available in Chinese, in conjunction with the Confucian classics and, in particular, with the writings ascribed to the Saints and Sages of their own nation, such as Lao- tzu and Chuang- tzu, writings with which they were thoroughly familiar. It was an age in which they could hear doctrinal expositions from, and discuss doctrine with, members of the saq1gha who were themselves no less familiar with Lao-Chuang thought; a time when readings and interpretations of Chinese translations of the Buddhist scriptures permeated, so to speak, with "dark learning" and "pure talk" were being constantly given by Chinese intellectuals, whether lay or clerical, when the current faith in Buddhism was based on the mean- ing attached to it by these men. It was, finally., an age in which it was considered both necessary and advantageous to be well versed, albeit only for social purposes in dealing with the aristocracy, in a knowledge of the principal Buddhist scriptures al- B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "DARK LEARNERS" 357 ready translated into Chinese or, at the very least, of those scriptures available in Chinese translation south of the Yangtze. Such being the nature of the times, there was a concentration of attention on reading and commenting on those scriptures already translated into Chinese. Con- sequently, there was no choice before the Buddhist community of the time but to rely on the locally available translations, incomplete as these might be. Where several texts of the same scripture were available, comparison of the several texts made the reading and interpretation easier, or combined editions of several versions would be produced for the sake of ease and convenience, even though the advantages in the specific case might be slight. Chih Min-tu, in addition to drawing up a scriptural catalogue, compared different versions of the Vimalakirtinirdea and the SuraYJ1gama- samiidhi, on the basis of which he formulated a brilliant theory of translation. (Cf. his Preface to the Combined Vimalakirtinirdesa [Ho Wei-mo-chieh ching hsu], and his Colophon to the Combined SuraYJ1gamasamiidhi [Ho Shou-leng-yen chi11g chi]. 45 ) Chih Tun also did a comparative study of the translations of two Prajiiaparamita texts, the Tao hsing and the Fang kuang (PaficaviYJ1.Satis.p.p.), adding his own com- ments on the doctrinal essentials preached in the Prajfiaparamita, the Preface to a Comparative Digest of the Greater and Lesser Prajfiiipiiramitii ( Ta hsiao p'in tui pi yao ch' ao h ) 46 su. Now the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea were Buddhist scriptures central to the world of "pure talk," occupying a position analogous to that of Lao tzu, Chuang tzu, the Analects of Confucius, and the Canon of Changes in the secular canon; they were texts in which one had to be thoroughly versed. Other scriptures besides these, such as the Aniipiinasmrti, the Saddharmapur:z4arika, the Pratyutpannabud- dhasaYJ1mukhiivasthitasamiidhi, the Sukhiivativyuha, and those scriptures telling of the life of the Buddha, were put to certain use in "dark learning" and "pure talk," in addition to serving as sacred texts to be read and memorized by, or as scriptural guides for the religious conduct of, devout Buddhists. Beyond this, however, and apart from the learned salllgha, the intellectual aristocrat was never confronted with the necessity to become widely read and thoroughly versed in the Chinese transla- tions of the scriptures on pain of exclusion from the world of "dark learning" and " lk " pure ta . Two distinguished aristocrats of the time, Ch'u P'ou and Sun Sheng, comparing the learned vogues of north and south, said that, whereas the northerners' learning was deep and all-encompassing (yuan tsung kuang po), that of the southerners was "clear and penetrating, simple and to the point" (ch'ing t'ung chien yao). Chih Tun's comment on hearing this was, "A northerner's reading of a book is like looking at the moon in clear surroundings, while the southerner's learning is like peering at the sun through a window." 47 As we have mentioned before, Chih Tun on principle refused to become ensnared like most southerners in words and phrases, insisting instead on culling out the sim- ple essentials. His Buddhist scholarship was no exception to this rule. As a result, he attached more importance to commenting on scriptural essentials and discussing 358 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE scholarly questions of doctrine than to translation or even to becoming involved in the earnest, practical quest for enlightenment. In him there can already be seen a ten- dency to display a high level of education in both sacred and secular literature, almost for the mere sport of it (reminding one of a certain aspect of the aristocratic Buddhist community in Japan's own Fujiwara period), which eventually shaped the learned vogue of the aristocratic Buddhist society of the Southern dynasties yet to come, with its one-sided insistence on scriptural exegesis. Also, at the same time one sees how, even in the case of Chih Tun, sweeping discussions of the overall meaning of the scriptures became widely fashionable in opposition to the minutely exegetical examination of each and every word and phrase, and how, in keeping with a vogue of "dark learning" that defied tradition to attempt a free interpretation, setting great value on the give-and-take of ideas, an extremely logical and philosophic form of learning was realized. To this extent, even the study of the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea became an exchange of individually held theories based on a Chinese mode of thinking. Under these conditions, there was wide divergence of opinions and vigorous ex- change of conflicting theories, and to the same extent the move toward a peculiarly Chinese form of Buddhist scholarship, separated linguistically from the sense of the originals and based on a uniquely Chinese interpretation, was advanced. Hereupon there developed a welter of confused and conflicting theories in a Prajfiaparamita scholarship now at the height of its glory, and the point was reached at which for a solution to the problems just created the Chinese Buddhist community had to await the arrival of a Kumarajiva, a foreign authority on the Madhyamika system orig- inated by Nagarj una. Throughout this period there emerged from the ranks oflay scholars such persons as Sun Sheng, 48 who by drawing on Buddhist theory attacked Lao-tzu and Chuang- tzu;49 Sun Ch'o, the first to hold that Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism are in essential agreement; Hsi Ch'ao, 50 a man who, praised by Chih Tun as the "sharpest man ofhis age," was the first layman to write a general description of Buddhism, the Essentials of Upholding the Dharma (Feng fa yao); and others, thus showing that the aristocrat' s understanding of Buddhism was already well advanced. There were, in addition, Buddhist laymen so devout as to earn, like Ho Ch'ung and his brother, the opprobrious comment, "The two Ho brothers fawn on the Buddha." 51 In the world of"pure talk," however, the understanding of Buddhism was confined to a study of theoretical Buddhist doctrine as the object of knowledge in the intellectual sense, for it was not anything gained through earnest religious practice. At the time in ques- tion, there was keen discussion, as well as reflection, on Lao-tzu's and Chuang-tzu's non-being (wu), which was then held to be the root and source of the Universe, dis- cussion and reflection having as a point of reference the emptiness (k'ung, sunyatii) that is for Buddhism the central question. Yet, however refined the logical subtleties to which the participants resorted, there was no religious depth, for there was a predominant tendency for these activities to degenerate to something never breaking the bounds of word-play and sentence-games. Even when there was resort to pro- B : "PURE TALKERS" AND "nARK LEARNERS" 359 found philosophic consideration of the question in terms of phenomenon and nou- menon, for example, this was not necessarily by any means the profundity of religious practice or of a quest for salvation in which the religious subject confronts the personal experience of salvation and steels himself in continued askesis to that end. Even the synthesis of the three systems, which began with Sun Ch' o and was now at the height of its glory, could in no sense be called a harmonization arrived at through a profound study, analysis, and critique of the basic positions of the three respective doctrines, but rather the glib pronouncement that the Duke of Chou and Confucius equal the Buddha and vice versa (Chou K'ung chi Fo, Fo chi Chou K'ung). 52 In the Buddhist church south of the Yangtze, follow as it did, and attached as it was to, the aristocratic world of "dark learning" and "pure talk," even the life of the monk could not but be aristocratic in character. There is, of course, evidence of a budding belief in the Pure Land on the part of Chih Tun and Fa-k'uang, but they never succeeded, as did their successors in later generations, in producing through their leadership a whole stream of believers in the Pure Land who were prepared to resort wholeheartedly and single-mindedly to Buddha-recollection. 53 Also, the lives of the monks do record that there were not a few sramai).aS in the K'uai-chi region of the time who wandered about from one famous mountain to another, begging for their food and sitting in contemplation, 54 but there is no evidence of much activity in the area of proselytizing society in general. The critique of Chih Tun went to the effect that, "while Tun's talents are outstanding in respect of ching tsan, i.e., of doc- trinal knowledge, in his insistence on his own purity and in the way he holds himself aloft from the world there is something that runs afoul of (the ideal of) combined salvation, that is, ofbenefiting both oneself and others." 55 This is a critique that might well be leveled at the whole Buddhist church of the time, where the concrete practice of general salvation was lacking. In Chih Tun's latter years one does see some earnest guidance of disciples and cultivation of religious practice, but in general the so-called "outstanding monks" (ming seng) ofChien-k'ang and K'uai-chi had a way of life no different from that of the self-pleasing aristocratic recluses who, escaping from poli- tics and from the restraints of the civil service, maintained-and could afford to maintain-a world-transcending attitude. They were, in fact, nothing other than monkish recluses modeled on the said aristocrats, recluses (yin shih) beyond the con- fines (fang wai). They were, to be sure, thoroughly familiar with the Vimalakirtinirde.Sa, wherein Vimalakirti says, "The beings are ill, therefore I'm ill," but they were by no means religious evangelists prepared to make society's sufferings their own or to sacrifice themselves in service to the salvation of society. Buddhism south of the Yangtze under the Eastern Tsin, i.e., that of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, may well be called a religion in which recluse monks of the type just described were tolerated, but in which efforts toward the conversion of the population in general were lacking. Still, among the many men who left the ranks of the gentry, violating the ethical norms of a society dominated by traditional ideas by going so far as to shave their heads and leave their families, taking the bold step of entry into a life of ascetic scholarship of a 360 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE pronouncedly un-Chinese variety, joining a sarpgha that preached a foreign road to salvation, there was observed, in the company of the aristocrats with whom they were in constant association, what one might call a solemn Religious Week-one, for example, in which, as in the case of the Eightfold Fast, there would be rigid adherence to eight monastic restraints, accompanied by serious religious study, or the monthly six-day fast, conducted more or less in the same way. Since these practices, which cut across lay and clerical lines, centered about Chih Tun and his fellows, it is evident that there the elements of sincere religious commitment were by no means lacking. One is, in general, entitled to say that the doctrines of the Buddhist canon, of the Mahayana canon in particular, were propagated by becoming mixed with aris- tocratic elements of"pure self-amusement" (ch'ing yu). Among the lay believers who had a profound experience of religious conversion at the hands of teachers like Chih Tun, Hsi Ch' ao, to name an outstanding case, left K'uai-chi to join the service of Huan Wen, a man who, having extended his power to cover the whole middle area of the Yangtze basin, was eyeing the imperial government itself, rising to a position on his military staff, a position in which his very life might hinge on the outcome of a battle. This very man was then converted to Buddhism by Tao-an, who in nearby Hsiang-yang was leading a group of relig- ious practitioners. As a man of such diversified background as this, he appears to have proceeded to a life of Buddhist religious practice based on notions of "what a Buddhist should be," notions strongly colored by his reflection on his own sinful past. It is highly noteworthy that a work such as his Essentials of Upholding the Dharma (Fengfa yao) is a typical digest of Buddhist doctrine compiled by a lay Buddhist schol- ar of the Eastern Tsin, one who had accepted Buddhism practically and subjectively and, at the same time, a guide to the practice of that religion, also that traditional Buddhism could be accepted to this degree by some of the lay aristocracy who were not specialized scholar-monks by vocation. Leaving aside the Buddhism of the Chinese masses, one is justified in saying that the religion of the Buddhist lay brother, centering about an organized fellowship of such lay brethren (chu shih lin), a religion which kept alive the practical and, at the same time, scholarly faith oflay intellectuals or of the propertied classes for a long stretch of time, into Ming and Ch'ing and even into modern times, traces its source back to the religion typified by the Essentials of Upholding the Dharma, a peculiarly Chinese type of lay Buddhism that maintained itself through T' ang, Sung, and Yuan into Ming, Ch'ing, and the present. For a trans- lation of Essentials 4 Upholding the Dharma, see Appendix 3. c. Doctrinal Disputes and the Advance ~ f Prajnaparamita Study Now, as we have already stated, the Buddhist scriptures, as translated into Chinese under the Latter Han, as early as the era of the Three Kingdoms and the Western Tsin became, albeit only in small numbers, the objects of study and exegesis, in which C :THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 361 the center of interest lay in the Hinayana doctrines rendered into Chinese by An Shih-kao, who through his skill in dhyana was actually believed to have acquired su- perhuman spiritual powers-particularly in the Aniipiinasmrti and similar scriptures in which the practice of contemplation is concretely described-doctrines understood in association with the "preservation of unity" (shou yi) and other such Taoistic pre- scriptions for spiritual concentration. Even greater interest, however, was directed to- ward the Mahayana scriptures translated by L o k a k ~ e m a and Chih Ch' ien, but both sets of scriptures were accepted as the Teaching of one and the same Buddha, no dis- tinction being made between the two disciplines. Yet the general tendency, in the cultural centers ofWei and Tsin, was for the inter- est to gravitate toward such scriptures as the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdea -in short, toward the early Mahayana scriptures, i.e., toward those religious writ- ings whose emphasis was that the attainment of the Path of the Buddha consisted of nothing other than the intuition that everything is "empty" and the consequent advance to the acquisition of Prajfia-wisdom, armed with a view of emptiness (k'ung kuan) whose goal was that realm in which a person is the victim of no fixed conceptions. The interest just mentioned gravitated more to the study of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures than to anything else. This development was guided from without by the objective situation of the Buddhist religion in India and Central Asia as well as its spread and the scriptural translation that accompanied it, but it coincided with an internal Chinese development, the rise and eventual fashionable triumph of "dark learning" (hsiian hsiieh). This is another name for ideas which, as- cribed to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, took their first concrete shape among scholars, thinkers, and men of letters in the leading social layers, the ruling classes, scions of aristocratic families distributed among the nine official ranks (chiu p'in), men whose position-economic, official, and personal-was secure. These ideas, cultivated by the educated classes in the Middle Plain under the Wei and the Tsin, among whom they had rapidly become fashionable, eventually sweep- ing all before them, dismissed as "mean" and "base" the preoccupation with everyday politics, even with production, that was due to a traditional morality bound by political considerations and by "good order," as the latter was understood in terms of the doctrine of propriety. The new ideas constituted a new learned vogue, one that sought in Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, and the Canon of Changes the "Way," i.e., the abstract, invisible Truth that constitutes the root and source of all phenomena. In other words, despising classical scholarship, whose aim was to be true to the tra- ditional Confucian canon, with its principled insistence on the doctrine of propriety, which the "dark learners" held to be the study ofhow to deal with reality in a world of concrete, practical specifics (shih) or of existence (yu), this was a brand oflearning that busied itself with the quest for and the attainment of non-being (wu), an ab- stract and metaphysical universal truth (li). The Golden Age of Nagarjunism in India. As has already been suggested, the first external reason that led to the triumph ofPrajfiaparamita scholarship, was the Indian situation. After the Nirval).a of the Sakyabuddha, the church splintered into rival 362 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE schools dominated by the monastic order, schools in which scholar-monks would inherit, in the sublime conviction that they alone were right, a body of picayune, in- tellectualized doctrines, and in which they had come to forget their mission, that of the salvation of people in general, which means, in the majority of cases, house- holders. The reaction to this was the Mahayana movement, a movement of radical reform that declared, "Return to the religion of the Venerable Sakya! Put the Bud- dha's teachings within the reach of all mankind! The real Buddhism is the gift of sal- vation to all men without distinction. Your first duty is the benefit of others in the here and now!" The Mahayana movement was composed, initially, of two groups, lay and clerical, the former being earnest religious seekers, the latter a body of men that the venerable Sakyamuni's teaching career and thus became more keenly aware of the sarp.gha's true duty. Eventually the two coalesced and a movement took shape, producing in due course and without interruption such early Mahayana works as the Prajfiaparamita scrip- tures, the Vimalakirtinirde.Sa, and the salvationist scriptures that told of the saving ac- tivities of current, actual Buddhas like and Amita. Attacking the tradi- tional church for allowing its sectarian doctrines to get brittle in the hands of a self-righteous clergy, for allowing the clergy itself to degenerate into rival schools each of which boasted of the subtlety and breadth of its own exegetical scholarship, and for neglecting the salvation of the non-monastic bulk of human society, the new movement undertook a vigorous program of evangelization, in which it de- clared, "We are the heirs to the true spirit of the Sakyabuddha! Ours is the true Bud- dhism, the one proclaiming the true Doctrine." Eventually the Mahayana movement gained currency in Northwest India, in areas bordering on the Silk Road, during the first and second centuries, where it found itself rivaling the missionary activities of a school that it attacked and deprecated as a "lesser vehicle," that of the Sarvastivada, a powerful and influential school, particularly in that place and at that time, that holds that everything that exists is real. Thanks principally to this missionary rivalry, these two tendencies, the several Hi- nayana groups and the various Mahayana groups, took advantage of the newly opened Silk Road to spread into the countries of Central Asia, then on further to Lo-yang, one of two imperial Chinese capitals, where Buddhist scriptures of both tendencies began to appear in Chinese translation. The translations proceeded to appear in a steady stream beginning in the latter half of the second century, when the collapse of the Latter Han (220) was not far off, and the twin activities of evan- gelism and scriptural translation continued into the third century. It is about this time that the young Mahayana movement, afire with missionary zeal, gained sudden momentum, showing signs of extreme vigor particularly in respect of the compilation, revision, and expansion of the Mahayana scriptures now rivaling the traditional, sect-ridden religion that they were denigrating under the name of "Lesser Vehicle." The early and basic Mahayana scriptures, those of the Prajfiaparamita, underwent a striking development, the number and variety of them increased, and the propagation of them was pursued with ever-increasing vigor. C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 363 In the third century in particular, i.e., during the era of the Three Kingdoms, by uncanny coincidence there was taking place in India the activity of the Mahayana giants Nagarjuna and Deva and their successors. At the same time, in the learned world in and around the Wei capital of Lo-yang, the eastern terminus of the east- west traffic, there was emerging a new Confucianism, one that, freeing itself of the restrictions of the philological scholarship of the Han, was resorting to the ideas ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, to shatter in due course the long-established philological scholarship just mentioned, to usher in the vogue of Lao-Chuang thought, and to lay the foundation for the mood of a new age, one in which the so-called "recluse" (yin yi) was held in the highest esteem. There were also established friendly relations with the empire of the Ta-yi.ich-chih (Kushans), which, with its base in Northwest India, acquired an enormous territory bestriding India and Central Asia. Not only did Nagarjuna, commonly regarded as an unexampled thinker and scholar in the Mahayana world, systematize Mahayana doctrine principally on the basis of the Prajiiaparamita scriptures and compose a commentary to the Greater Prajiiaparamita (the Ta chih tu lun),a for he also composed a number of other basic works setting forth the essentials of Mahayana Buddhism and left to the world a disciple such as Aryadeva, a believer and evangelist of such zeal that he martyred himself in the cause of the propagation of the Mahayana. Since even after Deva Mahayana scholars, heirs to the tradition of Nagarjuna, appeared in steady succession, since, further, this sudden missionary movement dedicated to a triumphant and revolutionary faith shed its peculiarly Indian, even its peculiarly monastic, skin to become a world religion with mankind as its object, it comes as no surprise that it advanced into Central Asia, then spread in waves to the Ch'ang-an and Lo-yang regions in China. Since, in addition to all this, the Mahayana was a new Buddhism, responsive to the insistent demands of devout householders, it also proceeded boldly to effect the compilation of new scriptures suited to evangelizing householders. Indeed, if one looks at the Mahayana scriptures translated into Chinese, steadily and on a large scale, during the second and third centuries, one comes to understand clearly that the Buddhists, no longer restricting themselves to the learned clergy but addressing themselves broadly to all classes of householders, nor any longer confining themselves purely to Indians but now concerning themselves with "all living beings," were embarked on a radical program of creating a scriptural corpus and of devoting their efforts to the zealous evangeli- zation of foreigners (chiefly Central Asians and Chinese) as well. The Situation in China. The representatives of this new movement, the Mahayana, in addition to gnawing their way into the base of the traditional Buddhist church, which long before had taken root and become established in many parts of India, now bent their efforts towards an extension of their ecclesiastical lines outside of India as well. Under the circumstances, it was inevitable that Mahayana Buddhism, which had already spread into Northwest India, should break those confines and push its way into the countries along the Silk Road, that highway of east-west communication that at that very time was well on its own way to prosperity. 364 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE This circumstance, in turn, created the momentum that was to launch the Mahayana canon and its evangelists toward the great kingdom of China, the terminus of the Silk Road, where the first steps toward proselytization had already been taken. This was all the truer in view of the fact that the Kushan dynasty, which, as already mentioned, had its base in Northwest India, sent a good-will embassy to Lo-yang, the Wei capital (in 229), an embassy that the latter for its own part welcomed, thus establishing a bond of friendship between the two realms. In addition, the Kushan people who under the Latter Han had settled and become naturalized in China, continued in large numbers to settle between Lo-yang and Tun-huang, where their Chinese-born offspring became active, among them, ap- parently, not a few who succeeded economically as well as in other ways. Since among them there was a large number-possibly a majority-of Buddhists, since as a result there developed within China a body of Mahayana Buddhists of Kushan stock who were at home in the Chinese language, succeeding the Kushan missionary translators of the Latter Han, there eventuated a structure within which it was possible to invite Mahayana missionaries from the west and work with them in close collaboration. Mahayana Buddhism, moving eastward along the Silk Road, proceeded first to convert the principal areas along the Southern Route through Central Asia, areas that included the kingdom of Khotan, which, at least by the time of the Three Kingdoms, was on the closest terms with China. (There are, for instance, two bits of evidence that leave no doubt of this. One is that Chu Shih-hsing, who at Loyang under the Wei studied the Prajiiaparamita in Chinese translation, went to Khotan to obtain a complete text of the original and was actually successful in his quest. The other is that Fa-hsien has left us from the time of the Eastern Tsin a minute record of the conversion of this region to the Mahayana.) It was inevitable that the mo- mentum of this eastward move of Mahayana evangelism should go even further to convert China and to render its scriptures into her language, as the historical fact of this translation testifies. Among the most important of the scriptures to be translated, the Prajiiaparamita scriptures naturally occupied a place, and were, in fact, trans- lated many times. No less understandably, the interests of the Buddhist church under the Three Kingdoms and both Tsin veered towards Mahayana scriptures of the Prajiiaparamita type. The Domestic Background. The second of the domestic reasons mentioned above may be further divided into two parts: First is an event rare in the history of China, the arrival of an era of metaphysical scholarship, a scholarship that attempted to get beyond concrete phenomena to seek unseen, fundamental truths. This radical change in a world of learning, of thought, and of fine art that had its center in Lo-yang, the capital city of both the Wei and the Western Tsin, took over the Buddhism of Wei and Tsin, particularly its Prajiiaparamita scholarship, and quickly brought it to a peak of prosperity and fashion. Second is the political instability, the social chaos of the time, which exposed the C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 365 whole nation to war, uncertainty, even starvation, conditions under which the Chinese clan, until that time the product of developments peculiar to village com- munities solidified by the institutions of the extended family, was no longer able to dwell secure on the old land or even in its own home, but found itself forced in- stead, by threats to life and limb, to flee every which way. All of this naturally strength- ened the wish to seek spiritual props. What comes to mind first under such conditions as these are religious phenomena peculiar to the indigenous Chinese tradition itself, shamanism and the belief in the "superhuman sylph" (shen hsien), adepts (fang shih), and magicians. In addition, from the end of the Han onward there had been a series of such movements, some of them of national proportions. The Rebellion of the Yellow Turbans (huang chin), for one, had organized and enlarged itself on the firm base of traditional Chinese folk- beliefs. They were followed in time by a continuous succession ofleaders of popular cults based on beliefs in magic and "superhuman sylphs," much as in the case of the Yellow Turbans themselves, who not infrequently would drive their people to make war against established authority, war in which there was much loss of life and property, and existence, in general, became very insecure indeed. Popular up- risings of this sort heightened the distrust of, and engendered doubts on the part of, intellectuals in these adepts and in the shrines that tended to become the centers of the cults just mentioned, but, quite to the contrary, presumably stimulated curi- osity and feelings of trust toward the religion and the evangelism of the practition- ers of this newly arrived faith, as well as toward the icons they worshiped and the scriptures they circulated in translation. Also, as it happened, the intellectuals' interest in the Buddhist scriptures, now available in Chinese translation, matched the new tendencies in thought and scholarship much as a lid fits a box. It goes almost without saying that, on the other hand, there was a development of Taoism as a purely Chinese religion, based on the tradition-hallowed belief in adepts, shrines, and "supernatural sylphs" but then purified by the addition of strictly religious elements, and that, once this had happened, it proceeded to cap- ture the faith of all levels of Chinese society. The enrichment of this kind of religious mood in an atmosphere of social insecurity did another thing as well: it aided the acceptance and spread of Buddhism, a foreign religion now streaming into the society, as a religion that could achieve feats of magic through prayer to an immortal, gold-colored, superhuman, even supernatural sylph (i.e., the Buddha). With regard to the tastes and predilections of the aristocratic thinkers and scholars of the Middle Plain under the Western Tsin, a record based on direct experience has been left in the form of the Catalogue of Tsin (Chin chi), a history, in twenty rolls, of the fifty-threeyears during which the Western Tsin held sway, by Kan Pao, who, sin- gled out by Wang Tao early in the Eastern Tsin for the post of chu tso lang, compiled the history just mentioned. Referring to the Disturbance of the Eight Princes and the repeated forays of non-Chinese peoples, he says: Once Emperor Wu had passed on, ... the people, seeing no [evidence of) vir- tue, heard of nothing but disturbances. 366 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Not only that, but he speaks of scholars and thinkers in the following terms: Learned men made Lao and Chuang their standard, rejecting the Six Classics [of Confucianism]. Discoursers regarded emptiness and transparencyb as eloquence, denigrating name and rule.c Those who acted took recklessness and imprecisiond as "consummate expertise" [t'ung], regarding self-restraint and truthfulness as " " narrow. As these remarks indicate, once the "new learning," in the spirit of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu was proclaimed, during Cheng-shih times (240-248) under the Wei, it gained more and more in authority, and the advocacy of it by the learned world be- came more pointed. Needless to say, there was a Confucian reaction to all this. Two Confucian scholars, Fu Hsi.ian and Huang-fu T'ao, were appointed censors (chien kuan) and put to work reforming the political world. Fu Hsi.ian memorialized as follows: In former times the House ofWei filled the court and the outlying territories with talk of emptiness, non-being, and obedience to whim, thus banishing serious dis- cussion from under Heaven. The disease that once wrecked the Ch'in is coming to the fore once again. In these and similar terms he advocated the rectification of the spirit of scholardom and officialdom. These arguments were followed, in due course, by others, put for- ward by his son, Fu Hsien, as well as by Liu Sung and others, memorializing the need to rectify the arbiters of politics and morality. However, the scholars and aristocrats, so we are told, all slandered them as "common clerks," and, in spite of them, persons who based themselves on emptiness and vacuity, who adulated the notion of mindlessness, all gained a reputation for gravity within the Four Seas. 1 Under the Western Tsin, during the reign of Emperor Hui (r. 290-306), P'ei, react- ing with hostility to the fact that the mood of the times was one in which the "notions of emptiness and non-being" (hsu wu chih li) were held in high esteem, published his famous Treatise Exalting Being (Ch'ung yu lun), in which he attempted to right the "wrongs of empty and reckless (talk)" (hsu tan chih pi), only to have it attacked by his contemporaries (c the chapter on letters and learning in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks). 2 In addition to all this, the latter half of the era of the Western Tsin saw the rise of the study of Chuang-tzu and the appearance of many commentaries to that text, most significantly that of Kuo Hsiang, which, pulling all the older commentaries together, spread speedily as a new and authoritative work on the interpretation of Chuang-tzu. It is worthy of comment that this interpretation bears a close re- semblance to the Mahayana of the Prajfiaparamita type. In this way, the central body of scholars during the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, having already moved forward to a Lao-Chuang preoccupation rare in the history C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 367 of Chinese learning, then moved into Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, the cultural centers of the Eastern Tsin, as part of a much more general move, and there contin- ued to develop and become fashionable almost as if there had been no interruption. Scholars and thinkers being of the type just described, once the "Doctrine of the Sage from the West," steadily more available in their own language since Han and Wei times, was being further subjected to translation and commentary by inter- preters and exegetes who had recourse to Lao-Chuang ideas, it is only natural that they should read and study it personally, with more of a feeling of affmity than ever. Continued Translation of Prajfiaparamita Scriptures. The early Mahayana scriptures translated in Han and Wei are very varied in content, but at the base of them all is a doctrine of the Prajfiaparamita type, so that it would be safe to say that a doctrine whose ideal, most particularly stressed in the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, is arrival at the true wisdom of emptiness (Sanyata, k'ung) that is the prisoner of nothing, wherein one has no fixed concepts, be they of existence or of non-existence, about anything, whether matter or mind. The translators for their own part appear to have done their best to make these things intelligible to the Chinese. For instance, the Han-Wei translation of the Sukhiivativyuha, mentioned above, tells of the beautifully adorned world that is the paradise (sukhavati lokadhiitub) of the Buddha Amita and urges rebirth in that "Pure Land" (ching i'u). The translator, however, sandwiches in a passage that exists neither in the Sanskrit nor in the T'ang translation, hence must be presumed not to have been in the original work. It is a passage smacking very much of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, one which says that a person reborn in that Pure Land shall gain "a body which is, of itself, free of being or indeed of anything, limbs without limits [tzu jan hsii wu chih shen wu chi chih t'i], through which he shall attain to the Way of immortality and absolute self-mastery [pu ssu tzu tsai chih tao]." If rephrased in the style of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, it might be expressed in this way: "He becomes a Perfect Man [ chih jen), a Saint [sheng jen], one who has attained to the state of the self-so [tzu jan] =non-being [wtt] = the Way [tao]. In other words, the Buddha spoken of by the Buddhists and the Per- fect Man or Saint indicated in the ideas of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu both attain to the same realm." Whether in such cases as this one the translator of the Sukhavativyuha was con- sciously adding something, or whether he was expanding the scriptural text with a gloss that would facilitate his readers' understanding by borrowing the concept of the "Perfect Man" from Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, an ideal common to the Chinese of the time, in either case there can be little doubt that the expression of an ideal was borrowed from those two in order thereby to make the goal of evangelism more easily attainable. As we have already indicated, Chih Tun, himself a Prajfia- paramita scholar, evidently understood the land of Amita as a sort of ideal land in the spirit of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, or as an ideal realm inhabited by "superhuman sylphs," for he speaks in these terms: "There are no institutions of kingship nor of succession of ranks and titles. The Sovereign Lord is the Buddha; the body of regulations, the Three Vehicles. Men and women emerge miraculously from the 368 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE calyx of a 'lotus, there being none of the defilement of fetus and gestation. The palaces and halls all take shape of themselves [tzu jan], made of the Seven Jewels .... The (first) five perfections ride on open space and enter into Non-Being, Prajfia by pushing her wisdom emerges from the Obscure. Hereupon a multitude of subtleties open out wide." 3 Whatever else may be said, the first mission of the Mahayana translator mission- aries who risked their lives to cross the desert was advertisement of the realm of the intuitive perception of the Mahayana notion of "emptiness" in which they them- selves worshipfully believed. The source of the most straightforward exposition, in the most forceful terms, of the notion of Emptiness is the corpus ofPrajfiaparamita scriptures, whose content, as it happened, bore a closer resemblance to Taoistic ideas than to any other form of ancient Chinese thought. Just then, beginning with Wei and Tsin, came an age in which one of these Taoistic notions, that of "non-being" (wu), carried everything before it, an age in which, furthermore, a series of internal wars and the accompanying social insecurity left no choice but to seek spiritual props, in short, an age most peculiarly favorable to the dissemination of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures. The very intellectuals who were due to become the rulers of their society held in the highest esteem the "dark learn- ing" of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the quasi-religious metaphysics that attempted to transcend the concern with visible, concrete reality in the quest for, and with the aim of embodying, the unseen " Way" believed by them to exist eternally in the background of those visible realities as their root and source. They denigrated as common and vulgar the ethical life and the concrete duties of government, both obedient to the order of "propriety" (li), based on Confucianism and long in force. The scholarly habits and attitude toward life that combined the sentiments just mentioned with a positive veneration for the discipline of the recluse led to a fasci- nated interest both in the Buddhist scriptures, the newly imported repositories of a foreign system of thought, and in the sarpgha, whose members left their families and lived a life of religious self-denial. As a result, an increasing number of these Chinese concerned themselves with Buddhism, came to respect it, took to reading and studying its literature listening to expositions of its doctrine, and eventually became devout believers. In the light of the continued activities of the zealous and and distinguished leaders of the sarpgha, this development was only to be expected. Continuous Stream of Prajiiiipiiramitii Translations. We shall now proceed to show how a whole series of Prajfiaparamita translations was made and published in the period ranging from the Latter Han through the Three Kingdoms into the Tsin era, first Western, then Eastern. (1) Tao hsing po-jo ching. 10 rolls. 30 chapters. Translated under the Latter Han, in Kuang-ho 2 (179), by (Chih Lou-chia-ch'an). prajiiii- piiramitii sutra. The Sanskrit text, brought to China by the Indian monk Chu Shuo- fo (alternately mentioned as Chu Fo-shuo), was tr.anslated by the Yiieh-chih monk with the aid of such Chinese collaborators as Meng Fu and Chang Lien. In the present scripture, among others, the word tathatii, which, if it were translated C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 369 literally, one might expect to encounter in a form such as ju, appears, as already mentioned above, in the form pen wu ("rien fancier"), a word with the smack of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu about it, and from which the original could never be deduced. The likelihood is that, on the advice of their Chinese collaborators, who presumably told them that the word, if literally translated, would simply not be understood, they arrived at pen wu, giving a free Chinese translation by resort to the ideas of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu and separating themselves radically from the original term. In the Buddhist church of Wei and Tsin this version was known as the Lesser Prajfia (hsiao p'in po-jo). There is another tradition that says that Chu Fo-shuo was the translator as well as the conveyor. For further reference, c Tao-an's preface (Tao hsing ching hsu) and Chu Shih- hsing's biography, both in the Ch'u san tsang chi chi. (2) Taming tu wu chi ching. 6 rolls. 