淨名玄論 4.17

4.17

Question: Why is prajñā called mahā, while upāya is not called mahā? Answer: In general, both can be called great. As was stated above, "Upāyakauśalya is the great master's power of expedient means." Speaking distinctly, there are briefly ten meanings in prajñā being called great. First, dharmatā is vast and boundless, deep and bottomless; there is no single phenomenon outside of dharmatā. Prajñā illuminates dharmatā, and is therefore called great wisdom; upāya, although skillful, does not illuminate dharmatā, and is therefore not called great. Question: The two vehicles also illuminate dharmatā; why are they not called great? Answer: The two vehicles have not reached its limits; the bodhisattva illuminates and exhausts its source and bottom, and it is therefore called great. Second, the real wisdom of the three vehicles is entirely generated from within prajñā. Why is this? Since the dharmatā that is illuminated is one, the prajñā that is able to illuminate has no three[fold diversity]. Yet because dispositions and capacities cannot bear it, within the one prajñā it is opened into the wisdom of the three vehicles. The wisdom of the three vehicles is completely subsumed into the contemplation of prajñā, and it is therefore called great. Question: How does prajñā generate the wisdom of the three vehicles? Answer: Dependent on dharmatā, prajñā is generated; dependent on prajñā, there are bodhisattvas; dependent on bodhisattvas, there are buddhas; dependent on buddhas, there are three vehicles. Thus, prajñā is the root, and therefore it generates the three vehicles; hence it is called great. Question: The three vehicles together contemplate dharmatā, so dharmatā is the root; how can prajñā be the root? Answer: It must be through the buddhas and bodhisattvas realizing and awakening to prajñā, and only then expounding the teachings of the three vehicles, that [all] first come to together contemplate dharmatā; therefore prajñā is the root. Question: If prajñā is the root and generates the three vehicles, it ought to be the shared teaching of the three vehicles. Answer: The Śrīmālā[devī-sūtra] says, "Acceptance of the True Dharma generates the five vehicles, just as the great earth brings forth the four treasuries of jewels"; the Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] says, "It is the śrāvaka treasury that generates the śrāvakas, the pratyekabuddha treasury that generates the pratyekabuddhas, and the Mahāyāna treasury that generates the bodhisattvas"—can these be the shared teaching of the three vehicles? Furthermore, just as the Lotus [Sūtra] explains that inside the elder's house there are not only the seven treasures, but also earthen vessels and the like, yet it is called the elder's great house, not a shared house. Prajñā is also like this: although it possesses the wisdom of the three vehicles, it is called the bodhisattva Dharma, not the shared teaching of the three vehicles. Question: If it is not the shared teaching of the three vehicles, why does it exhort the three vehicles to study it together? Answer: It exhorts the people of the three vehicles to together contemplate dharmatā; it does not exhort the people of the three vehicles to together study mahāprajñā. Question: Why is mahāprajñā not something to be studied in common by the three vehicles? Answer: The treatise says, "Prajñā does not belong to the two vehicles; it belongs only to bodhisattvas." Why is this? Since it is called mahāprajñā, it is great wisdom; setting aside the two vehicles, one therefore knows that prajñā is exclusively the bodhisattva Dharma. Moreover, this prajñā is called pāramitā; pāramitā means arriving at the other shore of the Buddha path. The two vehicles do not reach the other shore of the Buddha path, so it is not a pāramitā. Therefore, mahāprajñāpāramitā is exclusively the bodhisattva Dharma, and does not belong to the two vehicles. Question: The sūtra only says, "One who wishes to attain the fruit of a śrāvaka should study prajñā"; how can you say one should study dharmatā-prajñā? Answer: The Dazhidulun makes this determination; consulting the text, it is readily apparent. Deducing it through principle, it definitely does not exhort the people of the two vehicles to study mahāprajñā. Since mahāprajñā is the contemplative cognition of a bodhisattva, how could it make the two vehicles study it? As the Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] says, "Because of contemplating with inferior wisdom, one attains śrāvaka bodhi; because of contemplating with superior wisdom, one attains bodhisattva bodhi." This explains that the two vehicles together contemplate the middle way; how could it exhort the intermediate and inferior two wisdoms to study the superior wisdom? Question: Mahāprajñā is exclusively the bodhisattva Dharma, yet in the prajñā teaching it is said that the people of the three vehicles together contemplate dharmatā; thus it is the shared teaching of the three vehicles. Answer: If so, then since the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says