華嚴發菩提心章 1.2

1.2

There are different variants of this essay, yet the text contains many errors and quite a few words and sentences are missing. Now, based on the various editions from Toganoo and the Southern Capital (Nara), corrections and revisions have been made in accordance with the meaning. These emendations are not based on private opinion; whenever there is a major discrepancy in the text, it is appended in the upper margin. The Fajie yijing states: "Master Xiangxiang's Bodhicitta Essay records the contemplation gates of the dharmadhātu in order to elucidate the characteristics of arousing the mind." Therefore, in the fourth section of the present essay, "Manifesting the Virtues," there are five gates: from the first, the contemplation of true emptiness, to the third, the contemplation of omnipresent and all-embracing [inclusion], it quotes that text of contemplation in its entirety. Furthermore, texts such as Yuanchao's Shuchao lu, Gyōnen's Kegonshū yōgi, Eichō's Tōiki dentō roku, and the Kōzanji zōmoku all attribute the authorship to Xianshou. There is also an extant work titled Avataṃsaka-samādhi Essay, but its text is largely the same as this essay. Could it be that later scholars mistakenly took a fragmentary edition of this essay to be the Samādhi Essay? Thus, when the Tanxuan ji explains the ten levels of consciousness-only, it states: "What has been explained above is discussed in terms of teaching with respect to understanding. If one considers contemplation and practice, there are also ten levels, as explained in the one-fascicle Avataṃsaka-samādhi." However, upon examining what the world titles the Samādhi Essay, it lacks that text entirely; therefore, we must know that it is definitely not what was referred to in the Tanxuan ji.