30 chapters. Translated under the Wu, during Huang-wu (222-228), by Chih Ch'ien. Partial translation of the Paiicavif'!lsatisiihas- rikaprajiiiipiiramitiisutra. Chih Ch'ien was a member of school in the line Liang-Chih Ch'ien. In other words, he was heir to the Yiieh- chih Buddhist tradition, but at the same time he was a native of Honan, perfectly at home in the Chinese language and the recipient of a thoroughly Chinese education. He was a lay Buddhist, head of a community of well-to-do, influential Yiieh-chih settled and naturalized in China. What this means is that, even in the chaos that marked the end of the Han, Buddhism in the tradition (Mahayana), studied and propagated by Buddhists who, like him were of Yiieh-chih stock, was transmitted at the very least to communities clustered around the culturally sinicized sons and grandsons of Yiieh-chih immigrants settled in the Lo-yang region, where it was endowed with an opportunity to be propagated and otherwise to spread throughout the Chinese cultural heartland as a whole-a fact that must never be ignored in any consideration of the propagation and expansion of Buddhism in late Han. Now the present translation, made by Chih Ch'ien, grandson in the Dharma, so to speak, is a retranslation which converts into pure Chinese, in order to make them intelligible to Chinese readers, as many as possible of the locu- tions given by in phonetic transcription because he was not sufficiently at home in the Chinese language to translate them. (Cf. Chih Min-tu's colophon to the combined Suraf'!lgama translation, Ho Slwu-leng-yen ching chi.) Also, the fact that the introductory chapter is equipped with a commentary, granted that the author of the commentary is unidentified, is noteworthy as presumable proof that the Prajfiaparamita was actually being studied in Wei and Tsin times. (3) Kuang tsan po-jo-po-lo-mi ching. 10 rolls. 27 chapters. Translated under the Tsin, in T'ai-k'ang 7 (286) by Chu Fa-hu). See (2). The present work is regarded as a variant translation of the original from which the next entry, the Fang kuang po-jo ching, was made. However, the translation was done in North China, where, as we have already had occasion to say in connection with the wars and other upheavals were so violent that a complete text never managed to circulate in the Middle Plain, to say nothing of China south 370 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE of the Yangtze. Instead, it was more or less confined to the territory of Liang-chou in Kansu, where it became, in effect, a scripture of the Western marches. In the ninety-first year after the translation, in 367, it was delivered into the hands of Tao- an, who at Hsiang-yang, in the territories of the Eastern Tsin, was wholly occupied with the study and exposition of the Fang kuang po-jo ching. Tao-an worked very hard at a comparative study of the present text and the Fang kuang, but eventually he was taken volens nolens to Ch'ang-an. Thus the Kuang tsan never contrived to become a cardinal text for Prajfiaparamita study in the Lo-yang area under the Wei and the Western Tsin or even in the Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi region under the rule of the Eastern Tsin, where, after the southward move, Prajfiaparamita study . became more intensive yet. On the contrary, Prajfiaparamita study on the part of the core of the intellectual aristocracy from the latter half of the Western Tsin into the Eastern Tsin, as well as for those members of the sarp.gha with whom they associated, was concentrated on two scriptural texts in Chinese translation, the Tao hsing mentioned above (1) and the Fang kuang, which is the next entry. (4) Fang kuang po-jo-po-lo-mi ching (known in Wei and Tsin times under the alternate names of Ta p'in po-jo ching and Fang kuang ching). 20 rolls. Paficavil'!"satisii- hasrikiiprajfiiipiirarnitiisutra. This translation has already been described above, but we will repeat ourselves briefly here because of the enormous influence it exerted over the Chinese Buddhist world in particular and the world of Chinese thought in general. Translated in 291 by Wu-ch'a-lo (Wu-lo-ch'a?) and Chu Shu-Ian, it was revised and put into final form by the latter. It was 282, already under the Western Tsin, that Chu Shih-hsing, who as early as Wei times had been busying himself with the study of the Tao hsing at Lo-yang, and who, saddened by the incomplete text of the translation and by the imprecision of its doctrinal expression, undertook the difficult journey to Khotan in order to get a complete text (in 260), having got it, gave it into the charge of his disciple Fu-ju-t'an to take back to Lo-yang. For some reason or other, it tarried at Lo-yang three years; then moved to Hsii-ch'ang, where it spent two years more; next was translated at the Monastery South of the River (shui nan ssu), situated at Ts'ang-yiian on the border of Ch'en-liu, with the collaboration of W u-ch' a-lo and Chu Shu-lan and others and with the support and encouragement of assorted worthies; finally, so we are told, was revised and put into final form by Chu Fa-chi and Chu Shu-lan at the Monastery North of the River (shui pei ssu) over a period of time ranging between 301 and 303. This was the Greater Prajfiaparamita so eagerly awaited by the Buddhist community centered in Lo-yang after a Chinese Prajfiaparamita scholar of that same city went in irritation to the west to obtain a complete text and the same text was first translated, then carefully revised by Chu Shu-Ian, an Indian born in Lo-yang, naturalized in China and thoroughly at home in the Chinese language. Since, in addition to this, it was a time at which Lao- Chuang philosophy was becoming progressively more fashionable, as were dis- courses on the metaphysical notion of "fundamental non-being" (pen wu, "rien fancier"), the scripture could be spoken of by Tao-an in the following terms, as we have already stated: "Next the Fang kuang came out and circulated much in the C :THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 371 capital area, where gentlemen residing at home, who had put their minds to rest, eagerly came to propagate it. Even from the Buddhist community at Chung-shan, the prince of Chung-shan sent a man to copy it on white silk, then welcomed this scripture in a ceremony characterized by extreme veneration." 4 (5) Mo-ho-po-lo-jo-po-lo-mi ching ch' ao. 5 rolls. prajfziipiiramitii sutra. Since Tao-an says in his preface that an original brought into China under the former Ch'in, in Chien-yiian 18 (383), was translated by the Indian srama1,1as Dharma- priya and Fo-hu this presumably means that Tao-an, who had been brought more or less by force to Fu Ch'ien's Ch'ang-an, was in a position to read it, but that the world ofPrajfiaparamita scholarship of the Eastern Tsin, situated in Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi, had no direct access to it. (6) Mo-ho-po-jo-po-lo-mi ching. 27 rolls, as well as its commentary in 100 rolls, entitled Ta chih tu lun and ascribed to Nagarjuna. Both done under the Latter Ch'in (in 404-405) by Kumarajiva. Pafzcavif!15atisiihasrikii prajfziipiiramitiisutra. This was the work of a fully equipped translation project, sponsored by the king as an official State undertaking and supported by the participation of over five hundred learned Chinese. On the other hand, the work both on the scripture and on the treatise, which took place after Tao-an's death, was sent toward the end of the Tsin to Hui- yiian on Mount Lu, who, however, was himself already at an advanced age. The actual propagation of Mahayana of the sunyaviida variety, as translated by Kuma- raj iva, in the Chien-k'ang region did not take place until the Tsin was near its end, and its real florescence did not begin until the Sung, early in the Six Dynasties. The influence of these two works, from the period of north-south division onward, as well as its dominant influence, was extremely great, but at this point in our discus- sions, where we are dealing with Prajfiaparamita scholarship in Wei and Tsin, a consideration of that influence would be a bit out of place. In addition to the above, Ch'u san tsang chi chi 2 lists the following titles in its Catalogue of Recently Collected Scriptures of Unusual Provenance (Hsin chi yi ch'u chu ching lu): (1) Tao hsing p'in ching. 10 rolls. Translated by Chih Ch'ien (2) Ku p'in Yi jih shuo po-jo ching. 1 roll. Translated by Chih Ch'ien.h (3) Tao hsing ching. 1 roll. Translated by Chu Fo-shuo. The Tao hsing is a Prajfia digesti (4) The Fang kuang ching. 20 rolls. Edited by Chu Shih,...hsing. Another name for it is the Former "Lesser Scripture" (Chiu hsiao p'in)i (Pafzcavif!15atis.p.p.). (5) The Hsiao p'in ching. 7 rolls. Retranslated by (6) Mo-ho-po-jo-po-lo-mi tao hsing ching. 2 rolls. Abridged by Wei Shih-tu digest). (7) Mo-ho-po-lo-jo-po-lo-mi ching. 5 rolls. Translated by Dharmapriya. Another name for it is the Ch'ang-an Scripture (Ch'ang an p'in ching; (8) Ta p'in. 24 rolls. Translated by Kumarajiva (Pafzcavif!'satis.p.p.). (9) Hsiao p'in. 7 rolls. Translated by Kumarajiva The list thus catalogues nine scriptures translated by seven men, the last of whol!). 372 BUDDillSM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE was Kumarajiva. Granted a certain number of factual errors in the translation notices, one is still able to deduce from them the enthusiastic manner in which the Prajfiapar- amita scriptures then circulating in India and Central Asia were imported into a China rife with Lao-Chuang philosophy, as well as the amount of attention they attracted. In his Vinaya preface (Pi-nai-yeh hsu), Tao-an makes the following unequivocal statement: The way the scriptures came into the land of Ch'in is that translations would be made of whatever the Indian sramal).as happened to bring with them. As it chanced, those of the Vaipulya group were the most numerous. [In general, the word vaipulya refers to the Mahayana corpus as a whole, but in Tao-an's case it would be safe to say that the term specifically indicated the early Mahayana, the Prajfiaparamita scriptures in particular.] In this country [China] the doctrines of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu are current, doctrines resembling the Vaipulya scriptures, doctrine of "all-inclusive forgetfulness" [chien wang].k This is what made it easy to adapt the Vaipulya scriptures to the manners of our own learned community. 5 As can be seen from the above statement, the circulation of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures in the heartland of the Wei-Tsin civilization, in view of the fashionable study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, is exactly what one would have expected, in terms both of the foreign and of the domestic situation, and that in fact is what did happen. Whatever else may be said, under the Wei and Tsin, when the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu was at its height, of all of the freshly translated Buddhist scriptures it was those of the early Indian Mahayana that attracted the interest of China's intellectuals, and among them it was on the most important of them, those of the Prajfiaparamita corpus, that the principal interest and the most serious study were concentrated. From the ({Lesser Prajfiii" to the "Greater Prajfiii." China's first interest in the Prajfia- paramita was directed, naturally enough, to the first Chinese translation, Loka- Tao hsing po-jo ching (based on the next to the Taming tu ching, a translation made by Chih Ch'ien, his countryman and a member of his own school, of the same text, 1 and the two were studied in unison. Following that, translation, the Kuang tsan po-jo,m long confined to the Kansu area, gained no circulation either in Ch'ang-an or in Lo-yang, thus had no currency in the Buddhist community of the Eastern Tsin, which flourished in the cultural centers of Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi after the southward move of Buddhist intel- lectuals from the Middle Plain. On the other hand, as we have already indicated, the Fang kuang po-jo ching (based on the Paficavii'J'I.Satis.p.p.), sent by Chu Shih-hsing from Khotan and translated in Lo-yang, moved southward together with that city's intellectuals, there to become a most particular object of reading and study. Tao-an, engaged quite early in the study of the so-called Lesser Prajfia (hsiao p'in po-jo) in the form of the Han translation and of its alternate version, Chih Ch'ien's Taming tu ching,n was distressed by the opacity of the text. Late in his life, when he was settled in Hsiang-yang, he became engrossed, as we have already said, in the C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 373 Fang kuang po-jo, the Paficavil?"satis.p.p. translation recently made under the Western Tsin. Later yet, when he procured a copy Kuang tsan po-jo, an alter- nate version of the same text, 0 he proceeded, simultaneously surprised and delighted, to a comparative study of the two. In the Chien pei ching shu hsu, a Dasabhumika preface presumed to be his work, one reads the following comments on the progress ofPrajiiaparamita study in the Chinese Buddhist church of the time: Now the samadhi scriptures of non-birth equal in all directions are of many varieties. This gentleman has produced works which are in truth a mysterious ladder for the beings. The appearance of the (Prajiiaparamita in the) Larger [Number of] Chapters [Ta p'in, i.e., Paficavil?"satis.p.p.] took place several decades ago, yet our honored predecessors scarcely studied it at all. ... The one in the Larger Number of Chapters has, since recent times, been the object of repeated study and comment, and there is none who does not concern himself with it. The same cannot be said for its words and phrases, of whose profundity one is increasingly aware. Yet one's portion of talent has its limits, thought and inquiry have their confines; the manifestations of obscure truths are not a thing that a dwarfed intellect can encompass. In spite of all this, one wishes to study it. One hopes that by studying it exhaustively throughout one's life one may eke out [one's meager intellect). 6 Lao-Chuang Scholarship, Chinese Translation, and the Proliferation of Views. One may well imagine what emotions filled the aged Tao-an now that he was in a posi- tion to study the Prajiiaparamita equipped with the two Paficavi1J15atis.p.p. translations that he had just acquired. Thanks to the comparison of the Fang kuang and the Kuang tsan, the translations just mentioned, with the older texts, of the in particular, Prajiiaparamita study in China, beginning with Tao-an in the middle of the Eastern Tsin and extending well into the beginning of north-south division, flourished more and more. Needless to say, this was aided in large part by the vogue, even the triumph, of the cultivated preference of China's intellectuals, from Wei and Tsin onwards, for "dark learning," for the study of Chuang-tzu in particular. There can, however, be no denying that it was not an easy matter for the real meaning of such Indian ideas as emptiness (the inaccessibility of anything to thought- construction), or the absence of substantial entity in a pattern in which every devel- opment is dependent on every other, to be clearly understood in a context dominated by the thought-processes of the Chinese heirs to a tradition that attached great weight to concrete reality. Among the earnest and distinguished Prajiiaparamita scholars in the Chinese Bud- dhist community there were, to be sure, a Chih Tun and a Tao-an, who, by devot- ing the whole of their lives to a comparative study of the Vaipulya scriptures, were able to come close to the early Mahayana notion of emptiness. Generally speaking, however, all were ignorant of the original language, and for the Chinese intellectual who, steeped in Lao-Chuang study, was now showing an interest in Buddhism, par- ticularly for the aristocratic donors whose sponsorship was vital for the sarp.gha, as 374 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE long as they had to rely exclusively on the Prajiiaparamita in Chinese translation, there was scarcely any choice but to approach it through the ideas of"dark learning" ascribed to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. Under the circumstances, it is only natural that interpretations and conflicting opinions, both purely Chinese in character, should make their appearance in rather rapid succession. At the same time, the conflicting opinions just mentioned could not help being directed toward some sort of uniform interpretation under the authority ofKumarajiva, who, invited to Ch'ang-an when the latter was the capital of the kingdom of Ch'in ruled over by the Yao family, retranslated the Prajiiaparamita as well as Nagarjuna's minute commentary to itu and commented orally on the meanings of the words. Niigiirjuna and Kumiirajiva Regularize Prajniipiiramita Scholarship. Simply stated, scarcely had Chinese intellectuals begun to study the Prajiiaparamita, scarcely had the first translations appeared, when the Latter Han experienced first chaos, then collapse. Yet as early as the era of the Three Kingdoms the study of the translated during the Latter Han, began, then the study shifted to the Fang kuang (Pafzcavif!!Satis.p.p.), the next step was a comparative study of the different trans- lations, and the final step was the inevitable clash of interpretations. At that point there took place, under the leadership of a man whose renown had reached Ch'ang-an before he did himself, viz., Kumarajiva, and his fellows, much exegesis and commentary for the benefit of those Chinese Prajiiaparamita scholars whose many questions on the subject were accompanied by a proliferation of conflicting views. Kumarajiva, welcomed into Ch'ang-an under the rule of the Latter Ch'in, became the central personality in a State-sponsored translation project in which, in the presence of a large number of the Chinese Prajiiaparamita scholars just mentioned and with the aid of a quite considerable number of learned Chinese collaborators, he revised the older Prajiiaparamita translations. This same Kumarajiva, by presenting in Chinese, supported by his own scholarly authority as a Prajiiaparamita specialist, a minute commentary (the Ta chih tu fun, in one hundred rolls) ascribed to Nagarjuna, the man honored as the author of the greatest of the Indian Prajiiaparamita treatises (such as the Middle Treatise and the Treatise of the Twelve Divisions),v could only enhance the authority ofPrajiiaparamita scholarship in general. In view of this, Chinese Prajiiaparamita scholarship, marked by a succession of conflicting opinions and racked by a criss-crossing battle of disputations that extended through both Western and Eastern Tsin, could not help acquiring a new focus in the form of the learned contributions of Kumarajiva. In addition to all this, Kumarajiva's work of translation, being supported by the State, attracted to it many Buddhist scholars from both the north and the south of China and contrived in this way to reeducate the whole country in a unified fashion in the Prajiiaparamita discipline. Then many outstanding scholars trained in the new PrajfHiparamita discipline that was heir to a tradition extending from Nagarjuna to Kumarajiva, armed now with the authority of two great teachers, took to propagat- ing the doctrine south of the Yangtze, to say nothing of North China. Once things had proceeded this far, the welter of learned theories which, based on the older C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 375 translations, had in the course of the years become incredibly entangled through the intrusion ofLao-Chuang ideas and of interpretations based on Chinese versions with- out the corrective aid of the originals had no choice but to fall in line with Kumara- jiva's Prajiiaparamita scholarship and to part company with Lao-tzu and with Chuang-tzu. This was true from the beginning of north-south division. It is now our intention to have a general look at how the Prajfiaparamita scholar- ship of Wei and Tsin, intertwined as it was with the philosophy of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, proceeded to churn out its welter of theories until China's Prajfiapar- amita study was brought into line by Kumarajiva. We mean, however, to pay some attention to the fact that this very clash of doctrinal interpretations was the vehicle for the rapid dissemination among the Chinese intellectual aristocracy, at a time when "pure talk" and "dark learning" were in vogue, of a Mahayana Buddhism based principally on Prajfiaparamita scriptures which, while read only in Chinese translation, were nonetheless of foreign provenance. The First Chinese Prajiiaparamita Scholars. Let us now list some of the persons who, ending with Tao-an in Eastern Tsin, studied translations of the p.p. (Tao hsing po-jo) and that of the Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. made by Chu Shu-Ian and his fellows (Fang kuang po-jo). (1) Chu Shih-hsing of Lo-yang (Wei). Studies but, regretting its in- clarities, goes to Khotan and spends some time studying there, his purpose being to find a good and complete text. Eventually obtains an original Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. which he sends back to China, in the face of much Hinayanist opposition, with a disciple. (2) Wei Shih-tu (Western Tsin). Devout lay Buddhist of Chi-chiin in Ssu-chou, translates Tao hsing po-jo ching p. p ). in 2 rolls. (Biography appended to that of Po Fa-yuan in roll 1, Lives of Eminent Monks.) (3) Chih Hsiao-lung of Huai-yang. Constantly savored the regarding it as the "pivot of the mind" (hsin yao). When Chu Shu-Ian's Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. made its appearance, read it in a little more than ten days, then proceeded to give readings and lecture on it. (C Lives of Eminent Monks, roll 1.) (4) K'ang Seng-yiian. Of Central Asian ancestry but born in Ch'ang-an, propa- gated both Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. and in Chinese translation. (Cf. ibid.) (5) Chu Ch'ien, courtesy name Fa-shen. Born to the Wang clan of Lang-yeh, gave readings of the Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. and the Saddharmapu7J4arrka in the Lo-yang region. Sent into southward flight by the Yung-chia disturbances, continued to give readings of the former, also of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. (C ibid., roll 4.) (6) Chu Fa-yiin. Well versed in the Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. (C [5].) (7) Chih Tun, courtesy name Tao-lin. Gave readings of the and of the Vimalakrrtinirdea. Author also of a preface to comparative selections from the Paiicavii'J'Isatis.p.p. and the (Ta hsiao p'in tui pi yao ch'ao hsu, extant), as well as of notes to the first chapter of Chuang tzu and of the Essay on Disporting Oneself in the Obscure [Realm Where Emptiness Is] Identical with Visible Matter (Chi se yu hsiian lun; biography ibid., ro114). 376 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE (8) Yi.i Fa-k'ai. Disciple to Yi.i Fa-lan. Gave frequent readings of Paficavilrrsatis. p.p. and SaddharmaputJ4arika during reign of Emperor Ai (r. 362-365; c ibid.). (9) Chu Fa-t' ai. Colleague of Tao-an's, originally from Tung-kuan. Moving southward, attacks "doctrine of absence of mind" (hsin wu yi) propagated by Tao- heng and others and very fashionable in Ching-chou area. Goes to Chien-k'ang, where he gives reading of Paficavilrrsatis.p.p. to Emperor Chien-wen. (10) Chu Seng-fu. Flees south at end of Western Tsin, takes up residence at W a-kuan-ssu, studies and produces commentaries to ~ { a s . p. p. and Paficavitpsatis. p. p. (11) Shih Tao-an. Gives Prajfiaparamita readings ca. 364 in monastery on Mount Hengin T'ai-hang range. Two brothers, Hui-yi.ian and Hui-ch'ih, impelled thereby to join order. Tao-an devoted the latter half of his life to the study and propagation of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, toward the end of his life giving regular readings twice yearly on the Paficavitp.Satis.p.p. He is credited with the following works: "Moderate Commentary to the Kuang tsan" (Kuang tsan che chung chieh), 1 roll. "Summary Commentary to the Kuang tsan" (Kuang tsan ch'ao chith), 1 roll. "Standard for Demolishing Doubts concerning the Paficavitp.Satis.p.p. (Fang kuang po-jo che yi chun), 1 roll. "Summary of the Demolition of Doubts" (che yi liieh), 2 rolls. "Commentary to the Beginning and the End" ("Commentary to Everything from Beginning to End"? Ch'i chin chieh), 1 roll. "Collection of Conflicting Comments to the AHas.p.p. (Tao hsing po-jo chi yi chu), 1 roll. (The above are all lost.) "Preface to the A ~ { a s . p . p . (Tao hsing ching hsii). "Preface to a Combined Summary Commentary to the Fang kuang and the Kuang tsan" (Ho Fang kuang Kuang tsan liieh chieh hsii). "Preface to a Digest of the Mahiiprajfiiipiiramitii Scripture" (Mo-ho-po-lo-jo-po-lo-mi ching ch' ao hsii). (The above are extant.)w From the above it is evident that in Tao-an's school there were many Prajfiapar- amita scholars, who were also propagators of those same scriptures. Shih Tao-li, for instance, gave readings of the Paficavitpsatis.p.p. and also made a close study of the Three Mysteries, viz., Chuang-tzu, Lao-tzu, and the Canon of Changes, as of some- thing that closely corresponded to the truths of Buddhism. 7 It is said of Hui-yi.ian that he preached the doctrine of Real Marks (shih hsiang yi) and that, by preaching on the meaning of Chuang-tzu, he brought his opponents round to his own point of view. This allegation, apart from what it tells us about Hui-yi.ian himself, is interesting for the insight it gives us into the character ofPrajfiaparamita scholarship under the Tsin. In sum, then, Chinese Prajfiaparamita scholarship by resort to translated texts came to its peak late in Tao-an's life. However, for Prajfiaparamita scholarship, up to Tao-an's time, to be accessible to the Chinese, the mediation of the ideas ofLao- tzu and Chuang-tzu was a necessity. This was particularly true in the case of the C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 377 intellectual layman, who was both fond of and thoroughly versed in the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, who at the same time enjoyed listening to public readings of the Prajfiaparamita on the part of the sarp.gha, and who understood the Prajfiapar- amita doctrine of emptiness only with reference to the several interpretations mentioned above and in the light ofhis own secular knowledge. The product was, so to speak, a ko yi Buddhism consisting of an interpretation of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures in the light of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, one that of necessity removed itself from the meanings of the words contained in the original scriptures. On the other hand, it won a secure place in the hearts of many Chinese as a sort of specifi- cally Chinese Prajfiaparamita study based on scriptures now written in Chinese. As such, it liberated a host of theories that were to guide that community's spiritual life-at the very least, theories typical of persons who enjoy "dark learning" and "pure talk." This in turn made early Mahayana scriptures such as the Prajfiaparamita into vehicles of specifically Chinese Buddhist thought, thought that was no longer Indian because its translated sources were not Indian but Chinese, and thus assured them a rapid spread throughout the intellectual society of the Tsin. It was Tao-an who took due account of the fact that this sort of study was not bringing anyone closer to a real understanding of Indian Buddhism, who pursued a broad and comparative study of many Buddhist scriptures in many different translations with the intention of breaking out of these confines, and who exerted him.self for the purpose of arriving at the genuine meaning of prajfia. These exer- tions are praised in the following terms in a Pancavi'!'satis.p.p. preface (Ta p'in ching hsu) by Shih Seng-jui, who was Tao-an's pupil to begin with, and who after the latter's death studied Prajfiaparamita directly under the guidance of Kumarajiva: My late master, the upadhyaya [Tao-]an, by chiseling through the rough paths opened up a wagon road, with a finger [that points to the] Obscure marked that which is Empty by nature. Leaving the misleading tracks, he arrived directly [at the desired goal]. 8 To judge by these statements, Tao-an would appear to have arrived more or less at a genuine understanding of what prajnii means. Yet, by looking at the rather numerous writings he has left behind, one is virtually compelled to conclude that his comments on the Buddhist scriptures were still aiding his listeners and readers by recourse to the ideas of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu or, at the very least, to their vocabulary, and, even at the peak of his effort to shake off the heritage of ko yi, it could never be said that either the times or the conditions were an encouragement to work free of it completely. The same Seng-jui says this in his preface to a com- mentary to the P'i-mo-lo-chieh-t'i Scripture, i.e., Kumarajiva's translation of the Vimalakirtinirdea: Since the Wind of Wisdom fanned eastward and the Word of the Dharma poured hither in song [i.e., since Buddhism's arrival in Chinese translation], there can be no doubt that many readings of the translated scriptures have been given, 378 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE yet the method pursued in these readings was to resort to the vocabulary of the Chinese classics, the method known as ko yi, with results that were distorted and in violation of the original meaning. The much-touted Prajfiaparamita theories of the Six Schools did flourish, to be sure, but every one of them was the arbitrary view of its proponent, totally divorced from the genuine doctrinal content of Indian Buddhism-in short, one-sided interpretations wholly out of touch with the original sense. Viewed from the vantage point of the present, it is only the doctrine of emptiness by nature [hsing k'ung chih tsung], arrived at by our master, Tao-an, that came at all close to grasping the reality of the Prajfiapar- amita scriptures . . .. In the scriptures as translated in China hitherto, there are very few passages that say hsing k'ung ["empty by nature," svabhavasanya] in so many words, thus indicating that the cognizing spirit [shih shen] is devoid of any substantial entity; on the contrary, most of these write unequivocally of an [eternally] existing spirit [ts'un shen]. The Middle Treatise [Chung lun, Madhya- makasiistra], the Hundredfold Treatise [po lun, Satakasiistra?], and the Treatise of the Twelvefold Division [Shih erh men lun, Dviidasanikiiyasiistra? all three translated by not yet having made their way to these parts, who but a wise saint of penetrating, mirrorlike vision could have put [these errors] right? This, indeed, is why the late master [Tao-an] would stop his writing and sigh into the distance, thinking to be reborn in the presence of the bodhisattva Maitreya and there to resolve his doubts. 9 This is a respectful statement, replete with profound understanding and sympathy both, recalling the evidences of the bitter exertions carried out on behalf ofPrajfia- paramita scholarship by the master Tao-an, who had died without having the author's good fortune to be instructed by Kumarajiva in the Mahayana doctrine of emp- tiness as propounded by Nagarjuna and other Indian patriarchs. The author goes on to state that, of all the conflicting opinions on Prajfiaparamita study produced by the Six Schools, his late master, Tao-an, by sparing himself no hardship in his profound studies, had established a "doctrine of emptiness by nature" that came closest to a correct understanding of the original sense of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures as taught by Kumarajiva. Yet, he concludes, Chinese Prajfiaparamita scholarship before coming under Kumarajiva's leadership, based as it was on translations rather far re- moved from the originals and making use of a fundamentally different vocabulary, unable as it also was to throw off the tendency to propound the doctrine with ref- erence to the ideas ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, was unable to arrive at a perfectly accurate understanding of the meaning of the Prajfiaparamita originals. This could eventuate in nothing other than a set of conflicting doctrines. In other words, he tells us frankly, there was no sidestepping the "era of Prajfiaparamita study by resort to ko yi." What the above means is that China's Prajfiaparamita scholarship, until it was set straight under Kumarajiva's leadership, was attacked by Seng-jui as consisting of theories which, thanks to ". . . ko yi, . . . were distorted and in violation of the C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 379 original meaning. The . . . Six Schools did flourish, . . . one-sided interpretations wholly out of touch with the original sense." By the "Six Schools," which existed until Prajfiaparamita scholarship was revolutionized, are meant the assorted schools in the Buddhist intellectual community of the Eastern Tsin, schools in which the Prajfiaparamita was read and which, for practical purposes, were roughly divided into six groups. T' an-chi, a monk of the Chuang-yen-ssu in Chien-k' ang under the Liu-Sung, composed the Treatise on the Six Schools and the Seven Theories (Liu chia ch'i tsung lun), in which he classified the various Prajfiaparamita theories and described each of them briefly. On the basis of a citation appearing in Pao-ch'ang' s Sequel to the Dharma Treatise (Hsii fa lun), written in Liang times, a T'ang monk, Ytian- k' ang, describes them himself in his commentary to the essays of Seng-chao (Chao lun su) . 10 These theories undoubtedly enjoyed their principal currency in the learned circles of the Eastern Tsin. Yet it bears notice that Seng-chao, who studied directly under Kumarajiva's tutelage, had earlier, presumably under the latter' s guidance, singled out for adverse comment three theories, those of the non-existence of mind (hsin wu shuo), of (emptiness) identical with visible matter (chi se shuo), and of funda- mental (original?) non-being (pen wu shuo), as being typical, saying in his Essay on the Emptiness of the Unreal (Pu chen k'ung lun, later incorporated into a collection going by the name of Chao lun), "Recently the theories concerning the basic doctrine of Prajfiaparamita, all at odds with one another, achieve no unity. " 11 The theory of the non-existence of mind [hsin wu shuo] holds that[, having, within the mind, annihilated all things,] one is mindless with regard to things, but that things are by no means non-existent. The advantage of this theory lies in its pacifi- cation of the spirit, its disadvantage that it loses sight of the emptiness [vacuity] of things. The theory of the identity of emptiness to visible matter [chi se yi] makes it clear that, since things endowed with visible form [se, rupa] do not take shape of themselves, they are not "visible matter" in and of themselves, however much they may be called by that name. All this theory does, however, is to explain that visible matter is not visible matter in and of itsel It does not understand that, since prajfia is identical with matter and non-matter simultaneously, matter, without undergoing any change, is at the same time non-matter. The theory of fundamental non-being has a particular fondness for non-being, which expresses itself in the use of that word whenever there is occasion to ver- balize. Now "not being" [Jei yu] means that being, without undergoin_.g any change, simply is not, while "not non-being" [fei wu] means, likewise, that non-being does not exist. In the case of the expression "neither being nor non- being" [fei yu fei wu], the former means that nothing is real being, the latter that nothing is real non-being. They should not simply be construed to mean, in the former case, that there is no such thing as being, in the latter that there is no such thing as non-being. The theory of fundamental non-being is, in sum, 380 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE an "expression fond of Non-Being." [In other words, it is a theory that, happily, coincides with the vogue ofLao-Chuang scholarship.] The above list is, without much doubt, a catalogue of the best-known of the conflicting prajfia theories current in North China before Kumarajiva's arrival. Of all philosophic views, theories of prajfia were at this time the most numerous, given the vigorous metaphysical arguments based on the view that "non-being" is the substance of all things, given also the free-flowing disputes springing from the reading and study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, whose texts furnished the theoretical base of these disputes. In Ch'en times, for instance, Hui-ta of the Hsiao-chao-t'i-ssu (the "Lesser Caturdisavihara") says, in his preface to the essays of Seng-chao (Chao fun hsu), "From six schools or seven theories, the views proliferated into twelve separate theories. " 12 The Six Schools of Prajfiiipiiramitii Scholarship. Now, since, of Yi.ian-k'ang's "six schools and seven theories," the first, namely that of fundamental non-being (pen wu yi), corresponding to Tao-an's theory of the same name and to "the Dharma- master Shen's 'alternate theory of fundamental non-being' " (pen wu yi tsung), constitutes only one (not two) of the six, and since there is explicit treatment of all six in Chi-tsang's Phrase-by-Phrase Commentary to the "Middle Treatise" (Chung lutl su) and in the Notes to the "Phrase-by-Phrase Commentary to the 'Middle Treatise'" (Charon shoki), the latter by a Japanese monk named Ancho, we proceed now to give the essentials of these schools, basing ourselves on the sources just named, and to use these same sources as a guide to a general understanding of how many prajfia theories burgeoned in this atmosphere of the Eastern Tsin, in which "dark learning" in the tradition of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu was so fashionable. (1) The Doctrine of Fundamental (Original?) Non-Being (pen wu yi). Ascribed to a "Dharma-master Shen," who is presumed to be identical with Chu Fa-shen. His position is described in these terms: "Before being (yu, i.e., the 'myriad objects,' wan wu, i.e., the rupadharma) there was non-being (wu), which is what produced being. That is to say, non-being preceded being while being follows non-being in time. That accounts for the name 'original non-being.' " 13 It is an application to the Prajfiaparamita conception of emptiness of Lao-tzu's dictum that "being was born of non-being." In it one seems able to detect a confusion of the absolutistic idea of non-being, as the fundamental essence from which all phenomena have unfolded, with the subjectivist concept of intuition through r ~ f i a , the gnostic understanding of emptiness. As we have already said, Seng-chao attacked this as an "argument in love with non-being for its own sake." 14 An advocate of this theory was Chu Fa-t'ai,l 5 who, in fellowship with Hui-yi.ian, denounced as heretical, then finally laid to rest, the doctrine of the non-existence of mind (hsin wu yi), propounded by Tao-heng and his school. The likelihood is that Tao-an, until he took up residence in Hsiang-yang, that is, before arriving at the doctrinal position of emptiness by nature (hsing k'ung yi, which would correspond to svabhiivasunyaviida), held, together with Chu Fa-t' ai, Hui-yi.ian, and others, a Prajfia- C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 381 paramita view that could be characterized as a doctrine of original non-being. In view of the fact that Chu Fa-t'ai was active during his latter years at Chien-k'ang under the Eastern Tsin, it would seem that this doctrine of original non-being gained considerable standing south of the Yangtze, specifically in the Chien-k'ang area, going on to exert quite an influence on the world of Buddhist doctrine and on that of "dark learning." One is told in Chu Fa-t'ai's biography that "he published a phrase-by-phrase commentary on the doctrine, then wrote Hsi Ch'ao a letter, in which he discussed the doctrine of original non-being. Both are current in the world." In the first roll of the Catalogue of Dharma Treatises (Fa lun mu lu), drawn up by Lu Ch' eng under the Liu-Sung, one reads as follows: Queries Concerning Fundamental Non-Being [Pen wu nan wen], by Hsi Chia-pin [whose personal name was Ch'ao], consisting of objections by Chu Fa-t'ai and Hsi' s answers, a total of four exchanges. 16 These two facts lead one to suppose that, at least until early in the tenure of the Southern dynasties, the theory of original non-being maintained itself as an effective Prajfiaparamita theory in the Chien-k'ang area. Yet, since Chu Fa-t'ai was long a fellow-student ofTao-an's, with whom he maintained contact even after they had parted, one is tempted to imagine that his "doctrine of original non-being" was noth- ing like Master Shen's theory of the same name, but that, at least in his later years, it had come, like Tao-an's theory, closest to the "fundamental doctrine of emptiness b " y nature. (2) The Doctrine of the Non-Existence of Mind (hsin wu yi). Said to have been the doctrine of Chih Min-tu, Chu Fa-wen(-yiin), Tao-heng, and others, it is a theory that was sharply attacked by Chu Fa-t'ai and his fellows. The argument is that "being" (yu) has form, that anything that has form is not "non-being" (wu), and that, consequently, it is not possible to make "non-being" of a myriad of concrete objects (wan wu). Yet, at the same time, it urges one to annihilate these myriadfold objects within one's own mind, on the grounds that, if one will terminate thought internally and take no thought for objects inwardly, "material notions" (se hsiang) will also come to a haltY Seng-chao's retort is that, while this theory "has an advantage in terms of its tranquillization of the spirit, still it loses sight of the emptiness of things (in the sense that 'matter in and of itself is emptiness,' se chi shih k'ung, rupam eva sunyatii)."lBz (3) The Doctrine of (Emptiness) Identical with Visible Matter (chi se yi). fu said above, this was the theory of Chih Tun, together with Tao-an's doctrine of original non-being advanced as the closest approach, before the arrival of Kumar- ajiva, to the sense of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures and enormously influential on the Buddhist community of its own time. The Essay on Disporting Itself in the Obscure [Realm Where Emptiness Is] Identical with Visible Matter (Chi se yu hsuan fun) is now lost, but its essential message is restated in the "Chapter on Subtle Views" (Miao kuan chang), cited in Worldly Talk and Recent Remarks: "Now the fundamental nature of visible matter (se) is such that it is not visible matter in and of itsel (That 382 BUDDIDSM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE is, it becomes visible matter only in reliance on a force that makes it so.) Such being the case, it is empty though called by the name of'visible matter.' This is why (the scriptures) say that visible matter is in and of itself emptiness, emptiness in and of itself visible matter.'' 19 There is a point of contact between this and Chuang-tzu' s idea that "what makes things into things is not itself a thing" (cf. the chapters entitled Tsai yu and Shan shui). Great Chuang tzu authority that he was, he applied that work's ideas and logic on a large scale in his writings; in fact, if one would exchange two or three Buddhist technical terms, one might have the feeling that one was reading a Lao-Chuang tract. Yet Seng-chao's critique of this theory is that "all he does is explain that matter does not constitute matter in and of itself, but he fails to understand that matter, without undergoing any change, is non-mat- ter."20aa Still, the Phrase-by-Phrase Commentary to the Treatise of the Middle View (Chung kuan lun su), by Chi-tsang of the Chia-hsiang-ssu, subdivides this doctrine of identity into two, (a) that "within the Barrier" (kuan nei chi se yi) and (b) that of Chih Tun (Chih Tao-lin chi se yi), adding that the object of Seng-chao's attack was the latter. 