Corless-Jonatha-1973-Thesis-Tan-luans-Commentary-on-the-Pure-Land-Discourse

M ic ro film e d by U n iv . o f W is ,

73-27,095

D ep artm e n t o f P h o to g ra p h y

CORLESS, Roger Jonathan, 1938T'AN-LUAN'S COMMENTARY ON THE PURE LAND DISCOURSE:
AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
OF THE WANG-SH^NG-LUN CHU (T.1819)

The University of Wisconsin, Ph.D., 1973
Religion

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T 1A N - L U A N 'S COMMENTARY ON THE PURE LAND DISCOURSE:
AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL
ANALYSIS OF THE WANG-SHENG-LUN CHU (T.1819)

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Wisconsin in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

BY

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ ROGER JONATHAN CORLESS_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
January_19_____

Degree to be awarded:

June 19

August 19 73

APPROVED by Thesis Reading Committee:
\

ofesspr

Date of Examination

\j

Dean, Graduate School

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T'jjN-LUAN'S COMMENTARY ON THE PURE LAND DISCOURSE:
AN ANNOTATED TRANSLATION AND SOTERIOLOGICAL
ANALYSIS OF THE WANG-SHENG-LUN CHU (T. 1819)

BY

ROGER JONATHAN CORLESS

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree
of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
Madison, Wisconsin

1973

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iii

IN MEMORIAM

RICHARD HUGH ROBINSON (1926-1970)

Acarya, Kalyapamltra

%k. - 4.jpffe
•

J * * *

•

If a man is once born into Sukhavati, and at
a later time wishes to be re-born in the triple­
world to teach and convert beings, he forsakes
the Pure Land, and is able to be born according
to his wishes.
(T.XL ,838a)

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iv
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine

whither we will walk? I believe there is a subtile magnetism
in Nature which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct
us aright,..When I go out of the house for a walk,,,I find,
strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and
inevitably settle south-west,,.The future lies that way for
me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that
side,,.Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.
Thither no business leads me...I believe that the forest which
I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward
the setting sun...
Henry David Thoreau

The audacity of the present undertaking must be its most character­
istic feature. To enter upon T'an-luan is to go through a magic door
leading grandly to the Paradise in the West, 'which is wide, without
limits or bounds', to go towards all human hopes, to there where the
sun ever lives in the land of no night. T'an-luan's vision, pulled to­
gether from the kaleidoscopic congeries of the Pure Land Sutras, has
sustained the religious aspirations of the majority of Far Eastern
Buddhists from his own time until ours. That is a matter of historical
record, but the precise nature of his vision, and its philosophical and
religious validity, has been unstudied, outside of the Sino-Japanese
geographical area. It is the purpose of this Dissertation to begin to
remedy this omission, but more than a beginning it cannot be. There is
no doubt much here that is ill considered, even unconsidered, but,
heartened by the Sutras which spend so long in the description of the
indescribable, I offer what I do, as perhaps a handhold by which those
more learned than- myself may rise to superior conclusions,
A Dissertation is in the nature of a saipskara, a getting-together,

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a regrouping for a new birth. I am conscious that what I have done
focuses elements I have assimilated from many teachers, though their
individual contributions cannot be exactly measured. During my undergra­
duate years at King's College Theological Department, University of
London, I learnt the central importance of a text as an anchor in the
treacherous tidal waters of religious studies, and the necessity of
language,

the links of the anchor chain, being as firmly forged as may

be. Dr. Ch'u Chai introduced me, at the New School for Social Research,
New York City, to the vexing delights of Chinese calligraphy, and though
I never managed to write the characters properly, I did acquire the
respectful contemplation of them until such time as they should deign
to yield up their meaning. Patient mentors at the University of Minne­
sota and the University of Michigan began me in the rudiments of Chinese
and Japanese as everyday languages, from which I could ascend to the
more rarified atmosphere of the Buddhist texts. The faculty and gradu­
ate students of the University of Chicago Divinity School, revolving
in ordered methodological patterns like planets around, a peaceful sun,
gave an exhilarating new slant to something which, under my tutors Pro­
fessor Ninian Smart and Professor Geoffrey Parrinder, I had learnt in

