大般涅槃經集解 21.7

21.7

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."