21 (4) The Doctrine of Cognition Contained (shih han yi), the theory of Yii Fa-k' ai of Mount Shan-po. A disciple of Yii Fa-Ian, he was well versed both in the Fang- kuang Prajfiaparamita (Pancavil!'satisahasrika) and in the SaddharmaputJ4arika, lectur- ing Emperor Ai on the former. In his Essay on the Two Conceptions, the Erroneous and the Cognitive (Huo shih erh ti lun), he says, "The Triple Sphere is a lodging for a long night, thought and cognition are the subject[ive element] in a great dream. If one becomes intuitively aware that the Triple Sphere is fundamentally empty, then error and cognition shall be completely cut off, and one shall mount to the tenth ground, that of the Degree of Enlightened lntuition." 22 (5) The Doctrine of Hallucination (huan hua yi), the theory of Tao-yi, a Tsin monk of the Chia-hsiang-ssu "north of the mountains" (shan yin). A scion of the Lu clan in the Wu country, he was disciple to Chu Fa-t'ai together with T'an-yi, who was designated with the sobriquet of the "Big One" (ta yi), while Tao-yi himself was dubbed the "Little One" (hsiao yi). He published the Essay on Two Conceptions of the Spirit (Shen erh ti lun), in which he held that the Spirit (shen) is not "empty": "All of the dharmas being empty, this is called the Worldly Conception. The think- ing Spirit being real and not empty, this is the Conception ofPrime Meaning." 23 ag (6) The Doctrine of the Meeting of Conditions (yuan hui yi), theory of Yii Tao- sui. A Tsin man from Tun-huang, he became the disciple of "my lord Lan" (i.e., Yii Fa-Ian), whom he was accompanying to Central Asia when he fell ill and died at Giaokhi (Chiao-chih, i.e., the area of modern Hanoi) at the age of thirty-one. In his Essay on the Meeting ~ f Conditions and the Two Truths (Yuan hui erh ti lun) he says, "[The notion of] existence by reason of the meeting of conditions is the com- mon [conception], for, when the conditions scatter, then there is no being. Non- being is the Conception ofPrime Meaning, that is, Truth. For example, it is as when clay and wood unite to form a house. The house has no a priori substance, because it has a name but no reality [to correspond to the name]." 24 C : THE ADVANCE OF PRAJNAPARAMITA STUDY 383 Prajna Disputations South ~ f the River. The theories described above had all to do with Prajfiaparamita scholarship and were all more or less contemporary under the Eastern Tsin, most of them being current south of the Yangtze. The conflict of argu- ments was vigorous, since both the time and the place favored the vogue of "dark learning" and "pure talk" and freedom of thought and expression. There survive written references to the disputes between Chih Tun and Yii Fa-k'ai, Chu Fa-t'ai and Tao-heng, or between the same Fa-t'ai and Hsi Ch'ao. In the Buddhist community south of the river under the Eastern Tsin Prajfiapar- amita scholarship triumphed in the manner just described, a flourishing debate was fought out over the interpretation of emptiness, and thus were ushered in the days of glory of ko yi Buddhism. Still, the study consisted of a speculative, logical pursuit, such as may be seen in the "dark learning" of the time; there is a profound feeling that, divorced from real life, what was taking place was nothing more than an argument on abstractly metaphysical questions. The view that emptiness, regarded as identical with the non-being of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, was the root- source of everything was still no confrontation, to the accompaniment of strict practice, of emptiness meaning, fundamentally, the conquest, in the religious sense, of the suffering inherent in human and social life. The embodiment in oneself of emptiness in the sense of the conquest of suffering, of the realm of religious tranquillity, is something to be achieved from an experience of real human life, of the grim realities confronting a person standing on the precipice of life and death, not a thing to be found in an aristocratic society secure both in its high position and in its livelihood, as was the class with which we are presently concerned. It was thus inevitable that this Prajfiaparamita scholarship based south of the river should come together on Nagarjuna's doctrine of emptiness as introduced by Kumarajiva, once Kumarajiva had introduced his presentation of the undistorted doctrinal meaning of the Indian scriptures on the basis of a revised translation of the older versions of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, this one based on more accurate Sanskrit texts and on a Prajfiaparamita commentary ascribed to Nagarjuna (the Ta chih tu lun), once he had introduced the learned tradition of Nagarjuna and Deva in close keeping with the early Mahayana as typified by the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdesa, by the principal scriptures with which the early Chinese Buddhist community had been intimately involved, once the Prajfiaparamita of both north and south were able to benefit from his teachings. From the era of the Southern dynasties onward, in fact, this study became progressively more energetic, and there emerged a San-lun school and a Ch'eng-shih school, both based on Kumarajiva's translations. However, Buddhism as a religion was, if anything, dominated by the triumph of the practical Buddhism of the north, where it proceeded to belief in, and cultivation through practice of, scriptures other than the Prajfiaparamita, while the Prajfiapa- ramita scholarship of Wei and Tsin was simply not able to become the main stream of Chinese Buddhism, again as a religion, in T' ang times and after. Yet, it is precisely because a Buddhism of this sort lent depth to the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu by the influence it exerted on "dark learning," advancing the conversion of the 384 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE aristocracy to Buddhism through this contact, that Buddhism, a thing of"barbarian" provenance, was able to overcome the traditional notions of the "Sage," character- istic of a nation in which there was a strong sense of the "central and flowering," and to usher in a period unique in Chinese cultural history, in which it brought to flower the aristocratic civilization of the Eastern Tsin and the Southern dynasties. In this sense, it is precisely this vigorous confrontation of conflicting theories as- sociated with the study of the Prajfiaparamita and the Vimalakirtinirdda in the spirit of" dark learning," an activity that had its center at Chien-k'ang and K'uai-chi under the Eastern Tsin, it is, in other words, precisely the florescence of Chinese theory and Chinese exegesis concerning the Prajfiaparamita scriptures in Chinese translation, that occupies such an extremely important place in any consideration of the history of Chinese ideas, particularly of the cultural history of the Southern dynasties. D. The Advance and Decline of Buddhism at Chien-k' ang under the Late Eastern Tsin Robots on the Tsin Throne. The fifth sovereign of the Eastern Tsin, Emperor Mu, ascended the throne (in 344) at the age of two, the regency being held by the em.press dowager, the Lady Ch'u, his devoutly Buddhist mother. The emperor died (in 361) childless at the age of nineteen, to be succeeded by Emperor Ai, son of the third sovereign, Emperor Ch' eng, while all power, civil as well as military, was in the hands of the generalissimo (t' ai wei) Huan Wen, who by now was grimly advancing his plans for the overthrow of the Tsin ruling house. In 365 Emperor Ai also died, likewise without an heir, to be succeeded by his younger brother, who, however, was deposed (in 371) and degraded to the rank of Prince West of the Sea (hai hsi kung), and who lives in history as "the deposed emperor" (jei ti). About this time, the sovereign power was ostensibly wielded by Prince Yli ofK'uai-chi, a man fond of"pure talk" and a devout Buddhist, one who was quite familiar with the Buddhist scriptures and who regularly attended readings of them, who, finally, under Huan Wen's sponsorship became Emperor Chien-wen. The Imperial Annals in the Book of Tsin say of him, "His Majesty, though a person of a lively and perceptive mind, had no plans for directing the world": in short, he was entirely of a piece with the whole "purely talking" aristocracy. The same source then records Hsieh An as saying "His Majesty is quite in the style of the late Emperor Hui, the only exception being that he is somewhat superior in respect of his 'pure talk.'" Chih Tao-lin (Tun) is represented as saying, "The Prince ofK'uai-chi may have a distinguished manner, but he lacks a probing spirit." 1 If occupants of the throne could be characterized in this way even by aristocratic recluses and Buddhist monks, one may judge for oneself the robotlike character of the Eastern Tsin ruling house. On the throne no more than two years, Emperor Chien-wen died, to be succeeded by his third son, Emperor Hsiao-wu, in 379, the year in which the political world was D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K,ANG 385 shaken by a succession of calamities from within and without. First, the rebel- sorcerer Lu Sung invaded the palace (only to be taken prisoner immediately there- after, it is true); next, the three Wu areas were visited by a great drought, which took many lives; finally, there was the attack on Ch'ou-ch'ih by Fu Chien's army. As if that were not enough, Huan Wen then made his move to usurp the Tsin throne. Just as the stage was set for Huan Wen's occupation of the throne, when he was, in fact, on the very point of effecting his usurpation, for better or for worse he died, and the Tsin got a new lease on life. Lady Ch'u, the devout dowager, resumed the regency for a time, until in 376 the emperor attained his majority and assumed the prerogatives of government himself, the central political control now being wielded by Hsieh An. The times, however, were not propitious. Even after Huan Wen's death, his clan and its hangers-on, grouping themselves about his son, Huan Hslian, continued to wield huge military might, with which they sat on the Chien-k'ang aristocracy, set- ting in firm order their preparations to pounce on the capital at the opportune mo- ment. An even greater threat loomed in the person of Fu Chien, who reigned at Ch'ang-an over the North Chinese state of the Former Ch'in, a political entity that had unified virtually the entire north and that was now making its military prepara- tions to unite All-under-Heaven by annexing the lands of the Eastern Tsin and to make its sovereign the Son of Heaven. Now the annals of Emperor Hsiao-wu in the Book of Tsin, under the first month ofT'ai-ylian 6 (381) have the following entry: His Majesty, long a worshiper of the Law of the Buddha, built a tabernacle within the palace, to which he invited srama!).aS and quartered them there. This means that the imperial court became an openly Buddhist one, in which a Buddhist hall of worship, built by the emperor himself within the very palace, was used to quarter srama!).as permanently. However, the campaign against the Tsin on the part of Fu Chien of the Former Ch'in was moving steadily forward and, in the face of an onslaught by an army of northern "barbarians," the Eastern Tsin, both court and country, was in a state of panic. A bit earlier, in 379, the army of the Former Ch'in had reduced the city of Hsiang-yang, carrying off three no- tables, viz., the general in command of the guard (shou chiang), Chu Hsli , a monk, Shih Tao-an, who, coming from the north and establishing a new monastery, the T'an-bsi-ssu, bad organized a rigorously disciplined fellowship of several hundred monks, whose principal religious activity was the zealous study of the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, a man who had won the unstinting admiration of a well-known local aristocrat named Hsi Tso-ch'ih, as well as the profound and committed faith not only of the Tsin court but also of persons of power both Chinese and non-Chinese, north and south, not excluding the king of the Former Ch'in himself; finally, the Hsi Tso-ch'ih just mentioned, whose commitment of faith was no less great. Collapse of the Former Ch'in. Fu Chien, king of the Former Ch'in, flush with victory, at length, in 383, took personal command of a large army, an army of total mobilization, to invade the south, concentrating on Shou-ch'un, a key point on the 386 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE road from Chien-k'ang into the north. However, in a battle on the river Fei, which flows nearby, a rear-guard mutiny led by Chu Hsii, who had been impressed into this campaign, was successful, resulting in a huge and totally unexpected victory for the Tsin forces and in the total annihilation of the armies of the Former Ch'in, the king himself, Fu Chien, barely contriving to get back to Ch' ang-an. Then, in the environs of Ch'ang-an itself there sprung up some rebel forces, bringing about the destruction of the Former Ch'in, ruled by the Fu clan, at the hands of the Latter Ch'in, whose rulers were the Yao clan. The Yao and their new state invited Kuma- rajiva to Ch'ang-an, where they instituted a vast, State-sponsored project for the translation of Buddhist scriptures, setting the whole history of Buddhist doctrinal scholarship in China on a new course. Aristocrats and Their Religion of Magic. The pressure from the non-Chinese peo- ples to the north was relieved for a time, but internally, within the Chien-k'ang aristocracy, Huan Hsiian, his eye on the throne, was steadily augmenting his mili- tary power and advancing his ambitious plans. Yet Emperor Hsiao-wu personally appointed his own younger brother, Tao-tzu (the prince ofK'uai-chi), to participate directly in the central government. Their father, Emperor Chien-wen, having lost three sons and being very eager to have more, took a large number of concubines, yet was not to have his wish. Accordingly, he had a physiognomist examine the con- cubines, and he appealed also to Hsii Mai, a Taoist practitioner respected as an adept by the entire aristocracy of the time. The physiognomist's conclusion was that none of the emperor's favorites was worth anything. Then he caught sight of a servant girl, a woman employed at the looms and derisively called Hun-lun ("Blackie") by everyone for her swarthy complexion. At a single glance he recommended her as the very woman who was to bear the emperor an heir. This swarthy woman of lowly origin (the Lady Li, d. 399) is the one who gave birth to two sons, Emperor Hsiao-wu and the Tao-tzu just mentioned, and a daughter as well. A court that, thanks to the comings and goings of some very learned and highly placed members of the sa111gha, was in the process of becoming Buddhist was at the same time a believer in diviners, Taoist practitioners, and magician-monks. The triumph of a sophisticated form of Buddhism, centered about Prajfiaparamita scholarship, does not signify by any means that the indigenous Chinese traditions of divination, physiognomy, and magic or the belief in the superhuman sylph (shen hsien) were eliminated, for one must take due account of the fact that the whole society of the Eastern Tsin, upper as well as lower, accepted Buddhism at the same time and, so to speak, in the same package as belief in the things just mentioned. Buddhist Devotion and the Corruption of the Powerholders. In 385, after the death of the prime minister (tsai hsiang), the Hsieh An mentioned above, total power devolved on the emperor's younger half-brother, Tao-tzu, the Prince of K'uai-chi likewise mentioned above. Tao-tzu entrusted everything to Wang Kuo-pao, a man whose principal activities were flattery and bribery and who in turn appointed all the major officials, lay and clerical, thus bringing about the decay oflocal govern- ment. In addition to this, Emperor Hsiao-wu and brother Tao-tzu were up late D : ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 387 every night carousing, neither of them having so much as a look at his governmental duties, and the decay of the central government was likewise acute. The Tsin court was sliding downhill to its doom. Since the emperor, his half-brother the prime minister, and the Wang Kuo-pao whom the latter trusted so utterly were all devout Buddhists, all eagerly committed to the furtherance of the faith, aristocratic Bud- dhism prospered more and more at Chien-k'ang, while the monastic community ofboth sexes, as well as their residences, steadily increased. There was a simultaneous, and inevitable, increase in the elements of corruption that were to call down on Buddhism the critical comments of the intelligentsia. Proliferation of Buddhist Convents from Eastern Tsin Onwards. At this point, let us have a look at two things: how the Buddhist community expanded, as it were by leaps and bounds, under the Eastern Tsin as compared to all previous eras, but chiefly how the Buddhist convents proliferated in and around the K'uai-chi area and the capital at Chien-k'ang, both favored dwelling places of the Chien-k'ang courtiers and the powerful and distinguished families who gathered round them, living a life ofluxury on incomes derived from the ownership of huge tracts ofland and taking pleasure in "dark learning" and "pure talk." As stated earlier in the present chapter, thanks to the emergence early under the Eastern Tsin of some eminent members of the sarp.gha and to the triumph of ko yi Buddhism, also by gaining the moral support and the material aid of the upper class- es, principally of the monarchy itself, the Buddhist community south of the Yangtze had already secured its foundation, then, during the latter half of that dynasty's tenure, it swelled rapidly and with great momentum. According to the Essay on Dis- tinguishing the Right (Pien cheng fun), by the T'ang monk Fa-lin, whereas under the Western Tsin there were in the two capitals ofLo-yang and Ch'ang-an 180 convents and something more than 3,700 religious, under the Eastern Tsin there were 1,768 convents, while the number of religious exceeded 24,000. Under the Western Tsin the ratio of convents to religious was 1 to 20 plus, while under the Eastern Tsin the ratio was 1 to 13.5. The reason for this latter difference is that, while the earlier ratio has to do only with the two capitals, the latter presumably includes a large number of tiny rural convents within the territories of the Eastern Tsin while excluding the capitals. While it would not be right to compare numbers during the two historical periods, since the respective areas concerned were so vastly different, still the fact remains that in the slightly more than a hundred years separating the dates of the two inquiries the convents multiplied their number approximately by ten, the religious theirs by about six. In particular, the increase in the number of religious was one of some 20,300 persons, while during the tenure of the (Liu) Sung, who succeeded to a century of (Eastern) Tsin rule to hold power themselves for a bit more than fifty, the number of convents advanced to 1,913, that of religious to 36,000. This enables one to understand the significance of the gains enjoyed by the Buddhist community south of the Yangtze under the Eastern Tsin, particularly during the latter half of their tenure. 2 For that matter, even in North China, in the states governed by non-Chinese after 388 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE the era of the Western Tsin, the increase in the number of convents and of religious was quite sudden. The convents of Lo-yang, which at the end of the Western Tsin had numbered 42, in the 220 years from then till the end of the Northern Wei increased to more than 1,000, multiplying themselves, in other words, by about 24 (c the preface to the Record of the Sa1J1ghiiriimas of Lo-yang). For the 170 years of the Northern Wei the increase is recorded in the following terms : The great convents sponsored by the State numbered 47; those built privately by princes, dukes, and the like, 839; those built by commoners, more than 30,000; monks and nuns, more than 2,000,000. From this one deduces that the increased numbers of the Chinese Buddhist church, in both north and south, date to about the collapse of the Western Tsin. During the era of mutual confrontation between north and south, any increase in the one would stimulate a corresponding increase in the other, so that in both realms the doctrine of the Indian Buddha became current alongside of those of China's Sages in their own classic native land. If anything, China turned into a country in which Buddhism flourished at the expense of the two indigenous systems, Confucianism and Taoism. Let us now try to sort out concretely the increased building of convents, principally by the aristocracy at Chien-k' ang, under the Eastern Tsin. The Convents of Chien-k'ang. In Chien-k'ang under the Wu there were monas- teries, nunneries, and shrinelike temples on a small scale. An example of a nunnery is seen in the History of the South (Nan shih), under the entry dealing with the land of Fu-nan, according to which source it was demolished in Wu times by Sun Lin, to be restored after the Wu had been put down by the Tsin, finally to be elaborately refurbished by Emperor Yuan of the Eastern Tsin. 3 As to monasteries, the first of these, as its very name indicates, was the Chien-ch'u-ssu, on whose site, in Ch'ih-wu 10 (247), under the Wu, K'ang Seng-hui had supposedly constructed a grass shack, where he made offerings to a Buddha icon and cultivated the Path. From then until the Tsin went south, an interval of seventy years, the only other monastery whose construction is a matter of certain knowledge is the Ch' ang-kan-ssu (built under the Wu), and it too was restored in Tsin times. Apart from these two, all the others appear to have been constructed after the southward move. Even the two just mentioned, for that matter, were restored and, in fact, totally renovated under the Eastern Tsin. All of this is an indication of how rapidly temple-building progressed under the Eastern Tsin in the capital at Chien-k'ang. 4 Ch'en Tso-lin, a Ch'ing writer, in his Record of Buddhist Convents under the Southern Court (Nan ch' ao Fo ssu chih), 5 cites more than thirty convents constructed under the Tsin. What we propose to do here is to look into the fl ourishing state of temple- building at the time in question, supplementing Ch'en Tso-lin's findings with material from the Lives of (Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan), which he seems not to have used as a source, also adding material from the K'uai-chi Gazetteer (K'uai chi chih) on temple-building in that city under the Eastern Tsin. It is our hope, at the same time, to gain some view, through the information on the building and repair of D : ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 389 Buddhist convents, of the peculiarly aristocratic character of Buddhism at Chien- k'ang and K'uai-chi under the Eastern Tsin. (1) Chien-ch'u-ssu ("Monastery of the Established Beginning"; also called Ta-shih-ssu, "Monastery of the Great Marketplace"; seven Chinese leagues south of the old palace wall, south of the hill known in Ch' ing times by the name of hua lu kang, "Flower Basket Hill"). In view of the tradition that this monastery began with K'ang Seng-hui, a monk from Samarcand who, "erecting a grass hut and setting up an image of the Buddha, cultivated the Path," having come to Chien-yeh (Chien-k'ang) from his native Chiao-chih (Giaokhi) in Ch'ih-wu 10 (247) during the reign of the Wu, 6 in view also of the tradition that says that "lewd sacrifices" were performed beside the monastery, it is likely that it was a small monastic-cell-cum-Buddhist-temple, a sort of popular shrine, which a foreign mem- ber of the sarp.gha, a disciplined practitioner of religion who begged for his food, aspired to make into a base for further religious practice and for evangelism. The Wu people, probably because they took this place, in which a strange-looking for- eign monk with a shaven head lived and practiced his religion, as just another sacrificial shrine, of which the Wu region had so many, entertained some suspicions about the religious life going on in this tiny Buddhist tabernacle, suspicions that they reported to the authorities. However, when K'ang Seng-hui demonstrated the magical power of the sarira in the presence of the "Great Emperor" (ta ti, i.e., Sun Ch'iian), the latter was so impressed that he erected a stiipa, which, being the first Buddhist edifice in the land, was entitled chien ch'u ssu and the piece ofland on which it stood Fo-t'o li ("Buddha's alley"). This, the same narrative goes on to say, is the foundation on which Buddhism was built at Chien-yeh-an account not entirely free oflatter-day interpolations. However, Sun Ch'i.ian did employ as a tutor for his heir apparent a man named Chih Ch'ien, son of the chief of a group of naturalized Yi.ieh-chih who had come in a group to the Lo-yang region as early as Han times and a devout Buddhist, a man thoroughly sinicized as far as education was concerned, being perfectly at home with the Chinese classics, a man who himselfhad come south at the head of a group and who, upon arrival, gained general respect by exerting himself in scriptural translation, in evangelism, and in earnest religious practice. Now, since it was known at Chien-k'ang, which was situated in the Wu country, that Buddhism was current in Lo-yang and north of the Yangtze, in the rival kingdom ofWei, and that there were stUpas and monasteries there, however few, since it was also presumably known that Buddhism was current in the area of Giaokhi (Chiao-chih), the region to the south that was economically so important for the Wu country, it is not surprising that Wu, a rival of Wei for the control of the whole empire, should adopt a policy of tolerance toward Buddhist monastic institutions. This first of the Buddhist monasteries, however, could presumably not develop fully in Wu times, given the religious persecution that took place after Sun Ch'iian's death, notably the destruction of shrines and reliquaries and the mass murder of religious that took place at the hands of such men as Sun Lin and Sun Hao. 390 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE It is worthy of note, on the other hand, that this edifice bore the popular name of Monastery of the Great Marketplace because of the large public market situated in front of it, for it tells us that it was a Buddhist monastery coexistent with indige- nous sacrificial shrines in one and the same religious center, on which there developed a popular marketplace and a sort of temple town. Far from being the sort of aristo- cratic Buddhist monastery that was to develop under the Eastern Tsin, it is likely that it coincided with the early Western Tsin at a time when the number of its adherents, both gentry and commoners, were increasing, and that it developed under the Western Tsin as a popular Buddhist temple in conjuction with the great public market, maintaining itself into the Eastern Tsin. Early under the latter dynasty it became first the residence of a foreign member of the sa111gha, Srimitra, who, after coming south, gained the respect of Wang Tao and others, but then, in the uprising of Su Chi.in, it was burnt down (in 328). It was restored thanks to the efforts ofHo Ch'ung, one of the most devout Buddhists among the highest-ranking and most powerful ministers of state, and a small stapa is also said to have been added to it by Chao Yu, the generalissimo for the pacification of the west (p'ing hsi chiang chun). Emperor Hsiao-wu (r. 373-396) is said to have invited Chih T'an- yi.ieh to this monastery, where he received the Fivefold Injunction (wu chieh, pa- fzcasila) at his hands and treated him with the honor due a master. (C the account of Chih T'an-yi.ieh in the Lives of Eminent Monks.) The Chien-ch'u-ssu, for all that under the Wu and the Western Tsin it had been a center of popular religion, and for all that under the Eastern Tsin it was burnt to the ground, was restored and developed further, now with the unmistakable coloration of aristocratic Buddhism. (2) Ch'ang-kan-ssu ("Monastery of the Long Ravine," also called A-yi.i-wang- ssu, "Monastery of King Asoka"). The kan of ch' ang kan, in the dialect spoken east of the Yangtze, signified a ravine between hills and mountains. The monastery's location was ch'ang kan li, "ravine alley," just outside the chu pao men, the "Gateway of the Collected Jewels"). The monastery got its name from its location, a poor and crowded residential area, but there is recorded in the History of the South, in the notice on the land of Fu-nan, a tradition to the effect that there had been on the monastery's grounds one of the eighty-four thousand stapas erected by King Asoka. It is, of course, not absolutely necessary to believe this story. During Wu times a certain Buddhist nun built a small tabernacle on the spot, which, however, was later destroyed by Sun Lin. When the kingdom of Wu had also perished, the edifice was restored by some religious under the Western Tsin. Then, when Em- peror Yi.ian, the founder of the Eastern Tsin, went south, he further repaired and refurbished it. Next, Emperor Chien-wen, sometime during Hsien-an (371-372), had a r a m a ~ a , the "Dharma-master An," construct a small stupa, but the latter, who died before it was finished, left the completion and elaboration of it to his disciple Seng-hsien. During the reign of Emperor Hsiao-wu, in T' ai-yi.ian 9 (384), the golden wheel and the dew-receptacle atop the stapa were completed. Afterward there came from Li-shih in Ping-chou a foreigner named Liu Sa-ho (who after joining the order was D : ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 391 known as Chu Hui-ta), who dug up a vessel containing some sarira, for which he constructed a single-story stilpa t the west of the old stilpa, and to that Emperor Hsiao-wu added two stories more. Then, sometime in Hsien-ho (326-334), Kao K'uei, the magistrate of Tan-yang, dug up a Buddha-figure containing a Sanskrit book. The Sanskrit book is said to have been the work of the fourth daughter of King Asoka. Kao K'uei placed the image in the Ch' ang-kan-ssu for safekeeping, then sometime thereafter a Lin-hai fisherman discovered on the beach a lotus throne made of copper that fit the image perfectly, and it was added to the image. Finally, five monks came from Central Asia with the following tearful plea: They had once come to Y eh with an Asoka image they had acquired in India, then lost it in the upheaval that attended the civil wars. Being told in a dream that it had turned up east of the Yangtze, they had crossed mountains and rivers to wor- ship it. When they had made their plea, a glow given off by the image illuminated the entire hall. These and many such others, all related to King Asoka and his wondrous stilpa and image, are the miracle tales that brought glory to this monastery through- out the Southern dynasties. This monastery too began modestly and developed under the Tsin, gradually becoming a focal point for the faith of all, both high and low, in its miraculous efficacy, turning at length into one of the most influential of the Buddhist monasteries under the Southern dynasties and flourishing into fairly recent times under the name Ta-pao-en-ssu ("Great Monastery for the Repayment of Munificence"). Under the Eastern Tsin, Chu Fa-k'uang, who made his home in a stone cave within Ch'ing-shan ("Green Mountain") in Wu-ch'ien, and who is said to have been constantly intoning the SaddharmaputJ4arika and the Sukhavativyuha and giving readings of them, made his new home in that monastery when invited by Emperor Hsiao-wu to leave his mountain cave. That monk, who was friends with Hsi Ch'ao and Hsieh Ch'ing-hsii, died in Yiian-hsing 1 (402) at the age of seventy-six, and Ku K'ai-chih is said to have written a flattering biography in praise ofhim. 7 Both of the above are noteworthy in that they began in Wu as modest popular shrines, then expanded in Tsin, also benefited from the backing of the aristocracy. One can deduce for oneself how, with the establishment of the Eastern Tsin and the southward move of both the distinguished clans and the Buddhist religion from Lo-yang in particular and the Middle Plain in general, these monasteries changed. Since the convents to be described below, built in Chien-k'ang under the Eastern Tsin, when such building increased sharply and suddenly, were for the most part monasteries of the aristocracy, they will provide us with an all the more interesting glimpse of Chien-k'ang's Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin. (3) Kao-tso-ssu ("Monastery of the Occupant of the High Throne," also known as Shih-li-mi-ssu, "Srimitra's Monastery," representing a possible Srimitravihiira; or Kan-lu-ssu, "Monastery of Sweet Dew," representing a possible amrtavihara or rasiiyanavihara). Srimitra, the scion of the royal house of Kucha who went south toward the end of Yung-chia (i.e., sometime after 310) and who, as mentioned 392 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE above, made his home for a time in the Chien-ch'u-ssu, was dubbed by his contem- poraries "(the occupant of the) high throne" (kao tso). Living a rigorously disciplined religious life east of Shih-tzu-kang ("Pebble Hill," i.e., on Rain Flower Hill, yu hua shan kang, outside the above mentioned Gateway of the Collected Jewels, chu pao men), acquiring his food by begging for it, he died over eighty sometime during Hsien-k' ang (335-342) and was buried here. Emperor Hsien, in fond remembrance, established a chattra beside his tomb. Later, a srama:t:la came from the right (i.e., the west) of the Barrier and built a monastery. Hsieh Hun of Ch'en commandery, in praise of his achievements and in order to glorify him, albeit posthumously, named the e.difice Kao-tso-ssu, "Monastery of the Occupant of the High Throne." 8 Since in that territory there was a well of nectar ("sweet dew"), the name Kan-lu-ssu, "Monastery of Sweet Dew," also attached itself to it. It flourished throughout the Southern dynasties and into the T'ang. (4) Po-ma-ssu ("Monastery of the White Horse"). Said to be a restoration, in T'ai- hsing 2 during the reign of Emperor Yiian (319), of a ruined monastery (cf. Fa yuan chu lin 39). This is also the place where, according to Chih Tun's biography, he de- bated Liu Hsi-chih on Chuang-tzu's first chapter, the Hsiao yao p'ien, after which he retired and published his own commentary to the latter. Its location, however, is not known with certainty, and it is possible that the monastery in question was located in K'uai-chi. 9 (Cf. the biography of the Sung monk Shih Fa-p'ing, resident in the Ch'i-yiian-ssu, the "Jetavanavihara.") (5) Yen-hsing-ssu ("Convent ofExtended Prosperity"). (Situated on the west bank of the canal in the general area of the Pei-ch'ien-tao-ch'iao, the "Northerly Bridge of the Road to Heaven.") Built in Chien-yiian 2 (344) by the above-mentioned con- sort of Emperor K'ang, the devout Lady Ch'u. The nun Seng-chi, making her home here with over a hundred followers, was the object of the faith and respect of all, both lay and clerical, dying in Lung-an 1 (392) at the age of sixty-eight. 10 (Cf. Lives of 1.) (6) Chien-fu-ssu ("Convent of Established Merit," possibly pz.IJyasthapanavihiira?). Likewise built during the reign of Emperor K' ang, specifically in the same year of Chien-yuan 2 (344), by the devoutly Buddhist minister Ho Ch'ung, who held the rank of chung shu ling, and inhabited, at his invitation, by the nun Hui-chan, who had come south as a refugeeY (Cf. Lives of 1.) (7) Chuang-yen-ssu ("Monastery of Adornment," ala1J1kiiravihiira? ala'!'krtavi- hara?; name changed under the Liu-Sung to Hsieh-chen-hsi-ssu, "Monastery of Hsieh, Pacifier of the West," and under the Ch' en to Hsing-yen-ssu, "Monastery of the Promotion of Adornment" or, possibly, "Monastery of the Promotion of Solemnity"). Remade in Yung-ho 4, during the reign of Emperor Mu (350), from the home of Hsieh Shang (courtesy name Jen-tsu, Hsieh Hun's son), generalissimo for the pacification of the west (chen hsi chiang chun), who donated it for the purpose. Faces the Ch'in-huai. Since under the Sung, during Ta-ming (457-464) the dowager empress, Lady Lu, also built a Chuang-yen-ssu in the herb garden west of the great shrine outside the Hsiian-yang-men ("Gateway of the Propagation of Splendor"), D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 393 the name of this monastery was changed to Hsieh-chen-hsi-ssu, also abbreviated Hsieh-ssu ("The Hsieh Monastery"). The (Liu-)Sung lay brother Ching- sheng here translated the Scripture of Avalokitdvara (Kuan shih yin ching) and the Scripture of the View of Maitreya (Mi-lo kuan ching),d works valued by Meng Yi, magistrate of Tan-yang. The monastery flourished through Sung, Ch' i, and Liang, only to be burnt down in Ch'en times, but then restored by Ch'eng Wen-hsiu, the censor of Yti-chou, and renamed Hsing-yen-ssu by Emperor Hsiao-hstian, after which time it lasted into T' ang and even into Sung. (8) Ch'i-ch'an-ssu ("Monastery of the Dwelling in Dhyana" or, possibly, "Mon- astery Which Provides a Home for Dhyana"). Built by Ts'ai Mo, generalissimo for the chastisement of the west (cheng hsi chiang chun; c the inscription composed by Shen Ytieh in Liang times and entitled Ch'i ch'an ching she ming). Ts'ai Mo was, to begin with, an official cast in the strict mold of the doctrine of propriety. So committed was he to the latter principles, in fact, that once, during the reign of Emperor Ch'eng (r. 326-342), when Prince Hung ofP'eng-ch'eng sought to engage someone to compose a hymn of praise to a portrait of the Buddha painted by Emperor Ming, Mo called a halt to the project by memorializing to the following effect: "The teachings of Buddha are a set of barbarian manners, not part of the institutions of the Central and Flowering canon of the classics. No imperial edict should require anyone upwardly to laud the earnestness with which a former em- peror loved the Buddha or, downwardly, to compose a hymn of praise to a barbarian statue." (C Ts'ai Mo's biography in roll 72 of the Book of Tsin.) Then in 339, after Hsi Chien's death, he became generalissimo for the chastisement of the north (cheng pei chiang chun) and a person of great influence in the world of politics. This powerful State functionary, the very person who once denigrated Buddhism from a Confucian point of view, underwent such a change as to construct a Buddhist monastery! It is in circumstances like this one, as we have already stated, that one can sense the force of the upward surge of Buddhism among the Chien-k' ang aristocracy from the fourth century onward. 12 (9) Ho-Huang-hou-ssu ("Convent of the Empress Ho"). A nunnery built by Em- peror Mu' s consort, the Lady Ho. This lady was as fervent a Buddhist as the rest of her distinguished clan, whose devotion to the Faith has already been described. The nun Tao-yi, aunt of the celebrated Hui-ytian of Mount Lu, practiced her religion at this convent late in T'ai-ytian (i.e., ca. 396; c Lives 1). In the History of the South one sees that, under the Southern Ch'i, Ts'ai Hsing-tsung took as his concubine a beautiful nun, named Chih-fei, from this convent, thus rivaling Yen Shih-po. Evidently it was a convent of aristocratic nuns. 13 (10) Chien-hsing-ssu. So called because of its location in an alley called chien hsing li, "alley of the establishment of prosperity," south of the Convent of Empress Ho, just mentioned. It is not known who built it. (11) P'eng-ch'eng-ssu. So called because it was built, in Sheng-p'ing 5 during the reign of Emperor Mu (361), by Ch'un, Prince Ching ofP'eng-ch'eng (cf. the Real Record of Chien-k'ang [Chien k'ang shih lu]). In the fifth century, under the rule of 394 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE the (Liu) Sung, a number of eminent monks, all objects of the religious faith of Emperor Ming, were invited to reside in it, and even thereafter it remained in- fluential throughout the Southern dynasties. 14 (12) Tung-an-ssu ("The Tranquil Monastery to the East"). Though it is not known who built it, in view of the notice that Emperor Ai (r. 362-365) invited Chih Tun from K'uai-chi to this monastery to give readings in the prajniipiiramitii, it must by that time have been an already well-established monastery. At the time of his accession to the throne as the first sovereign (kao tsu) of a dynasty replacing the Eastern Tsin, namely, the Sung, Liu Yli was intimately connected with this monas- tery, which is why it housed Hui-yen and Hui-ch'ih, two monks especially favored in early Sung, and why it prospered through its contacts with the Sung court. Celebrated in the popular adage, "Tou-ch'ang (i.e., the Tao-ch'ang-ssu) is a cave of dhyana-masters, Tung-an(-ssu) a forest of doctrinal discussion" (tou ch' ang ch' an shih k'u tung an t' an yi lin), it gained fame as the scene of vigorous doctrinal scholarship and of the oral presentation and discussion of Buddhist doctrine. 15 Through its con- nection with the establishment of the Sung court, it eventually became one of the centers of Chien-k'ang Buddhist scholarship. (13) Ch'i-yi.ian-ssu (]etavanavihiira, also known as Po-t'a-ssu, "Monastery of the White Stilpa"; situated west of Phoenix Hall, Jeng huang lou, i.e., west of New Bridge, hsin ch'iao). A subsidiary of the Chien-ch'u-ssu, it is probably the one re- ferred to in Fan T' ai' s biography in roll 60 of the Book of Sung in these terms: "Late in life, in his devotion to the Buddha he became most zealous, constructing a Jeta- vana tabernacle (Ch'i yuan ching she) to the west of his home." Hui-yi's biography says that he was invited to the monastery, which was built by Fan T'ai in Yung-ch'u 1 ( 420), and that the name Ch'i yuan (Jetavana) became attached to it because their con- temporaries likened Hui-yi to Sariputra and Fan T'ai to Sudatta (i.e., Anathapil).ga- da). The source goes on to say that at Hui-yi's suggestion his patron further donated sixty mou of fruit and bamboo orchards, so that the monastery became a focal point for many distinguished members of the metropolitan sarp.gha. (It is included here in spite of the fact that it belongs, chronologically speaking, to the period of the early Sung-)1 6 (14) Wa-kuan-ssu. Originally the graveyard of Shan Wan of Ho-nei, situated in the "small ravine" (hsiao ch' ang kan, i.e., Flower Basket Hill, hua lu kang). As it chanced, the homes of such distinguished gentlemen as Chang Chao and Lu Chi were right beside it. Early under the Eastern Tsin, Wang Tao made it into a kiln. The sramal).a Hui-li, arriving sometime in Yung-ho (345-356), begged for his food and lived an otherwise ascetic life there. Then, in Hsing-ning 2, during the reign of Emperor Ai (364), the official kiln was moved to the north of the river Huai, while the pottery grounds on the southern bank were donated to Hui-li for a monastery. In T'ai-yi.ian 21 (396) the stilpa was burnt down, but it was rebuilt at imperial command. It housed five images fashioned by Tai An-tao, as well as a golden statue sixteen feet high, the work ofTai Yung, and a jeweled icon from Ceylon. When Chu Fa-t' ai made his home there, he gave readings in the Fang kuang po-jo ching (Pancavif!1- D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 395 satis.p.p.), and it is through his effectiveness at teaching and converting that the monastery developed into a major center. The Record of Metropolitan Convents (Ching shih ssu chi) tells an interesting story regarding the inauguration of this monastery: The resident monks convoked a re- ligious assembly, then asked the courtiers present to draw up a list of contributions. When Ku Ch' ang-k' ang noted down a million cash, the others said he was exaggerat- ing. He thereupon painted on the wall a scene from the Vimalakirtinirdea and, miraculously enough, collected the entire sum for it! The annals of Emperor Kung, the last of the Tsin sovereigns, say of him, "A pro- found believer in the teachings of the Buddha, he melted down a hundred thousand coins to construct a golden image sixteen feet high, which he personally accompanied to the Wa-kuan-ssu, walking on foot more than ten leagues."f The said image is said to have been fashioned by Seng-hung, a monk of the Wa-kuan-ssu at a time when the ban on copper was strict (cf. Seng-hung's biography). 