3ngland to call 'Comparative Religion.' All this was rooted in the
Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, begun by the
late Professor Richard Robinson: this dissertation is dedicated to his
memory not because I think he would approve of it, for I believe there

are many points with which he would strongly take issue, but simply
because it was largely due to his efforts that there was such a Program
at all, and the possibility of my studying within it. The most signifi­
cant acknowledgment, naturally, must go to Professor Minoru Kiyota of

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vi
the University of Wisconsin, my Advisor, without whom I would not
have been stimulated even to look into T'an-luan.
An unformed and vague acknowledgment is due to the many monks,
Christian and Buddhist, whom I have been privileged to meet and who
have spoken, more by their lifestyle than in words, of the mysteries
of the spirit, so that I might realise that sometimes the letter killeth,
but always the spirit giveth life. Amongst these the chief must be Dorn
Damasus Winzen, O.3.B., (1901-1971), founder of Mount Saviour Monastery
near Elmira, New York, whom we knew simply and accurately as, 'Reverend
Father.'
My colleagues on the Faculty of Duke University have beetn longsuffering enough both to leave me alone when I needed quiet, and no.t to mind
when, gripped by an acute attack of translationese, I would burst in upon
then with a, 'How do you say so-and-so in Fhglish?' Professor Peter
Burian of the Department of Classics, who made crushing but invaluable
remarks upon my poesy, deserves special mention.
I have been fortunate enough to secure as my Stenographer a lady
who can not only type, a feminine accomplishment as necessary for social
success today as excellence at the pianoforte used to be, but is also
intelligent and learned, so that she has been able to make helpful sug­
gestions on stylistic improvement. To Barbara Lawrence, therefore, and
her husband and my colleague Professor Bruce Lawrence, who helped read

the proofs, goes my thanks for providing the vehicle for the actual
manifestation of my thoughts into the Kamadhatu.
It is a great relief, in this age of sexist nervousness, to realise
that, being single, I do not have to compose a tribute to my pneumatic
and ever-smiling wife, in a manner flattering but not patronising, I

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will therefore pay homage, instead, to the New York Metropolitan Opera,
the whole full-throated Company of which has enlivened my Saturday
afternoon labours, by courtesy of the Texaco Oil Company; though it
is perhaps discouraging: to note that the final draft was begun during
La Boheme and completed to Lucia di Lammermoor: we do indeed begin in
tragedy (sarvaip dufrkham), but must our end be madness?

Roger Corless
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
April 1973
Easter Day

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viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------------iv
Preface and Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations
--------------- -— -— -— ------ — ix
Introduction:
I# Pure Land Buddhism before T'an-luan------— ------ -—
Ao Sutras— ------ — —
------- — ---- — — ---- -— -— —
B. Hui-yiian---------------------- — ----— -— -— -----lie T'an-luan: Life and Works

------- — — --- — ---- —

—
—

1
1
3

— -— 5

III* The Wang-sheng-lun Chu
A. Title---------------------------------------------B# Authenticity— — — — — — — — — — — —
—
— — — —
—
Co Format— -------------------------- -— -— -— — — —
Do Significance—
—
—
—
—

— — — —
— — — — —
IV. The Soteriology of the Wang-sh&ng-lun Chu
A. Some Preliminaries—
--— ---- -— — — — —
B. The Unsaved Condition------------ -—
------ ------ — —
C. The Primary Saviour: Amitabha Buddha— —
— — — — — — (i) Becoming a Saviour----------------------------- — —
(ii) Being a Saviour-------------------------- — — --(a) A Buddha Named Amita--------------(b) A Land Called SukhavatT— — — —
—
— — —
—
D. The Secondary Saviours: The Bodhisattvas of Sukhavatl-— —
(i) Becoming a Saviour-------------— -— — — — --(ii) Being a Saviour-----------------— ------- —
39

12
15
20
21

23
26
2?
28
30

30
32

36
36

V. Some Special Problems in the Wang-sheng-lun Chu
A. Textual Lineage— --------- — ------ — — —
— — -- ^3
B. Doctrinal Affiliation
(i) The Problem------------— ------- — ----^6
(ii) Seng-chao------------------------------ ----- — — — 48
(iii) Proto-Yogacara------------------ — —
— 51
(iv) Interrelation, Interpenetration and Sunyata—
------- 54
C. Kaya Theory------------------ --------------- — — -— — - 61
VI. T'an-luan and Theism-------------------- ------- ------ -— —
VII* The Present Translation—

*--------------

—

66

------- 77

Translation:
The Stanzas---------------— — — — — — — — —
— --------- 82
Index to the Translation------------------------------ -— — — 06

Translation— ---------------------------------------- "— — — — 89
Bibliography----------------— ----- — — —
339

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XX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
(For complete bibliographical information, see Bibliography.)
Ashikaga

Larger SukhavatTvyuhat Sanskrit text edited by Ashikaga
Atsuuji, Cited by page and line.

