華嚴經內章門等雜孔目章 1.22

1.22

Regarding the four kinds of birth, they are egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born. The four kinds of birth belong to the three realms; the Buddha is assimilable to the womb-born. In pure lands there are two births, namely, moisture-born and transformation-born. Why is this? The transformation-born have all faculties fully developed at once. In pure lands, there are lotuses that develop gradually, hence one knows that there is moisture-birth. Amitābha Buddha had his parents; in accordance with this, the Buddha is assimilable to the womb-born, but because there is nothing strictly analogous, there is no womb-birth. With respect to the six destinies within the three realms: among humans all four kinds of birth are fully present; among beasts all four are also fully present; among ghosts it is indeterminate—if principal ghosts, they are solely transformation-born, while if marginal ghosts, they encompass all four. The hells and the heavens are solely transformation-born. Therefore, the Hīnayāna treatise states: "The four kinds of birth subsume the six destinies; the destinies do not subsume the births, because within the six destinies there are the four kinds of birth." The four kinds of birth subsume the six destinies, [yet] the six destinies are indeterminate [with] two pairs [and] one; for this reason, the six destinies do not subsume the four kinds of birth. The remaining points of doctrine are as in a separate chapter. The demarcation of the teaching on the above-mentioned four kinds of birth is to be understood in accordance with the preceding passages.