17 g Since the monastery also housed some renowned icons and frescoes, distinguished gentlemen would come to render their homage, and it remained a well-known Buddhist site throughout the Southern dynasties. On the other hand, the image of Buddhism toward the end of the Eastern Tsin, when the decay of government and the evils inherent in the triumph of aristocratic Buddhism were so obvious, is visible in the construction by no less a person than the emperor himself of an icon made of melted coin at a time when the use of copper was strictly prohibited.h (15) Po-t'i-ssu ("Monastery of Bhadraka"). Built by Emperor Chien-wen in Hsien-an 2 (372), shortly after his accession. (16) Lin-ch'in-ssu ("Monastery Facing the Ch'in-huai"). A monastery built by Wang T' an-chih, who held the title of shih chung and the rank of chung shu ling and who was a devout believer in Buddhism, facing the north of the river Ch'in-huai. (17) An-lo-ssu. Situated beside the Lin-ch'in-ssu just mentioned, it was, like it, built by Wang T' an-chih. Shih Hui-shou, a monk originally from An-lo (now Han- chiang hsien in Szechwan), having come to the capital sometime in Hsing-ning (363- 364), was living a religious life there when one day he passed by Wang T'an-chih's garden and that night he had a dream in which he was building a monastic residence in the garden. Accordingly, he wished to petition Wang T'an-chih for his permission to build a hut on his property and live in it, but the opportunity never presented it- self. When he mentioned this to the keeper of the garden, the latter said that his master would probably never consent. Hui-shou, thinking that he might move him with his sincerity, went to Wang T'an-chih personally and put the request up to him. The devoutly Buddhist Wang T'an-chihjoyfully consented. It all began with a tiny hut, but at length Wang T' an-chih donated the whole garden for the con- struction of a monastery, which was named An-lo-ssu (after Hui-shou's place of ori- gin).i To the east of it was the home ofWang Ya, magistrate ofTan-yang; to the west was that of Liu Tou, governor of Tung-yen; to the south, that of Fan Ning, governor ofYii-chang. All three of these were eventually donated to the monastery and later, when redecorated and refurbished by Tao-ching, Tao-chiao, and others, 396 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE it became at length one of the most distinguished monasteries under the Southern dynasties. Among its residents were not a few members of the whose names are recorded in the Lives of Eminent Monks, as well as the learned Buddhist layman Chou Hsii-chih, who once studied under Hui-yiian's tutelage; it also had a dragon fresco painted by the Liang artist Chang Seng-yao. (18) Hsin-t'ing-ssu (to have its name changed under the Liu-Sung to Chung-hsing- ssu, "Monastery of the Restoration," under the Liang to T'ien-an-ssu, "Monastery in Which the Gods Feel at Home"). Emperor Hsiao-wuinNing-k'ang 2 (374) invited Chu Fa-yi from Mount Pao in Shih-ning to the capital, where he gave readings and expositions, but in T' ai-yiian 1 (380) he died. The emperor thereupon bought for a hundred thousand cash a hill named hsin t'ing kang ("hill of the new inn"), where he constructed his tomb and erected a three-storied stilpa. It is there that his disciple, T'an-shuang, erected a monastery, which he named Hsin-t'ing-ssu (after the hill). The Kao-tso-ssu mentioned above and the present monastery are examples of monas- tic residences whose grounds developed into monastic cemeteries, in addition to the monasteries constructed by descendants on the grounds of mausoleums to the mem- ory of their ancestors (such as the Ch'i-yiian-ssu, again Jetavanavihiira, on the grounds of Wang Tao's mausoleum). In the florescence of the Buddhist monastery in conjunction with Chinese ancestor-worship can already be seen the source for the development of Buddhism in the Far East with its intimate connection with the care for the spirits of the departed. Emperor Hsiao-wu of the (Liu) Sung stayed in this monastery after triumphing over a rebellion, and after his accession changed its name to Chung-hsing-ssu in commemoration of the event. Shih Fa-ying, a resident of this monastery, was appointed tu yi seng cheng (more or less "metropolitan archbishop") by imperial decree, and the courtiers observed the fast known as pa kuan chai at this monastery on the anniversary of Emperor Wen's death. In all, it was a monastery closely associated with the court of the Liu-Sung, and as such it flourished. (19) Chung-ssu ("Central Monastery"). Built in T'ai-yiian 15 (390) by Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, prince of K'uai-chi (cf. the stone tablet to the Chung-ssu, inscribed by Wang Seng-ju under the Liang, in Classified Arts and Letters [Yi wen lei chu]). (20) Yeh-ch' eng-ssu ("Smithville Monastery"). The site of this monastery was originally that of a smelter, which Wang Tao moved elsewhere to convert the place into the Western Park (hsi yuan). The monastery itself was built in T'ai-yiian 15 (390) by Tao-tzu, the same prince ofK'uai-chi as the one mentioned in the previous entry, for Chu Seng-fa, a monk skilled at chanting sacred formulas. 18 For a time, after Huan Hsiian's entry into Chien-k'ang, the monastery was profaned and its grounds made into a park, but restoration was made after Hsiian's defeat. Throughout the Southern dynasties, from Sung onwards, it was a residence for learned monks. (21) T'ai-hou-ssu ("Convent of the Empress Dowager"). Probably built by one of two empresses, either the Lady Ch'u or the Lady Ho. Although it was a nunnery, in view ofits proximity to the Yeh-ch'eng-ssujust mentioned, when Huan Hsiian pro- faned the latter and turned its grounds into a its monks were moved to this convent. D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 397 (22) Fa-wang-ssu (Dharmariijavihiira). Built in Lung-an 3 (399). (23) Ch'i-yiian-ssu (]etavanavihii_ra). Built by Wang Shao, generalissimo of chariots and horse (chu chi chiang chun), north of the mausoleum of Wang Tao, his grand- father. Shao's great-great-grandson Huan, who held the rank of shang shu p'u yeh and who was also ta chung cheng of southern Hsii-chou, gave up part of his official salary to build a five-storied stilpa (cf. Shen Yiieh's inscription at the foot of the monastery, entitled Ch'i yuan ssu ch' a hsia shih chi). According to the biography of Chih-yen, a (Liu) Sung monk of the Ch'i-yiian-ssu, at the time ofLiu Yii's attack on Ch'ang-an, Wang K'uei, duke of Shih-hsing, invited Chih-yen to reside in the Shih-hsing-ssu, then built for his residence in the eastern suburb a new monastery, named Ch'i-yiian-ssu, since Chih-yen was fond of quiet and isolation. 19 (24) Yiieh-ch' eng-ssu ("Monastery ofYiieh City"?). It is not known who built this monastery, but it is known that Shih Fa-hsiang made his home in it after coming south. Late in Yiian-hsing (402-404) he died at the age of eighty. Possibly because of a political connection with Ssu-ma T'ien, Prince Ching and generalissimo for the paci- fication of the north (chen pei chiang chun, d. T' ai-yiian 15, i.e., 390), the latter tried to kill him by poisoning him, but Fa-hsiang is said to have amazed T'ien by taking the poison nonchalantly. 20 (25) Kuei-shan-ssu ("Monastery of Reversion to Good"). A monastery built during Tsin times in front of the upper orchard (shang lin yuan) east of Mount Chi- lung ("Chicken Basket"). (26) Tou-ch'ang-ssu (Tao-ch'ang-ssu).i Built by the ssu k'ung Hsieh Shih (younger brother of Hsien An). At the end of the Chinese version of the Avata'!'saka in sixty rolls ( Ta fang kuang Fa hua yen ching, translated under the Eastern Tsin by Buddha- bhadra) one finds the following notice: The text brought back by Chih Fa-ling from Khotan was translated at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu, a monastery built in Yi-hsi 14 (418) by Hsieh Shih, the ssu k'ung ofYangchow, the lay sponsors being Meng Yi, the nei shih of Wu commandery, and Ch'u Shu-tu, general of the right guard (yu wei chiang chun; both confidants of Emperor Wu of the Sung), then finally published in Ytian- hsi 2 (420). (Chih Fa-liug had left in 393 at Hui-ytian's request for Central Asia in quest of religious texts, then returned to China in 408 with many Sanskrit manu- scripts. Cf. Hui-yiian' s biography, the preface to the translation of the Sarvastivada- vinaya, and Seng-chao's answers to the letters of Liu Yi-min. 21 ) It goes without saying that the Avataf!lsaka, once translated, became an important scriptural work in opening up new avenues for a Chinese Buddhism until then concentrated on the study of the Prajfiaparamita. It is also at this monastery that the Mahasarpghikavinaya, brought back from his Indian pilgrimage by Fa-hsien, was translated. The same monastery is also the very place that became the center for newly translated Buddhist scriptures of a tendency markedly different from that of the Prajfiaparamita series, to which the Chi- nese had become accustomed since the end of the Eastern Tsin, the scene of the activi- ties ofBuddhabhadra, the devout dhyana-practitioner, and his fellows, who, having run afoul of Kumarajiva's followers, with their Prajfiaparamita orientation, at 398 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Ch'ang-an under the Former Ch'in, were expelled from that city, only to become objects of faith and attachment to the aristocracy south of the Yangtze. It has already been pointed out that there was a current byword about "Tou-ch'ang's cave of dhyana-masters and Tung-an's forest of doctrinal discussion." (27) Ch'ung-ming-ssu ("Monastery of the Exaltation of Knowledge," situated within Ching-an fortress). A popular Buddhist edifice, no more than a grass-be- strewn barnlike thing at the beginning, built by Shih Seng-hui in collaboration with Hsi.i Ch' ang-sheng of Ch' ang-an. (28) Yen-hsien-ssu ("Monastery of the Propagation of Wisdom"). A monastery built during the same Yi-hsi era (405-412) by Shih Fa-yi on a small piece of land given him by remnants of the followers of Sun En, adherents of t'ien shih Taoism who had fled to Mount Chung. Fa-yi was very active in late Tsin in both the lay apostolate and temple-building, so much so that he actually constructed fifty-three monasteries. 22 From the circumstance that rebels united by their belief in t'ien shih Taoism could give a piece ofland to a Buddhist monk for the construction of a relig- ious edifice that would serve the lay apostolate, one may deduce that the violent en- mity that was to characterize relations between Buddhism and Taoism had not yet come into the open. (29) Ch'ing-yi.ian-ssu ("Green Park Monastery," to be renamed Lung-kuang-ssu, Monastery of Dragon Glow," under the Liu-Sung). Situated at the foot of Mount Fu-chou ("Overturned Boat") and built by the Lady Ch'u (daughter of Ch'u Shuang, governor of Yi-hsing), consort of Emperor Kung (r. 419), last sovereign of the Eastern Tsin, it was the residence of Chu Tao-sheng, who was expelled from Chien- k'ang for having presented the Buddhist community of that city in (Liu-) Sung times with some new dogmatic theories. In Yi.ian-chia 5 (428), Tao-sheng, seeing the copy of the Mahayana Mahiiparinirviil'}asutra brought back with him by Fa-hsien, advanced the theory that even extremely evil persons, those said to have "cut off their roots of wholesomeness" (tuan shan ken, ucchinnakusalamulab?), should all achieve Buddha- hood, for which he was expelled from the monastery as a heretic by the other monks, who were attached to the older doctrines. That year the rumor became rife that a thunderbolt hit the Ch'ing-yi.ian-ssu, and that a dragon was seen mounting to Heav- en. This, so it is said, is the reason for which the name was changed to Lung-kuang- ssu. (30) Hsin-lin-ssu ("Convent of the New Grove"). A convent built by Emperor Chien-wen (r. 371-372) for the nun Tao-jung, whom he even served as a teacher, and who was an object of veneration to Emperor Hsiao-wu as well, dying sometime in T' ai-yi.ian (376-396). This nun was very effective in the conversion of the ruling fa- mily at the end of the Tsin (cf. Lives of 1). (31) Chien-ching-ni-ssu ("Convent of Simplicity and Quietude"). Built in T' ai- yi.ian 10 (385, the year of Tao-an's death) by Tao-tzu, the above-mentioned prince of K' uai-chi, who also held the rank oft' ai Ju, for the trusted nun Chih Miao-yin. This nun had the run of the court, and her recommendations and other remarks were extremely influential with regard to anyone seeking advancement in the political D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 399 world. Even Huan Hslian, by leaving it in the hands of this nun, contrived to have Yin Chung-chan appointed censor of Ching-chou after the death of the incumbent, Wang Ch'en. One reads, for example, as follows concerning this convent after the appointment of Chih Miao-yin to the post of abbess: Her followers, numbering more than a hundred, persons of ability and intellectual subtlety, both religious [nei, "internal") and secular [wai, "external"), owed their success to her, so that the offerings made to her were inexhaustible, the riches enough to fill a metropolis. The noble and the base both served her, so that there were always horse-drawn carriages in her gateway, every day more than a hun- dred equipages. 23 From this it is evident that there was an unending stream of persons currying favor with this nun. Here is blatant evidence of at least one aspect of an aristocratic Bud- dhism linked with the political corruption in Chien-k'ang at the end of the Eastern Tsin, and it was only a matter of time before attacks on Buddhism on the part of the intellectual class, as well as advocacy of a cleansing of the church, were to be put forward. (Cf. section E, below.) (32) Ching-fu-ssu ("Convent of Resplendent Merit"). A convent established southeast of the above-mentioned Yeh-ch'eng-ssu early in Sung, namely, in Yung- ch'u 3 (422), for the nun Hui-kuo by Fu Hung-jen, censor ofCh'ing-chou, who gave the eastern part of his own home for the purpose. It is here that, under the Liu-Sung, in Ylian-chia 9 (432), two nuns belonging to this convent, Ching-yin and the above- mentioned Hui-kuo, received the sila at the hands of Gul).abhadra very shortly after his arrival (c Lives of 2). The K'uai-chi Convents. Finally, as evidence of temple-building in K'uai-chi, let us cite two convents built by Hsli Hslin, namely, Hsli Hslin's Ch'i-ylian-ssu (]etava- navihiira) and Ch'ung-hua-ssu ("Monastery of the Veneration of Conversation"). Hsli Hsiin was a well-known scholar, an associate of Chih Tun, Hsieh An, Wang Hsi-chih, and others, an accomplished "pure talker" and "dark learner" of the first rank. He is famous for attending one of Chih Tun's readings of the Vimalaki- rtinirdea, at which the arguments and counterarguments of the two men flowed like water, winning sighs of admiration from all the gentlemen in attendance. In Hsien- ho 6 (331) he donated his two K'uai-chi residences, which became in due course the monasteries named Ch'i-ylian and Ch'ung-hua. The names were conferred by Em- peror Mu. In Hsien-ho 6 (331), Hsli Hslin donated two mansions, those of Shan-yin ["North of the Mountains") and Yung-hsing ["Eternal Prosperity"), remaking them into monasteries. Emperor Mu handed down a decree, saying that the older residence, Shan-yin, was to be renamed Ch'i-ylian, the newer one, Yung-hsing, to be called Ch'ung-hua. (Cf. the K'uai-chi Gazetteer.] For his newer residence, now the Ch'ung-hua-ssu, Hsli Hslin built a four-storied stUpa, in the making of which he exhausted his means before he could equip it with 400 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE a dew-pot or a wheel. These, so we are told (in roll 8 of the Real Record of Chien- k'ang), were never provided. His faith in Buddhism was such that he had no hesitation in exhausting his for- tune. This act of extreme sacrifice of one's property for the Buddhist faith was, how- ever, attacked by an outsider, and the time was to come when Buddhism was to be considered the enemy of the national economy, something that recklessly spent the nation's wealth. Popular Buddhist Edifices. The above-mentioned convents are almost all religious edifices constructed by royalty, aristocracy, or upper bureaucracy, for such was the nature of the literary sources of this information that its principal concern was with the famous convents of the Southern dynasties, built by aristocrats, while tiny edi- fices constructed by commoners, or Buddha-halls that were in the nature of popular shrines, went unrecorded. Among these latter are some Buddhist convents dating to Wu times and others dating to the end of the Eastern Tsin, fifth-century convents such as (27) the Ch'ung-ming-ssu and(28) the Yen-hsien-ssu, which may be regarded as popular Buddhist temples. This is particularly true of the Yen-hsien-ssu, whose founder, Fa-yi, is said to have built as many as fifty-three convents. Among them, what one may call popular Buddhist temples, whether large or small, built with popular donations-the tiny ones, rather, whose very names have vanished-must be the most numerous. These were times when, in the political world, all security was being eaten away by the ambitions of men such as Huan Hsi.ian and Liu Yi.i, who were seeking to snatch the throne from robot emperors; when men like Sun En were in back of up- risings that, with the Taoist faith as a binding cord, were playing havoc with the whole area south of the Yangtze, all the way from K'uai-chi east of the Che to the vicinity of Chien-k'ang, throwing aristocratic society and the general population, gentry as well as commonalty, into confusion and panic; when, finally, in the Bud- dhist world the glowing reports of a religious community headed by Hui-yi.ian on Mount Lu, far from Chien-k'ang, were gaining ever more and greater respect and admiration. They were times when the upper social strata as well as the lower, in the midst of a feeling of crisis, were seeking something or someone to which or to whom to address their prayers. When the Buddhist community was burgeoning at such a rate, in addition to the great convents built by the aristocracy, there is room to suppose that there was a great increase in the number and variety of small temples and prayer halls, in the na- ture of popular shrines; that there was another Buddhism flourishing, one that attracted believers from the general ranks of society and that overlapped with pop- ular beliefs; that there was also no lack of popular, even magic-working, evangelist- monks. If it is true that in the aristocratic convents a Buddhism tinged with Taoism in the spirit ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu was presented in the public readings, to the delight of scholarly aristocrats, it is surely conceivable that in the popular Buddhist edifices, on the other hand, for the benefit of persons whose life was premised on traditional popular beliefs long cultivated by people racially and culturally Chinese, D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 401 gentry as well as commonalty, there was preached, as it were, a sort of Taoistic Bud- dhism of a piece with their own beliefs, and that there coexisted there an Indian religion of cause and effect, or retribution, of transmigration and rebirth, and a Buddhism that was accepted by, and spread among, the people on a wide scale on the basis of a Chinese faith in spirit shrines which were the objects of prayer accompanied by religious practice, shrines connected with a real life in which prayers for the aversion of disaster, the healing of sickness, the gift of good fortune, and the like were ad- dressed to Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Taoistic Buddhism of the Popular Temples. On the other hand, it is worthy of note that it is not only Buddhism that flourished at this time, for even among the aristoc- racy there were some distinguished families that had "for generations worshiped the Heavenly Master's teaching of the Way" (t'ien shih tao chiao), to say nothing of the common people, among whom there was a powerful tendency to rely on magicians and on a combined faith in both gods and Buddhas. It bears repeating that the founding of (28) the Yen-hsien-ssu was made possible by the gift of a small piece of land from partisans of Sun En, believers in t'ien shih Taoism who had taken refuge on Mount Chung, for in Tsin times Buddhism and t'ien shih Taoism were equally widespread on all levels of society, aristocracy, gentry, and commonalty, there being as yet none of the violent enmity or mutual intolerance that was to characterize them later. The two together were proselytizing on a wide scale while making the era of the Eastern Tsin into one in which the converting powers of religion were extremely great. However, faith in the Taoist adept became a force for uniting the commonalty in movements that opposed the government of the time, fomenting mighty rebellions that gave government and aristocracy, gentry and commonalty, nothing but trouble. Two features of Buddhism, by contrast, may be said to have created for the tri- umph of Buddhism under the Eastern Tsin and the Southern dynasties, when the aristocracy were the bearers of both government and culture, conditions much more favorable than those enjoyed by Taoism. These were, first, that there were few such rebellious tendencies among the shaven-headed, ascetic, celibate, foreign-born mem- bers of the Buddhist sarp.gha and, second, that they had many canonical scriptures rich in sophisticated literary, even philosophical, expressions, some of them of a piece with the ideas ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. This is why the Taoist community, which did not have much of a scriptural corpus apart from Lao tzu and the Scripture of the Great Calm (T'ai p'ing ching), was at such pains to create, as it did in time, a Taoist canon. The triumph of a Buddhism backed by the power of the aristocracy was also accompanied by negative features, and that of popular Buddhism, for its own part, as seen from the position of the ruling class, was by no means a desirable thing in terms of traditional Chinese notions of political morality. Finally, the development of nunneries (to be mentioned in section E), the increasing number of nuns, the heightened Buddhist devotion among laywomen and their frequent visits to con- vents could also easily become the objects of attacks launched from the point of view of traditional morality. These are the reasons that from Hui-yiian's time forward, 402 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE in the latter half of the era of the Eastern Tsin, anti-Buddhist policies and arguments again made their appearance. Evils Inherent in Aristocratic Temple-Building. As must surely be evident from the examples cited above, the majority of the most influential Buddhist convents built under the Eastern Tsin in the Chien-k'ang area that also maintained themselves as powerful religious centers for the whole region into the era of the Southern dynasties were established by contributions from the ruling family and/or the aristocracy. Through the pious Buddhist acts, such as the building of convents, of powerful Buddhist aristocrats, frequently the lower bureaucracy and the common people tended to be exploited. To give but two examples, where the Buddhist piety of Ho Ch'ung and his younger brother is concerned, the former being a man whose power and authority carried the whole age before them, his biography says, "His repair of Buddhist monasteries and his offerings to the sramal).aS were hundredfold, but, based as he was for a long time in Yang-chou (Chien-k'ang), he would conscript clerks and commoners, and the praises for his achievements amounted to the tens of thousands. For this reason he was cursed by all, both far and near." 24 The other example is Wang Kung, who conscripted common folk to build elegantly appointed convents, so that he became the target of popular resentment. 25 In their temple- building they would "donate all of their household property and precious and unusual objects to the convents," going so far as to reduce their own holdings to noth- ing. 26 A case of this is Wang T'an-chih, who, for the building of the An-lo-ssu, donated his own garden and prevailed on three of his aristocratic neighbors to donate their own homes as well, or so we are told. 27 At any rate, one can deduce for oneself the grand scale of these aristocratic convents. The temple-building activity of the Eastern Tsin aristocracy was one in which each edifice vied with its fellows for magnificence at a cost to be borne by many, laying the foundation for the "four hundred and eighty convents of the Southern dynasties" (nan ch'ao ssu po pa shih ssu) sung of by the T'ang poet Tu Mu while, the same time, betraying many inherent faults for which it invited attacks on the part of knowledgeable persons. In the same connection, it is worthy of note that this was accompanied by a pronounced development in the Buddhist arts, marking, in fact, an epoch in the history of art and craft throughout the whole Far East. Development of Buddhist Art. In conjunction with the building of sarp.gharamas, there were inaugurated at this time, and on a grand scale, the casting of Buddhist images and the painting of Buddhist portraits, providing the world with a whole series of distinguished artists. As early as Wu times, during the reign of Sun Hao, there was found buried in the garden by the ladies' quarters of the palace a standing gold image several feet in length, then, in Ch'ih-wu 10 (247), K'ang Seng-hui, on his arrival in Chien-k'ang from the Chiao-chih (Giaokhi) area, is reported to have built a grass shack in which he "fashioned an image and trod the Path" ; 28 but it is only under the Eastern Tsin that the making of icons came into its own. At the time, Chinese monks returning from westward pilgrimages would bring icons as well as scriptures, 29 early in Yi- D : ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 403 hsi (405) the king of Lion Land (shih tzu kuo, i.e., Sirp.hala, Ceylon) presented an image made of white jade, 30 and in other ways Buddhist figures would come over- land from the west. Then there are such tales as the one connected with the "stilpa of Asoka" belonging to the Ch' ang-kan-ssu, according to which a pearl fisherman of Chiao-chou acquired an icon at the bottom of the sea and brought it to the Ch' ang- kan-ssu, where he left it for safekeeping, 31 or another anecdote that tells how, when T'ao K'an was serving at Kuang-chou (Canton), a fisherman, seeing a super- natural glow in the water, retrieved an Asoka image, which he sent to the Han-hsi- ssu in W u-ch' ang, 32 both stories indicating that apart from the land route leading through Central Asia into North China there was another, by which Buddhist icons came to China by way of the South Seas. At the same time, the Chinese themselves were beginning to vie with one another in the making of statuary. Sometime in Hsing-ning (373-375) Chu Tao-lin fashioned an image of the Amitayurbuddha, 33 while in T'ai-ylian 2 (371) Chih Hui-hu cast a gold image ofSakyamunibuddha, sixteen feet high, at the Shao-ling-ssu in Wu com- mandery.34 There are many historical facts recorded, 35 such as the one concerning Emperor Kung, who in Ylian-hsi 2 (420) melted down ten million coins for the casting of an image sixteen feet high, which he then lodged in the Wa-kuan-ssu. 36 Another matter of historical fact is the existence ofTai K'uei (d. 396, courtesy name An-tao) and his son, both famous sculptors of icons. Among K'uei's creations were a sixteen-foot wooden image of the Amitayurbuddha, lodged in the Ling-pao-ssu north of the K'uai-chi mountains, and five "walking images," clothed in garments lined with Indian mallow(? chia chu). At such pains was he to approach the "extreme of reality" in the execution of these images that he thought of them concentratedly for several years, then would study and refashion them, listening secretly to the criti- cal comments of others as he heard them through a curtain, so that it took him no less than three years to finish a single image. "For subtlety in fashioning images, they have never had their like in our eastern (land of) Hsia (i.e., China)." "The image- making of the two Tai stands alone throughout the ages." And, in fact, distinguished image-making begins in China with those two men, father and son. 37 Not one of their creations survives, however.r While there were among the Buddhist icons of the time some of wood and others of chia chu, the majority were still of gold and copper. The quantity of copper used was by no means small, and great care was taken in the use of it. "He [i.e., Seng-liang) wished to fashion a golden image sixteen feet tall, but the copper to be used would not be slight, not the kind that could be provided hy begging a bit at a time." (C Seing-liang's biography in roll 13, Lives of Eminent Monks.) In addition, in late Tsin there was in effect a ban on the use of copper, violation of which was punishable by death, which meant that anyone who cast images had to do so at the risk ofhis life. Having a connection with leadership and conversion, he fashioned a gold image sixteen feet high. When the melting was just finished and before a shape had been 404 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE formed, the time was the end of the Tsin, when the prohibition against the use of copper was very strict and offenders were invariably put to death. Emperor Wu of the Sung was at the time prime minister. Seng-hung, accused of the crime, was imprisoned in the minister's headquarters, ... [Seng-hung's biog- raphy in roll13, Lives of Eminent Monks.] Seen from one point of view, this is an important reason for which the casting of Buddha-figures was effected by the reckless use of the nation's resources even in violation of a ban, and why it was charged by the world with "reducing the precious treasures of the people, holding unjustified expenditure in high esteem, exhausting the yearly income of private households, and depleting the material resources of the army and the State" (c the Essay that Demolishes Attacks [Shih po lun]). 38 Buddhist Painting in the Six Dynasties. In the history of Chinese painting, the Six Dynasties represent a huge advance over all earlier periods, for its area extended into portraiture and landscape painting, under the influence of the world of ideas an internal depth was sought even in painting, and some Buddhist ideas were also absorbed. Among Eastern Tsin artists who did Buddhist paintings are Wei Hsieh, the portrait artist who did a painting of the Seven Buddhas ; 39 his disciple Chang Mo (among whose works is a statue of Vimalakirti) ; 40 Ssu-ma Shao, the Emperor Ming ; 41 and Wang Yi ; 42 while the no less celebrated Ku K' ai-chih is known for a number of creations, chiefly for the Vimalakirti image in the Wa-kuan-ssu. 43 Tai K'uei, for his part, was a skilled landscape painter and, as to Buddhist art, there was to his credit a painting of Five Divine Arhants (wu t'ien lo-han t'u); toward his middle years, he became a skilled sculptor of"walking images." 44 Buddhist sculpture and paintings of the sort described, lodged in the convents, attracted the concern of the metropolitans, whether as objects of faith or as works of art. In particular, the golden statue from Ceylon lodged in the Wa-kuan-ssu, the five images executed by Tai K'uei, and Ku K'ai-chih's painting of Vimalakirti were dubbed the "three ultimates" (san chiieh). 45 Famous, for instance, were the stories of Yi.i Liang, who, upon seeing a reclining Buddha, i.e., an image of the Nirval).a, delivered an ex- clamation that was to gain fame, "The Sage is tired of the fords and bridges [of life] !," 46 and of Chang Hsi.ian-chih and Ku Fu, who, when not yet ten years old, saw an image of the Nirval).a and had a brilliant exchange of remarks, 47 both of which lead one to suppose that through these paintings and sculptures the aristocrats ac- quired an affectionate familiarity with Buddhism, which, in turn, presumably served as an avenue to lead them to the Faith. Material Aid to the Convents from the Aristocracy. Toward a religious community that was growing with speed and vigor, battening on lavish material assistance from the aristocracy, toward a monastic fellowship that, housed in palatially appointed convents and rubbing elbows with these same aristocrats, was immersed in a way of life that was, in effect, secular, critical attacks from that secular world were virtually certain to come. In cases in which offerings from the aristocracy were made at the expense, even at the sacrifice, of the common people, the church became the D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CIDEN-K'ANG 405 target for attacks from the world at large, attacks that not infrequently were aimed at individual Buddhists. Two examples of merciless criticism are Ku Chung, 48 who was constantly annoyed by the outlays made for religious purposes by that celebrated Buddhist Ho Ch'ung and who once, when on a drive with the latter, refused to go with him into a mon- astery, and Hsi.i Jung, who has already been mentioned as the author of a protest which, addressed to Emperor Hsiao-wu, said, in effect, "That whole lot, immersed in this Buddhist mire, outdo one another in the service they render and the deference they display, yet they assault the people by treating them as if they were fish to be caught. They may take treasure to confer it (as offerings on the church), but they are as far as ever from the Path of Gift-giving [pu shih, dana, tyiiga]." As for the sarpgha, whose members lived a life of plenty on the donations of the aristocracy, the Essay that Rectifies Attacks (Cheng wu lun) says, "The gentlemen of the Path (i.e., the sarpgha), by robbing the common people, build stilpas and convents on a large scale, resorting to ostentation and extravagance, but all to no valid purpose." 49 Tao-heng, in his Essay that Demolishes Attacks (Shih po lun), puts the following words into the mouth of a critic: "Why, they are no different from farmers and merchants! They tend fields and orchards, they garner profits, they amass property, at their convo- cations they feast on the finest of delicacies, their convents and temples are the extreme of elegance! The sarpgha are themselves one of the five wrongs of which they accuse the world, for, if one looks at today's sramat).as, one sees that none of them has any [monastic] capabilities, that there is not a distinguished person among them." 50 Clerical degeneration of the sort just described became pronounced by the end of the Eastern Tsin, for, given Ssu-ma Tao-tzu's extravagance, the political decay, and the activities of the Buddhist church, i.e., of monks and nuns, at court, principally in the ladies' quarters, considerable latitude was gained by the monks and nuns who with their connections at court were leading a life of extravagant luxury and seek- ing to enhance their own power. In extreme cases, this ate away at the very vitals of the Eastern Tsin and became one of the reasons for which "from this point on the fortunes of the Tsin took a turn [for the worse]." 51 Imperial patronage continued with unabated zeal through a whole series of gener- ations, particularly notable examples of the extremely profound connection between reigning family and Buddhist church being the construction by Emperor Hsiao-wu within the palace of a Buddhist tabernacle (ching she, equivalent to vihiira), to which he then invited sramat).as, and the construction by the empress of convents, where she would be on very intimate terms with the nuns (cf. section E). The worship of the Buddha within the imperial palace easily attracted its own sort of abuses. Flagrant instances that one might cite would have to do with relations between the Buddhist church on the one hand and Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, prince ofK'uai-chi, and the powerful ministers who surrounded him during his regency on the other. Buddhism and Ssu-ma Tao-tzu. During the reign of Emperor Hsiao-wu, politics degenerated and omens of the imminent Tsin collapse made their appearance. 406 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, the emperor's younger brother and prince of K' uai-chi, after the passing of such giant statesmen as Hsieh An (d. 385), assumed effective political power and behaved rather as he pleased, spending the whole day and well into the night carousing and sporting in the company of the emperor, who had just attained his majority. Wang Kuo-pao, appointed to the post of chung shu ling, eager above all to enjoy the favor of Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, also neglected his political duties, and in addition appointed persons to desirable posts in return for bribes. In sum, the political world of the Eastern Tsin began to be marked by the symptoms of illness that herald an approaching death. Ssu-ma Tao-tzu's biography (in roll 64 of the Book of Tsin) says that Emperor Hsiao-wu, who took no interest in the duties of political administration, was totally immersed in the pursuits of carousing and sporting in Tao-tzu's company, that his old nurse, as well as the nuns who stood between him and the court, began to toy with power and authority, and that, as a consequence, flatterers from families of the lower bureaucracy were appointed to positions of consequence, most of them rising to be chiefs of commanderies (chun) and districts (hsien). However, since Tao-tzu's power, as recorder-general (tsung lu) ofYangchow, was "enough to overturn All- under-Heaven," court and countryside had no choice but to win his favor if the goal was appointment to an enviable post. Wang Kuo-pao (son of Wang T'an-chih, a believing Buddhist who declared his discipleship to Chu Fa-yang and who, as already mentioned, was a builder of convents), by nature a mean currier of favor, took bribes, hand over fist, from seekers after political office and from condemned persons hoping to evade punishment, behavior that earned the comment that "government and punishment became irregular and confused." (Wang Kuo-pao's biography is appended to that of Wang Chan in roll 75 of the Book of Tsin.) When it comes to the Buddhist piety and unrestrained conduct of the chancellor (tsai hsiang) Ssu-ma Tao-tzu who was his superior, the latter's biography says: He revered and believed the doctrine of Budho. His expenditures were extrav- agant, and he could not bring himself to give orders to his inferiors. [?] From T'ai-yi.ian [376-396] onward, he was given to feasting late into the night. He would get tousleheaded and bleary-eyed, and his government suffered a great deal. Scarcely the sort of behavior one would expect of a Buddhist. The political world of the Eastern Tsin in the latter half of the fourth century reached the extreme of corruption. In the midst of all this, it is worthy of note that there was a nun named Chih Miao-yin, who had the run of the court, who had won the faith of Ssu-ma Tao-tzu and his fellows, and that she had enormous say in determining how things were done. She became the abbess of the Chien-ching-ni-ssu ("Convent of Simpli- city and Purity"), a convent built by Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, where there were riches enough to fill a city, where both the noble and the base rendered service, and in front of whose gate there were carriages and horses to the number of more than a hundred equipages day in, day out (c roll 1, Lives of the Hsi.i Jung, a D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 407 minister of State unable to hold his peace in the face of the Buddhist religious abuses connected with the slovenly and corrupt government of the powerholders who held office when the central government was in the control of Ssu-ma Tao-tzu and his clique, memorialized the throne in the harsh language that follows : 52 At the present time, among those appointed to posts in the central government and in the provinces there are outright criminals and persons by no means of the highest lineage, some of the latter going so far as to become provincial chiefs, leaving the actual affairs of government in the hands of petty clerks. This happens for two reasons, the first being that monks, nuns, and nurses have been vying with one another to advance their own cherished favorites, the second being that bribery is rampant. Now the Buddha was, supposedly, a pure deity, remote, ob- scure, and free of preconceptions, one whose doctrine consisted of the five re- straints, a total abstainer and totally chaste, yet the Buddhists of the present day are a lot who both defile and despise the nannies [i.e., the nuns] and are addicted to drinking and fornication. The monks and nuns constitute a veritable herd, all wearing their religious habits, yet they cannot keep even the rough prohibitions of the five restraints, how much the less put into practice those of the Buddhist orders! Yet that whole lot, astray as they are, render homage and service [to the Buddha]! They also assault the common people, as if they were so many fish to be caught, and take their property as offerings, which means that they are as far as ever from the Path of gift-giving .... At a time when the situation of the central government was as just described, within the Chien-k'ang aristocracy a force from the ranks of the military opposed to the central government, that ofHuan Hstian, was steadily augmenting its power and advancing its preparations to usurp the Eastern Tsin, while in the countryside the uprisings led by Sun En and Lu Hsiin, who, having united many believers under the banner of a Taoist faith, were driving them to make war on the government, were playing havoc with the districts of K'uai-chi and Chien-k'ang. Wang Kung's Veneration of Buddhism. Now at Chien-k'ang, in 396, Hsiao-wu, the wine-soaked emperor, was killed by one of his own favorites, Chang Kuei, to be succeeded by his idiot son (Emperor An), but the power went to Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, another drunkard and a man with no sense of duty, and to his principal follower, Wang Kuo-pao, and his whole clique. At the same time, decay and disorder through- out the Eastern Tsin were becoming evident on all sides, and there were times when peace and security would be unknown for a year at a time. Most important of all, at the center of things Wang Kung, who detested Wang Kuo-pao, joined Yin Chung-k'an of Ching-chou in raising an army ostensibly for the elimination of Wang Kuo-pao, and the latter and his whole following were in fact killed (in 397). The following year, 398, Wang Kung lured Huan Hstian into a military alliance, but this time his scheme failed and he lost his life as well. This Wang Kung was the grandson ofWang Meng, a man famous for his "pure talk" and his grand style, and brother to the consort of Emperor Hsiao-wu. Like Wang Kuo-pao, Ssu-ma 408 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Tao-tzu, and Emperor Hsiao-wu himself, he was a fanatical Buddhist. His biography, in fact, has the