肇論疏 3.7

3.7

Second, narrating nirvāṇa. 'It is that to which the three vehicles return': this means practitioners of the three vehicles all return to this Way. 'The abyssal treasury of the vaipulya': all Mahāyāna sūtras are called vaipulya. Among the twelve divisions there is the vaipulya division; vaipulya (fangguang) is just vaipulya (fangdeng). Because it is square and vast (fanghong) and correctly equal (zhengdeng), it is called vaipulya. Yet the words and traces explained in the vaipulya are not singular; all of them take nirvāṇa as the exhausting of principle, the full realization of nature, and ultimate without remainder; hence it is called an 'abyssal treasury'. 'Abyss' refers to an abyssal pool; 'treasury' refers to a storehouse. An abyssal pool has deep water; a storehouse has abundant wealth. The Mao Classic of Poetry says: 'Abyss means deep.' 'Vast, faint, and subtle, transcending the realm of seeing and hearing': vast and indistinct, without sound and without form; hence it says 'transcending seeing and hearing'. 'Its dark import is empty and profound, hardly to be measured by the ordinary sentiments of the multitude': to measure means to gauge. It means the purport and principle of nirvāṇa are dark and profound, not to be gauged by ordinary people. 'Hardly' (dai) means nearly. Nearly means closely (as pronounced). Closely, it is not something the sentiments of the multitude can gauge.