that the people of the three vehicles together contemplate the middle way, should that also be the shared teaching of the three vehicles? Question: If it is not the shared teaching of the three vehicles, why are the people of the two vehicles commanded to expound it? Answer: The elder entrusting the wealth has two intentions overall: first, the desire to openly instruct the bodhisattvas; second, secretly instructing the two vehicles. This is in fact putting an end to the two vehicles so that they together become bodhisattvas; how could one say it is the shared teaching of the three vehicles? Third, prajñā is generated from dharmatā; since dharmatā has nothing on which it relies, prajñā also has no attachment. Because prajñā has no attachment, it can guide and fulfill the multitude of practices so that they also have no attachment; therefore one does not abide in the three realms, does not rest in the two vehicles, and goes directly toward the Buddha path. Because it has the capacity to guide, it is called great. Question: The [other] five pāramitās are fundamentally not perfections; because prajñā guides them, they are called perfections. Should it also be that the five pāramitās are fundamentally not eyes, but because prajñā guides them, they come to have eyes? Answer: In a general sense they are analogous, but distinctly they are not equal. Just as five blind persons, though they follow a sighted person along the road to enter the city and thus obtain the name of having crossed over, in their inherent nature as blind, in the end have no eyes themselves; so the five pāramitās, though following prajñā along the Noble Eightfold Path to the city of the Buddha path, yet the inherent nature of the five pāramitās is ultimately not prajñā. Therefore, the two adornments of merit and wisdom are distinguished, and the intention is made apparent here. Question: The Diamond Prajñā says, "A bodhisattva who gives without abiding in characteristics is like the sunlight illuminating and seeing diverse forms." Why do you say that prajñā guiding the five does not form eyes? Answer: Fundamentally prajñā is the eye, and the five pāramitās are not eyes; it is only that prajñā guides them, causing them to become free of attainment, not abiding in the three realms, not falling into the two vehicles, and proceeding directly toward the Buddha path, and thus they are merely named 'having eyes'. It does not mean they become the eye of prajñā. Question: If non-attainment is the eye among the multitude of practices, should non-attainment also be wisdom? Why distinguish the two adornments of merit and wisdom? Answer: Non-attainment is shared, whereas merit and wisdom are distinct. Taking non-attainment as wisdom also has this meaning, but it is not the wisdom of prajñā. Why is this? Prajñā has non-attainment and also has illumination; the five pāramitās have only non-attainment and do not have illumination, so they are not called wisdom. Fourth, the fifty-two kinds of great worthy and noble ranks are all within the treasury of prajñā, and it is therefore called great. Why is this? When combined, there is only the one prajñā; yet because of differences in brightness and obscurity, it is divided to form the fifty-two ranks. Fifth, one cultivates this great wisdom for three great asaṃkhyeya-kalpas, and it is therefore called great. Sixth, it can sever great delusion, namely fundamental ignorance. Therefore the sūtra says, "The entrenchment of ignorance: its power is the greatest." Although the two vehicles overturn the four entrenchments, they cannot sever it; only when the bodhisattva illuminates and exhausts dharmatā is this great delusion eliminated, and it is therefore called great. Seventh, it can uproot all great suffering inside and outside the three realms, and it is therefore called great. Eighth, it is the Dharma practiced by all great bodhisattvas, and it is therefore called great. Ninth, among the multitude of practices it is the most supreme, without surpass, and it is therefore called great. Tenth, having faith in it brings great merit, and slandering it incurs great sin, and it is therefore called great. These ten meanings: some are comprehensively based on conditions, and some fully encompass the two wisdoms; one may assign them according to their sense. Question: Does prajñā get the name 'great' in dependence on the small, or without dependence on the small? Answer: It has both meanings. First, in dependence on the small wisdom of the two vehicles, it is therefore called great. Question: The two vehicles are small wisdom, and the bodhisattva is great wisdom. The two vehicles have small prajñā, and the bodhisattva has great prajñā. Why is it said that prajñā does not belong to the two vehicles? Is it named the aids to the path in the minds of the two vehicles? Answer: Lecturers do not understand its purport and become stuck upon these words. The treatise says, "Prajñā does not belong to the two vehicles"—this is the mahāprajñā that is the great wisdom of the