following to say : 53 Having a most pronounced faith in the Path of the Buddha, he conscripted the com- mon people to build and repair Buddhist convents, his principal concern being stern, impressive beauty. Gentlefolk and commoners groaned in resentment. It was, in other words, building and repair work on a grand scale, in the style of an aristocracy that never took any thought for the sufferings and agonies of the people beneath them. On the other hand, the same source says this as well: Even when he faced execution, he still intoned the Buddhist scriptures, he shaved himself, and his spirit seemed unruffied by fear. The image one gains is that of a well-educated aristocrat whose whole life was permeated by his Buddhist faith, an image further reinforced by the comment that "his house contained no valuables, merely books and nothing else." One can deduce from this the degree to which the aristocrats of the ruling class during the reign of Emperor Hsiao-wu had been transformed by Buddhism, but one deduces at the same time that the accompanying oppression of the people by this overripe aristocratic Buddhism was also acute, that there had been a great increase in the number of gentlefolk and commoners who, joining the Order in these lavishly appointed aristocratic convents, were seeking an escape and a life of ease divorced from reality. Eventually Huan Hsi.ian, who became the real powerholder in the political world, attempted a rectification and a purge of the religious community (in 398) and came into a confrontation with Hui-yi.ian-inevitably, as one might suppose. By this time, a man like Fan Ning, Wang Kuo-pao's father-in-law, insistently demanded rule on the basis of the Confucian doctrine of propriety, while persons of the stamp of Wang Pi and Ho Yen, who took rather a casual view of Confucianism and who were responsible for the spread of "dark learning," were characterized by him as men "whose offenses were more grave than those of Chieh and Chou." 54 Ssu-ma Tao-tzu and Wang Kuo-pao contrived to have him removed and made governor of Yi.i-chang, but even there he devoted himself to a reform of political thinking within his area of jurisdiction on the basis of a Confucian revival. The Uprising of Sun En. For his opposition to Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, Wang Kung, the loser, paid with his life, yet Huan Hsi.ian was building up, in and around Hsi.in-yang, which faced the river at the foot of Mount Lu, a military force of increasing strength, poising himself to crush Chien-k' ang downstream. As if this were not enough, at the center of things there were within the ruling family endless squabbles for power and authority, and at this very time, southeast of Chien-k' ang, came the uprising of Sun En, a devoted believer in t'ien shih Taoism who, taking advantage of the widespread belief in the superhuman sylph to weld a popular mass suffering under an in- effectual government into an armed force bound together by a na"ive religious faith and utterly heedless of its own life, stormed like a cyclone through the im- portant metropolitan centers and through the country's rich breadbasket. D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 409 It has already been mentioned that the area ofK'uai-chi and the commandery of W u, from as early as the end of the Han, had been the scene of a widespread, defer- ential belief in the allegedly divine powers of Kan Chi, a fervid belief that embraced men and women of both the gentry and the commonalty. This sort of belief con- tinued to permeate the social life of the region. Ko Hung, author, early under the Eastern Tsin, of the Pao p'u tzu, was a pronouncedly Confucian scholar, yet at the same time he was a breed of intellectual firmly convinced of the existence of super- human sylphs and of the possibility of becoming one by the concoction and con- sumption of certain elixirs and, secure in this belief, he was also a "practitioner of the Way." In a society in which even thoroughly schooled intellectuals could live by the traditional belief in the arts of the superhuman sylph, the uneducated mass of commoners was widely and deeply permeated by a jumble of traditional beliefs, including faith in magicians, faith in the prognostication and aversion of disaster, and faith in the possible existence of superhuman sylphs and the attendant vener- ation and aspiration that accompanied that faith. The Szechwan-based "t'ien shih Taoism of the three Changs," which, from late Han onwards, had taken on the trappings of an organized religion, was in the process, during Wei and Tsin, of per- meating the entire nation. Late in the Han, in the Szechwan area, Chang Ling, allegedly with the aid of the spirit world, acquired a large number of believers in his powers, as a superhuman sylph, to heal the sick and to ward off disaster. The status thus gained passed on to Chang Hsiu and from him to Chang Lu. The believers ("ghostly troops," kuei tsu) steadily increased in number, and, organizing them along ecclesiastical lines, he called himself the "divine teacher" (t'ien shih), appointing above the "ghostly troops," to give them leadership and to keep them under control, a whole series of ranks, viz. (in ascending order), "ghostly sergeants" (kuei li), "sacrificiallibationers" (chi chiu), "captains" (chih t'ou), and "grand sacrificiallibationers" (ta chi chiu), and thus contriving to convert the Szechwan area into a full-blown theocracy. Another event previously mentioned is the fact that, similarly at the end of the Han, Chang Chtieh, who laid claim to healing powers based on sylphic skill, building up and welding together a body of believers in the eastern part ofN orth China, fomented the uprising of the Yellow Turbans, whose aim was to bring the Han to an end. The uprising of the Yellow Turbans did shake the Han to its very foundations and did hasten its eventual collapse, but at that it was suppressed in almost no time. The relationship, if any, between the t'ien shih Taoism of Chang Ling and Chang Lu, on the one hand, and the doctrine of the Way of the Grand Calm (t'ai p'ing tao chiao) of Chang Chtieh, on the other, and, in particular, the relationship, if any, that may have existed among their respective leaders are far from certain, but to the mass of the people, to their plebeian adherents in particular, the beliefs must have seemed very much the same. This may be deduced from the fact that there were Yellow Turban uprisings in three other commanderies as well, viz., those of Pa, Shu, and Kuang-han. The Spread oj"t'ien shih" Taoism. Now Chang Chueh was put down, but in the 410 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Szechwan region, on the other hand, in which, separated as it was from the mad power-struggles that marked the end of the Han, it was possible to maintain a separate power, the movement gained believers among the local people. It per- fected an ecclesiastical organization complete with a ceremonial for stimulating an awareness in the practitioner of his own sinful thoughts and for penance. It required its adherents to make offerings of five bushels of rice (whence the name, the "Way of the Five Bushels of Rice," wu tau mi tao), and at the same time provided free lodging for wayfarers, as well as rice and meat, thus giving them free time to engage in religious reflection. In this and in other ways it secured its base, in terms both of economy and of social mission, and expanded its effectiveness as a religion. It took no act.ive part in any campaigns whose target was the central government; rather, it adopted a policy of compromise with the existing political power. In the contest among the Three Kingdoms, the movement sided with the ultimate victor, Ts'ao Ts'ao, who controlled the Middle Plain, and the sons and daughters of the Chang clan were comparatively well treated by him. Thanks to all this, t'ien shih Taoism in Wei and Tsin times crossed the borders of Szechwan to spread into the Middle Plain, but also into the lower reaches of the Yellow River and of the Yangtze in Central China, the one-time base of Kan Chi and Chang Chi.ieh, where it gained adherents not only among the general run of gen- try and commonalty but among distinguished families and powerful clans as well. Believers in Taoism made their appearance in such clans as the Wang and Sun of Lang-yeh; the Hsi of Kao-p'ing; the Yin of Ch'en commandery; the K'ung of K'uai-chi; the Chou of Yi-hsing; the Shen of Wu-hsing; the T'ao, Hsi.i, and Ko ofTan-yang; the Pao ofTung-hai; the Yang ofT'ai-shan; the Tu ofCh'ien-t'ang; and the Hsieh, also of Ch' en commandery: among these were some whose members had been devoted Taoists for generations on end. In Chang Lu's religious organiz- ation, all officers of the rank of "sacrificiallibationer" and above, whose function it was to guide the believers, had committed to memory Lao-tzu's text of five thou- sand words, presumably a handy device for gaining adherents from the ranks of the gentry at a time when the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu was so fashionable. About the time the Eastern Tsin got its start, not a few of the Taoists of North China fled southward in the manner of their Buddhist counterparts, thus presumably furnishing an excellent opportunity for the spread and triumph of Taoism in the Kiangsu and Chekiang regions, where a lively faith in ghosts and spirits was already well established. Uprisings of Sun T'ai and Sun En. Now under the Eastern Tsin, during the reign of Emperor Hsiao-wu (r. 373-397), a man named Tu Tzu-kung of Ch'ien-t'ang, gaining the respect usually accorded the head of a church who enjoys the faith of masses ofbelievers, won an important adherent, Sun T'ai, uncle of Sun En. The Sun clan was an important one in Ch'ien-t'ang, a clan devoted to t'ien shih Taoism. This devotion continued even after the clan's southward flight. Sun T'ai was not only Tu Tzu-kung's pupil but, after the latter's death, his successor as well, head of a religious organization with many believing adherents. The people worshiped him D : ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 411 as a god, offering him all their goods and chattels without stint, going so far as to give him their sons and daughters, in the hope of getting some blessing in return. Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, the prince ofK'uai-chi, banished him to Kuang-chou (Canton) on the advice ofWang Hsi.in (courtesy name Yi.ian-lin, childhood name Fa-hu), but the censor on duty in the latter place, succumbing to faith in him, treated him very grandly, so that even here his adherents increased in number and his new place of residence became a secure base for Sun En's brand of t'ien shih Taoism. At length, Emperor Hsiao-wu, as devoted as ever to neglect of duty and to all-night carousals, hearing that Sun T' ai was adept at recipes for enhancing sexual desire and for leng- thening life, invited him to the capital and went so far as to appoint him governor of Hsin-an. With his special skills, he gained followers both gentle and common, and persons of standing became believers in his alleged magic powers, notably K' ung Tao, whose rank was huang men lang; Huan Fang-chih, the governor of P' a- yang; Chou Hsieh, whose rank was p'iao ch'i tzu yi; and, most important of all, Ssu- ma Yi.ian-hsien, heir presumptive to the post of prince ofK'uai-chi, who was already appropriating the real power of the central government. Wang Kung's uprising fi- nally made it possible for Sun T' ai to see the signs of the Tsin' s decline. Fanning the common people into action and having his base in the gentry and commonalty of the "three Wu" (i.e., Wu commandery, Wu-hsing, and K'uai-chi), he himself led an uprising, the ostensible purpose of which was to chastise Wang Kung, but he was defeated and put to death. Yet his followers, convinced that Sun T' ai had but shed his mortal frame and become a sylph, rallied round Sun En as his successor. At the center of things Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, prince of K'uai-chi, who held the posts of ssu t'u and recorder-general of Yangchow, and who by now is said not to have passed a single day sober, was suffer- ing encroachment on his position at the hands ofYi.ian-hsien, his heir presumptive. In the mutual confrontation, both exerted themselves to gather their respective confidants and partisans, with increasingly dire results where the operation of govern- ment was concerned. In 399, once Ssu-ma Yi.ian-hsien, a man of cruel temperament who reputedly would kill a man or let him live in obedience to the mood of the moment, moved to the capital and recruited into military service some former slaves whom the aristocrats of the eastern corrunanderies had manumitted and organized into new households of free men, those same eastern commanderies fell into chaos. Scarcely had the slaves, until then condemned to a life of filth and cruel mistreatment on the estates of the powerful clans, been added to the ranks of free commoners when they were impressed into military service by a corrupt government; their tolerance reached its limit, and their anger, as was surely inevitable, exploded. Seizing the moment, Sun En's party, in flight at sea, killed the magistrate of Shang-yi.i (part of K'uai- chi commandery) and advanced on K'uai-chi itsel The senior official at K'uai-chi was Wang Ning-chih, son of Wang Hsi-chih, the latter a believer in t'ien shih Taoism. His subordinates tried to insist on the necessity of some defense measures, but he refused to take any, his reply being, "Defense measures? There is no need for 412 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE defense measures! I have already prayed to (the God of the) Great Way to send his ghostly forces to our aid. Those bandits will simply be smashed!" K'uai-chi was very soon attacked, and Wang Ning-chih, this passionate believer in t'ien shih Taoism, together with many subordinate functionaries and his whole family, was killed by the army of Sun En, a man who professed belief in the same doctrine of t'ien shih Taoism. 55 Everywhere east of the Che there were many who met Sun En with supporting troops, so that his rebel army very soon swelled to several hundred thousand, and everywhere the aristocratic officeholders of the Hsieh and other clans that held senior posts such as that of governor (t' ai shou) were killed. The "three W u" at the time were accustomed to peace and security and unpracticed in war, which made it possible for Sun En's army to wreak as much havoc as it chose, while the local belief in superhuman sylphs and their arts only furnished grist for the mills of the rebel forces, increasing both the size of their forces and the violence of their attacks. (There is, traditionally, a difference of opinion as to the identity of the "three Wu." According to the Commentary to the "Water Classic" [Shui ching chu], they are K'uai-chi, Wu commandery, and Wu-hsing. According to the T'ung tien, the second is not Wu commandery but Tan-yang. In either case, the reference is to the residential center of the distinguished families and the aristocratic clans, a bread- basket close to the capital, a political and economic center as well.) Sun En's party are said to have called themselves "the long-lived ones" (ch' ang sheng) and to have killed, down to and including children and grandchildren, all who refused to join them. Their ferocious cruelty is said to have been such that, for instance, they made mince- meat of the body of a district magistrate and fed it to his widow and his children, beheading all who refused to eat it. Those who did join them are said to have been ordered to gather at K' uai-chi. Women who could not take their children with them would throw them into the water and say, "Bless you, my darling! You go to heaven first, I shall follow after." When the rumor got about that some of Sun En's party were in hiding in the capital, there was panic, while in the upper reaches of the Yangtze was the huge military force of Huan Hstian, his eye on the imperial throne: in short, the Eastern Tsin was one step this side of collapse. By putting up a stiff fight, Liu Lao-chih and Liu Yti (later to be Emperor Wu of the Sung) defeated Sun En at sea at the end of 400, but in 401 Sun En's forces bounced back again to create more havoc, once more to be defeated at sea by Liu Yti at the culmination of a whole series of battles. The success of this campaign against Sun En and his party, whose binding cord was t'ien shih Taoism, furnished Liu Yti with the basis on which he put down Huan Hstian, the up-river (Yangtze) warlord, and founded a dynasty that was to replace the Tsin, that of the Sung, first of the Southern dynasties. Due note must be taken of this fact in any consideration of the connection between the Sung dynasty and the Buddhist church. Sun En made a third and final attempt at military conquest on the seashore in 402, where he met both defeat and death. His partisans, for all that, revered him as a "water sylph" (shui hsien) and continued to wage rebellion, this D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 413 time under the command of Lu Hslin, husband of his younger sister, until finally, in 403, Liu Yli defeated him too and put him to flight over the southern seas. 56 Buddhism Confronts Confucianism and Taoism. Now at just this time the Chien- k' ang region, struck by famine, was on the verge of starvation, and Huan Hslian's army, bent on usurping the Eastern Tsin, was pressing hard on Chien-k'ang itself. In Lung-an 2, during the reign of Emperor An (398), the confederation formed by Wang Kung, Yin Chung-k' an, and Huan Hslian for the overthrow of the govern- ment was jolted by the crushing defeat visited on Wang Kung's forces and the consequent flight of Yin Chung-k' an and Huan Hslian to Hslin-yang. The court at Chien-k'ang got a reprieve, but Yin Chung-k'an and his confederates, still acknowledging the chieftaincy of Huan Hslian, remained on the lookout for an opportunity to attack Chien-k' ang. In addition, Sun En's attack on K' uai-chi and the brutal pillage of Chien-k'ang's southeastern corner, both mentioned above, had court, aristocracy, and society, gentle as well as common, quaking in their boots. It was just the time to look for a god, a non-Taoist one, that could rescue them from these troubles and dangers. This is why belief in A valokitesvara (Kuan-shih- yin, Kuang-shih-yin), a Buddhist object of worship, moved south and began im- mediately to spread with such very great speed under the Eastern Tsin and the Sung. 57 In the rebel army led by Huan Hstian and his confederates, which had come down the Yangtze and was now menacing Chien-k' ang, two chiefs could not pos- sibly exist side by side. Shortly, in fact, after Wang Ning-chih, the K'uai-chi chief- tain and believing Taoist, had been killed by Sun En, whose own forces were held together by the same Taoist cement, Huan Hslian attacked Yin Chung-k'an of Chiang-ling and destroyed him (in 399). As another example illustrative of how, at a time when Buddhism was widespread in aristocratic society, Taoism also had com- mitted believers in that same society, let us merely cite the fact that Yin Chung-k'an, a believer in t'ien shih Taoism, prayed to the spirits (kuei shen) and personally attend- ed the sick by taking their pulse, administering medicine to them, and so on. Further- more, the army ofHuan Hslian and Yin Chung-k'an frequently treated Hslin-yang, facing the Yangtze at the foot of Mount Lu, on which Hui-ylian maintained his religious community, as a base of vital importance, from which they would visit Hui-ylian on his mountain and argue with him, or seek his help, at any rate take care not to have this renowned monk among their enemies. Hui-ylian's stubborn refusal, once he had taken up residence on his mountaintop, to break his vow never to leave it, his equally stubborn refusal to yield even in the face of two warlords, and his maintenance throughout of the strict attitude of a practicing recluse, particularly in view of the mood of effeteness and decay that permeated the Buddhist church of Chien-k' ang, increased the prestige of his community more and more as a fellow- ship of unsullied religious practitioners, endowed that community with a sense of tranquillity, and enhanced the effect and the influence that it was to exert on later generations. This shall be retold in detail in a later chapter. Even here, however, it bears comment that there was nothing at this time like the violent opposition 414 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE between Buddhism and Taoism that was to become so intense during the very next historical epoch, that of the division between north and south. A Buddhist Emperor Hopes for Rebirth in Human Form. Now Huan Hstian, who had emerged as the victorious warlord, sailing down the Yangtze, in 403 (the twelfth lunar month of Ytian-hsing 2) forced Emperor An to surrender his throne and, moving him to Hstin-yang at the foot of Mount Lu, installed himself, with all due ceremony, on the throne in his stead, taking whatever he chose in the way of gar- dens and orchards, books and paintings, pearl and jade, and anything else he pleased, the better to display the outward majesty of a Son of Heaven. By the fifth month of the following year, however, he was dead, having been killed after half a year of imperial reign by the loyalist army under the high command ofLiu Yti. Emperor An resumed his throne and returned to Chien-k'ang, to be sure, but Liu Yti, this commander-in-chief of a loyalist army, was busy with his own plans of usurpation. Killing Emperor An (in 418), he then compelled Emperor Kung, whom he had put in his place, to write an edict of abdication, becoming (in 420) Emperor Wen of the Sung and the inaugurator of the Southern dynasties at the culmination of an intrigue that was, to all outward appearances, a peaceful dynastic change in the tradition-hallowed form of voluntary surrender of imperial prerogatives (shan jang). Emperor Kung, having abdicated, was given poison, which he refused to take, saying, "The Buddha has taught that a human being who takes his own life can never be reborn as a human being." Thereupon he was smothered in his own bedclothes. 58 The extent of the conversion to Buddhism of the ruling house in late Tsin, in the face of a dynastic change under the tragic conditions just described, should be obvious. At the same time, one can detect the tenacity of peculiarly Chinese, man- centered ideas and emotions in the emperor's wish to be reborn in human form, not to "achieve Buddhahood," which is surely the goal ofBuddhism. Thus, setting aside persons with a profound understanding of Buddhist doctrine, one may say that, in general, the spread of Buddhism was as yet the spread of a religion that had by no means reached the point of converting a human-centered Chinese nation to an Indian Buddhism whose most pious wish was the attainment of Buddhahood, in which rebirth in the spinning round would be severed and the person would not be reborn even as god or man. In other words, one might just as easily say that under the Eastern Tsin, whether for the intellectual aristocracy, for the gentry, or for the commonalty, the rapid spread of Buddhism docs not gainsay the fact that it was received within a framework of traditional thought, in which man was central and the greatest weight was attached to the present. However, the idea indigenous to, and very widespread in, ancient India, that the human spirit is immortal, and that one spins about, being reborn in the so-called Five Courses (wu tao, panca gatayab), which include not only man but Hell (ti yu, naraka), "hungry ghosts" (o kuei, i.e., preta), and kept beasts (hsu sheng, i.e., tiryagyonigata), throughout the three time periods in accordance with the good or evil of one's deeds, was accepted as the fundamental teaching of Buddhism by all, religious and secular, noble and base, implanting deep within them a belief fearful of rebirth in the next life. D :ADVANCE AND DECLINE AT CHIEN-K'ANG 415 A typical picture of the manner in which a Chinese might accept Buddhist doctrine is the following statement about Buddhism, made by YUan Hung under the Eastern Tsin: Though a man may die, his spirit does not perish. Consequently, it again takes on a form. For the good and evil one did during one's lifetime, there is in every case a retribution. . .. Even princes, dukes, and nobles, when they observe and consider the limits of birth, death, and retribution, do not fail to lose themselves to terror. [Quoted from the Catalogue of the Latter Han (Hou Han chi).] The uncertainty of rebirth in the spinning wheel seized the hearts of men living in an age in which, what with the disturbances caused by the likes of Huan Hsiian and Sun En, one could not get on except by killing and maiming others, or by deceiving them and tripping them up. Furthermore, another cause of ecclesiastical degener- ation was the war and the pillage, as well as the social insecurity and harshness of life that they occasioned, which motivated people of no religious faith, a lot with no positive qualities whatsoever, to enroll themselves on the sarp.gha lists for the sole purpose of evading tax and corvee, 59 with the result that the ranks of the order swelled and the quality of its members dropped. Expansion and Degeneration of the Buddhist Religious Community. Now there is no positive evidence, for the Eastern Tsin, concerning the establishment of a body of clerical officials as an agency for the control of the swelling religious community. If one confines oneself to attested historical fact, the only known case for this time is that of the northern state ofCh'in, ruled by the Yao clan, in Hung-shih 7 (405). On the other hand, in the biography of Seng-ch'ien, a Liang monk (contained in roll 6 of the Sequel to the Lives of Eminent Monks [Hsii kao seng chuan]) , one reads that "in former times the ruling family of the Tsin were the first to appoint officers in the sarp.gha." From this notice, as well as the fact that Seng-kung became "bishop of Shu commandery" (Shu chiin seng cheng, cf. Hui-ch'ih's biography in roll 6, Lives of Eminent Monks), it would seem that, in part at least, such officials were provided, but the existing evidence points rather to the inauguration of a system of clerical officers south of the Yangtze only under the auspices of the next dynasty, the Sung. Rules governing the religious community, the Vinaya which was the standard for the way of life of monks and nuns, were at the time not completely available in China. This is the reason that the celebrated Tao-an and Hui-yiian hoped so for the com- pletion in their own lifetimes of a set of monastic institutions based on the Vinaya, why they took such pains to help achieve it, and why the principal aim of most Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India was the acquisition, and the conveyance back to China, of the canonical monastic code. Once the religious community expanded and the fellowship of monks and nuns increased to the point of wielding great weight in the society, the State as a state could no longer ignore their existence. This was particularly true in view of the fact that Buddhism was a religion born in a foreign country, a doctrine whose goal was escape from the world, thus inevitably certain to be in contradiction, if not in 416 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE in outright conflict, with the State power. There was also the no less inevitable con- frontation with China's own time-hallowed and tradition-hallowed ideas, i.e., with Confucianism. It is at this point that the Law of the King and the Law of the Buddha must somehow take a position each vis-a-vis the other, the first evidence of which is the essay entitled A Monk Does Not Bow Down before a King (Sha-men pu ching wang che lun). It is also the point at which Buddhism now harmonizes, now locks horns, with the two other principal systems of thought, Confucianism and Taoism. Now, when a Buddhist community centered about the Eastern Tsin capital was simultaneously increasing and degenerating, there was another Buddhist com- munity housed on Mount Lu, separated from its fellows in the capital, who, during the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, were the butt of the world's criticisms. The latter community was the one led by Hui-yiian, who, shutting himself away on his mountaintop, inherited from his master, Tao-an, an earnest religion of study, of practice, and of religious quest, who also, as a man well trained in such Confucian classics as the Rites of Chou (Chou li), attracted as disciples a large number of no less earnest seekers and who, as their teacher and chief, performed all of the duties of leadership. The mere presence of this community attracted a special regard from the society, a fact easily understood. It is also not difficult to understand Hui-yiian's attitude of refusing to leave his mountain in the face of importunate invitations from the most powerful sources, as well as his recluse attitude of consistently and per- sistently refusing to "bow down before kings" (pu ching wang che). Before proceeding to a description and discussion of how these two religious communities, untiring in their study of doctrine and cultivation of the pious life and led by two giants both far removed from Chien-k'ang, the Hui-yiian just mentioned and Tao-an, Hui- yiian's teacher and guide, now resident at Hsiang-yang, come to occupy so impor- tant a position in the history of Chinese Buddhism, we wish first to devote a section to the subject of feminine devotion to Buddhism, which was on the increase from Tsin time onwards, particularly to the development of a community of nuns, to those women who had given up domestic life for religious life and whose numbers, from Eastern Tsin time onwards, were on the increase. E. Development of a Community of Nuns In the first period following the transmission of Buddhism into China, the ma- jority of Buddhists were persons of foreign birth or those descended of such persons but now settled and naturalized in China. The number of specifically Chinese Buddhists in their ranks had gradually increased, but under the Han and the Three Kingdoms (i.e., as of ca. 265) the number of Chinese in orders appears still not to have been all that great. Under the Western Tsin (265-317) the number gradually increased, then, under the Eastern Tsin (317-420), the number of Buddhists, lay and clerical, in China, north as well as south, grew quite suddenly. This is due, princi- pally, to an increased representation in the ranks oflay Buddhists of the upper classes, including princes and nobles, aristocrats and members of powerful families, to E :A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 417 a growing number of convents, and, connected with this latter, to gifts, from power- ful believers, of food, clothing, and shelter, which provided the clergy with the material security indispensable to the conduct of a religious life. Simultaneously with this, Taoism was developing and becoming a prop in the spiritual life of the common people, for whom social insecurity was mounting in scope and intensity, and, in close parallel with it, a popular, Taoistic Buddhism, received as the religion of the divine, sylphic Buddha, whose divinity and sylphdom were of a piece with Taoism, was gaining both in the numbers and in the social diversity of its adherents. As the number of believing Buddhists increased, the proportion of women in the household who took to the religion presumably exceeded that of the men. This was particularly to be expected of a family structure in which the women were, by comparison with the men, more emotional, less intellectual, and less well educated, and in which the father was the lord of the household. It was doubly true in the extended, polygynous families of the upper classes that the womenfolk, more often than not, would throw themselves wholly on some vulgar religious belief. Most particularly, in those cases where the women, being without any independent means oflivelihood, found themselves flung, by the death of a husband or-a most common event in an era of social upheaval-by the disintegration of the family, into a world of misery in which they had nothing on which to rely, they would seek emotional support, through Taoism or Buddhism, in superhuman gods (among whom Buddha and bodhisattvas are included). However, the increase in the number of monasteries, which housed the male members of the safTlgha, and the frequency with which women visited the monasteries, as well as the degree to which they might fraternize with those same persons, tended to come under strong attack from the vantage-point of the traditional Chinese morality, in which the woman was supposed to stay at home, and in which there was supposed to be an unambiguous dividing line between the sexes. For instance, early under the Eastern Tsin, that is, at the beginning of the fourth century, Ko Hung composed the Pao p'u tzu, whose "external volume" (wai p'ien) contains a chapter entitled "Lament for Error" (Chi miu), one that bewails the decline of propriety. In it one finds the following com- ment: Such are the customs nowadays that the women now spend the night within another's gate, now brave the dark of night to come home, or indulge in sport in the Buddhist convents, . . . Added to the degenerate manners of the times, the women's "indulgence in sport in the Buddhist convents" (which probably includes persons going for worship and for religious instruction at the hands of the safTlgha) is singled out for attack as one evidence of moral decline. By Tsin times, once Buddhism had seeped into both upper and lower society, once the religious community expanded, and once the Chinese members of the order increased in number, it was inevitable that there should also be an increase in the number of women in orders, particularly of women who had lost husbands or children and who shaved their heads and left their households to 418 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE assuage their unhappiness. Under the Liang, the Lives of Renowned Monks (Ming seng chuan) and the Lives of Eminent Monks (Kao seng chuan) were joined by the Lives of the (Pi-ch'iu-ni chuan), the work of Pao-ch'ang, which records the biographies of sixty-five distinguished nuns ranging from the Western Tsin to the T'ien-chien era of the Liang (502-520). Now, according to the Lives of the the first Chinese nun was Ching- chien, who dates to the Western Tsin. 1 Ching-chien was originally a member of the Chung clan of P'eng-ch'eng. P'eng-ch'eng had been Buddhist mission territory since the time of Prince Ying of Ch'u, and Ching-chien's father was governor (t'ai shou) ofWu-wei, a key point in the Kansu corridor along which Buddhism was coming into China. She was obviously a person of upper-class origins, for, when as a widow she became obliged to support herself, she did so by giving instruction in lute-playing and calligraphy to the sons and daughters of the aristocracy who were, in any case, her regular social contacts. Sometime during Chien-shing (313-316), however, when the sramal).a Fa-hsing came to Lo-yang and set up, by the western gate of the palace wall, a Buddhist edifice in which he propagated the Dharma, hear- ing him preach opened her eyes to the Buddha's teachings. Next, since there was as yet in China no complete religious code for she had the Ten Restraints (shih chith, dasa administered to her by an upadhyaya, i.e., by a male member of the sarp.gha, then, shaving her head and becoming a full-fledged nun, she constructed the Convent of the Bamboo Grove (chu lin ssu) in the company of twenty-four colleagues and practiced the religious life with them there. The who functioned as upadhyaya, administering was a foreign sramal).a appearing in the Chinese sources as "the upadhyaya Chih-shan," a resident of Kashmir who late in Yung-chia (i.e., in or before 313) had come to China, but who in 317 returned to his former country. Then, during the Hsien-k'ang period of the Eastern Tsin (335-342, corresponding to the Chien-wu period of the northern states of the Latter Chao ruled over by Shih Hu), the nuns were on the point of being ordained at the altar set up in Sheng-p'ing 1 (357) by the foreign sramal).a "T' an- mo-chieh-to" (Dharmakartr ?) according to the Karmavacana and the of the Mahasarp.ghikas, brought back from Yiieh-chih country by Seng-chien, when the "Tsin (i. e., probably Chinese) sramal).a" Shih Tao-ch'ang, leveling the charge that, according to the Chieh yin yuan ching, the ordination ceremony was not a valid one, moved the ceremony to a boat on the Ssu and ordained four nuns, including Ching-chien, there. They were thus the first nuns to be ordained in China. Late in Sheng-p'ing under the Eastern Tsin (357-362, by which time in North China the Latter Chao had ceased to exist and the new state was that of the Former Ch'in, ruled over by Fu Chien), at the age of seventy, she died, but while she lived the spread of her teaching and conversion throughout North China had been like a wind bending the grass. In particular, the expression that she "cultivated a fellowship and nurtured a multitude" makes it clear that not a few aspirants to the fellowship of nuns were trained by her. One who deserves to be singled out is An Ling-shou, a pupil of hers whose aspira- E :A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 419 tion to the religious life was of very early date and quite intense, whose father had been a civil servant under the Latter Chao, itself a state devoted to the Buddhist faith. Then, aided by the encouragements ofFo-t'u-ch' eng, she did in fact become a nun, in which capacity she won the esteem and veneration of both Shih Lo and Shih Hu and built a number of convents, the best known being the Chien-hsien-ssu ("Convent for the Establishment of Excellence"), herself seeing to the ordination of . more than two hundred nuns. She enjoyed the esteem not only of the kings of the Latter Chao but of Fo-t' u-ch' eng himself, who was also the object of the highest respect on the part of everyone, high and low, in the kingdom of Chao, and whose esteem for her was, no doubt, due in part to the high hopes he had in her. Now, when the Lives of the mentions Ching-chien as the first Buddhist nun on Chinese soil, it means it in the sense of a nun who had undergone formal ordination, for before her there had been not a few women who had gone to the simple extent of leaving household life, shaving their heads, vowing to keep the Five Restraints or the Ten Restraints as the case might be, and becoming nuns in that limited sense. In fact, the psychopathic tyrant Shih Hu is said to have taken a beautiful nun into his palace, where, after debauching her to his heart's content, he killed her (c roll106 of the Book of Tsin). Of course, not too many conclusions may be drawn from the behavior of a psychopathic tyrant, yet it is clear from this that there were already not a few female members of the sarp.gha in the North China of the time, but that there was as yet no strict or formal ordination that, consequently, there were no fully binding regulations governing the solemn religious life for a community of nuns. For these reasons, it was impossible for the entire community of nuns to adhere to a uniform set of rules based on the Vinaya. In addition, there was a steadily increasing number of women who shaved their heads and took orders to escape the upheavals of war or the hardships of forced labor and to live a quiet, stable life. All of this makes it likely that an atmosphere of decay made itself felt even in the order of nuns. (For details, see the account in Fo-t'u-ch'eng's biography of Shih Hu's proposal to screen the sarp.gha.d) This, at the same time, is probably why Tao-an and Chu Fa-t'ai, two of Fo-t' u-ch'eng's disciples who were also zealous practitioners of monastic discipline, were so exercised about the procure- ment of a complete code for nuns, to say nothing of monks. (C Ch'u san tsang chi chi 11 for the titles of documents having to do with the monastic code.) In the period spanning the end of the Latter Chao and the reign ofFu Chien of the Former Ch'in (roughly 330-385), Chih-hsien, a nun from Ch'ang-shan, which was also Tao-an's place of origin, in the face of oppressive opposition from the local governor who was a believer in Huang-Lao Taoism, and who detested the Buddhist clergy, was so successful at proselytization that she gained over a hundred adherents. When Fu Chien ascended the throne, her religious activity was aided by his own profound faith and religious commitment, which were such that he conferred on her the gift of an embroidered Later she engaged in evangelistic work at the Western Convent (hsi ssu) in Ssu-chou, dying some time in T'ai-ho (366-370) at the age of seventy. 420 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Another nun, Tao-hsing, whose residence was the Eastern Convent (tung ssu) in Lo-yang, who had an ability for "pure talk," and who was particularly well versed in the is regarded as the first to give public readings of Buddhist scriptures. In fact , under her influence some persons who, in devotion to a female adept of the time, had become believers in the "Huang-Lao" techniques of breath control are said to have abandoned this belief. Above we have told of nuns who achieved renown about the middle of the fourth century in North China. South of the Yangtze, on the other hand, in the lands of the Eastern Tsin, as early as the reign of Emperor Ming (r. 323-325), Tao-jung, who made her home in the Wu-chiang-ssu ("Crow River Convent") at Li-yang (the present Ho hsien in Anhwei), southwest of Chien-k'ang, was an able diviner who knew the happy or unhappy outcome of things well in advance, and who, we are told, was so honored by the world at large that she was known as a "saint" (sheng), but there is no grounds for supposing that she was a fully and formally ordained Still, by the time of Emperor Chien-wen (r. 317-372), she was invited to court, where, commanded to divine the origin of certain portents, she recommended a seven-day fast, complete with the Eight Abstentions, at the end of which the portents were exorcised. The emperor, in his profound belief and in the esteem in which he held the lady, built for her the Convent of the New Grove (hsin lin ssu), which he endowed lavishly, and his successor, Emperor Hsiao-wu (r. 373-395), had even greater faith and veneration for the lady. During T'ai-yi.ian (376-395), no one knew where she was, but the emperor commanded that her robes and alms bowl be buried by the side of the convent. Whereas before the reign of Emperor Chien- wen Taoist practitioners had been employed at court for purposes of exorcism and divination, "thereafter," so the biography tells us, "the Tsin glorified and venerated the Path of the Buddha, which was the doing of (Tao-)jung." She is one of the persons who opened the way for the expansion at court of the power of Buddhist nuns during the reigns of emperors Chien-wen and Hsiao-wu, but it is worthy of note that she was a Taoistic member of the (cf. roll 1, Lives of the