«/

O'/ (hapax legomenon). A usage occurring once

SLX

only.
BEFEO

Bulletin de l ’^cole fran^aise d*extreme orient.

BSOAS

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

in the University of London.

Oouvreur

Dictionalre Classique de la Langue Chlnolse. par F.S.
Couvreur, 2nd, ed. Cited by page and column.

Eigerton

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, by Franklin Blgerton.
Cited by page number and dolumn.

JAAR

Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

JAOS

Journal of the American Oriental Society.

K.

Kashiwabara Yugi, Shinsu Tsuge Zenshu. Cited by page num­
ber and (sometimes) note number in the jigeffi^sections
of volume one.

Legge

The Chinese Classics, ed. and trans, by James Legge,
5 vols. 1893 edition, Hong Kong reprint.

Mahavyutpatti

As compiled by R. Sakaki, Cited by entry number.
•

Mathews

Mathews* Chinese-3iglish Dictionary, Revised American
Edition. Cited by entry number.

Mochizuki

Bukkyo Dai.jlten, ed, by Mochizuki Shinko. .Cited by page
and column.

Morohashi

Dai Kan-Wa Jlten, by Morohashi Tetsuji. Cited by entry
number.

Nanjio

A Catalogue of the Buddhist Trlpitaka, by Bunyiu Nanjio.
Cited by entry number.
*

PTS

The Pall Text Society.

SBE

The Sacred Books of the East, ed. by F. Max Mueller.

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Soothill

A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, by W.E. Soothill
and L. Hodous. Revised Edition. Cited by page and column.

T,

TaishS Shlnshu Daisokvo. Cited by volume (Roman numerals)
page .(Arabic numerals), column (miniscule letter) and
(sometimes) line (Arabic numerals).

Taya

Taya Hiroshi, 'Donran no Senjitsuchu ni Inyo saretaru Shomoku no Chosa.'

U.

Uesugi Shiro, Kaidoku Jodoron Chu. Cited by page and
(sometimes) footnote.

v.l,

varia lectio, variant reading! a character which appears
in the Apparatus (Taisho footnote) rather than the text.

NOTE; A reference consisting solely of a number/letter/number combina­
tion between the values of 826a28 and 844b3 indicates the text of the
Wang-sheng-lun Chu in T.XL, cited by page/column/line.

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I N T H 0 D U G T I 0 W
I: PURE LAND BUDDHISM BEFORE T'AN-LUAN
A: SUTRAS:

It is usual to count three Sutras as specifically 'Pure Land’, i.e.,
the Larger and Smaller Sukhavat ivyuha, and the Amitgyurdhyana Sutra.
Their date and provenance are quite uncertain, although the first two
are at least extant in Sanskrit and may be around 2nd century A.D.: the
third is available only in Chinese, but has a distinctly Sanskrit feel
to it, and so is presumed to be a translation, The Chinese versions
normally read, and those from which T'an-luan quotes, are said to have
been translated by Saijighavarman (A.D. 252). KumSrajTva (A.D. 402) and
KalayaSas (A.D. 424), respectively: the datecs of the translations, which
it is not customary to doubt, are regarded as a terminus ad quern for the
completion of the corpus.
The Sutras are fully developed Mahayana in type, and assume a con­
vinced Mahayana audience. The Larger SukhavatTvyuha, which claims to
have been preached by Sakyamuni on the Grdhraku-fca at Rajagrha, recounts
the story of how, in the unimagineable past, there was a Bodhisattva
named Dharmakara exercising under a Buddha called Lokesvararaja.

