大般涅槃經集解 21.7

21.7

案僧宗曰：明非但常名為外道所竊，凡是一切記論、有益之言，皆從佛出也。傳云：十四是字，後者名音，字與音合名為滿也；十四未滿，為半也。音字合故，有記論也。陰者有為，實法無為也。智秀曰：此品有七段。第一正答問；第二列出十四音；第三約四音結成字義；第四明音所以得有差別，有十四音也；第五明滿字半字昇降相；第六明知不知相；第七導領勸旨，佛即述也。此第一段，有三翻：第一佛先唱文字皆是佛說；第二迦葉請釋根本；第三佛廣說字之本義也。

Sengzong notes: "This clarifies that not only was the name of permanence stolen by non-Buddhists, but all predictive treatises and beneficial words originally came from the Buddha. A tradition states: 'Fourteen are characters; those that follow are called phonemes. When characters and phonemes combine, they are called complete; when the fourteen are not complete, they are half.' Because phonemes and characters combine, there are predictive treatises. The aggregates are saṃskṛta; real phenomena are asaṃskṛta." Zhixiu notes: "This chapter has seven sections. The first directly answers the question. The second lists the fourteen phonemes. The third relies on the four phonemes to conclude the meaning of characters. The fourth clarifies why phonemes come to have distinctions, having fourteen phonemes. The fifth clarifies the aspects of ascent and descent of complete characters and half-characters. The sixth clarifies the aspects of knowing and not knowing. The seventh guides and receives the exhortation, which the Buddha then confirms. This first section has three rounds: first, the Buddha first declares that letters are all spoken by the Buddha; second, Kāśyapa requests an explanation of their root; third, the Buddha broadly explains the fundamental meaning of characters."