During the reigns of the next two sovereigns, emperors K'ang (r. 343-344) and Mu (r. 345-361), partially with the aid of the piously Buddhist Ho clan, which was related by marriage to the reigning family, the community of nuns in Chien-k'ang increased at great speed. When K'ang Ming-kan, whom "sons and daughters north of the River revered as a teacher (with the same confidence) as (they might have when) going home," who was devoted to the Avalokitesvara scripture, and who was a strict and stern observer of the religious code, crossed the Yangtze with Hui-chan and others, ten in all, and paid a visit to the zealously Buddhist minister of state, Ho Ch'ung, the latter at a glance held her in the gravest esteem. Since at the time there were no nunneries in Chien-k'ang, he is said to have donated his own home, which became the Chien-fu-ssu ("Convent for the Establishment of Merit"), their new residence. It is from this time that the activities of Buddhist nuns at Chien-k'ang become noticeable, as do, gradually, the abuses connected with those activities. E : A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 421 In Yung-ho 10, during the reign of the succeeding sovereign, Emperor Mu (354), there appeared the first nuns native to Chien-k'ang, such as T'an-pei, who was praised both by Emperor Mu and by his consort, the Lady Ho, as one with whom "few in the capital can compare," for whom Empress Ho built the Yung- an-ssu ("Convent ofEternal Tranquillity," more commonly known as the "Convent of Empress Ho" [ ho hou ssu]), to which three hundred gathered from far and near, and who in 396 died at the age of seventy-three (or, possibly, -two). Her pupil, T'an-lo, following in her mistress's footsteps, built a four-storied stupa, a lecture-hall, and cells, also fashioned a supine imagee and a hall to the Seven Buddhas, complete with niches. (For both, c rolll, Lives of the By the time of emperors Chien-wen (r. 371-372) and Hsiao-wu (r. 373-396), the numbers and activities of the nuns had become increasingly evident. As was true of the the fellowship of nuns south of the Yangtze experienced a sudden growth about this time, benefiting from the material aid of the devout aristocracy, beginning with the reigning family and the Ho clan, but it is particularly true of the nuns that they owed a great debt to the Buddhist faith of empresses. The Lady Ch' u, who was consort to Emperor K' ang, built the Y en-hsing-ssu in Chien-yiian 2 (344), and it is also reported of her that she "burnt incense in a tabernacle of the Buddha." 2 The Lady Ho, this one the daughter of Ho Chun who became the consort of Emperor Mu, probably under the influence of her thoroughly Buddhist family, built the "Convent of Empress Ho" for T'an-pei, as has already been said. 3 The Lady Wang, consort to Emperor Hsiao-wu, in her admiration of the superior conduct of the nun Tao-ch'iung (originally ofTan-yang, thoroughly versed in classics and histories in her earlier years), "performed all manner of auspicious ceremonies in this convent, and the wives and daughters of the rich and high- born vied with one another to associate with her," 4 or so it is said. Since of the nuns of the time most were scions of "good families," women with a high degree of education, 5 they maintained a lively association with the whole stratum ofladies ofhigh birth, not excluding the empress herself, thus infusing the breeze ofBuddhist devotion into the women's quarters of the imperial palace. On the other hand, the case ofTao-jung is one of a nun-magician who, by exorcising an evil omen in the palace, gained the respect and faith of Emperor Chien-wen and prevailed upon the reigning family to transfer its religious allegiance from Taoism to Buddhism. "Thereafter the Tsin plainly venerated the Buddha, which was the doing of Tao- jung."6 About the time the community of nuns was expanding, at court the great wielders of power, men such as Hsieh An, passed on, as did the Lady Ch'u, the Dowager Empress Ch'ung-te, who as dowager had been the power behind the throne through five reigns and who died in T'ai-yiian 9 (384). After their deaths, Ssu-ma Tao-tzu, younger brother of Emperor Hsiao-wu, assumed the reins of government, reaching the point where "his power was enough to overturn All-under Heaven." Since, however, as was already pointed out in the previous section, both the emperor and brother Tao-tzu were addicted to wine and women to the utter neglect of their 422 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE political duties, government itself was disrupted and the court was saturated with the atmosphere of decay. Given the nature of the times, the nuns who had the run of the palace were corrupted by the same extravagant style of life, and there were many who could not even keep the Five Restraints (wu chieh, paficasila). Also, as Tao-Tzu appointed base types to high posts, there were even among the clergy a fe,w who recommended their own favorites and who manipulated the corrupt government from behind the scenes. 7 Chih Miao-yin was in that sense a model
Miao-yin, gaining the adherence of the Emperor Hsiao-wu and his brother Tao- tzu, acquired such power that "there was no limit to the presented her, and her wealth would have been enough to fill cities and towns." 8 Taking advantage ofher position, when Wang Kuo-pao, who by now was Tao-tzu's right arm, wield- ;ng an overwhelming authority, was attacked, at Kuo-pao's request she pleaded his loyalty and his devotion to Ch'en Shu-yuan, the crown prince's mother, and saved him from dismissal. 9 Further, when it came to the appointment of a successor to a key post, that of censor ofChing-chou, the local warlord, Huan Hsiian, who opposed the court's nominee, Wang Kung, under the guise of holding him in great vener- ation, wishing instead to get the censorate for Yin Chung-k' an, a man of slight ability whom he thought he could easily sway, sent a messenger in haste to Miao- yin to leave the matter in her hands. When, at length, Miao-yin was questioned on this point by Emperor Hsiao-wu, she is said in fact to have recommended Yin Chung-k'an and to have succeeded in her purpose. The nun Miao-yin, therefore, was a person whose "authority was enough to overturn a dynasty, her imposing might effective within and without [the church)." 10 It is evident that this who had the run of the palace because she was a religieuse, and who was able to be in constant communication with both the emperor and the ladies' quarters, became an object of manipulation on the part of ministers whose motives were less than pure, then, herself operating behind the scenes of a corrupted political world, wielded enough power to affect decisively the government of a whole State. This is why loy- al and upright public servants, concerned for the realm and bemoaning the political disarray, found themselves obliged to remonstrate about the submersion of every- thing and everyone in the Buddhist faith and to cry out for the purging of the religious community. Such are the conditions under which the community of nuns expanded on Chinese soil, but that community's greatest concern remained the acquisition of a code for As already stated, when the first Ching-chien, first went to Fa-shih to request ordination at his hands, (Fa-)shih said to her, "In the Western Regions there are two fellowships, one of men, one of women, but in this land [of China) the rules [governing the are not yet complete," going on to remark that, according to what he had heard from a foreigner, the code of the consisting of five hundred restraints, was different from that of the then bidding her put the question to a Kashmiri monk, the upadhyaya "Chih-shan." Since the latter told her that "a nun is subject to ten restraints, which a senior monk E : A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 423 may administer to her," she had the Ten Restraints (shih chieh, dasa administered to her by him, the first woman to do so. However, she was still not, from the accepted Buddhist point of view, a fully ordained Full ordination was not to take place in China until later, in Sheng-p'ing 1 (357), when, on the basis of the Saq1ghinikarmavaca and obtained, as chance would have it, during Hsien-k'ang (335-343) by Seng-chien in Yi.ieh-chih country, the foreign sramai).a Dharmakartr (?) attempted to erect an altar. However, the Chinese monk Tao-ch'ang repudiated his attempt, saying, "This Dharma is incomplete!" and he had no choice but to set a boat afloat on the Ssu and to administer the ordination aboard it. Ching-chien, ordained at the altar on this boat, became thus the first on Chinese soil. 11 One may deduce for oneself the lengths to which the nuns of the time, when the church was just beginning in China, went to get the code. The brought back with him by Seng-chien, according to one source, was translated at Lo-yang in Sheng-p'ing 1 (357), 12 but there is no evidence of its spread, and, after no less than before, many members of the saq1gha were at considerable pains and much effort to acquire the nun's In particular, as already indicated above, in the Buddhist community of the Eastern Tsin, south of the Yangtze, from the latter half of the fourth century onwards, what with the ordination of local women and the southward trek of nuns from North China, the was on the increase. When this happened, not only did it come under attack as an undesirable manifestation from the standpoint of traditional Confucian morality, but in addition both monks and nuns allied themselves with the aristocracy, or unlettered commoners would enter the saq1gha to escape the corvee, the end result of all of which was the appearance within the Buddhist religious community of tendencies toward decay, bringing on attacks from intellectuals and statesmen both. Since, in particular, the familiarity and the alliance between the on the one hand and the reigning family and the ladies' quarters on the other hand led, inevitably, to a variety of abuses and, in turn, to attacks on them, the quest on the part of the strict practitioners occupying positions of leadership within the Buddhist community itself for a code not only for monks but also for nuns, as well as the demand on their part for the self-reform of the religious community in keep- ing with the Vinaya, was a vigorous one. Chu Fa-t'ai (320-387), a colleague of the celebrated Tao-an who parted with him to come to Chien-k'ang, there to engage in teaching and conversion, was one such person. In the preface to a complete account of the translation of the (Pi-ch' iu-ni chieh pen so ch'u pen mo hsu), presumed to be a work dating to about 382 or 383, when he was already past sixty, he mentions that adherence to the religious code on the part of is harder and stricter than for male members of the saq1gha, then goes on to tell of his own prolonged but fruitless efforts to obtain a code that was both accurate and complete. At last, however, he was delighted to obtain the translated in Ch' ang-an late in the 370s. 424 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Yet, the heart of woman is weak and much given to caprice. The Buddha, under- standing perfectly that the minute measures taken to counter it must be precise, therefore established restraints [chieh, Sila], in every case double those for men. Since the Great Dharma flowed higher, it is now more than five hundred years. [This calculation is based, presumably, on the assumption that the introduction of Buddhism to China dates to 126 B.C., the year in which Chang Ch'ien returned from his expedition, or to 121 B.c., when the statue of the "golden man," used in sacrifices to Heaven, was brought back from the court of Hsiu-ch'u, king of the Hsiung-nu.] The great restraints of the were now complete with this text. [In fact,] to judge by it, it would have been difficult to find such a person even among gentlemen of the Path in foreign countries.i [C Ch'u san tsang chi chi 11.] Chu Fa-t'ai proceeds: "Recently, in the capital at Chien-k'ang, I attained the position of teacher, giving instruction in Buddhist doctrine. At the same time, observing that there was no code for the in this land, I sought one but was never able to find a complete one. Once before, seeking the code of the ta lu ching,k by mistake I got the medical prescriptions [yao fang, instead, and[, mistaking them for a code,] kept them in my possession more than twenty years, for there was no one to translate them. More recently, when attempting to get them translated, I became aware that they are not the code. This made me more poignantly aware than ever before of how difficult it is to procure Buddhist scriptures from the west and to get them translated." 1 Such are the words of infinite regret he has left behind for us. 13 Fa-t'ai's fellow-pupil, Tao-an, tells us in his preface to the Dasabhumika (Chien pei ching hsu, preserved in Ch'u san tsang chi chi 9) that, when he heard from Hui-ch'ang of Liang-chou (Kansu) that there was a code of five hundred silas for he eagerly hoped to have it brought to China: "I have no idea why this has never come [to China]. Its [procurement] is of all matters by far the most urgent. Unless all four fellowships are present in full force, the Great Conversion [sc. to Buddhism] will have gaps." 14 n This will give one an idea of the urgent necessity ascribed by the leaders of the Buddhist community under the Eastern Tsin to the procurement of a The one with the five hundred silas of which Tao-an had heard the rumor that it was available in Liang-chou was probably sent later by Hui- ch'ang to Fa-t'ai, then in Chien-k'ang, through Tao-an, who at the time was at Hsiang-yang, just as happened to the Kuang tsan ching (a partial translation of the PaiicaviYJ1Satis.p.p.). Hui-ch'ang's copy, however, which was not complete came to be regarded by subsequent generations as a forgery. Of course, under these conditions of increase in the numbers of the saip.gha, whether for the ordination of fully qualified as Buddhist nuns and formally recognized as such by the Buddhist community or merely for the purposes of the upavasatha (a convocation at which the fellowship would recite the Vinaya and reflect on whether or not they had themselves been guilty of violations), a was an absolute necessity. This, no doubt, is why there was E : A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 425 one current, five hundred Silas under the title Pi-ch'iu-ni chieh pen, even in the Chien- k' ang area. The translation was said to be the work of Ni-li, a ch' ang tao shih (in- structeur religieux), presumably a popular mass homilist and the disciple of the "Dharma-master who occupied the high throne" (kao tso fa shih), i.e., of Srimitra, who, though he knew no Chinese, won the allegiance of such aristocrats of first rank as Wang Tao. It is allegedly thanks to the instructions ofSrimitra that the "In- die chants," intoned with a loud voice (kao sheng fan-pai) and learned by Mi-li, became current in the lands ruled over by the Southern dynasties. (The comment in the Lives of Eminent Monks on the instructeurs religieux says that the instructeurs are called by the name "ch' ang tao because, in sum, they propagate the Truth of the Dharma, thus opening up and guiding the hearts of many.")1 5 Since, however, this in five hundred articles, said to have been translated by Mi-li, came under severe attack from such first-ranking scholar-monks as Chih Tun and Chu Fa-t'ai as something not conceivably instituted by the Buddha Himself, it never circulated; on the contrary, it eventually became extinct. Even Tao-an did not regard it as a genuine for in his catalogue he lists it among the "spu- rious scriptures" (yi ching) with the following comment: "Great [Code of] Restraints (Ta pi-ch'iu-ni chieh), transmitted by Mi-li. One roll. Lost." 16 Chu Fa-t' ai goes on to say, "Last year I asked a foreign gentleman to translate it, but, as it turns out, the translation was not a perfect one, having gaps. The cat- alogue of five hundred silas obtained in Liang-chou by Hui-ch' ang and sent on by him was also, if it comes to that, a forgery, shallow and unimaginative, scarcely the work of the Buddha." 17 What Chu Fa-t'ai got to his delight after a not very long wait-though in his eagerness for it he had felt like a man waiting for water in a drought-was the obtained by Seng-ch'un, during his stay as a student in Kucha, from Buddhajanman (?), a monk of the highest rank in the latter country, who was charged with the control and guidance ofboth monks and nuns, then translated late in 379 at Ch' ang-an by Dharmaji (?), Chu Fo-nien, Hui-ch'ang, and others. That was the very year in which Tao-an, Chu Fa-t'ai's re- spected colleague, was brought, upon the fall ofHsiang-yang, to Ch'ang-an, where he functioned as an advisor in religious matters to Fu Chien, king of the Former Ch'in, whose respect and veneration he enjoyed. A person as committed as Tao-an was to the strict control of the religious order presumably did not neglect to send the newly translated to his comrades Tao-yu and Chu Fa-t'ai in Chien-k'ang. The likelihood is that the latter, about the year 380, obtained from the Buddhist community in Ch'ang-an and read, with a delight bordering on insanity, a copy of the newly translated the arrival of which was for him an occasion for a joy surpassing all others. Already past sixty, he had what amounted to a position ofleadership in the Buddhist community of Chien-k' ang as well as the unqualified faith of the court. In Chien-k'ang, as the convents, and the nuns inhabiting them, gradually in- creased, a majority of the latter presumably desired for themselves formal ordination in strict keeping with the code of the At the same time, this was the very 426 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE midst of a historical period in which, in the closeness of their contacts with the court and its powerful servants, the nuns' attitude toward life, in terms of the relig- ious code, became pronouncedly more degenerate and this, in turn, brought on the adverse comments of intellectuals. This must have seem.ed a gift from the Buddha Himself, at least in the view of Chu Fa-t' ai, a rigorous practitioner of the Path of the Buddha, whose practice combined adherence to the monastic code (Sila, chieh), concentration (samadhi, ting), and wisdom (prajnii, hui), and who had come to be looked up to as the leader of the Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang. To repeat some of the remarks cited above, Since the Saint[ed Buddha] is skilled at saving others, it is unlikely that He should reject anyone at all. Yet, the heart of woman is weak and much given to caprice. The Buddha, understanding perfectly that the minute measures taken to counter it must be precise, therefore established restraints, in every case double those for men. Since the Great Dharma flowed hither, it is now more than flve hundred years[, although the code in flve hundred articles was for a long time not available here], and the great restraints of the are now complete with this text. In fact, to judge by it, it would have been difficult to flnd even among gentlemen of the Path in foreign countries anyone whose conduct and under- standing could match this code. 18 In these words one may deduce the intensity of his regrets, the depth of his joy, and the extent of his expectations for the rectiflcation of the religious community by recourse to a valid religious code. Translation and Dissemination of Hlnayiina Scriptures. As there will be occasion to say again in a later chapter, there took place about this time an epoch-making event endowing the Buddhist community with a totally new flavor. About the time of Tao-an's arrival in Ch' ang-an, there began a stream of Hinayana masters coming into Ch'ang-an, principally from the Kashmir area, and the translation of the Hinayana Tripitaka-Vinaya, Sutra, and Abhidharma-proceeded apace. Before long, Hinayana Buddhism was being propagated south of the Yangtze as well, creating its own believers and damning the Mahayana scriptures, including the Prajiiaparamita, as the work of the Devil, preaching also that the sole justifled object of worship was the Sakyabuddha and He alone, that worship of the Buddhas of the Ten Quarters, as advocated by the Mahayana, was improper. This attitude and its corollary, the argument that the Mahayana is not the Word of the Buddha, created, at the very least, waves in a Chinese Buddhist community plainly leaning toward, and already guite well advanced in, Mahayana belief. This whole development, coupled with the impatient dismissal of the Hinayana on the part of the Mahayana scholar (and Hinayana convert) Kumarajiva, made clear the distinction, even the rivalry, between Hinayana and Mahayana to a community that until about Tao-an's time had regarded the two as but shadings of the same Buddhist religion. To name only one Hinayana scholar who evangelized south of the Yangtze, Sarp.ghadeva (whose name appears occasionally in Chinese translation as chung t'ien, the "god of E : A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 427 the multitude"), a Kashmiri monk who, coming to Ch' ang-an when Tao-an was liv- ing there, delighted the latter with his translations of the Agamas and of treatises ofSarvastivada tendency, then, when Tao-an was dead and North China in turmoil after the collapse of the Former Ch'in, fled for a time as a refugee to the Lo-yang region, later went at Hui-yiian's invitation to Mount Lu, where he translated the Abhidharmahrdaya among other things (in 391), proceeding thence to Chien-k'ang (in 397), where, under the sponsorship of such influential aristocrats as Wang Hsiin, he fostered Hinayana scholarship on a broad scale and, toward the end of the Eastern Tsin, laid the foundations for the Hinayana south of the Yangtze. Next, there was another Kashmiri specialist in Hinayana scholarship, Dharma- yasas, who came to Kuang-chou (Canton) to evangelize, then, sometime in Yi-hsi (405-418), entered Ch'ang-an, where he also evangelized and engaged in scriptural translation, winning the allegiance of the Yao clan, the rulers of the Latter Ch'in, next went south again, this time to the Hsin-ssu in Chiang-ling, where again he preached, finally, under the (Liu-)Sung, sometime during Yiian-chia (424-453), returned to Central Asia. Already in his Canton days Dharmayasas was eighty-five, bringing in tow the same number of disciples, one of whom, Fa-tu, son of a non- Chinese merchant engaged in commerce in and around Canton, preached to monks and nuns after Dharmayasas's return to the land of his origin, forbidding them to read the Mahayana scriptures and requiring them to study the Hinayana exclusively, telling them there were no Buddhas in the ten quarters and ordering them to wor- ship the Sakyabuddha alone, making them use copper alms bowls for their meals, and otherwise spreading practices indigenous to the homeland of Buddhism but alien to China. Among his adherents in Sung times were the nuns Fa-hung and P'u-ming, the former being the daughter ofYen Chiin, one-time magistrate ofTan-yang, the latter the daughter of Chang Mu, censor of Chiao-chou (Kiaochow). Even in Liang times such metropolitan nuns as Hsiian-yeh and Hung-kuang put into practice the instructions left behind by him, and in this way his believing adherents spread throughout the entire community of Buddhist nuns in the east country. 19 South of the Yangtze late in the Eastern Tsin, there was a growing demand in the community of nuns for a valid religious code, a demand that was eventually to be fulfilled, and there was also an active Hinayana evangelism. The two combined to produce Hinayana adherents, who, whether monks or nuns, in their zeal to be loyal to a religious code that they believed to have been devised by the Buddha Himself, chose an organized religious group life on the Indian model, something radically different from the Chinese way of life and likely, on that account, to bring them into conflict with traditional Chinese society where the "doctrine of propriety" was concerned. This tendency was particularly pronounced among the nuns. Also, the nuns came to occupy a wide area in the region of Canton. With the arrival of the Liu-Sung era, the numbers of the in- creased even more, so that even the Lives of the can record the biographies of twenty-three for this period, as against thirteen for both Tsin combined. The community of nuns also takes organized shape, and it is from this time that the 428 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE historical sources speak of nuns in officially designated positions in the sarp.gha and of the three highest, State-appointed officials (san kang) among nuns as well. Also, in Yiian-chia 6 (429) and 10 (433) a foreign sea-captain named Nandi brought with him more than ten nuns from Lion Land (shih tzu kuo, sirJ1halii, i.e., Ceylon). 20 Until then China's nuns south of the Yangtze, having had no upiidhyiiyikii until the arrival of these foreign had felt uneasy about being ordained as by as an expedient and because they had no other choice. Such nuns as Hui-kuo and Ching-yin, both of the Ching-fu-ssu ("Convent of Great Merit"), put the matter up to GuQ.avarman, a foreign monk thoroughly versed in the Vinaya: "Last year, the sixth [ofYiian-chia, i.e., 429], eight came to the capital, saying to us upon arrival, 'If there have been no in the land of Sung, how has the ordination of the two fellowships (of monks and nuns) been possible?' We very much fear that the ordination of is imperfect." GuQ.avarman told them that, in that case, there could be no objection to their ordi- nation at the hands of However, when the entreated him, saying that they wished to be reordained, GuQ.avarman agreed, saying that their wish to reassure themselves was most commendable, and the result was an increase in the number of properly qualified members of the However, he died before he could fulfill the request. 21 These are the circumstances under which Ceylonese came to China in Yiian-chia 10 (433). After his death, his disciple Sarp.ghavarman succeeded him, and the number of monks and nuns ordained by this latter mounted to several hundreds, so it is said. 22 Since reordi11ation "improved their disciplined moral quality," candidates for reordination vied with one another to place themselves under his tutelage. On this account monastic institutions became disarrayed, and the religious authorities had no choice but to place strict limits on reordination. 23 In this way, the ordination of nuns became a widespread phenomenon and the number of nuns also increased, producing from within their ranks certain ones significant enough to be singled out for praise in the Lives of the Still, in China, where the position of women is subservient to that of men, whatever anyone may say, there were, even among the nuns, a certain number who could be used by male powerholders to their own advantage, as well as others who would curry favor with the latter, and, finally, some nuns who might even be used by unscrupulous men as playthings. For instance, in Liu- Sung times, it is said that Ts'ai Hsing-tsung took as his concubine a beautiful nun from the Convent of Empress Ho (Ho hou ssu). For another, Yi-hsiian, prince of the southern com- mandery (nan chun) is said to have "kept many palace ladies, having more than a thousand in the rear apartments and several hundreds of nun-biddies." For a third, Liu Tao-ch'an is reported to have driven in his carriage with a nun passenger, for which he was censured by some officials. 24 This is one of the reasons for which the increases in the in a society in which women were expected to be subservient to men brought on, thanks to these same men, a deterioration in the manners and morals of the itself. E : A COMMUNITY OF NUNS 429 At any rate, the fellowship of the which began in China quite suddenly late under the Western Tsin, became firmly established in the period spanning the latter half of the Eastern Tsin and the Sung dynasty of the Liu clan. A religious code in writing, the very standard by which they lived, was put in proper order, they had opportunities to associate with from the homeland of Buddhism itself, and the result was a genuine, meaningful development, as well as a presentation to aristocratic society of the whole question of the moral standards of the For the history of the development in China of a community of formally ordained Buddhist nuns, the period of the Eastern Tsin is one of vital importance to the whole process. F. The Westward Pilgrimage of Chinese Buddhists in Quest of the Dharma Beginning with the late Western Tsin, by which time Buddhism, which had come from abroad, had already maintained itself in China until into the fourth century, the acceptance and worship of Buddhism on the part of persons etlmically Chinese had at length become more common, and there was also an increase in the number of intellectuals among them who took an interest in the foreign religion. Then, once the court of the Eastern Tsin was established south of the Yangtze, with its capital at Chien-k'ang, Buddhist proselytization spread at great speed in China both north and south. South of the Yangtze in particular, Buddhism began to pervade the society of the intellectual aristocracy, whether as a matter of abstract doctrine or as a matter of living faith, and it is an indisputable fact that by the late Eastern Tsin, that is, by the latter half of the fourth century, a Buddhism now hand-in-glove with the aristocracy was plainly and simultaneously characterized by both glory and degeneracy, while, also at the same time, devout faith in Buddhism was steadily and speedily mounting. Another contemporaneous development, this one in North China, was the spread of Buddhism throughout the society, Chinese as well as non-Chinese, gentle as well as common. This was due to three circumstances, viz., (1) the deep Buddhist faith of a succession of non-Chinese hegemons, the Shih of the Latter Chao, the Fu of the Former Ch'in, and the Yao of the Latter Ch'in; (2) the predominantly Buddhist character of the foreigners coming into China, even from earlier times, by way of Central Asia; (3) the continued and vigorous Buddhist activities consequent upon the above, those of translation and dissemination of new Buddhist scriptures. (In connection with the second of these, it would probably not be out of place to surmise that there were not a few Buddhists among the Chinese-born children and grandchildren of foreigners settled and naturalized in China and at home both in Chinese and in the language of their ancestors.) It is from the midst of this rapid rise of Buddhism in China over a broad area, both north and south, that there emerges a group of Buddhists who set out for Central Asia and India on pilgrimage and for religious study. 430 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE As has already been stated, as early as the third century, about the time of the initial triumph of Prajfiaparamita scholarship in China, Chu Shih-hsing, of the kingdom of Wei, spent some time studying in Khotan (having set out in 260), whither he had gone to get a complete text of the original scripture. As has also been stated, the Paficavi1J1atis.p.p. sent back by him was translated in 291 by Chu Shu-lan and others (under the title Fang kuang po-jo-po-lo-mi ching), and thus was established the scholarly vogue that was to lead to the eventual triumph of Prajfiaparamita scholarship. As has also been told in quite some detail, for a period of forty-some years, overlapping with this translation of the Paficavi1J1atis.p.p. 1 in such cultural centers of the Western Tsin as Ch'ang-an and Lo-yang, a Yueh-chih born in Tun-huang, effected such colossal and unprecedented achievements in scriptural translation that he is praised in these words: "The wide spread of Buddhism throughout China was the work For all that he was himself born in Tun-huang, that is, in China's western marches, to a family of naturalized non- Chinese, still he set out on pilgrimage for Central Asia, where he spent a period of time in study, and whence he brought back a large number of scriptures, achieving with his broad knowledge of the languages involved, both Chinese and non-Chinese, his great work of translation. These achievements are probably what made the Chinese Buddhists themselves aware of the necessity of pilgrimages to Central Asia and of extended study in that area and what inspired in them. the determination to volunteer for a heroic feat that at the time could be performed only at the risk of one's life. No less of a role in exciting the future enthusiasm for the study of Buddhism in its original homeland and for the acquisition of Buddhist scriptures in the original languages on the part of committed scholar-monks during the fourth century, when Buddhism was experiencing a triumph in China, was played, presumably, by Tao-an, who, as the most committed Chinese Buddhist scholar ofhis age, making his home first in North China, then in Hsiang-yang under the rule of the Eastern Tsin, assumed the leadership of several hundred disciples united by the study of the Prajiiaparamita and exerted a most inspiring influence on ruling families and aristoc- racies, Chinese and non-Chinese, in China both north and south and, beyond them, on broad layers of the population, both religious and secular. For, it is most to be noted, he warned against ko yi Buddhism, against the vogue of understanding and expounding the Buddhist scriptures in Chinese translation through the medium of ideas and vocabulary drawn from the Chinese tradition, stressing the particular importance of taking the originals seriously in the study of scriptures translated out oflanguages so different in character from Chinese, whether spoken or written. (For more on Tao-an, see the next chapter.) From the era of the Eastern Tsin in the fourth century through that of the Sung in the fifth, there was an uninterrupted stream of Chinese members of the sarpgha on pilgrimage to Central Asia and India. A majority of these came from the Bud- dhist community living in North China under non-Chinese rule, a minority from south of the Yangtze. The probable reasons for this are the simple airs and manners F : THE WESTWARD PILGRIMAGE 431 of the people who made up these non-Chinese soctetles, the effeteness of the aristocracy south of the Yangtze, the fact that the avenue of communication with Central Asia led from the Kansu corridor, in North China, to Kansu, and the consequence of all these facts, namely, that the impact of the foreign sarp.gha and of the foreign religion on the north was also very strong. Three examples are the monks Hui-ch' ang, Chin-hsing, and Hui-pien, of whom Tao-an says in his preface to a summary commentary to two Chinese versions of the Paficavi!J1satis.p.p. (Ho Fang kuang Kuang tsan luch chieh hsu) that, when they "were about to go to T'ien-chu (India), on the way they made a copy of the Kuang tsan po-jo ching, translation of the Paficavi!J1satis.p.p. , which they had been seeking since they had first passed through Liang-chou (in Kansu) and which was thus enabled to spread throughout the Middle Plain, reaching Hsiang-yang in 376," and affording great joy to Tao-an himself. 1 Also, in an anonymous colophon to the Sura!J1gamasutra (Shou-leng-yen hou chi, contained in Ch'u san tsang chi chi 7) one reads that, when in 373, under the sponsorship of Chang T'ien-hsi, censor of Liang- chou, Chih Shih-lun, a Mahayana scholar ofYlieh-chih descent and a layman, trans- lated the Sura!J1gama and the SuriiWapariprccha, the sramai).as Shih Hui-ch'ang and Shih Chin-hsing participated. 2 Almost nothing is known about these three monks, even whether or not they did in fact go on their own initiative from Liang-chou to India. In view of the adopted surname Shih (ancient pronunciation approximately siek), in view also of the fact that while in Liang-chou they copied and sent to Tao-an translations of such Ma- hayana scriptures as the Paficavi!J1satis.p.p. (Kuang tsan), the Sura!J1gama, the pariprccha, and the Dasabhumika (Chien pei; cf. Ch'u san tsang chi chi 9 for a preface to that translation, preceded by a catalogue of the names of the Ten Stages, Chien pei ching shih chu hu ming ping shu hsu), they may well have had a connection with Tao-an's school; they may also have been personally committed to him in their religious faith; they may, finally, have resolved upon a pilgrimage to Central Asia and to India under his inspiration. Hui-ylian, one of Tao-an's disciples, unhappy over the imperfect state of the scriptural canon in Chinese translation, in T' ai-ylian 17 (392) sent two of his own pupils, Chih Fa-ling and Fa-ching, to Central Asia in quest of scriptural texts, a fact recorded in Hui-ylian's biography. The evidence leads one to believe that the two men, Tao-an and Hui-ylian, master and disciple, great teachers both, were equal- ly exercised over the procurement of canonical texts from Central Asia and equally insistent on its necessity. As Seng-chao says in his letter to Liu Yi-min, Chih Fa-ling, sent to Central Asia by Hui-ylian, brought back with him to Ch'ang-an, then the capital of the Latter Ch'in, more than two hundred Mahayana texts, all of them unknown to the Chinese, and this at a time when Buddhist scriptures were being translated on a large scale by a State-sponsored project on an unprecedented scale, a project in which the central figure was Kumarajiva. 3 However, when the docu- ments say that Chih Fa-ling brought back from the Western Regions (hsi yu) more than two hundred "new" scriptures of the Great Vehicle ("new" in the sense that 432 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE they were still not known to the Chinese), it is not possible to know immediately whether the Western Regions mentioned in those sources include India or whether his successful quest for Mahayana canonical literature, not getting as far as India, was concentrated, for example, on the already very Buddhist lands of Central Asia east of the Pamirs, particularly on such countries as Khotan along the southern route of the Silk Road, where Mahayana Buddhism was moving into a position of absolute triumph. As is clear from the journal kept by Fa-hsien, to be mentioned below, there were numerous sarp.gha living in the countries north of the Taklamakan desert, countries such as Shan-shan, Yen-ch'i (Karashahr), and Kucha, the last-named being in par- ticular a land in which Hinayana Buddhism, supported by everyone from the reign- ing family on down, was at the height of its glory, being guided, furthermore, by learned Sarvastivada monks constantly coming in from India. However, while in the countries just mentioned, Kucha in particular, the Hinayana was triumphing to the exclusion of everything else, it deserves to be pointed out that the countries along the southern route, of which the most important was Khotan, were marked by the advance of the Mahayana, and that the reedition, the rearrangement, and even the expansion of Mahayana scriptures, in some cases old and established, in others recent arrivals, seem to have been taking place. This is why persons who left China in quest of Buddhist canonical writings were able to achieve their goal of religious quest among the Buddhist communities of such lands as Kucha and Khotan, countries relatively close to China both in geography and in dealings. A monk such as Seng-ch'un, who brought the back to China with him, obtained that original during a period of study in Kucha, and it is thanks to his observations that one is so well aware of the astounding successes of Hinayana Buddhism in that land. (Cf. Ch'u san tsang chi chi 11 for the preface to the complete account of the translation of Pi-ch'iu-ni chieh pen so ch'u pen mo hsu; for Tao-an's preface to the Pi-ch'iu fa chieh hsu; and for the three colophons to a volume of "recent appearance" in the Ch'ang-an region, one that combined two sets of materials pertinent to the ordination of nuns, one a miscellany of twelve having to do with the retreat during the rainy season, the other the Kuan chung chin ch'u ni erh chung t' an wen hsia tso tsa shih erh shih ping tsa shih kung chuan ch'ien chu1tg hou san chi.) There can be no doubt that in Central Asian countries close to China, such as Kucha and Khotan, prosperous trade and a vigorous va-et-vimt, as well as the evident triumph of Buddhism having the characteristics of both Hinayana and Mahayana, attracted Chinese Buddhists to go to those countries in quest of the Dharma and to remain for a time as students. When all is said and done, however, for China's Buddhists the most natural thing was a torrent of enthusiasm to go to the India of their dreams, there to seek out holy scriptures not yet available in their own country or, for those available but imperfect, complete originals, to benefit by the direct instruction of Indian teachers, and to make pilgrimages to places once hallowed by the Buddha's presence. To cite two obvious cases, one from the begin- F : THE WESTWARD PILGRIMAGE 433 ning of the Eastern Tsin, the other from its end, the former would be the pilgrimage of K'ang Fa-lang, a North Chinese, and his four companions to the many holy places, while the latter would be the voyage to India of Fa-hsien, a renowned pilgrim and likewise a North Chinese, in quest of the Dharma, which for him meant canonical texts. The Journey of K'ang Fa-lang. K'ang Fa-lang, originally of Chung-shan, early in life conceived a profound longing for the holy places associated with the Buddha, and vowed to go to India. At length, in the company of four colleagues, he went west, proceeding from Chang-yi across the "running sands" (liu sha) and encounter- ing extraordinary hardships. On the advice of an upadhyaya living in an old mon- astery, his four companions stopped at another monastery near the "running sands," where they studied for a bit, then went home. K'ang Fa-lang, however, true to his vow, went alone through many countries, studying scriptures and treatises wherever he went and ultimately returning to Chung-shan, where he propagated the faith, gathering tens of thousands of disciples and becoming one of the most powerful and influential leaders of the Buddhist community in North China, to the point that even Sun Ch'o composed a eulogy in his honor. 4 The Chung-shan region was an important Buddhist center for the country north of Lo-yang, and this was the place of origin of Tao-an among others. The Journey of Yu Fa-lan. South of the Yangtze as well there were monks who went south (by way of the Indo-Chinese peninsula) determined to seek the Dharma. From the K'uai-chi area, Yii Fa-lan and his companion, Yii Tao-sui, about the year 350, lamenting the incompleteness of the Buddhist canon in China, set out on a southward journey in quest of the Dharma. However, when they got to Chiao- chou (around Hanoi), they fell ill, and upon arrival in Hsing-lin first Fa-lan died, then Tao-sui followed, and they were unable to fulfill their resolve. 