Dharmakara decides, in a series of Resolutions (pra.Qidhana: fortyeight in the Chinese text) that, when he becomes a Buddha himself, he
will have a kgetra (land or kingdom) that will be the finest possible,
and thatitwill.be obtainable at death by all who shall have faith in him.
Receiving from Lokesvararaja a somewhat lengthy (10^ years) account of
all the best Buddhakgetras then existing, Dharmakara perfects, after
five lealpas (aeons) a nlmitta (contemplative representation) of the
essence of all of these, courses towards Buddhahood with that goal in

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view, and so obtains it. Therefore, says Sakyamuni, he is now a Buddha
called Amitabha, ('He of Limitless Light') in the paradise of SukhavatT
(°The Land of Bliss') far to the West (^100,000 x 10^ Buddhakgetras
distant), but all who have faith may go there easily: as with all good
myths or fairy-stories, it is 'far, far away, but not very far for those
with long legs,' The Smaller Sukhavatrvyuha briefly describes the para­
dise, and the AmitSyurdh.yana Sutra prescribes sixteen subjects for con­
templation which will direct the mind towards SukhavatT, ensuring re­
birth there. The outside observer seems to see a doctrinal evolution tend­
ing towards elaboration and catholocity in the three Sutras, but a Pure
Land Buddhist generally, and T'an-luan certainly, regards them as a
unit. At one point in his commentary, this causes T'an-luan an exegetical
problem of apparent contradiction, which he resolves very cunningly (see
the second of Eight Queries in the Translation below).
Dylan Thomas said that when he was a child, he was given a book
which told him, 'everything about the wasp, except why.' This is quite
the impression one gets from reading the Pure Land Sutras. We shall
exhort the reader to familiarise himself with these Sutras, since T'anluan, commenting on them, assumes a deep acquaintance with them, and
they are available in an (unfortunately no more than 'adequate') English

translation (S.B.E., v.^9» pt.2, pp.1-103, 161-201): then, after he has
heard so much about the ritzy delights of the Western Paradise that he
fears himself unable to look another jewelled lotus in the calyx with­
out blanching, he will be ready to examine the 'why?' of T'an-luan.
And it turns out that quite an exciting metaphysical journey awaits him.
The Paradise of Amitabha receives honourable mention in some other
Sutras, and a few ^astras. Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary,

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3
597a, cites the Karagflavyuha, Saddharmapupflarika, Bhadracarr, Gapflavyuha, Sikgasamuccaya, Samadhira.jasutra, Aryaman.jusrimulakalpa, and
Lankavatara, 'etc.' There is also a famous passage at the end of the
(possibly pseudepigraphical) Mahayanaisraddhotpada oastra, and scattered
references in that unclassifiable tome, Mahapra.jnaparamita Sastra. Cer­
tain sections of the Vimalakirtinirde^a have a Sukhavatl-like world­
view, but do not merttion it by name. Of these texts, T'an-luan refers
specifically to the chapter (no. 25 in the Chinese version) in the
Saddharmapupflarika where Avalokitesvara appears as an apparently inde­
pendent entity, though T'an-luan takes him in the sense of the Pure Land
Sutras, i.e., as chief minister to Amitabha (see 833a8-10). He also
uses the Vimaiaklrtinirde^a to prove a couple of points (e.g., at 829a5 ),
a
_ /_
and draws frequently on the Mahaprajnaparamita Sastra. All, however,
are subordinate to the Larger and Smaller Sukhavativyuha, and Amitayurdhyana Sutra, and it appears to have been T'an-luan's preference for
these three that caused them to become established as 'the' Pure Land
Sutras. A more complete analysis of T'an-luan's textual sources will
be given in Section V.

B: HUI-YJAK :
Whatever may have been the status of Buddha-bhakti (devotion to
the person of Buddha) in early Buddhist history (on this see Section IV),
we know of no definite devotion to Amitabha Buddha, trusting to re­
birth in Sukhavati, before Shih Hui-yuan^^-ilL

(3^"^16 A.D.), This

elegant gentleman (whose life is summarised in Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism
in China, pp. 103-112), schooled in the refined tittle-tattle of ch'ingt ’an

’immaculate small-talk'), planted himself in the inspiringly

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rustic setting of the Tung-lin Ssuj-jldtpj

on Lu fountain in Kiangsi,

and there, before an image of Amitabha, is reported to have made, in
company with a sodality of twenty-three disciples, the Resolution to
be born in Sukhavati.
Because of this event (whether it be historically true or not),
Hui-yiian is reckoned as the 'founder' of Pure Land Buddhism in China
but, since he did not do much more than.this, we.may.view such a title as
honourific. Hui-yiian did not attempt to publicise his views, though he
graciously received visitors. His writings, some of which have been
translated by Walter Liebenthal in a perceptive little article ('Shih

Hui-yuan's Buddhism as Set Forth in His Writings',

JACB, vol.70 (1950),

pp. 2^3-259) and by Richard Robinson (Early Hadhyamika, pp.

