英語訳
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This should be known. Question: According to the explanations in the Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣā-śāstra, the Samayabhedoparacanacakra, and other texts, Mahādeva's five points are criticized and rejected as heretical teachings. Why does your present account differ from theirs? Answer: What the Vibhāṣā and others say is merely the slanderous statements of these Vibhāṣā masters. The reason we know this is that according to the Samantapāsādikā and Bodhisattvabhūmi, Mahādeva was a sage and a great dharma general of his time. The actual facts about Mahādeva can be found in the Yugaśāstra-vyākhyā and Jizang's Sanlun xuanyi, which should be consulted.
Upon examination, Mahādeva's teachings did not violate the dharma seals at all, nor did they contradict the truth of the noble truths. They merely revealed Mahāyāna secrets to manifest the true meaning of the three baskets. Therefore all the branch schools of the Mahāsāṃghika accepted them wholeheartedly. The five points they recited also had doctrinal basis. All branches of the Mahāsāṃghika recited this verse, and even the Sammitīya school that emerged from the Sthavira also recited the five points. What the Vibhāṣā masters presented was clearly pointing at a deer and calling it a horse. Question: Why did the Vibhāṣā masters hate Mahādeva so intensely as to make such baseless and unlawful accusations? Answer: The Sthavira school only propagated the three baskets and strictly prohibited explaining the supreme dharmas to ordinary people. They considered Mahādeva's teachings to violate extreme prohibitions. After one dispute, they criticized each other like broken tiles, hating each other like enemies. The Vibhāṣā masters, nearly two hundred years after Mahādeva, carelessly recorded rumors merely to suppress his theories. From ancient times to the present, there are quite many such examples, so it should not be surprising. Plum blossoms brave wind and snow with their fragrance striking the nose; iron is refined in the furnace with sword light shooting toward the stars. What the ancient sages disputed is not within the understanding of ordinary people. Scholars should not easily pass judgment on such matters.
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After two hundred years, three schools split off from the Mahāsāṃghika: (1) Ekavyavahārika, (2) Lokottaravāda, and (3) Kukkuṭika. During the two hundred years, one more school emerged from the Mahāsāṃghika called Bahuśrutīya. Another school emerged called Prajñaptivāda. Two more schools emerged: (1) Caitika and (2) Aparaśaila. Including the root and branches, there were eight schools in total. The Sthavira school had no further disputes during the two hundred years. At the beginning of the third century, it divided into two schools: (1) Sthavira disciples and (2) Sarvāstivāda. During the third century, one school emerged from the Sarvāstivāda called Kaśyapīya. During the third century, four more schools emerged from the Kaśyapīya: (1) Dharmaguptaka, (2) Bhadrayānīya, (3) Sammitīya, and (4) Channagiriya. During the third century, another school emerged from the Sarvāstivāda called Mahīśāsaka. During the third century, another school emerged from the Mahīśāsaka called Dharmaguptaka. During the third century, another school emerged from the Sarvāstivāda called Tāmraśāṭīya. During the third century, another school emerged from the Sarvāstivāda called Sautrāntika, also known as Dārṣṭāntika. Thus the root and branches of the Sthavira totaled twelve schools. The root and branch schools of both Sthavira and Mahāsāṃghika together made twenty schools. After this, they branched and split into five hundred schools. Their doctrinal theories were confused and tangled, mutually affirming and denying each other, eventually reaching the point of "drinking water across rivers." Skillful means were boundless, and methods of guidance were not uniform. All equally took the cessation of defilements as their gate and extinction of principle as their doctrine. Although their established school gates diverged, none obstructed the Tathāgata's pure dharma realm. The metaphor of breaking a staff and dividing cloth has its meaning here. One hundred years after the Buddha's nirvana, Upagupta had five disciples who each established a school within the Vinaya basket, dividing into five schools: (1) Dharmaguptaka, (2) Sar-
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vāstivāda, (3) Mahīśāsaka, (4) Kāśyapīya, and (5) Vātsīputrīya. These five schools each produced vinaya texts after three hundred years. These five school vinayas had various conflicting explanations regarding general and specific, opening and closing, as detailed in the vinaya commentaries and sub-commentaries, which should be investigated.