5 The appearance in the K'uai-chi area, the breeding ground of "pure-talking" aristocratic Buddhism, of seekers after Dharma at the risk of their very lives shows that the degenerate aspect of the church of the time was not the end and all of South Chinese Buddhism, but that it was also an era of Buddhist triumph, one that produced earnest seekers ' after the Path as well. As can be seen from the cases just mentioned, one of the purposes of westward pilgrimage was visits to holy places, as prescribed in the scriptures. Another was study in India. In the majority of cases, however, the purpose was to bring Sanskrit texts back to China. Already many canonical scriptures had made their way into China and been translated there, but they were the copies, not infrequently deficient ones, that happened to be available in Central Asia, for the translation into Chinese of Sanskrit manuscripts of genuinely Indian provenance was rare. Furthermore, as Hui-chiao notes in his comments (fun) appended to roll 3 of the Lives of Eminent Monks, the canonical scriptures able to make their way into China and to be trans- lated there represented but a tiny fraction of the total canonical corpus, for, in the course of transmission, they would cross deserts and run risks, with the result that eight or nine out of ten would never reach China at all. Virtually all of the Chinese 434 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE pilgrims to India, men such as Fa-hsien, Chih-meng, Chih-yen, and Fa-yung, set out as members of groups, but returned alone. It is therefore said of them that the one canonical scripture brought back to the Middle Land by the particular pilgrim was what lengthened his life-span beyond what it would otherwise have been. 6 Now customarily the majority of the pilgrims would halt their journey in places like Kucha and Khotan, oasis countries in Turkestan, for, apart from K'ang Fa-lang early in the Eastern Tsin, the number of persons who got as far as India and contrived to come into active contact with Buddhism in the land of its birth, and who went back to China to function there as religious teachers, was tiny. Even in his case, if it comes to that, there is no knowing how far in India he actually got, for he may conceivably have stopped somewhere between Central Asia and Northwest India. By the end of the Eastern Tsin, there did em.erge one man who went overland through Central Asia, then cut vertically down India to the sea, sailing back safely to China, to exert enormous influences on the development of Chinese Buddhism in the realm of translation and evangelism and even on that of the study of Asia in the twentieth century. That man was Fa-hsien. The Journey of Fa-hsien. Fa-hsien, whose secular clan name was Kung, came originally from Wu-yang within the P'ing-yang area (now in Shansi). Since three brothers born before him had all died in early childhood, his father, afraid that misfortune would overtake him too, gave him to the monastic order at the age of three. He received full ordination at twenty, but then, constantly grieved at the fact that China had no complete monastic code, vowed that he was determined to get an originaF There was, at the time, a large number of voices bewailing the i1Kom- pleteness of canonical codes, so much so that any member of the foreign sa!Tlgha who was proficient in the Vinaya would, upon arrival in China, become the object of veneration and expectation simultaneously. 8 Tao-an's efforts, before this time, to secure a canonical code, as well as his drawing up of a set of regulation_s for the sramal).as, 9 finally Hui-yiian's dispatch of Chih Fa-ling and others to Central Asia was in every case motivated by the same considerations. The lacuna was filled somewhat by the translation activities ofKumarajiva and his fellowship, but as early as Lung-an 3 (399), two years before Kumarajiva's entry into Ch'ang-an, Fa-hsien set out from that same city in the company of four colleagues, one of them being Hui-ching, in quest of the Dharma (i.e., of canonical texts). Proceeding to Kansu, that is, to the kingdom of the Western Ch'in, ruled over by a Hsien-pi king whose name appears in Chinese as Ch'i-fu Ch'ien-kuei, the group went into for three months. In the light of their mission, that of a quest for valid texts of the religious code, it is to be noted that they actually practiced the Next, detained for a bit by civil war at Chang-yi (now in Kansu), capital of the (Hsiung-nu) king- dom of the Northern Liang, he had a chance meeting with the party of Chih-yen and Pao-yiin, who were on a mission similar to their own, and together they left Tun-huang, passing Shan-shan and "Wu-yi" (i.e., Yen-ch'i or Karashahr), to the southern route of the T'ien-shan, which goes through Khotan. In Shan-shan they found four thousand members of the sa!Tlgha, all of the Lesser Vehicle, and the F : THE WESTWARD PILGRIMAGE 435 same in Karashahr. Then, however, there followed a period of one month and five days in which they tasted bitterness that no words can describe, in which there were "above no birds flying, below no beasts running," where the landmarks were human bones left behind on the sands. At the end of this time they contrived to reach Khotan, a land most delightfully acceptable to Fa-hsicn and his fellows, for "the realm is pleasant and prosperous, the people well to do, all without exception worshiping the Buddhadharma and taking their pleasure in it. The saq1gha numbers several tens of thousands, most of whom study the Great Vehicle." When in the latter half of the third century, Chu Shih-hsing stopped there for a period of study, it had been a place in which the Lesser Vehicle and the Greater Vehicle were in competition, the former actually hav- ing the upper hand, so much so that, when Chu Shih-hsing attempted to send Prajfia- paramita scriptures back to China, the Hinayanists hindered him, on the grounds that those writings were "not Buddhist." By Fa-hsicn's time, however, the Lesser V chicle had been overwhelmed by the Greater. The Buddha's Birthday and the" Walking Image." Fa-hsicn, in order to see with his own eyes the greatest celebration in the Khotanese year, that of the Buddha's birth- day and the festival of the "walking image" that marked it (a sort of float parade), delayed his departure for India by as long as three months, staying in a Mahayana monastery. His journal has a detailed account of the fourteen great convents of the country, as well as of the elaborate ceremonies attending the festival just mentioned. Later he parted with his companions, all of them going at different times-sometimes meeting, sometimes not-over the Pamirs through Udyana and other North Indian countries into Central India, then, after an extended pilgrimage to the holy places ofBuddhism-such as the Jetavanavihara-he spent three years in what is now Patna. This is because he found there the Vinaya texts which were the very reason of the pilgrimage. Since throughout North India the Vinaya was transmitted by word of mouth alone and never written down, his tireless quest for manuscripts had brought him as far as Central India. During his sojourn, he obtained copies of the Mahasaq1ghikavinaya, said to have been in use during the Buddha's own lifetime; of the Sai'J'Iyuktabhidharmahrdaya, in use in the Sarvastivada school; of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvar:zasatra; and of the Mahasaq1ghikabhidharma. He spent his three years learning first the Sanskrit language, then the script, and finally making his own copies. Tao-cheng, who had remained his companion until now, was so struck by the grand monastic institutions of the land that he made up his mind to spend the rest of his life there, but Fa-hsien, in order to fulfill his vow to "give currency to the Code of Restraints throughout the land of Han," set out on the return journey quite alone. After spending two years more in the kingdom of Tamralipti, where he made copies of scriptures and icons, he boarded a commercial vessel that took him to Lion Land (Ceylon). Here too he spent two years, contriving to get Sanskrit texts of the MahiSasakavinaya, the Dirghagama, the Sai'J'Iyuktagama, and the tsa tsang ( k ~ u d rakapi{aka?). Having done all of these things, he set out by sea for Canton, but 436 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE storms blew the ship to Ch'ing-chou (in Shantung) instead (in Yi-hsi 8, i.e., 412). His landing place, formerly part of the kingdom of the Southern Yen, had in Yi- hsi 6 (410) been restored to the sovereignty of the Eastern Tsin by the northern expedition of Liu Yi.i. Also, Buddhabhadra and Pao-yi.in, who had been banished from Ch'ang-an by Kumarajiva's followers (after their master's death), had them- selves gone south of the Yangtze. Fa-hsien' s original intention was, presumably, to get to Ch'ang-an and there to translate the canonical scriptures he had brought back with him, but, given the situation, he too went south, arriving the following year, the ninth of Yi-hsi (413), at Chien-k'ang, where he terminated a grand tour that had taken fourteen years (399-413), bringing him to more than thirty different countries. Once at Chien-k'ang, he proceeded without delay to write a description (in Yi- hsi 12, i.e., 416) of his travels, including everything he had seen and heard, and, in collaboration with Buddhabhadra, to translate (in the same year) the scriptures he had brought back with him. His journal goes by a variety of names, among them being Record of a Buddhist Pilgrimage to India (Fo yu T'ien-chu chi), Record of a Passage through India (Li yu T' ien-chu chi), Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Fo kuo chi), and the Tradition of Fa-hsien (Fa hsien chuan). An indispensable source for an understanding of the conditions in the India and Central Asia of the time, the minute account contained in Fa-hsien' s journal, together with that of Hsi.ian-tsang, which followed it by some two centuries, is highly prized in the study ofboth history and geography. Beyond that, its role has been that of a valuable guide for exploratory expeditions into Central Asia since the late nineteenth century. If one adds the number ofFa-hsien' s companions to that of those who both preced- ed and followed him by slight intervals in time, the total comes to as many as ten, of whom, however, some turned back midway, others (like Hui-ching) died of illness en route, while others yet-such as Tao-cheng-remained in the homeland of Buddhism, so that, in the final upshot, Fa-hsien was left to himsel Some of the monks who returned to China midway brought back with them the Sanskrit texts they had obtained in Central Asia. According to Fa-hsien's account, Hinayana scholarship went out in waves from Kashmir, its then source, as far as the region of Shan-shan, while the sramal:).as themselves practiced the Dharma as it was practiced in India and learned both the script and the language of that country.l 0 This means that their goal was achieved without their having to reach their destination. The Journey of Chih-yen and Pao-yiin. Chih-yen, 11 being from western Liang-chou, presumably had a certain affection for Central Asia. Setting out on pilgrimage with four companions, including Pao-yi.in, he fell in with Fa-hsien's party at Chang-yi and went together with them as far as Tun-huang, but the two parties arrived in Kashmir at two different times. Staying there for three years, and serving the eminent Buddhasena as his teacher of dhyana, he happened to meet Buddhabhadra, whom he entreated to go to China as a missionary and whom he actually accom- panied back to Ch'ang-an. Faced with the expulsion ofBuddhabhadra from Ch'ang- an, he himself fled to Shantung. Then, in Yi-hsi 13 (417), when Liu Yi.i was on his F :THE WESTWARD PILGRIMAGE 437 way home from his Ch'ang-an expedition, Chih-yen, on the advice of Wang K'uei, duke ofShih-hsing, was taken along to Chien-k'ang, where he made his home first in the Shih-hsing-ssu, then in the Ch'i-yiian-ssu (jetavanavihara). Late in life he again took ship to make a pilgrimage, but this time he died in Kashmir (aet. 78). Pao-yiin (376--449), 12 who set out together with Chih-yen, stayed with Fa-hsien after the parting at Tun-huang, proceeding from Khotan to P u r u ~ a p u r a (Peshawar), whence he returned home in the company of Hui-ta and Seng-ching. At Ch' ang- an he served Buddhabhadra as his master, going with him to Chien-k'ang and participating in the work of translation at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu. Apart from the men named above, there were not a few who late in Tsin and early in Sung went west on pilgrimage in quest of the Dharma. Noteworthy are Hui-ch'ang, Chin-hsing, and Hui-pien, who brought back the Pancavii'J'Isatis.p.p. text on which the Kuang tsan was based; 13 Hui-jui, who, after passing through many countries, went as far as "the border of southern India," then, after his return to China, did the rounds of Mount Lu and Ch'ang-an, ultimately stopping at the Wu- yi-ssu ("Monastery of the Craw's Plumage") in Chien-k'ang; 14 Chih-meng, who, leaving Ch'ang-an in Hung-shih 6 (404), got to India after a heartbreaking journey in which he had lost ten of his original fifteen companions through death or deser- tion, then, having acquired such Sanskrit texts as those of the Mahayana Mahiipari- nirviitza and the Mahasarp.ghikavinaya, returned to Shu (Szechwan) thirty-four years later (in Yiian-chia 14, i.e., 437) ; 15 and Dharmodgata (Fa-yung), who, in jealous emulation ofFa-hsien's pilgrimage, set out in Yung-ho 1 (424), then returned from Western India to Canton by sea. 16 The last named lost all but five of his original twenty-five companions. All of the men just mentioned published journals of their travels, in the manner of Fa-hsien, after their return to China. One might cite such titles as Chih-meng's Narration of Travel to Foreign Countries (Yu hsing wai kuo chuan), in one roll, 17 or Pao-yiin' s Narration of a Passage through [Many] Countries (Li kuo chuan chi), 18 but those works are long since lost, all that is known to us now being their names. Sanskrit Texts Brought Back and Translated. The seekers after the Dharma (i.e., religious texts) who made journeys of anywhere from ten to thirty hardship-filled years mastered the Buddhist learning they acquired in Buddhism's homeland and brought back Sanskrit texts, mostly to Ch'ang-an or Chien-k'ang. Then began, in collaboration with some of the above-mentioned foreign members of the sarp.gha now resident in China, the work of translating into Chinese the Sanskrit texts they had acquired. Chien-k'ang was the point of assembly for Buddhabhadra, Fa-hsien, Chih-yen, and Pao-yiin, all of whom dwelt at the Tou-ch'ang-ssu (i.e., the Tao- ch' ang-ssu). This monastery, built by Hsieh Shih, the ssu k' ung ofY an gchow (biography in roll 79 of the Book of Tsin) and younger brother of the chancellor Hsieh An, was the subject of a common byword: "Tou-ch' ang is a cave of dhyana-masters, Tung- an is a grove for the discussion of doctrine" (tou ch' ang ch' an shih k'u tung an t' an yi lin). 19 The byword tells us that the Tou-ch'ang-ssu was a gathering point for the dhyana-master Buddhabhadra and for Chih-yen and Pao-ytin, both of whom served 438 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE him as a master, while at the Tung-an-ssu there dwelt such theoreticians of Buddhist doctrine and exegesis as Hui-yen and Hui-yi. Many Sanskrit texts were translated into Chinese in an area of which these two monasteries were the center. The canonical scriptures brought back by Fa-hsien were almost all translated in collaboration with Buddhabhadra, who, as just stated, made his home in the Tao- ch'ang-ssu, beginning with the Mahasarpghikavinaya in Yi-hsi 12 (416) and the six- roll the following year ( 417, the translation taken down in writing by Pao-yi.in), both of which translations were completed the year after that, the fourteenth ofYi-hsi (418). Apart from these, other texts translated in collaboration with Buddhabhadra are the Tsa tsang ching the and the Tsa a-p'i-t' an hsin fun ( Sarrryuktabhidharmahrdaya ?) , of which the last named had been translated once before. The Sanskrit texts brought back by Fa-hsien but unable to be translated at that time, such as the Dirghiigama, the Sarrryuktiigama, and the Mahisasakavinaya, were translated later by Gul).abhadra (Sarrryuktiigama) and Buddhajiva (Mahisasakavin- aya), both of whom came to China during the Liu-Sung, and completed by Chih- yen and Pao-yi.in, whom they met when the latter were on their way west. The Sanskrit text of the Avatarrrsaka, brought back from Khotan by Chih Fa-ling, was also translated by Buddhabhadra between Yi-hsi 14 and Yung-ch'u 2 (418-421). Of Pao-yi.in, who functioned as "scribe" (pi shou) in the translation of the Mahii- parinirvii!Ja, it is said that, since he had studied and mastered sounds, letters, and meanings in India, since he thus combined a mastery of Chinese with one of Sanskrit as well, he was able, as a translator, simply to hold the Sanskrit text in hand and read offits interpretation in Chinese, the sounds and their meanings being absolutely right, gaining for his translations the faith and admiration of all. 20 Among his translations are the Scripture of the Buddha's Former Actions (Fa pen hsing ching, a sort of Buddhacarita in seven rolls, done some time during Yi.ian-chia, 424-454) and the New Scripture of the One of Immeasurable Life (Hsin Wu liang shou ching, a version of the Sukhii- vativyuha in two rolls, done at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu in Yung-ch'u 2, i.e., 421), in addi- tion to the following, done in collaboration with Chih-yen: the Pure Scripture of Broad Adornment (Kuang po yen ching ching, Avaivartyasutra), the Scripture of the Four Divine Kings ( Ssu t' ien wang ching, Caturdevariijasutra ?) , the Scripture of the Sam- iidhi of the Pure Land (Ching t'u san-mei ching), and the Scripture of Universal Glow (P'u yao ching, Lalitavistara). (The next to the last is, however, a forgery, the "transla- tion" of which is falsely ascribed to Chih-yen and Pao-yi.in.) Finally, Fa-yung is responsible for the translation of the Scripture of the Receipt of Prophecy by Him Who Observes the Sounds of the World (Kuan shih yin shou chi ching, Miiyopamasamiidhi), a translation that circulated in Chien-k' ang. Thanks to translation work of this sort, central to which were persons who had returned from pilgrimage abroad, there appeared in China some new scriptures (i.e., scriptures which until then had never been translated into Chinese) that played a vital role in the later unfolding of Buddhism in China, scriptures such as the Avatarrrsaka, the Sukhiivativyuha, the and the Mahasarpghikavinaya. One might F : THE WESTWARD PILGRIMAGE 439 say that this was their reward for the pilgrimages that they had made at such pain and sacrifice. Fa-hsien finished his life at the age of eighty-two at the Hsin-ssu in Ching-chou, while Buddhabhadra died at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu in Yiian-chia 6 (429). About that time, Chih-yen made a second passage to India and Pao-yiin left Chien-k' ang to take up residence at the Liu-ho-shan-ssu, so that the foreign missionaries who had come to China and the Chinese pilgrims who had returned to China, both of whom had been functioning since late Tsin, left the capital in early Sung to go their several ways. The active translation of Buddhist scriptures, however, did not flag, for the Yiian-chia period (424--454) saw the uninterrupted arrivals of such foreign members of the sarp.gha as Kalayasas, Gui).avarman, and Gui).abhadra. In addition, the learned monks ofKumarajiva's school passed back and forth between Ch'ang-an and Chien- k'ang, endowing the religious life of the latter city with an added freshness. G. Problems Posed by the New Buddhist Arrivals in Eastern Tsin As stated above, thanks to the succession of Chinese monks going west on pilgrimage and of western monks coming to China, there was a sudden spurt in the translation of Buddhist scriptures, both in North China and south of the Yangtze, in the latter half of the Eastern Tsin. It was particularly vigorous under both the Former Ch'in and the Latter Ch'in in and around Ch'ang-an, a North Chinese city that had direct ties with the Central Asian traffic (and about which more shall be said in the next chapter). South of the Yangtze, on the other hand, in and around Chien-k'ang, the translation into Chinese of a quite different sort of Buddhist scripture, although the vigor that characterized it was no match for that of Ch'ang-an, was enough to shake the Prajfiaparamita scholarship that was all-powerful elsewhere. Leaving aside for the moment the new translations being done in and around Ch'ang-an, as well as the influence they were exerting throughout North China, what we will do here is to give a general presentation of something quite different, typified by the enor- mous influences exerted on the Buddhist community of the Eastern Tsin, be it the influences coming south from North China or those coming north to Chien-k'ang from the Kwangtung-Kwangsi area and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and by three problems posed by the new translations done in and around Chien-k'ang, viz.: (1) the transmission and dissemination ofHinayana Buddhism, as well as the rise of the notion that the Mahayana is "not theW ord of the Buddha" and the confusion caused by the latter; (2) the study of Buddhism in the tradition of Nagarjuna thanks to the southward move of scriptures translated in a new tradition, inaugurated by Kumarajiva; (3) the translation of a new type of Mahayana scripture and the influence it exerted, this time stressing an aspect different from that ofNagarjuna and the Prajfiapararnita as propagated by Kumarajiva and made possible by the southward move of Bud- dhabhadra, who was himself one ofKumarajiva's rivals. 440 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE The problems just outlined remained problems throughout the Eastern Tsin and into the (Liu-)Sung, developing in scope as time went on. What we wish to do here, however, is to give a general description of them, with a focus on the Eastern Tsin, and to make it clear how Chinese Buddhism in the fifth century (in the period of time spanning the end of the Tsin and the beginning of the Sung) arrived at a vital turning-point. 1. THE SUCCESSION OF HINAYANA TRANSLATIONS Tao-an, who lived at Hsiang-yang under the Eastern Tsin, and who had devoted himself exclusively to the study and exposition of the Mahayana scriptures going by the name of PrajiUparamita, was brought to Ch' ang-an through the occupation of Hsiang-yang in 379 by the army ofFu Chien of the Former Ch'in, entering the city about the time that that kingdom was at the height of its glory, when culture was flourishing in the city itself, and when, most important for Tao-an personally, there was a gathering of persons both Chinese and non-Chinese who knew the important foreign languages and who, to his delight, were busy with the systematic translation of the treatises (Abhidharma) of the Sarvastivada school and of the Agamas that constituted their basis, two bodies of Hinayana literature of which Tao-an had a decidedly inadequate knowledge, as well as of Vinaya texts that Tao-an and Chu Fa-t'ai were zealously seeking. (For more on this, cf the next chapter, which deals with Tao-an.) Of course, Tao-an was not totally ignorant of Hinayana scholarship, since a part of it, at least, in the form of Agamas and Abhidharma, had been brought into China as early as the Latter Han through the activities of such translators as An Shih-kao, a man whom Tao-an held in the profoundest admiration and in whose translations he had a particular interest. However, as we have said before, and as we shall have occasion to say again later, he did not regard the Hinayana canon as the doctrinal ex- pression of a rival school, to be sharply set off from the Mahayana, as typified by the Prajiiaparamita scriptures; rather, he looked upon them both as Dharma preached by one and the same Buddha. It is a peculiar feature of the Ch'ang-an Buddhist community that Tao-an encountered at Ch'ang-an many Hinayana scholars and their translations, and that the translation ofHinayana writings continued even after his death. It bears reflection that the Former Ch'in conducted a successful campaign against Chang T'ien-hsi, who behaved toward the Tsin as a loyal vassal while actually maintaining in Liang-chou (Kansu) the position of a virtually sovereign king, then moved him to within the Barrier, where they treated him with special favor (in 376). In this way Liang-chou and all of its commanderies and districts (chun hsien) became Ch'in territory; Liang Hsi became censor of Liang-chou, his headquarters being at Ku-tsang; he moved more than seven thousand households of the most powerful families ofLiang-chou to within the Barrier, where he cared for them most solici- tously; and he went to the greatest lengths to maintain trade and other contacts with G :PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 441 the countries of Central Asia. Taking advantage of Fu Chien's combined policy of kindness and sternness (en wei ping shih) toward the whole Kansu region, he permitted the return to their original homes of the Yung-chou gentry temporarily domiciled in Ho-hsi (likewise in Kansu) as refugees from the one-time disturbances in the Ch' ang-an area. The Buddhist religion, flourishing as it did over the whole area from Liang-chou to Tun-huang, flowed into the Ch'ang-an region together with its adherents, lay as well as clerical, presumably on a considerable scale, a circum- stance which must also have facilitated the passage into Ch'ang-an of Central Asian Buddhism by way of Kansu. Now the Chang clan, the real powerholders in Liang-chou, were a powerful family of W u-shih in An-ting (northeast of what is now P'ing-liang fit in Kansu), one of whose members as early as Yung-ning 1, during the reign ofEmperor Hui, toward the end of the Western Tsin (301) , had distinguished himself as the senior official in Liang-chou, and another of whose members, Chang Chiin (r. 324-345), expanded his power to where he was able to style himself "king of Liang." From then, through the reign of his son, Ch'ung-hua, down to the time when Chang T'ien-hsi capitulated to the Former Ch'in, a period of seventy-six years encompass- ing the reigns of eight princes, members of this clan were the actual governors of the Liang-chou district, known to history as the kingdom of the Former Liang. The Book of Wei has this to say: Liang-chou had from Chang Kuei onward for generations believed in Buddhism. Tun-huang touches upon the Western Regions, and the clergy and laity both acquired the old fashions. The villages, one after the other, had many reliquaries and convents. [Quoted from the "Treatise on Buddhism and Taoism."] As one gathers from this, it was from the very outset a clan of devoutly Buddhist rulers, holding sway over an important center in the Kansu corridor for the Bud- dhism that was coming in through Tun-huang. Liang-chou was also a place that, in terms of its geographical position, was obliged to treat the Central Asia trade as an important source of wealth. It was, further, a place in which there was a continuing contact, already of long duration, between China and Central Asia, hence a place through which the material culture of the west was coming into China, together with the Buddhist religion, from Central Asia. During the era of upheaval in the Middle Plain, the flow of Buddhism from Central Asia continued at least into the Liang-chou area, and there were not a few Chinese Buddhists and scholars in general who came to that place in order to escape the turmoil on the Middle Plain. Not only did Fu Chien, the devoutly Buddhist sovereign of the Former Ch'in, upon occupation of this area provide a secure dwelling within the Barrier for the Chang clan and all the other powerful families of the area, the majority of whom were Buddhist, and permit the Chinese living within the Barrier, who had taken up residence in the Kansu area as refugees from civil upheaval, to return to their original homes, but he also extended the effect of his might to neighboring Central Asian countries such as Shan-shan and Chii-shih-ch'ien-pu (Turfan), whose kings before long were sending tribute to Ch' ang-an. 442 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Fa-hsien, who left Ch' ang-an in 400, records the following: The land of Shan- shan (the Lou-lan of Han times), in which he and his companions arrived after having performed Buddhist religious practices (such as the all over Kansu, having also received offerings from local powerholders, and having crossed a frightening desert, in which "above there were no birds flying, below no beasts running, the only landmarks being the dried bones of the dead," was a stark country. Yet the king of the land venerates the Dharma, having a sarp.gha of possibly more than four thousand members, all students of the Lesser Vehicle. . . . those who had left the household cultivated Indian script and the Indian language. Thus it was a Hinayana country on the model of India. From there he proceeded, after fifteen days' march, to "Wu-yi" (Karashahr), where also the sarp.gha numbers more than four thousand persons, all students of the Lesser Vehicle. Their Dharma is so well regulated that no Chinese sramal).a who reaches them can bring himself to follow their example. Thus it too was a Hinayana country on the Indian model, in which there was a disci- plined strictness in marked contrast with the life-style of China's Buddhist com- munity. (Quoted from Fa-hsien's Record of Buddhist Kingdoms. 1 ) The "scholarship of the Lesser Vehicle" ascribed to all of the countries bordering on China was probably something already in effect by the fourth century. Proceed- ing west from these modest kingdoms, one comes to Kucha, a land well favored and well endowed both geographically and economically, where, at Tao-an's time, the Lesser Vehicle was also at the height of its glory, being subject to the guidance of eminent monks of the Sarvastivada, a school in full bloom in and around Kashmir. There were in Kucha some Chinese monks who had gone to study (such as Seng- ch'un, who brought back a religious code for nuns), and there were also Kuchean Buddhists who had gone to Kashmir to study Abhidharma, Hinayana doctrine, and the like (such as the young Kumarajiva, taken by his mother turned nun). Finally, there were not a few Kuchean monks who had come to China as missionaries. Since later chapters devoted to Tao-an (Former Ch'in) and Kumarajiva (Latter Ch'in) shall tell of the large-scale mission to North China of foreign Hinayana adherents, principally in Ch'ang-an and the vicinity during the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, namely, in the kingdoms of the Former Ch'in (Fu clan) and the Latter Ch'in (Yao clan), herein we will tell only of the Hinayana Buddhism that came into the Yangtze basin, under the effective rule of the Eastern Tsin, there to be propagated, to have its scriptures translated, and to raise new questions. Sa1J1ghozdeva. As has already been said, the era of the Eastern Tsin was, for the Bud- dhist church, one that saw the triumph of two studies, that of Lao-tzu and Chuang- tzu on the one hand and of the Mahayana, specifically the Prajfiaparamita, on the other. At the same time, it was a period marked by a widespread belief in Buddhas G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 443 other than Gautama, most notably by belief in Amita. Into this Buddhist community south of the Yangtze, brought by Hinayana Buddhists who doubted that the Prajiia- paramita scriptures, or indeed any of the Mahayana canon, was the Word of the Buddha, and who rejected belief in any Buddhas other than the Sakyabuddha alone, came the latter's doctrines (satra, abhidharma) and rules oflife (vinaya), first transmit- ted, then evangelized, finally raising a host of new problems. In the first wave was a Kashmiri named Sa111ghadeva (whose name sometimes appears in Chinese as chung t'ien, "god of the multitude"), who went first to Mount Lu (in T'ai-yiian 16, i.e., 391), then to Chien-k'ang (in Lung-an 1, i.e., 397). The whole area along the north of the Tarim basin, from Kashmir to Kucha, was one in which, at the time, the Lesser Vehicle was in full bloom, and authoritative spokesmen for it were foreign members of the sa111gha who came to the lands of the Former Ch'in, men such as Sa111ghabhadra and Dharmanandi, in addition to the Sa111ghadeva just mentioned, all of them engaged in the translation and dissemination of the Hinayana canon. Tao-an, the giant of Prajiiaparamita scholarship in the Chinese sa111gha of his own day, was delighted at the arrival of these Hinayana scriptures, urging his juniors to study them carefully. (For details, cf. the chapter on Tao-an.) Sa111ghadeva, after Tao-an's death, left a Ch'ang-an marked by the collapse of the Fu clan and its state of (the Former) Ch'in, which followed shortly, and the civil disturbances that ensued, moving to Lo-yang in the company ofTao-an's colleague, the sramal)a Shih Fa-hoof Chi-chou, and the disciples they both had collected. After four or five years of study and lecturing, he at length became quite at home in the Chinese language, to the point where he could propagate the doctrines of the Sarvastivada, which stood in sharp contrast to those represented by Kumarajiva, and to where he became aware of errors in some of the earlier Chinese translations, errors which he then resolved to correct. With the establishment of the Latter Ch'in, he parted company with Fa-ho, who went to Ch'ang-an, while Sa111ghadeva betook himself to Mount Lu, where Hui-yiian was dwelling. Presumably because he had heard through his beloved teacher, the aged Tao-an, of the arrival of a new corpus of Hinayana scholarship, Hui-yiian was himself delighted by the arrival at his mountain of this great Hinayana authority. Directly, in the year 391, he requested of his new guest translations of the Abhidharmahrdaya (four rolls) and the San fa tu lun (Dharmaskandhatraya? three rolls), himself proofreading the translations and composing prefaces to them. 2 Sa111ghadeva's sojourn on Mount Lu, however, was brief, for he went down river almost immediately to Chien-k'ang (in 397). Here too his activities as an evangelist won the respectful adherence of many princes, nobles, aristocrats, and others, both religious and secular. Among them, that of the army officer (wei chun) and marquess ofTung-t'ing, Wang Hsiin (courtesy name Yiian-lin) was particularly keen, for the latter invited Sa111ghadeva to a tabernacle of his own construction, where, in the company of his younger brother Seng-mi and many eminent members of the sa111gha, he heard expositions of Abhidharma, i.e., of the Sarvastivada doctrine which is the object of such sharp attacks on the part of the early Mahayana scriptures typi- 444 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE fied by the Prajiiaparamita, the entire audience being delighted by Saq1ghadeva' s clear expositions. 3 The doctrines of the Abhidharma are based on the Agamas, and the translation of the Madhyamiigama which followed, achieved through the sponsorship of the same Wang Hsiin and through the collaboration of Saq1ghadeva with about forty learned Chinese monks, including Hui-ch'ih, younger brother of Hui-yiian, only endowed Abhidharma study with further authority. A man who knew the Mad- hyamiigama thoroughly was like Saq1ghadeva a native of Kashmir and likewise the recipient of offerings from Wang Hsiin. The "scribe" (pi shou) was Tao-tz'u, a sramal).a ofYii-chou, who has left a record of the whole process in his preface to the Madhyamiigama. Between the eleventh month of Lung-an 1 (397) and the sixth month of the following year a rough manuscript of sixty rolls was prepared, but at that very time there took place the disturbances contrived by such men of power as Huan Hsiian, Yin Chung-k'an, and Wang- Kung, the result of which was that a final, proofread copy did not circulate until401. (C Tao-tz'u's preface. 4 ) Hui-ch'ih, the learned Chinese monk who participated in this translation, came to Chien-k'ang (about 396), squiring his aunt, the nun Tao-yi, whose home was in Chiang-hsia (An-lu in what is now Hupei) and who said she wished to go to the capital (c her biography in roll1 of the Lives of the where she is identified with the Ho-hou-ssu). It is to be noted that Hui-ch'ih, who had already become acquainted on Mount Lu with Saq1ghadeva's Abhidharma scholarship, took a profound interest in the doctrine and in the translator himself. One hears next of Hui-ch'ih that he returned to Mount Lu, where, at the invitation ofFan Ning, gover- nor ofYii-chang, he gave readings on the "Flower of the Dharma" (Saddharmaput;z4- arika) and on Bidam (Abhidharma), attracting listeners from all four quarters (cf. his biography in roll6, Lives of Eminent Monks). In reply to a letter from Wang Hsiin, asking him which of the two brothers, Hui-yiian and Hui-ch'ih, was superior, Ning replied, "They are, truly, a superior senior and a superior junior." 5 There is every reason to believe that Hui-yiian's brother, by giving readings in "Abhidharma learning," was thus working enormously for the propagation ofHinayana doctrinal scholarship south of the Yangtze toward the end of the _Eastern Tsin. About the translator Saq1ghadeva himself, for that matter, one reads the following in his biography (Lives of Eminent Monks 1) : 6 Cet hiver-la [de 397], Wang Siun rassembla les sramanes-exegetes de la capitale tels que Che Houei-tch' e, en plus de quarante personnes et in vita encore Saqlg- hadeva de retraduire le Tchong a han [T26: Madhyamiigama, 1.421a-809c] et d'autres textes. Un sramane du Cachemire, tint en mains le texte indien [du Madhyamagama] et Saq1ghadeva le traduisit en chinois. La traduction fut seulement terminee 1' ete suivant [en 398]. Les textes sacres qu'il avait publies dans les vallees du Fleuve [Yang-tseu]a et de [la riviere] Lob totaliserent plus de cent myriades de mots. 11 avait circule partout en Chine et a 1' etranger, et connaissait parfaitement les G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 445 moeurs. Il etait naturel et attentif; il excellait dans la conversation et les plaisan- teries. Son influence morale et sa reputation etaient connues universellement. Plus tard, on ne sait pas quelle fut sa fin. From this one concludes that he evangelized in Chien-k' ang after having mastered the qualifications that alone would have enabled him to leave the stamp of his not inconsiderable teaching and conversion on the Chinese, particularly on their intellectual aristocracy, and one would not be wrong in saying that he laid the foundation for what was to be the eventual triumph of Hinayana doctrinal scholar- ship in China. For instance, Fan T'ai, in a letter to the two Dharma-masters Sheng and Kuan {presumably Tao-sheng and Hui-kuan) , says the following: When Sarpghadeva first arrived, the likes ofYi [probably Hui-yi] and Kuan had unreserved faith in the Doctrines of the Lesser V chicle, propagated by him, and aspired to live up to them. For all that it was a Dharma of the Lesser Vehicle, they said that it was the ultimate of Universal Truth, and that the likes of the Scriptures of "no limit" that preach "no birth" [i.e., the Mahayana scriptures, such as the SaddharmaputJ4arika and Vimalakirtinirdesa, that preach emptiness] are all diabolical writings, not a Dharma preached by the Buddha. 7 Whereas before this Kumarajiva in Ch'ang-an had taught Hui-ytian (in their cor- respondence on the Great Doctrinal Meaning of the Greater Vehicle [ Ta sheng ta yi chang]) that the true Buddhism is that of the Greater Vehicle, as typified in the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, while the Abhidharma doctrines of the Lesser Vehicle represent a mistaken transmission of the Buddha's meaning, the time had now come when the very contrary was being publicly preached in Chien-k'ang, namely, that the true Doctrine preached by the Buddha was that of the Lesser Vehicle, and that the Mahayana scriptures such as the Prajfiaparamita are the ones that are to be dubbed diabolical writings, not the Word of the Buddha. As it chanced, the time of dynastic change, from Tsin to Sung, was very near, and the tremors in the political and military spheres were violent. The Hinayana movement that shook up, at this very time, a Buddhist community concentrated on an indigenous tradition ofPrajfiaparamita scholarship was itself further agitated by another Hinayana impulse coming up from the south. Another Kashmiri, Dharma- yasas by name (a name sometimes appearing in Chinese translation under the some- what misleading guise of fa ming, "clarity of Dharma"), arrived in Canton at the advanced age of eighty-five sometime during Lung-an (397-402), i.e., late in Tsin times, taking up residence in the Po-sha-ssu ("Monastery of the White Sands"). Being thoroughly versed in the Samantapiisiidikii, he was dubbed the "Great [Master]," i and had a personal following of as many as eighty-five. Chang P' u-ming, a woman devotee, had him translate the (1 roll). Going north early in Yi-hsi (i.e., in or shortly after 405) to Ch'ang-an, which at the time was the capital of the Latter Ch'in, he was accorded favorable treatment by the reigning 446 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Yao clan, who were themselves zealous promoters of the Buddhist cause. Finding himself to be in perfect harmony with the Indian sramaxp Dharmagupta, who happened to be there at that very time, he remained from the ninth to the seventeenth year of Hung-shih (407-415), translating the Abhidharma ascribed to Sariputra. (Cf. Tao-piao's preface in Ch'u san tsang chi chi 10. 8 ) This was already after the death ofKumarajiva, who had dismissed the Abhidharma impatiently as a misunder- standing of the Buddha's true meaning. The Abhidharma specialist Dharmayasas eventually went south himself, coming to Chiang-ling, a key spot in the middle reaches of the Yangtze, where, in a monastery by the name of Hsin-ssu, he prop- agated the Dharma of dhyana, himself taking the lead in the performance of it and gathering to himself followers in a number exceeding three hundred. Concerning this aged Master" there circulated miracle tales as of one who had gained the enlightened intuition of an arhant. Dharmayasas went back to Central Asia not long after the establishment of the (Liu-)Sung, early in Yiian-chia (i.e., ca. 424), and he left behind a disciple named Fa-tu, a zealous Hinayanist, who urged on his own pupils a set of religious practices completely at variance with the Chinese ways, and who also made anti-Mahayana propaganda, saying, in effect, "Worship only the Sakyabuddha, for the 'Buddhas of the Ten Quarters' of whom the Maha- yanists speak do not exist, and you arc neither to read nor to recite their scriptures !" 