96-llb,

181-205), are more those of Taoist recluse than an architect of aihajor
new school of Buddhism, Set beside the imaginative boldness of T'anluan, they are poor things indeed: like the Anagram Teas of Victorian
England, or the modern American Tolkien salons, they are not unstimulating, but finally irrelevant. Nevertheless, a full study of T'an-luan
presupposes a full study of Hui-yiian, for their problematic is often
similar.

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II: T'AN-LUAH: LIFE AND WORKS:

Accounts of the life of T'an-luan exist in fourteen texts of
Buddhist Chinese biographies, and four dynastic histories, Of these,
two, the Hsu Kao Seng Chiian
Monks', T.2060) and the Ching-t'u Lun

('Further Biographies of Eminent
('A Discourse on the Pure

Land', T.19&3), dated respectively c.6^5 A,D. and before 6^9 A.D., are
original, the remainder being derived from them. Their content and value
have been examined by Hsiao Ching-fen, The Life and Teachings of T'a.nluan (University Microfims, 196?), pp. 15-66, and what follows is large­

ly based upon his findings, with which I have little quarrel.
The family name Shih T ' a n - l u a n ^ ^ ^ , v a r . ^ ^ ^ j

, is unknown,

and so it is presumed that he was of peasant stock. His religious name
combines, in the first two characters, abbreviated transliterations of
1 (a common monastic surname, denoting a 'son of Buddha')
abd of Pharma. The third character signifies a mythical bird whose
union with his mate symbolises civil peace and harmonious marriage,
much after the fashion of the Christian symbol of a peacock and peahen
drinking at a single fountain. The variant third character means a
pinnacle or pointed mountain,
T'an-luan was born near the foot of Wu-t'ai Mountain, which was
^

f

—

probably already regarded as sacred to the Bodhisattva Manjusri.

A

fascinating account of a pilgrimage to this mountain, including the
de rigueur sighting of the mysterious 'lights of Manju^ri' drifting
across the valley at night, is given by John Blofeld in his autobio­
graphical The Wheel of Life (London, 1952, and Shambala Reprint, 1972),
pp.11^-155, The traditional date of his birth, working backwards from

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6
the date of death a.nd age at death given in the Kao Seng Chiian, is
4y6 A.D, However, Hsiao (op. cit.) collects evidence from other texts and
from Japanese researchers which indicates that T'an-luan must have been
alive after the death date mentioned in the Kao Seng Chiian, and proposes
488 or 489 as the date of birth,
T'an-luan probably entered the religious life (ch'u-chia

/
JL

pravrajya) when about fourteen, and began to study the Buddhist texts,
especially picking on the Hahasannipata (Nanjio 61), This daunting antho­
logy of Kahayana texts in thirty chiian understandably perplexed him,
and he assayed a commentary on it. Such an undertaking was probably no
more than a zealous, youthful attempt to comprehend an unfamiliar work
by summarizing and systematising its the present author remembers, with
wry amusement, his own teenage efforts to get down the much shorter
Dhammapada, by laboriously drawing up a. concordance to it in Narada
Thera's translation, for which he received a publisher's rejection:,
slip: he therefore sympathises with T'an-luan who, in the course of this
tiresome business, became ill and laid aside his work, never to finish
it. Nothing of it remains. Travelling then in search of a cure, he was
accorded a.sudden vision of the Gate of Heaven opening in a break in
the clouds, and instantly became well. He decided to go on to search
for immortality (ch'ang-sheng

), i.e., the physical means of keep­

ing the yin and yang 'souls' together longer than the common allotted

.

span (a matter of constant ..fascination to the Chinese) so that, very
probably as Hsiao suggests (p. 41), he would be assured of enough time
to complete his commentary on the Kahasann ipat a. This incident is re­
garded as his 'conversion' to Taoism, though this is probably too strong
a word to use in the pluralistic Chinese situation.

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Peregrinating south of the Yangtze, he eventually met up with the
Taoist recluse T'ao Hung-ching (^55-536 A.D.), from whom he received a
book in,ten chuan called the Hsien Ghing^ j ^

('The Classic on the „

Immortals’), What this book was is still uncertain, Fujino Ritsi^jen has
argued 'that it was the Pao P'u-tzu

1, the famous book of Ko-

hung with a pill for everything, but Taya Hiroshi seems quite correct
in denying this.