bodhisattva, so it does not belong to the two vehicles; it does not mean that persons of the two vehicles have no emptiness wisdom. Second, regarding it being called great without dependence on the small: the essential nature of prajñā is great, so it is said to not depend on the small. It is not like the wisdom of the two vehicles, which, compared to ordinary people, is great, but viewed in relation to the bodhisattva, is small. Question: The bodhisattva, compared to the two vehicles, is great, but viewed in relation to the Buddha, prajñā is small; thus in the mind of the Buddha it changes its name to sarvajña. How can you say its essential nature is great? Answer: Prajñā is the culmination in the causal stage, its efficacy residing in the ten stages; therefore it is called great, without being compared to the Buddha. Furthermore, prajñā applies to both cause and fruit; prajñā on the fruit ground is the most supreme and unsurpassable, so its essential nature is great. As Master [Kumāra]jīva said: "Sarvaprajñā is venerable prajñā." Again, speaking of 'greatness transcending relativity': getting the name 'great' in dependence on the small, although transcending the small, still does not transcend the great, and since it can be reached by words and names, it is not genuine greatness; only when both greatness and smallness are transcended is it genuine greatness. Question: What text proves this? Answer: The title says Mahāprajñā: prajñā is so deep and momentous that 'wisdom' cannot adequately name it; likewise mahā is so deep and momentous that 'great' cannot adequately name it. This is precisely the proof. Furthermore, the chapter on 'Illumination' says, "Not making great or small is called mahā"—this again is excellent proof. Question: If both greatness and smallness are transcended, it can be called transcending greatness. Now, being neither great nor small, it is praised as great, which returns to depending on the small; how can it be called transcending relativity? Answer: This 'great' transcends small and transcends great, and is therefore called transcending relativity. Question now: If transcending great and transcending small is called great, then depending on great and depending on small are both called small; this is the mutual relativity of great and small, so how can there be a greatness transcending relativity? Answer: Looked at from the preceding perspective, it is transcendent; observed from the subsequent perspective, it is relative; the meanings do not conflict. Question: What is the difference between the greatness of prajñā and the greatness of nirvāṇa? Answer: Speaking comprehensively, there is no difference. Therefore the treatise says, "If one contemplates the Buddha, prajñā, and nirvāṇa in accord with the Dharma, these three are one single mark." The illumination of nirvāṇa is itself prajñā; the cessation of prajñā is itself nirvāṇa. In nirvāṇa, there being no defilement that is not exhausted is called liberation; there being no object that is not illuminated is called prajñā; the true culmination that can serve as a standard is called the dharmakāya. Therefore, possessing the three virtues, it is called nirvāṇa. Prajñā is itself nirvāṇa, and therefore it also possesses the three virtues. Yet prajñā is merely wisdom, and is thus called distinct; nirvāṇa is also merely the fruit, and the fruit is also distinct. Question: Prajñā is one virtue among the three virtues of nirvāṇa; should it also be that nirvāṇa is one virtue among the three virtues of prajñā? Answer: It can also be taken as analogous. Using the distinctness of prajñā completes nirvāṇa, and taking the distinctness of nirvāṇa also completes prajñā. The distinctness of prajñā is wisdom, and the distinctness of nirvāṇa is called extinction; therefore the fruitional virtue of nirvāṇa and the prajñā of the Buddha ground each possess both the general and the distinct. Question: The three virtues of liberation constitute nirvāṇa; why is it not said that the three virtues constitute prajñā? Answer: Whatever single virtue is adduced, it subsumes all virtues; why would it not be so? But teachings arise, each with its own reason: the arising of the Nirvāṇa [teaching] was specifically to refute the Lesser Vehicle's ash-and-extinction as not possessing the three virtues, and to praise the Great Nirvāṇa as possessing the three virtues. The arising of the prajñā teaching specifically clarifies causal practice, refuting the two vehicles as lacking the two wisdoms, and distinguishing the bodhisattva as possessing the provisional and the real. Question: Why is nirvāṇa based on the fruit, while prajñā is based on the cause? Answer: Nirvāṇa is called extinction and crossing over. 'Extinction and crossing over' means that great afflictions are eternally extinguished and one transcends the four torrents. This name must refer to the ultimate, and is therefore approached from the gate of the fruit. Prajñā is called wisdom; wisdom is not yet completely determined, so it is appropriate to base it on the cause.