大般涅槃經疏 1.14

1.14

Seventh, pointing out differing explanations: Emperor Wu of the Liang divided the sūtra chronologically into the beginning, middle, and end. If this is based on dawn, midday, and afternoon, that might work; but with dusk and midnight, to what texts would they correspond? The Sūtra on the Upāsaka Inviting the Saṅgha says, 'Speaking this took a full week'; so to which year would the beginning, middle, and end belong? Now, dividing the chapters according to the Dharma avoids this difficulty. Kaishan posits the preface and the main body: the preface is the convocation, and the main body comprises the four chapters. Guangzhai adds the dissemination section, which is merely a small part of the chapter on function. Lingwei takes it that the questions have karmic origins and the answers have lingering momentum; yet since there are questions and answers everywhere, there should be lingering momentum everywhere. As for the Hexi [master, Dharmakṣema], taking the first two fascicles as the gateway of guiding and receiving those with karmic affinity from present and past captures the real but loses the provisional; now, our term 'convocation' fully encompasses both provisional and real. Taking from the third fascicle up to the great assembly's questioning as the brief and extensive gateway is merely based on the quantity of text; now, unfolding it as expounding the giving of nirvāṇa encompasses both the extensive and the brief. Taking the five practices as the gateway of nirvāṇa practice, and the ten virtues as the gateway of bodhisattva virtues—practice and virtues both belong to the causal stage; now, combining them into the chapter on practice avoids superfluous phrasing. Taking from Siṃhanāda to the end of the sūtra as the gateway of the inconceivable middle-way buddhadhātu conflates and blends them, making it difficult to understand; now, dividing it into essence/meaning and function makes the text easy to comprehend. The Dilun masters take the first fascicle as the section of supernatural manifestation and instruction, which captures the provisional but loses the real; now, saying 'convocation' avoids any bias. They take the second fascicle as the section of gotra, destroying doubts and eliminating attachments, and from the third fascicle up to the great assembly's questioning as the section of the true meaning of the correct Dharma; now, making it a single giving of nirvāṇa encompasses both of their sections. They take the five practices and ten virtues as the section of cultivating attainment through skillful means. They take Siṃhanāda as the section of entering realization through non-negligence; but the previous cultivation of attainment was already entering realization—would entering realization again not be redundant? Now we make it the chapter on meaning. They take Kāśyapa as the section of maintaining through compassion, and Kauṇḍinya as the section of revealing characteristics; holding badness toward goodness and revealing heterodoxy to return to orthodoxy are combined into the chapter on function. The Xinghuang master at first took the gateway of guiding and receiving those with karmic affinity from present and past, which adopted the idea of [Seng]lang; second, the gateway of destroying doubts and eliminating attachments, which adopted the idea of the Dilun masters; third, the brief and extensive gateway, fourth, the practice gateway, fifth, the stages gateway, and sixth, the gateway of practicing the middle way, all of which adopted Lang's ideas; the gateway of the function of skillful means, and the gateway of non-duality between heterodoxy and orthodoxy, differ from Hexi only in opening and combining, with no difference in their terms or import.