2

As the great bulk of the Tao Tsang is still unstudied,

it would not be surprising if the Hsien Ching, under that or some other
name, were hidden somewhere within it.
Then about forty years old, T'an-luan started back towards Wu-t'ai,
but stopped off to call on the famous Indian Buddhist Waster Bodhiruci,
who was working on his translation at Lo-yang. Questioned as to whether
Buddhism could do better or worse than the Hsien Ching, the Holy Master
was uncompromisingly directs
Bodhiruci spat on the ground and said, 'What do you mean? How
can you compare the two? Where in this land could you find the
formula for 'iramsrtality? Even i£ you should remain young_and
live forever, you would still be within the realm of sfynsara!'
(Kao Seng Chiian. T.L.^70: modified
slightly from Hsiao, op, cit,,p.^7)
Bodhiruci then gave T'an-luan a book called Kuan Ching

jjL (other ac­

counts give slightly different titles) and T'an-luan burned his copy
of the Hsien Ching and 'converted' to Buddhism, This 'second.' conversion
seems to have taken place about 529-530 A.D, (Hsiao, p.^9).

Fujino Ritsujen
Shina Bukkyo Shigaku

^

'Donran Daishi no Kanken

, Kyoto, 1937, vol.l, no.2, p,9^f.

^ Taya H i r o s h i ' D o n r a n Daishi Den no Ken
Utani Gakuho
, vol.21, no .2 (19^0 ), pp.51-52.

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8
The identity of the Kuan Chins is only slightly less mysterious
than that of the Hsien Ching. It does not seem to have been the Amitayurdhyana Sutra, which is popularly called Kuan Ching, nor is it clearly
either of the Sukhavativyuha texts. Hsiao (p.5&) suggests that it was
the Wang-sh£ng Lun, the text supposedly by Vasuband.hu translated by
Bodhiruci himselfp upon which T'an-luan wrote his great sub-commentary
which we here have under discussion, the Wang-sheng-'lun Chu
However, it is odd to refer to this, a form of commentary, as a ching

it

,

since T ’an-luan clearly reserves ching for the class of litera­

ture purporting to be the actual words of the Buddha. He is well aware
of the distinctions within the dvadasanga (twelvefold corpus), as he
shows in his Introduction (826bl2-28), though admittedly he is not
responsible for a term used in the Kao Seng Chiian. But since his com­
mentary is (as we shall show) on all three ’Pure Land Sutras', col­
lectively called Wu-liang-shou C

h

i

n

g

(a title very close to

the variant found in the account of Shao-k'ang, T.LI,83), might it not
be that Kuan Ching is also a collective, abbreviated, title for the
three Sutras considered (as T'an-luan certainly did consider them) as
a unit? Hsiao points out (pt55)j against the idea of it being a Sutra
at all, that the doctrine of T'an-luan's sub-commentary is closer to
that of the commentary of 'Vasubandhu' than to any one of the Sutras.
With this I agree, but, to say that Bodhiruci gave T'an-luan a copy
of the three Sutras does not preclude the possibility that he also
gave him a copy of the commentary: it would be quite natural to give
a commentary along with the Sutra.— Sutras alone are virtually untelligible, as any newcomer to the Sacred Books of the «h.st series quickly
realises— but as a commentary it would not receive a mention, being
regarded as no more than the explanatory supplement to the Unchanging'

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words of the Sxrtras (see 82605)#
T'an-luan seemed, after this, to have found the answer for which
he had been locking ever since his vision of the Gate of Heaven. 'Long

life', long enough to comment sensibly on the Hahasannipata, was seen
to be insufficient, for it did not finally attack the problem of suf­
fering which is endemic to the phenomena,! existence. That T'an-luan had
well digested the prime Budd.hist doctrine of universal unsatisfactoriness
(sarvaip duhkham) is shown by his insistence that every aspect of Sukhavati has been appointed by Amitabha as a corrective for some specific
disability of the 'triple-world' (trailokadhatavafr) of samsara. His
vision was now fixed on a 'life' which was 'no-life'. 'A being,' he says,
quoting the Sutra on Neither Increasing nor Decreasing, 'means, "neither
born nor decaying",' And such are the 'beings' of Sukhavati (831bl7-28).
'Birth' in Sukha.vati, then, is 'no-birth' (838cl6-25, 839a.2l-b7).
T'an-luan had understood, as so many Chinese monks never did, the mean­
ing of the word 'transcendental': Sukhavati, he says repeatedly, is kuo
san-chieh jj —
ching