9 His followers among the male members of the sa111gha, in view of the dominance of Mahayana scholarship, appear not to have been numerous, but he had many believers in the outstanding women typified by two nuns both daughters of Sung officials, the fonner being Fa-hung of the Hsiian-yeh-ssu, daughter of Yen Chiin, governor of Tan-yang, the latter being P'u-ming of the Hung-kuang-ssu, daughter of Chang Mu, censor of Chiao-chou. 10 It is said, in fact, that his influence was at work in the into Ch'i and Liang times. (Cf. Ch'11 san tsang chi chi 5 for a record of how Chu Fa-tu, "led astray by the learning of the Lesser Vehicle, established a heterodox set of manners," Hsiao sheng mi hsiieh Chu Fa tu tsao yi yi chi, as well as Dharmayasas's biography in roll 1, Lives of Eminent Monks; seeR. Shih, Biographies des moines eminents, p. 57 ff). What is to be noted here is that in the Buddhist community of the late Eastern Tsin, already enthralled by a style of Prajfiaparamita scholarship that obtained the sympathetic response of aristocracy and gentry, there gradually grew up a movement of insistent observance of the code and of the dhyana of the Lesser Vehicle, a whole movement of counterattack directed against the Mahayana. It is not only the bhi- whose members were impelled by Hinayana doctrine to a set of on- Chinese practices. As already stated, in the circles of religiously committed Chinese in the latter half of the Eastern Tsin, both Tao-an and Chu Fa-t' ai, to mention but two examples, were eagerly seeking a complete translation of the religious code. The desire was to be fulfilled-in Chien-k' ang, at least-by texts brought back by Fa- hsien, a Chinese monk, at the end of the Tsin. Fa-hsien, lamenting the incomplete- ness of the available codes, decided on a voyage to India in quest of Dharma. The Mahasa111ghikavinaya that he brought back from his successful pilgrimage, the mo- G :PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 447 nastic code of one of the Hinayana schools, he translated late under the Eastern Tsin, in 418, at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu, a celebrated monastery in Chien-k'ang, in collabora- tion with Buddhabhadra, who, having been banished from Ch'ang-an by Kumar- ajiva's school, went south, by way of Mount Lu, to Chien-k'ang. The community headed by Hui-yi of the Ch'i-yiian-ssu (]etavanavihiira), falling heir to this code, translated it into action in a way oflife on the model of that of the Indian religious community. In particular, they did not shrink from eating with their hands, squat- ting on the ground, and doing other things that could bring nothing but adverse comment from Chinese gentlemen, nationals of the land of the doctrine of propriety, who turned up their noses in disgust at these goings-on. In fact, they would oc- casionally be attacked by these gentlemen, some of whom might even be Buddhist, and thus loom as a social problem, constituting an element that supposedly disturbed Chinese manners and propriety. It is worthy of note that this community was a powerful one, enjoying the special favor of Liu Yii (Kao-tsu, Emperor Wu of the Sung), successful engineer of the dynastic change from the Eastern Tsin to the Sung. It is the monk Hui-yi who, as a preparatory measure for effecting the transfer of power from the Tsin household, went to Mount Sung, bringing back a supposedly divine talisman which he actively employed in his campaign to hasten the passage of imperial power from Tsin to Sung. Hui-yi (372-444), who aided Liu Yii both in his usurpation of the Tsin throne and in his establishment of the Sung dynasty, was especially favored by Yii (Emperor Wu of the Sung), taking up residence in 420 (Yung-ch'u 1), the year of the latter's accession, in a celebrated monastery built for him by Fan T'ai (courtesy name Po- lun), an aristocrat of "pure faith" (ch'ing hsin, i.e., an upasaka), who, holding the rank of chu chi ch' ang shih, was appointed a preceptor in the Sung national academy. The monastery is said to have acquired its name, Ch'i-yiian-ssu (]etavanavihiira) from the people of the time, who likened its construction to that of the original Jetava- navihiira in India, matching Hui-yi to Sariputra and Fan T'ai to Anathapii).qada. Among the monastery's permanent residents were many foreign members of the sarp.gha, who had come to China from abroad, and, with the imperial family in the background, that community became the most powerful religious community in Chien-k' ang, endowed with great wealth and holding sway over the clergy of the entire capital. It is also interesting that Fan T'ai's father, Fan Ning, had already, as censor of Yii-chang, had Abhidharma read to him by Hui-ch'ih, who in turn had received the instruction of Sarp.ghadeva. This clearly means that the aristocratic and devoutly Buddhist Fan household was becoming infected with the newly arrived Buddhism of the Lesser Vehicle. At the same time, as mentioned above, Hui-yi's fellowship, taking the newly translated Mahasarp.ghikavinaya literally, took its meals in the Indian manner as prescribed by that code, i.e., in a squatting position, thereby dumbfounding the gentlemen of China. 11 Cheng Hsien-chih (courtesy name Tao-tzu) was an expert on the Rites (li). While he was prepared, to a certain extent, to concede a difference between the proprieties 448 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE of the laity and those of monks, he objected that "practices such as that of eating in a squatting position," observed by the fellowship of Hui-yi, the occupant of the first rank in the Buddhist community of the metropolis, were "absolutely intolerable in China." Even Fan T'ai, Hui-yi's lay sponsor, asked him to reconsider. It is scarcely surprising that what they called chu shih-the practice of squatting on the ground and picking up the food in one's bare hands, eating it in imitation ofindian practices- should have startled China's gentlemen, trained as they were in the Doctrine of Propriety, quite out of their wits. However, Hui-yi, in the name of fifty monks resident at the Ch'i-yiian-ssu, composed a rejoinder to Fan T'ai, in which he main- tained the following: Such is the Dharma of the sramal).a that he must piously keep to the scriptures and the code. We here have long accepted the MahasafTlghikavinaya, in which it is plainly written that there are "eight discussions of the rule of eating in a crouched position" [? p'ien shih fa fan pa yi], hence it is normal for us to eat squatting. In Fan T'ai's letter to "Masters Sheng and Kuan" (Tao-sheng and Hui-kuan?), to which there has been casual reference above, one reads as follows: Even foreign customs are not necessarily consistent. When SafTlghadeva first came, of the likes ofYi [probably Hui-yi] and Kuan [Ch'in ?] there was none who did not bathe himself and look up in hopeful emulation. Yet his Dharma was, after all, merely that of the Lesser Vehicle, nothing more. Still, imagining them to be the logical end of Universal Truth, they said that the broad scriptures of no-birth were all the writings of Mara. . . . Fa-hsien later arrived, and the Mahayana Mahaparinirviil}asutra was first proclaimed. They then said that the words about the permanency of Nirval).a were the ultimate in Universal Truth, and that the Prajiiaparamita doctrines, even at their peak, were all inferior to them. . . . One thus knows that the foreign code is not a fixed Dharma. Still, Hui-yi and his fellows will not alter their practice of eating in a squatting position. Surely there can be no valid objection for persons living in China, even sramal).as, to bring themselves round to Chinese ways of doing things! Fan T'ai also appealed to the emperor to prevail upon the Chinese monks at the Ch'i-yi.ian-ssu to exchange their Indian life-style for something Chinese. Such monks as Hui-yen, Tao-sheng, and Hui-kuan seem also, for a time, to have been in harmony with Hui-yi's strict and literal observance of the monastic code, but, persuaded by Fan T' ai and his friends, the first two appear to have experienced a change of attitude. Hui-yi, however, who, as the engineer behind the assumption of power by the Sung, was the most powerful member of the Buddhist community in Sung times, appears to have maintained his position stubbornly to the very end. In this way, in an atmosphere ofHinayana evangelism, the MahasafTlghikavinaya was translated and propagated south of the Yangtze, exerting an enormous influence on the life of the safTlgha. At the same time, the Sarvastivadavinaya (known in Chinese as Shih sung lu, the "Code in Ten Lessons," dasadhyayavinaya?), translated G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 449 by members of that school from Kashmir, also by Kumarajiva, was brought to Shou-ch'un, Liu Yii's base before he overthrew the Tsin, by who had come to Ch'ang-an in 406, and the Shih-chien-ssu, a monastery in the former city, became a center at which "multitudes (concerned with the) code gathered like clouds to propagate the code." Next, read and propagated the Sarvastiv- adavinaya at Chiang-ling, where he was profoundly venerated by Hui-kuan of the Tao-ch'ang-ssu. This foreign scholar-monk, propagator of the Sarvastivadavinaya, known to his contemporaries as the "Blue-eyed Code Master" (ch'ing yen lu shih), composed an original work, in two rolls, on the religious code and sent it to the capital, where monks and nuns vied with one another to copy it and put it into practice. The work appears to have been revised by Hui-kuan, for there was a byword that spoke of outlandish (i.e., un-Chinese) words and Hui-kuan's skillful recording" (Pi-lo pi yu Hui kuan ts'ai lu). People in the capital are said to have made so many copies of it that on the one hand the price of paper shot up to where "paper was as precious as jade," while on the other copies of it were circulating into Ch'i and Liang times. (Cf. biography in roll 2, Lives of Eminent Monks; see Shih, Biographies, p. 84 f.) 12 Almost immediately after the establishment of the Sung, the rise of Hinayana scholarship was backed up by the translation and propagation of the religious codes of the Lesser Vehicle. At any rate, the propagators of Hinayana Buddhism and the mounting vigor of their activity as translators made great waves in the Buddhist community toward the end of the Tsin, when the only things current were the ideas attributed to Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu and the study of the Prajfiaparamita. In addition, as Fan T' ai says, the doctrine of "permanence" (ch' ang chu), preached in the MahiiparinirviitJasiitra brought back by Fa-hsien, constituted an attack on the position of Prajfiaparamita scholarship, which belonged no less to the Greater Vehicle, an attack the effect of which was still felt in the Buddhist community of the (Liu-)Sung. Yet, the Prajfiaparamita scholarship south of the Yangtze was enabled to proceed in a new direction by benefiting, through the intermediacy of members ofKumarajiva's school who had come south, from a powerful leadership that was breaking with the study ofLao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. 2. KUMARAJIVA's BUDDHISM GOES SOUTH FROM CH'ANG-AN Kumiirajiva's Buddhism Goes South. Kumarajiva's welcome entry into Ch'ang-an took place, in the chronology of the Eastern Tsin, in the twelfth month of Lung-an 5 (late 401 or, more likely, early 402), during the reign of the idiot Emperor An. That was a time at which the court of the northern state of Ch'in, ruled over by the Yao clan, had invited learned members of the sarp.gha from everywhere to partici- pate in a State-sponsored project, adequately staffed and adequately endowed, to translate first and foremost those Mahayana scriptures of which Chinese translations already existed and which were of the greatest importance to the Chinese Buddhist community, being widely circulated and much studied, scriptures such as the 450 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE Prajiiaparamita, the Vimalakirtinirdesa, and the Saddharmaput:4arika. This was done, as has been said, by collecting scholars from all over the realm, by reading and commenting, then retranslating, thus producing a definitive edition, and at the same time spreading the authoritative interpretation by giving it to learned Chinese monks. Where the new translation of the Prajfiaparamita was concerned, the first work with which he became involved, he published in conjunction with it the Ta chih tu lun, a minute commentary ascribed to Nagarjuna. He further translated in rapid succession the Middle Treatise (Ch11ng lun, Madhyamakasastra) and the Treatise of the Twelve Gateways (Shih erh men lun, Dvadasanikayasastra?), both of which clarify Nagarjuna's doctrine of "emptiness" (k'ung, Sanyata), based on the study of the Prajfiaparamita, and the Hundredfold Treatise (Po lun, Satakasastra ?) ofNagarjuna' s disciple Deva (three treatises that were later to become the sacred texts of China' s School of the Three Treatises, san fun tsung). He also translated the biographies of Nagarjuna and Deva, and told the learned monks assembled from all over the realm that the true doctrine of Buddhism was none other than Nagarjuna's Mahayana, based on the Prajfiaparamita scriptures. These translations ofKumarajiva and his learned doctrines rapidly made their way to Mount Lu, which at the time enjoyed the highest respect throughout the lands of the Eastern Tsin, and Kumarajiva's fellowship and the community on Mount Lu maintained a close connection in terms both of doctrine and of personalities. There shall be detailed treatment of this in the chapter dealing with Hui-yi.ian. In addition, Tao-sheng and Hui-yen, who had studied under Kumarajiva, came to Chien-k'ang to become influential leaders. Furthermore, about the time-after the death of Kumarajiva, to be sure-that Liu Yi.i campaigned against Ch'ang-an and occupied it (in 416), then mounted the throne as emperor of the Sung, a large number of Kumarajiva's disciples or members of his school, most notably Seng-tao, came south from Ch'ang-an to gather in the protective shadow ofLiu Yi.i (Emperor Wu of the Sung) . In this way, the Prajfiaparamita study that had always, under the Eastern Tsin, coexisted with the study of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, with the result of a vigorous and confusing exchange of conflicting opinions, could not do anything but resolve itself in Prajfiaparamita scholarship in the tradition of Nagarjuna and Kumarajiva. Since this will be dealt with under the Sung, there shall not be much said about it here, but, at any rate, Kumarajiva's activities as translator and evan- gelist in Ch'ang-an early in the fifth century gave a great turn, in a period of time ranging from late Tsin into Sung, to the Buddhist scholarship of the Eastern Tsin with its Prajfiaparamita focus. 3. THE EFFECT OF NEW MAHAYANA TRANSLATIONS ON THE BUDDHIST COMMUNITY New Mahayana Translations by Kumarajiva's Opponents. In considering the influence exerted on the Chinese Buddhist community by the newly translated canonical works, one would do well to bear three facts in mind: (1) these scriptures, contain- G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 451 ing two highly important sets of doctrines, were translated by groups centering about Buddhabhadra, a foreign monk thoroughly conversant with the scriptures of the "anti-Kumarajiva faction" in the sense that he had come south of the Yangtze after having suffered the extreme penalty prescribed by the monastic code, that of ex- pulsion (in this case, from Ch'ang-an); (2) the originals of these scriptures had been brought to China not by foreign missionaries but by Chinese pilgrims, who had gone to Central Asia (or even to India) to get them, the Mahiiparinirvii7Ja in six rolls by Fa-hsien, the AvataY!'saka by Chih Fa-ling, one of Hui-yi.ian' s disciples; (3) the translations were made with the participation of Chinese pilgrims who themselves had gone on pilgrimage to Central Asia. Buddhabhadra the Translator. Apart from this, his biography says that Buddhabhadra (whose name is sometimes rendered in Chinese with chiieh hsien, "the enlightened worthy") was originally of the Sakya clan, a native ofKapilavastu, and a descendant of the king ''ofthe food of sweet dew.''k This means that he was a native ofGautama's homeland and a lateral descendant of the Buddha Himself, being a lineal descendant of His father, a kinsman of that person whom the Buddhists worship with the highest honors. Whether or not the story is true, the fact remains that for the Chinese these were times in which there was a steady stream back into China of pilgrims, such as Fa-hsien, who had themselves toured the holy places of India, and thanks to whom Chinese knowledge of those holy places was quite suddenly enhanced. The heightened interest in India and in the Buddha personally, a consequence of the circumstances just described, was an excellent condition for increasing the credibility of these men and their effectiveness as teachers and evangelists. According to the same account, Buddhahhadra's family had lived in India since his grandfather's time. Losing his parents at an early age, he joined the Buddhist religious community, distinguishing himself through his pursuit of learning. After receiving complete ordination, he made a name for himself as a member of the sarpgha particularly distinguished in dhyana and Vinaya, that is, in religious practice and religious experience. When his biography says that he went to T u ~ i t a to render homage in person to Maitreya, or when it tells other superhuman tales about him, such as his achievement of the "fruit of the non-returner" (pu huan kuo, aniigiimiphala, i.e., of one who shall never be reborn in our world, the Sphere ofDesire or kiimadhiitu, yii chieh), the presumable effect, if not the intention, of this, in a society, the Chinese Buddhist society of the Eastern Tsin, in which t'ien shih Taoism was already very current, and in which the gentry already numbered many believers in the superhuman sylph, was to win for him a special respect and veneration. Chih-yen, who at that very time left for Central Asia in company with Fa-hsien, but who then left him to go to Chi-pin (the Kashmir area) in the northwest oflndia, where he was taught the Dhyanadharma by Buddhasena (whose name is transcribed now Jo-t'o-hsien, now.fo-ta-hsien) and spent ten years practicing it under his tutelage, hearing then that Buddhabhadra was the best teacher and guide in this discipline, also its most enthusiastic promotor, invited him to accompany him back to Ch'ang- an. For Ch'ang-an this was an unexampled hour of glory, for scriptures were being 452 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE translated by a group whose central figure was Kumarajiva, there were groups of visiting monks from Kashmir and elsewhere, the Chinese pilgrims to Central Asia were returning, and there was large-scale translation and propagation of Buddhist scriptures, monastic codes, and treatises of both vehicles, the Greater and the Lesser. However, while monks ofKumarajiva's school had the run of the palace, being ap- pointed to ecclesiastical offices and enjoying worldly honor and glory, Bud- dhabhadra, being fundamentally at odds with Kumarajiva on points of doctrine, and being, in particular, a person who had come to China to give concrete, practical guidance in Buddhist meditation, parted company with Kumarajiva's school and, as the teacher and head of a community of strict practitioners of that meditation, was respected and admired by large numbers of seriously, religiously committed monks. In Buddhabhadra's biography one reads as follows: "Le Souverain des Ts' in, Yao Hing, etait tout devoue au bouddhisme et soutenait plus de trois mille moines. Ces derniers frequentaient le palais et recherchaient avidement la gloire humaine; seul Buddhabhadra gardait le recueillement, et ceci ala difference de tous les autres .. . . A Tch'ang-ngan, Buddhabhadra propagea grandement le dhyana. Et des quatre coins du monde, ceux qui aspiraient au calme, l'ayant appris, vinrent [se mettre a son ecole]." Seng-chao also, in a letter to Liu Yi-min, then resident on Mount Lu, writes as follows: "The teacher of meditation [Buddhabhadra] in the Palace Monastery [Hsiao-yao Park] is teaching and practicing meditation. He has several hundred disciples who work without rest day and night. They are reverent and harmonious. It is very gratifying." (Quoted from Seng-chao's reply to Liu Yi-min, contained in the Chao lun.) However, Buddhabhadra, on account of the behavior of one of the members of his school, was convicted of violation of the monastic code by two clerical officials whose hour of glory had come, namely, Seng-liieh and Tao-heng, both one-time disciples ofKumarajiva, and banished from Ch'ang-an. Going south with Hui-kuan and some forty others, he was welcomed first on Mount Lu, where (in 411) he trans- lated some dhyanasutras, of which his rendition of the Fang pien ch' an ching (Dhyiino- piiyasutra?) had an enormous influence in the religious practices of Hui-yiian's entire community. The following year, or the year after that (412 or 413), he left Mount Lu, and, meeting Liu Yii, who was then campaigning against Chiang-ling, he accepted the latter's invitation to to to Chien-k'ang, where he took up residence at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu and set in motion that city's very important work of scriptural translation. While at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu, Buddhabhadra enjoyed the high esteem of China's lay Buddhists. His biography says of him, "Buddhabhadra avait pour regie Ia grande simplicite, a la difference de la coutume chinoise; ses intentions etaient pures, profondes et sublimes." On his sublime and profound attitude toward life, the same source makes the following comment: "Un maitre de la Loi de la capitale, Seng-pi, dans sa lettre au sramane Pao-lin, dit: 'Le maitre du Dhyana du Teou-tch'ang sseu, [Buddhabhadra,] possede un grand esprit. C'est un Wang [Pi] [226-249] ou un Ho [Yen] de l'Inde, un homme distingue !' Telle etait son admira- tion !" 13 It was to this Indian monk, this influential teacher and evangelist resident G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 453 in Chien-k' ang, that a whole series of Indian Buddhist texts, obtained in India by Chinese pilgrims, were brought. Texts Brought Back to China by Fa-hsien. It was just about this time that Fa-hsien, getting back by sea from his long Indian pilgrimage to the eastern part of Tsingtao, off the coast of Shantung (in 413), proceeded by way ofCh'ing-chou to Chien-k'ang. He directly petitioned Buddhabhadra to translate the scriptures and monastic codes he had brought back with him, and at the same time wrote the journal ofhis pilgrim- age, known alternately as the Tradition of Fa-hsien (Fa hsien chuan) and the Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Fo kuo chi), in which he introduced Chinese readers to the Buddhist realms he had traversed, "noting down with bamboo on cloth the places he had gone through, wishing to share with his worthy readers what he himselfhad heard and seen." At the end of the journal, one reads as follows : In Tsin, in the twelfth year ofYi-hsi [416], the year being under the constellation shou hsing [Canopus], when the summer [ v a r ~ a ] retreat was at an end, Fa-hsien, the man [devoted to] the Path, was invited. When he had arrived, he stayed and shared the winter fast. Taking advantage of the [time] left over when the lecture assembly [was terminated, some of the monks] again questioned him about his travels. Since those men were deferential and acquiescent, everything he said [to them?] was based on fact. [?] On this account, he was urged to set down in de- tail whatever he had abridged before. As one can see from this, the Buddhist community of Chien-k'ang extended an in- vitation to Fa-hsien to tell of his travels, which, as they listened to the account, only heightened their veneration for the Buddhist lands and their interest in them. It is probably on this account that the Records of Buddhist Kingdoms were augmentedY Then, in the eleventh month of that same year (late 413 or early 414), began the translation of the Mahasarpghikavinaya, for acquisition and translation of the religious code had been the principal motive behind Fa-hsien's pilgrimage; the work took until the second month in Yi-hsi 14 (418). The influence of the Mahasarpghi- kavinaya has already been described, but what made possible the new unfolding of Buddhist doctrine in China was the translation of the Mahiiparinirviit;za and the Avataf!lsaka. Where the former is concerned, Ch'u san tsang chi chi 2 contains the following entry: "Great Parinirviit;za Scripture (Ta po-ni-huan ching). Six rolls. Trans- lated under the Tsin, in Yi-hsi, thirteenth year (417), eleventh month, first day, at the Tao-ch' ang-ssu." Roll 8 of the same source contains a colophon to the six- roll version of that scripture (Liu chuan Ni-huan-ching chi), in which one reads as follows: In Magadha land, in Papliputra city, by the stapa ofKing Asoka, by the tabernacle of the Divine Kings [t'ien wang ching she, devariijavihara], in front of the upiisaka- ghara, m he saw a man of the Path from the land of China, Shih Fa-hsien, who had come to this land from afar for the purpose of seeking the Dharma. Profoundly moved by that man, straightway he copied for him this Great Parinirviit;za Scripture, 454 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE this secret treasure-house of the Thus Come One, for it was his wish to cause this scripture to spread throughout the land of China and thus to enable all living beings without exception to achieve the undifferentiating Dharma-body of the Thus Come One. The above is an account of how the text was acquired from a pious layman at the Devarajavihara (?) at Pataliputra (Patna) in the kingdom of Magadha, also of the importance attached to that scripture as the Buddha's "secret storehouse," conclud- ing with a remark indicative of what was supposed to be the peculiar excellence of this particular work, "for it was his wish. . . to enable all living beings without exception to achieve the undifferentiating Dharma-body of the Thus Come One." 15 This notice, while not proof positive, nevertheless leads one to suppose that the time in question was not very long after the very origin of the Mahayana Mahiipa- a scriptural work of the "new Mahayana" that was not yet fully current in the sa111gha of Central India. The same source then goes on to say the following about the translation itself: In the thirteenth year of Yi-hsi [471), in the tenth month, on the first day, at the Tao-ch'ang-ssu, a monastery built by Hsieh Shih, who held the rank of ssu k'ung, this scripture of broad scope, that of the Great [fang teng ta po-ni-huan ching, was brought out, then, by the fourteenth year [418), in the first month, on the second day, it was examined and completed. The dhyana-master Buddhabhadra took the foreign text in hand, while Pao-ylin interpreted. At the time there were two hundred and fifty persons present.l 6 From the fact that one of the collaborators was Pao-ylin, one of Fa-hsien's com- panions who returned to China separately, also from the fact that two hundred and fifty participated in the project, one deduces that this newly arrived scripture, regarded as the last, hence the most important, pronouncement of the Buddha on earth, attracted general attention as soon as it had been translated, at least in the Bud- dhist community of Chien-k' ang. Of course, one does read the following in Seng- jou's Clarification of Doubt (YU yi): This scripture of the Great was obtained by Fa-hsien, a man of the Path, who went to far-off India in quest of it, and who brought it back to Yang-tu, where he held a great gathering of the learned members of the metropolitan sa111gha, more than a hundred persons. The master held the original, examined and translated it, verified it and put it out. From this latter notice one would conclude that a bit more than a hundred learned metropolitan monks gathered for the translation of the The two notices are in disagreement as to the number of participants, but there can be no doubt that this newly translated scripture came immediately to the attention of most of the Buddhist scholars in the capitaL The peculiarity of this new scripture is de- scribed in the Clarification of Doubt in the following terms: "NirvaQ.a is unperishing, G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 455 and the Buddha has a real Sel All living beings are possessed ofBuddhahood. Since they all possess Buddhahood, they can all learn to realize it." 17 Without any doubt at all, this was an alarming pronouncement for anyone used to the preachments of non-being (wu) and emptiness (k'ung, anyatii) contained in Lao tzu and Chuang tzu or in learned Prajfiaparamita writings. Besides, there are certain things that merit attention, regarding the relationship between the assertions of this scripture on the one hand and the era and the society, on the other, that witnessed its translation. (1) The lineage-based system of the Nine Ranks, which since the Wei and Tsin had developed and become quite brittle, by the end of the Tsin had come to reinforce a social and political class inequality based on descent and by now quite unshakable, and the society had become one in which this state of affairs was universal and taken for granted. Wang Ch'en's biography, contained in a group of literary biographies (wen yuan chuan) in roll 92 of the Book of Tsin, says that "in the houses of princes there are princes, lords in the houses oflords," while the biography ofLiu Yi in the same source says that "in the upper ranks there are no cold houses, in the lower ranks no powerful clans." Wang Ch'iu, in response to a request from Emperor Wen of the Sung to come to court in the company of a certain Yin Ching-j en (his inferior in so- cial station), said curtly, "The distinction between gentry and commonalty is the mark of the State. Your subject makes bold to disobey Your command." The emperor, so it is said, went so far as to apologize. (C Wang Ch'iu's biography in the History of the South (Nan shih], roll 23.) "The division between gentry and com- monalty is wider than that between Heaven (and earth)," so it was said (in Wang Hung's biography in the Book of Sung [Sung shu]). Such was the sharp cleavage in social station between gentry and commonalty, in some cases within one and the same aristocratic clan. In addition, the time-hallowed Confucian idea, going back to earlier than the Han, that "any man can be a Sage" had, by Tsin times, been changed to read, "Sagehood is inaccessible." Into such a world comes the Mahayana Mahaparinirviir:zasatra with its insistence that all mankind without distinction is possessed ofBuddhahood, consequently that anyone, gentleman or commoner, even a slave, may become a Buddha, leading, in Chinese terms, to the conclusion that all men have the possibility of being sages or worthies (sheng hsien). (2) The time of completion of the translation of the Mahiiparinirviir:zasutra in six rolls was the time at which Liu Yii, an upstart of very humble origin, had over- thrown the Ssu-ma clan, reigning family of the Eastern Tsin, who stood on the very pinnacle of the aristocracy, and had just taken Lo-yang and Ch' ang-an, the last steps preparatory to his assumption of imperial prerogatives, but had not yet returned to Chien-k'ang. Some of the publicity work preparatory to this dynastic change had been done by the monk Hui-yi, as has also been stated already. Liu Yii's assumption of power was already a matter of certainty, and in the year 420 the whole matter was concluded with the establishment of a new dynasty, named Sung, and the change of the reign title to yung ch'u ("the beginning of forever"). This was a severe shock for the maintenance of their personal security on the part of the aristocracy and the powerful families, but in the face of a Liu Yii who decided matters by letting his 456 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE armed might speak for him, for all that he might be an upstart, aristocratic society found itself the victim of a contradiction that it could not resolve, having no choice but to capitulate if it was to regain its accustomed posts and preserve its personal security. Tao-sheng and His New Message. A person who betook himself immediately to the study of the MahiiparinirviitJasutra in six rolls, brought back to China by Fa-hsien and issued in Chinese at a time such as has just been described, and who was subsequently unfrocked by the Chien-k'ang community, which was hand-in-glove with the aristocratic power, for his espousal of a variety of new theories, but chiefly for his unequivocal statements that all living beings arc possessed ofBuddhahood, that even the icchantika, said to have severed all roots of wholesomeness, may become a Buddha, that consequently dignity is equally the property of all mankind, was Tao- sheng. All the same, the views that he espoused, far from vanishing from the Chinese Buddhist community during the period of division between north and south, be- came a guiding force in the development of Chinese Buddhism. Tao-sheng is a person who, after a period of diligent study under Hui-ytian's tutelage on Mount Lu, went north with Hui-jui, Hui-yen, Hui-kuan, and others as soon as Kumarajiva had been welcomed into Ch'ang-an, participating with Kumara- jiva in the translation of such scriptures as the Vimalakirtinirdesa and the Saddharma- pu1J4arika, and who then, having benefited from all this instruction, returned to the south in 409, functioning in the Buddhist community while residing south of the Yangtze at the Ch'ing-ylian-ssu ("Monastery of the Green Park," later the "Monas- tery of Dragon Glow," lung kuang ssu) in the city of Chien-k'ang. Tao-sheng was a dedicated scholar of scriptures and treatises, who even for the seven years that he was cloistered on Mount Lu maintained that "the essence of entry upon the Path is based on wisdom and understanding." In particular, placing himself on his guard against the possibility of so becoming the prisoner of textual and philological analysis of the scriptures as to lose the fundamental religious meaning that may lie concealed behind the written word, he paid close attention and gave deep thought to the issues them- selves, being thus a thinker and a seeker simultaneously. He once said, "While it is true that truths are expressed in words, once one has the truths the words are not needed. Where the Buddhist scriptures in Chinese translation are concerned, a majority are the captives of the words, while only a minority see the true meaning of the scriptures. Still, the only person who can be said to have got the Way is the one who catches the fish and forgets the trap." 18 The newly translated Mahayana MahiiparinirviitJasutra, in six rolls, far from preach- ing "knowledge of emptiness," as does the Prajtl.aparamita, states positively that the realm of enlightened intuition is "permanent, pleasant, personal, pure," that all living beings are possessed of Buddhahood, that all men have the possibility of en- lightened intuition. It may be understood in a number of ways, one of them being a warning addressed to a Buddhist church wholly dependent on the aristocracy. The common people may well have been in a position too low even to receive the mes- sage of this doctrine, but for the impoverished lower gentry, for whom the way to G :PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 457 high social position was barred, this was probably a doctrine welcome to the ears. However, in the six-roll translation of the MahaparinirviitJa one reads as follows: "Just as a good physician can heal all men, enabling all to escape illness, so the Buddha also can rescue all men from disease, with the one exception of the icchantika (the person who has severed all wholesome roots)." One also reads, "There is no possibil- ity that the icchantika, who has no thought to aspire to the good, who is like a do- nothing, a lie-about, can ever achieve Buddhahood." 19 Tao-sheng, however, dug out the allegedly real meaning concealed behind these words and presented it pub- licly. What he posited was that a scripture that states flatly that all living beings are possessed of Buddhahood is clearly trying to say that even a mean wretch who has severed all wholesome roots, if he can but produce wholesome thoughts, pure thoughts, can also achieve Buddhahood. For a class-ridden society in which there was no moving from one station to an- other, a rigid society based on lineage and social status, this constituted an opening, at least a spiritual one, for it was something that affirmed the equal dignity, in the religious sense, of all mankind, that placed gentry and commonalty in the same posi- tion as nobility and aristocracy in the sense that enlightened intuition, "permanent, pleasant, personal, pure" for all without distinction, was also equally available to all. Not only that, but Tao-sheng appears to have been engaged in a profound search for what the preachments of the Buddhist canon are ultimately seeking to enable the religious seeker to embody in direct experience and to have proclaimed, even before the appearance of the MahaparinirviitJa in six rolls, a new Buddhist doctrine tran- scending the surface meaning of the words of the scriptures as well as the accepted theories of the Chien-k'ang Buddhist community. As the biography says, Thereupon he critically examined the true and the conventional, sharply thinking about cause and effect. He then said that goodness reaps no reward, and that one may have a sudden experience of enlightened intuition and achieve Buddhahood forthwith. He also published the Essay on the Two Truths, an essay that says that Buddhahood must exist, Essay That the Dharma Body Is Immaterial, Essay that the Buddha Has No Pure Land, Essay That There Must Be Connections, etc. "Yet," says the biographer, "the lot that keep to the written word in most cases re- sented him, and the voices for and against him arose in conflict, creating a confusing din." 20 The likelihood, in the midst of all of this propagation of Lao-Chuang non-being and PrajfHiparamita emptiness is that these new theories ofTao-sheng were the result of several things, viz., (1) the encounter with doctrinal expressions that were, at first sight, opposed to the Prajfiaparamita scriptures, as had been true first of the new Mahayana doctrines that he had learned under Kumarajiva at Ch'ang-an, then of the Hinayana doctrines, most notably those of the Sarvastivada, that had been recently and uninterruptedly brought in and propagated; (2) the many doubts that he himself felt; (3) his quest, as a committed believer and thinker, for a solution to the problems raised by the apparent contradictions within what was, after all, the 458 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE 1 teaching of one and the same Buddha. The presentation of new theories was due also to the production and study of the Mahiiparinirviit:zasutra, a scripture which be- longed no less to the Mahayana but whose mode of expression and of posing emphasis differed from those of the sunyaviida as represented by the Praji'iaparamita scriptures. The tradition-bound, aristocratic community of Buddhist scholars, those said to be bogged down in the written word (chih wen), whose chief desire was to be faith- ful to the surface wording of the scriptures, eventually attacked Tao-sheng for sacrilege against the Holy Word and banished him from the Chien-k'ang religious community. He, however, convinced of the validity of his views, refused to change them. According to his biography, Tao-sheng, assuming a solemn mien in the midst of the fellowship, took a vow, saying, "If what I have said be in conflict with the doctrine of the scriptures, then let this body be affiicted with a pox. If there be no conflict with the Marks of Reality, then, when I have cast off this life, may I approach the lion throne [on which the Buddha sits]." With strong words such as these, he left Chien-k'ang, going to Mount Hu-ch'iu ("Tiger Hill") in Wu (one of the famed beauty spots of Soochow in Kiangsu). Since it was Tao-sheng and his colleagues who requested of Buddhajiva the translation of the "Code in Five Divisions" ( Wu fen lii, i.e., the Mahisasakavinaya, brought back to China by Fa-hsien), a translation known to have been completed at the Lung- kuang-ssu (Ch'ing-yiian-ssu) in Yiian-chia 1 (424), the event must have taken place early in Yiian-chia, but no earlier than this year. In spite of his banishment, Tao- sheng, after taking up residence on Mount Hu-ch'iu, was joined within about ten days by several hundreds of disciples, so it is said. All the same, after a sojourn of a few years at the Hu-ch'iu-ssu ("White Tiger Monastery") Tao-sheng left again, in Yiian-chia 7 (430), for Mount Lu. The "Mahiiparinirviit:zasutra" Moves South. Quite independently of these develop- ments, in the state of the Northern Liang, which maintained itself in what is now Kansu, translated (in 421) a version of the Mahiiparinirviit:za much more extensive in scope than the one done by Fa-hsien, a version in forty rolls as opposed to the latter's six, stimulating pious interest and study on a broad scale and reaching Chien-k'ang very soon, immediately after Tao-sheng's departure, in fact. Tao-sheng, who by this time was on Mount Lu, coming at last into possession of a version of the Mahiiparinirviit:za (the one in forty rolls) that plainly says that "even icchantikas are all endowed with Buddhahood," gave readings of the latter version with ever deeper confidence in a view that he had been propounding all along. One day, in Yiian-chia 11 (434), he mounted the cathedra to give a reading and died when he had finished. As soon as Chien-k' ang also had copy of the Mahiiparinirviit:zasutra in forty rolls, Tao-sheng's colleagues, Hui-yen and Hui-kuan, with the collaboration of the eminent Buddhist layman Hsieh Ling-yiin, compared this version with Fa-hsien's in six rolls, revising the latter and producing the so-called "Southern text" of the Mahiiparinirviit:zasutra (nan pen Nieh-p' an ching). (In Yiianchia 7, 430, G : PROBLEMS POSED BY NEW ARRIVALS 459 Hsieh Ling-yiin was in Chien-k' ang, but the following year or thereabout he left that city, and in the ninth year, 432, he was taken captive.) In this way, the study of the MahiiparinirviiiJa south of the Yangtze became all the more active in 430 and after, and there proceeded a new development in Buddhist doctrinal scholarship in the wake of the new doctrine, but this shall be left for the volume dealing with the period of division between north and south, since it belongs, properly speaking, to Sung, Ch'i, and later. u Avata'!"saka." The next scripture to be treated is the Avata'!"saka, the original of which was brought back from Khotan by Chih Fa-ling, who went on pilgrimage from Mount Lu to Central Asia at Hui-yiian's behest. The translation was begun, with Fa-yeh as the scribe, late under the Eastern Tsin, in the third month ofYi-hsi 14 (418, the year following Hui-yiian's death), then, in the second year of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Sung, Yung-ch'u 2 (419), in the twelfth month (i.e., early in 420) the translation was completed and proofread. Thus, the study of it and belief in it do not become vital matters until the period of division between north and south. However, and whatever else may be said, the arrival of two Mahayana scriptures, the Avata'!"saka and the MahiiparinirviiiJa, together with the body of Hinayana schol- arship in late Tsin and early Sung in a China in which Prajfiaparamita scholarship was at the height of its glory, inevitably affected the development of Chinese Bud- dhism with a new complexity and presented it with new tasks. The Avata'!"saka and the MahiiparinirviiiJa are two huge Mahayana scriptures, the former conceived as the first sermon preached by the Buddha, without even rising from His seat under the Bodhi tree, immediately after His achievement of enlightened intuition, the latter as the Buddha's final sermon, preached immediately before His death. It is evident that both date to an epoch later than the one that produced the Prajfiaparamita scriptures. While it is not possible to determine in what place or in what century they came into being, the Chinese Buddhist community, taking the translated word of the scriptures at face value, believed them with literal piety to have been the very first and very last sermons preached by the Buddha. Thus they had no choice but to ac- cept the Prajfiaparamita scriptures and the Agamas, which had already been current in China for some time, and the Saddharmapu1J4arika and Vimalakirtinirdea, recently retranslated by Kumarajiva, as sermons preached sometime during the interval. The inevitable task was to arrange these scriptures in such a way as to give a ra- tional answer to the question of how the scriptures were preached, with what sort of interconnection, from the Buddha's achievement of enlightened intuition until His attainment This is why Chinese Buddhism had no choice but to de- velop as a multiple Buddhism, one that picked and chose among the scriptures, arranged them and systematized them, in the unquestioning belief that they were the sermons of one and the same Buddha, although they were in fact compilations put together severally by the several schools that had developed over a long history and a broad area in India, and possibly in Central Asia as well. 460 BUDDHISM SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE
(Buddhist Traditions) Latika Lahiri-Chinese Monks in India - Biography of Eminent Monks Who Went To The Western World in Search of The Law During The Great T'Ang Dynasty-Motilal Banarsidass (1995) PDF