Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana

Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
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Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (Reconstructed Sanskrit: Mahāyāna Śraddhotpāda Śāstra;[1] traditional Chinese: 大乘起信論; simplified Chinese: 大乘起信论; pinyin: Dàshéng Qǐxìn Lùn; Japanese: 大乗起信論; Korean: 대승기신론; Vietnamese: Đại thừa khởi tín luận) is a text of the Mahāyāna branch of Buddhism.

Contents

Origin and History

While the text is attributed by the faithful to Aśvaghoṣa, no Sanskrit version of the text is extant. The earliest known versions are written in Chinese. Paramartha (499-569) translated or authored the first known version, which dates to 553. 695-700. Contemporary scholars believe that the text is a Chinese composition.[2][3]

Content

Written from the perspective of Essence-Function (tiyong) 體用, this text sought to harmonize the two soteriological philosophies of the tathāgatagarbha (or Buddha nature) and ālayavijñāna (or yogacara) into a synthetic vision based on the One Mind in Two Aspects.

Influence

Although often omitted from lists of canonical Buddhist texts, the Awakening of Faith strongly influenced subsequent Mahayana doctrine. It was studied and commented on repeatedly by many East Asian scholars, including Wonhyo 元曉, Fazang 法藏 and Zongmi 宗密. In great part due to the commentaries by Weonhyo, the Awakening of Faith ended up having an unusually powerful influence in Korea, where it may be the most oft-cited text in the entire tradition. It also provided much of the doctrinal basis for the original enlightenment thought found in the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment.

The view of the mind in the 'Awakening of Mahayana Faith' (Chinese: Ta-sheng ch'i-hsin lun) had a significant import on the doctrinal development of the East Mountain Teaching.[4]

References

English Translations

  • Hakeda, Yoshito S., trans. Awakening of Faith Attributed to Aśvaghoṣa, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1967.
  • Richard, Timothy, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna Doctrine—the New Buddhism, Shanghai: Christian Literature Society, 1907.
  • Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro, Aśvaghoṣa's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana., Chicago, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1900.
  • Vorenkamp, Dirck, trans. An English Translation of Fa-Tsang’s Commentary on the Awakening of Faith, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2004.

Other References

Notes

  1. ^ Hubbard, Jamie (1994, 2008). Original Purity and the Arising of Delusion. Smith College. Source: [1] (accessed: Friday April 9, 2010), p.1
  2. ^ Nattier, Jan. The Heart Sutra: A Chinese Apocryphal Text?. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol 15, issue 2, pgs 180-81
  3. ^ Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha by Robert E. Buswell. University of Hawaii Press: 1990. ISBN 0824812530. pgs 1-29
  4. ^ Zeuschner, Robert B. (1978). "The Understanding of Mind in the Northern Line of Ch'an (Zen)." Philosophy East and West, Volume 28, Number 1 (January 1978). Hawaii, USA: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 69-79



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