There are quite many different accounts of the two schools, eighteen schools, five schools, etc. They can be found in texts such as the Mahāsaṃnipāta-sūtra, Mañjuśrī-paripṛcchā-sūtra, Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, Aṣṭādaśa-nikāya-śāstra, Samayabhedoparacanacakra, and should be consulted in the Tripiṭaka Records, Aśokāvadāna, Fayuan zhulin, etc.
When five hundred years had passed after the Buddha's nirvana, scholars of the three baskets increasingly clung to names and characteristics, concealing the true meaning, becoming so attached to their own learning that they no longer knew there was further progress toward the supreme dharmas.
The three-basket teachings explicate the three trainings, causing students to cultivate morality, concentration, and wisdom, manifesting the noble path and entering the unconditioned realm, and within the mind of undefiled liberation, gradually advancing toward the extremely profound supreme dharmas. This is the true meaning of the three baskets. Therefore, at the beginning of the true dharma period when the Buddha was in the world, monastic disciples all relied on vinaya regulations, practiced the two types of restraint, sat cross-legged in quiet places, cultivated the five meditation subjects, observed the four foundations of mindfulness, and took awakening as their standard. When the awakened mind manifested, then hundreds and thousands of samādhis and immeasurable dharma gates all emerged from this place. The work of learning Buddhism was thus completed. Three hundred years after the Buddha's nirvana, there was Kātyāyanīputra, whose concentration and wisdom were outstanding, with sharp intelligence and keen faculties. He played with the Abhidharma and composed the Eight Treatises. Five hundred treatise masters compiled extensive explanations, inheriting and propagating them. The Vibhāṣā school thus flourished vigorously. After long study, it gradually developed problems: names and characteristics became luxuriant and confused like a noisy forest, focusing exclusively on verbal explanations without
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engaging in true practice. Furthermore, they did not know that Mahāyāna dharmas are the true principles manifested by the śrāvaka vehicle, and they falsely criticized and rejected them, willingly incurring heavy karmic offenses. How painful this is!
Thereupon there were the four reliance bodhisattvas Aśvaghoṣa, Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Sthiramati, and others, who grieved over the declining customs and pitied their drowning, composed Mahāyāna Abhidharma, and propagated Vaipulya sūtras. They sought to use these skillful means to communicate and expand the true meaning of the three baskets - this was unavoidable skillful means they employed, not arbitrarily promoting Mahāyāna while rejecting the three baskets. Among them, the two great masters Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva relied on the shared Prajñāpāramitā to demonstrate the emptiness of conceptual constructions; the two bodhisattvas Asaṅga and Vasubandhu clarified vijñāna-transformation to reveal the existence of dependent nature; the two great masters Aśvaghoṣa and Sthiramati taught the Tathāgata-garbha to reveal the perfected nature. Although the establishments of the above three schools differed, their ultimate aims did not conflict. The two teachings of emptiness and existence are the beginning gates of Mahāyāna; the Tathāgata-garbha teaching is the ultimate terminus of Mahāyāna. These are the waves of the ocean of nature, the gradual steps for entering principle. The great masters who propagated the teachings served as the Tathāgata's messengers, were born in Jambudvīpa, divided the teachings and established schools, opened and developed the secret treasury to enrich the semblance age. Their inner insight was clear and cool without conflicts or disputes. Over a thousand years later, there were two treatise masters: one called Dharmapāla, one called Bhāviveka. They differed on emptiness and existence schools, and dharma battles arose alternately, as recorded in historical traditions. Later worthies evaluated this as "mutual refutation and mutual completion," which is naturally reasonable. At that time there was Nāgabodhi Tripiṭaka who transmitted the secret maṇḍala sūtras from the great master Nāgārjuna. The great ācāryas Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, Amoghavajra, and others transmitted and secretly conferred this dharma through successive generations. The samaya vows prohibited transmission to unsuitable vessels. Therefore it had not yet reached the point of establishing separate school gates to embrace all capacities. The general outline of propagation in India...