1

'transcending the triple-world.', or, simply, 'pure'

, that is, separated from everything conceivable, for concepts

sully the original purity of the mind. Thus, talk of 'length' of life
was just nonsense. Bodhiruci's testy reply had been taken to heart.
This is a very important point, and I sha.ll come back to it in the
doctrinal discussion.
The rest of his life was apparently fulfilling but rather unevent­
ful. 'The Emperor of Wei' (whom Hsiao, p.59> plausibly identifies with
the first Emperor of Eastern Wei, Hsiao-ching Ti, r.53h-55C A.D.),
dubbing him his 'Divine Peacock' (shen luan

), established him in

a monastery about fifty miles southwest of the modern Taiyuan (capital

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10
of Shanshi lA'$> ). There he must have composed the present text,
Wang-sheng-lun C

h

u

(which, if Hsiao's biographical chronology

is correct, would place the text between 53^ and 55^)» ana two other
works which have come down to us, the Tsan A-mi-t'o Fo Chi l£$f 1?1

RVftig)

('Stanzas in Praise of Amitabha Buddha', T.1978, one chiian) and the
Liieh-lun An-lo-ching-t'u I

('Brief Discourse on the

Significance of Sukhavati', T.1957, cne chiian). It is possible that the
last two works were originally bound as one.

3

Eight other works are

listed in the biographies, none of which have survived. Some of them
appear to be on medicine, and T'an-luan may have been a part-time phy­
sician. This would not be unexpected, given his Taoist background, his
concern for the common people (see below), and his familiarity with
medical treatises evinced by his easy quotations from them in the thick
of a metaphysical argument (see, e.g.,

835c8-15)•

The accounts of T'an-luan's death are most edifying. Vouchsafed
a vision of Nagarjuna, who spoke cryptically on the subject of imperma­
nence, he foretold his own death and, at midnight, attended by a crowd
of upasakas and upasikas fpo-i ti-tsu ^ 3 ) ,

he sat down facing

West, preached about Sukhavati, and died at sunrise, holding his thuri­
ble in his hand as the congregation intoned the Name of Amitabha Buddha.
The nuns of a neighbouring convent heard.’heavenly music arrive from the
West and, after a short time, depart again. The traditional death date
is 5^2 A.D., but for the reasons already outlined, Hsiao prefers

3 Mori Kenmyo
3hin5hu Kenkyu

, 'Ryakuron Sakusha no Kenkyu'

, no. 18 (1927), p.l^.

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11
c.55^ A.D. He is said to have been sixty-seven years old.
The presence of so many upasakas (three hundred persons, includ­
ing the monks, who cannot have accounted for very many, according to one
account) indicates that T'an-luan was, unlike Hui-yuan, in touch with
the peasants, from whose ranks he had probably arisen, was loved enough
by them,and lived near enough to their village, for them to come and
visit him at midnight. It is this dual facility, on the one band with
abstruse Buddhist doctrine (as will be evident enough herein), and on
the other with practical devotion, that has assured him an enduring
place both in the textbooks and in the hearts of the people.

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12
III: THE WANG-SH&JG-LUN CHU:
A: TITLE:

The full title of T'an-luan's major work, which we are to dis­
cuss, is Wu-liang-shou Ching Yu-p'o-t 'i-shÊ Yuan ShĐng Chi Chu
ã T^e text is printed at T.1819 (vol.XL,
pp.826-844) and is two chiian in length. It is a commentary (chu^.j_ )
on T.1524 (vol.XXVI, pp.230-233)1 one chuan, which claims to have been
composed by Vasubandhu and translated by Bodhiruci. The text which

T'an-luan uses is in minor disagreement with T.1524, Abbreviated titles
for T.1819 in common use are:
(i) Wu-liang-shou Ghing Lun Chu

^

4

$

/ / f^ '

