華嚴經義海百門 1.145

1.145

The Hundred Gates to the Sea of Meanings was composed by National Preceptor Xianshou based on the distinctive teaching of the ekayāna. It encapsulates the great sūtra, elucidates the profound purport, gathers the ten gates to analyze the hundred meanings, and fuses the myriad dharmas to return them to a single dust mote. Alas! The instructions of our ancestor and his surviving writings still remain, yet none transmits them. The Dharma-descendant from Jinshui, Jingyuan, courtesy name Bochang, has toiled with determination in this for many years. He then searched everywhere for ancient manuscripts, examining each of the ten gates. The preceding nine gates fully displayed the introductory intent and laid out the meanings with a general conclusion, yet only the final gate lacked its general conclusion. Was it that various copies omitted text in transcription? Or did the ancestral master mutually abbreviate his phrasing? Or, furthermore, was the sixth, "Manifestation of Differences," mistakenly titled "Complete Illumination of Untying Bonds"? These are arbitrary opinions of later people regarding the discrepancies in the bamboo slips. Now, having thoroughly settled them, I have combined the sixth through the tenth together with the preceding five gates into one fascicle. Fearing that future generations might not know this, I record it directly to show its intent. On the nineteenth day of the fourth month in the jiyou year, the second year of the Xining era [1069 CE], prefaced in the Abbot's quarters of the Lecture Cloister of the Precious Pavilion at Qingtun.