大方廣佛華嚴經隨疏演義鈔 7.18

7.18

In the commentary, from “Furthermore, these four teachings” onward, the second [part] explains what is interpreted, distinguishing it from [the views of] other masters. Other masters might say: the Prajñāpāramitā is the teaching of emptiness, the Lotus Sūtra is the teaching of the Middle Way, and the Nirvāṇa Sūtra is the teaching of eternal presence; [or that] this is the perfect teaching and that is the biased teaching, rigidly fixing each single sūtra. Here, however, that is not the case; hence [the commentary] says: “Within a single text, multiple [teachings] may be contained.” Saying that they “may be contained” means that it does not necessarily contain all of them, but rather one, two, three, or four. Therefore, that master said: the Tripiṭaka solely reveals the Hinayāna; hence the Vaipulya “confronts” it—meaning that texts such as the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa are called the Vaipulya teaching, which confronts the Hinayāna to explain the Mahāyāna; the Prajñāpāramitā “carries” it, meaning it carries along the Hinayāna to explain the Mahāyāna; the Buddhāvataṃsaka “combines” it, combining the separate to explain the perfect; and the Lotus Sūtra no longer combines, stands solely, confronts, or carries, but explains only the perfect teaching. “Solely” means only a single teaching, whereas “confronts” contains all four. For example, when the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa says, “Virtuous ones! This body is impermanent, without strength, without power, without solidity; a rapidly decaying thing that cannot be trusted,” and so forth, this is the Tripiṭaka teaching. When the chapter on Kātyāyana says, “Non-arising and non-ceasing is the meaning of impermanence,” and so forth, this is the shared teaching. When the chapter on Pūrṇa says, “Do not place impure food into a precious vessel; do not equate lapis lazuli with crystal,” where the great is not of a kind with the small, this is the separate teaching. As when the chapter on Subhūti says, “Neither severing lust, anger, and delusion, nor consorting with them; not destroying the body yet giving rise to the single characteristic; not extinguishing delusion and craving yet giving rise to clarity and liberation,” and so forth—these are all the perfect teaching; hence all four are present. Within the Prajñāpāramitā corpus there are only three teachings; the former Tripiṭaka teaching is absent, because it had already been rebuked and refuted and [that text] was not spoken for them. The Buddhāvataṃsaka “combines” it because it projects stages of practice, laying them out in graduated sequence, thus combining that part. The Lotus Sūtra has “only this one real matter,” and therefore contains no other teaching. As for the ten ṛṣis in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra who attained the fruition of arhatship, [that sūtra] contains all four teachings. If so, how does it differ from the Vaipulya? Although it contains all four teachings, [its audiences] all know the eternal presence; thus it is distinguished from the former, because, being on the verge of entering nirvāṇa, the intent was to gather all universally, so that it came to contain all four, as is evident in the text.