(ii) Ching-t'u Lun Chu
(iii) wang-sneng Lun Chu
(iv) Lun Chu

:4V;
I shall hereinafter refer toVT.1524 as 'The Comma' and T.I8I9 as 'The
, / A

Commentary', The 'restored' Sanskrit title of the Comma is given by
Hobogirin 1524 as Sukhavativyuhopade^a (?), and by Nanjio 1204 as either
Amitayus-sutropadesa or Aparamitayus-sutra-sastra, Both catalogues state
that it is a commentary on the surviving texts of the Larger Sukhavativyuha, and. this opinion seems to be the common one. However, it will
not do. The title needs examining more closely.
First, it is improper to call it an upade^a (y.u-p'o-t'i-she^ j ^
), and leave it at that. It also says it is a gatha ('/$ , nor­
mally read chieh but pronounced chi, fourth tone, when taken to mean
a Buddhist verse, according to Mathews 775(a) ) on the Resolution
(prapidhana; yuan/^j ) to be (re-)born (pratyajati (Eigerton 376b);

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13
sheng^. )— re-born, of course, in Sukhavati. Now, gatha and upadesa
are separate classes within the dvada^anga, and a moment's inspection
of the text makes it quite clear that it begins with a gatha prais­
ing the pranidhana (which is given in the opening lines), and continues
with an upade/a, or 'instruction' (Eflgerton 135a) which is an auto-com­
mentary of the dialogue form (cf. E. Burnouf, Ihtroductiop a l'histoire
du Buddhisme (sic) indien, 2nd ed., Paris, 1876, p.58), 'Why do we say
X in the gatha? We say X because of the principle of Y', etc, T'an-luan
distinguishes quite clearly between the two parts, which he calls the
o h i ^ , the summary for chanting, and lunj^ , the exposition (82ob28-c3 ).
An understanding of this helps to throw light on the dark phrase lun
yueh

, which opens the second part (see my comments in loco).
Second, it is evident that all the cataloguers, seeing that the

first part of the title is Wu-liang-shou Ching, and noting that this is
practically the title of Saijighavarman's translation of the Larger Sukhavativyuha (Fo-shuo Wu-liang-shou Ching^ffij^'f^j^fL

, T.360), have

simply identified the one with the other. But, if we read what T'anluan says he is doing, this must be a mistake. He never gives any indi­
cation that he is commenting .just on the Laxger Sukhavativyuha. He
quotes from all three (see below on the textual lineage). He attempts
to reconcile an apparent contradiction between the Larger Sukhavativyuha and the Amitayurdhyana Sutra in the second of hi Eight Queries,

as if they were of equal authority (83^1^-20). And, to clinch the
matter, he says:
Sakyamuni .Buddha spoke, in the city of Rajag^ha and the f^cxty^J
state of Sravastii in "the midst of great congregations, on the

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14
merits of the adornments of Buddha Amitayus. Thus, that
Buddha's Name embodies the Sutras ( c h i n g ),
(826bl2-l4)
Now, the Larger Sukhavativyuha and the Amitayurdhyana Sutra, both of .
which we have seen he uses, claim to have been spoken at Rajagfha,
while the Smaller Sukhavativyuha alone claims to have been spoken at
^ravasti. Thus, T'an-luan's commentary is on all three, 'embodied' (t'i
'fj? ) in the Name of Amitayus (wu-liang-shou), and we must understand
ching ( » ) in the plural.
We should remember that T’an-luan was concerned, even obsessed,
with 'eternal life': it was this that drove him to Bodhiruci, and it was
Bodhiruci's sharp answer on this that converted him back to Buddhism,
Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that, whatever the individual
titles of the Pure Land Sutras, they were all three for him, 'the
Eternal Life Sutras', and that this must be the meaning (at least as
T'an-luan understood it) of Wu-liang-shou Ching in the title of the
Comma. This idea he may have got from Bodhiruci himself, whom we might
imagine as saying, 'So, you want "eternal life"? Well, here are the
Sutras and here is a Sastra.' If we understand Wu-liang-shou Ching in
this way, it seems to make more sense in regard to the identity of the
Kuan Ching (which appears as, Wu-liang-shou Kuan Ching, perhaps, 'con­

templation according to the Sutras of Eternal Life', in Shao-k'ang),
as I have argued above (pp.7-9)•
Therefore, I propose that the title should be translated somewhat
as follows: 'An Instruction (upadesa) on the Sutras which are concerned
with Limitless Life (amitayus). and a Hymn (gatha) on the Resolution
to be Born (in accordance with those Sutras).' This could perhaps be

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