北山錄 2.2.2

2.2.2

5. Bhadrayānīya, 6. Saṃmatīya, 7. Channagirika, 8. Mahīśāsaka, 9. Dharmaguptaka, 10. Kāśyapīya, 11. Sautrāntika. The Haimavata was the original school; [together] they formed twenty schools.) Alas, the pure was converted into the diluted, and the great meaning was thereby perverted! (Purity refers to richness, and dilution to thinness. A hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, [Buddhism] split into twenty schools, and the flavor of the Dharma grew weak and diluted.) The gold staff was split and the cotton cloth contested; whereupon they drank from divided streams. (This is like a single gold staff divided into five sections, each section being gold—just as the Buddha-Dharma split into five schools. King Kṛkī, father of Kāśyapa Buddha, once had ten dreams, all of which presaged the bequeathed teachings and disciples of Śākyamuni. In one dream, he saw a single piece of white cotton cloth for which twenty men contended, yet the cloth in the end was not torn. This presaged that these twenty schools of the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna would contend, and thereafter drink from divided streams.) Thus the various schools said, 'Such a sūtra is not chanted in our school'; yet within their own schools, they all attain liberation. (Each regarded their own school's teaching as the word of the Buddha and other schools' as not.) The *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa* of the Mahāyāna school states that Mañjuśrī held a great assembly with various disciples at the Iron Enclosure Mountain and summoned Ānanda to recite it, which was not something that the śrāvakas participated in hearing. (The *Dazhidulun* also says: the *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa* explains that the Mahāyāna compilation was compiled by the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī together with Ānanda and others at the Iron Enclosure Mountain. At that time, all were of the Mahāyāna; the śrāvakas of lesser wisdom did not participate in the assembly.) When śrāvakas hear it, they become confused, disoriented, and mistaken; this refers perhaps to those of a different vehicle, (Meaning the two vehicles are true śrāvakas.) or perhaps to those who do not turn their minds [toward the Mahāyāna]. (This refers to the class of determined śrāvakas who definitively do not turn their minds, ash their bodies, and extinguish their wisdom. When they hear the Mahāyāna taught, they are confused, mistaken, and do not believe.) As for other sūtras and other sages disparaging [the teachings] without relying on treatises—could it be that practice is arduous, and they are also incapable of knowing them? (Perhaps there are scriptural teachings of other schools and sages of various schools who disparage treatises and do not accept them; this is because treatises belong to the study of wisdom whose principles are profound and subtle, truly difficult to study, and also not easy to know.) Maitreya composed the *Yogācārabhūmi*, totaling seventeen grounds: (1. The ground associated with the five sensory consciousnesses, 2. the mental ground, 3. the ground with examination and investigation, 4. the ground without examination but with investigation, 5. the ground without examination or investigation, 6. the samāhita ground, 7. the non-samāhita ground, 8. the ground with mind, 9. the ground without mind, 10. the ground accomplished through hearing, 11. the ground accomplished through reflection, 12. the ground accomplished through cultivation, 13. the śrāvaka ground, 14. the pratyekabuddha ground, 15. the bodhisattva ground, 16. the ground with residue, and 17. the ground without residue.) which fully sets forth the three vehicles, unfolding and disseminating them. (In Sanskrit, it is called *yoga*; here, it is translated as *xiangying* [correspondence]. It means that all the objects, practices, fruits, and other phenomena of all vehicles are called correspondence. Thus, the seventeen grounds are called its master.) Later scholars took Mañjuśrī to represent the Dharma-nature (dharmatā) and Maitreya to represent the Dharma-characteristics (dharmalakṣaṇa). (The Dharma-nature takes the harmonizing contemplation of ultimate truth as its portal; the Dharma-characteristics take the systematic layout of consciousness-aspects as its purport.) Each set up their own boundaries, vied with one another in chapters and sentences, and boasted of their own excellence, (Later people had differences regarding what they privileged between nature and characteristics. Those who privileged the nature took harmonizing contemplation as superior; those who privileged characteristics took differentiation as good. Each formed factions around their own school.) causing people from the Western Regions to China up to the present day to have the division between the Southern and Northern schools. Thus, the Southern School takes emptiness, the conventional, and the middle as the three contemplations; (Contemplating the emptiness of the pervasive afflictions can reveal the ultimate truth: this is the contemplation of ultimate truth. Contemplating dependent origination as provisional existence is the contemplation of conventional truth. Contemplating the non-differentiation of the ultimate and conventional is the contemplation of supreme truth.) while the Northern School takes the imaginary, the dependent, and the consummate as the three natures. (The imaginary arises based on deluded sentiments; the dependent arises provisionally from multiple conditions; the consummate is the ultimate truth.) However, the *Avataṃsaka* encompasses the dharmadhātu through essence, virtuous characteristics, and karmic functions; (That is, discussing encompassing and embracing in terms of the essence and functions of that which is realized and the means of realization.) once one grasps its portal, it unifies North and South—as easily as pointing to one's palm! (Those who study the *Avataṃsaka* exhaustively penetrate the source of both nature and characteristics, fully plumbing the purport of both North and South.) As for the transmission of the Dharma in India, from the Great Turtle Clan down to the Bhikṣu Siṃha, there were twenty-four individuals, who elegantly inherited the true pronouncements and widely disseminated them. (From after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, Great Kāśyapa upheld the Dharma treasury down to the Bhikṣu Siṃha, totaling twenty-four individuals, who elegantly carried on the footsteps of the Munificent One and wondrously propagated the profound legacy of the ancestral sages.) When Siṃha met harm in Kashmir, the master-to-disciple transmission and entrustment was extinguished. (The Bhikṣu Siṃha transmitted the Dharma to the country of Kashmir, where he was killed by the king of Kashmir. From then on, though the Dharma treasury was transmitted, its Way became diluted.) Yet the disciplinary rules (vinaya) for guarding against transgressions were instituted exclusively by the Great Sage. (As for discipline: in Sanskrit, it is called *vinaya*; here, it is translated as 'the treasury of subduing'. It prevents wrongdoing, stops evil, and subdues the three karmas of sentient beings. It was personally instituted by the Tathāgata and most strictly entrusted.) Because the precepts concern the karma of the seven branches, and the nature of karma is exceedingly profound, only one who has attained the power of karmic knowledge can fully grasp their number. (The seven branches: the three bodily karmas of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, and the four vocal karmas of harsh speech, divisive speech, false speech, and frivolous speech; together these constitute the seven branches. One who attains the power of knowledge comprehends the enumeration of karmas.) Therefore, allowances and prohibitions, observing and violating, involve harm and benefit; yet neither the past buddhas nor the future buddhas ever entrusted another mouth to utter them. (In the Dharma, allowances grant accommodation, while prohibitions terminate actions. Observing means steadfastly keeping them without breach; violating means mistakenly transgressing without observing. The Vinaya Piṭaka was personally instituted by the Buddha and not transmitted by entrusting another mouth.) Furthermore, he strictly established its defenses so that speech does not drift into heedless conduct, and the mind is assisted by concentration and wisdom so as to reach ultimate release; (The Tathāgata clearly instituted the prohibitive precepts, strictly setting up protective defenses against drifting. The mind practices concentration and wisdom so as to reach ultimate release. Ultimate release is like an object tied with a rope, suspended: wisdom comprehends and penetrates, just like untying it.) therefore it is also called the prātimokṣa. (*Prātimokṣa* is translated here as 'individual liberation precept', meaning that the seven classes of disciples observe them individually and obtain liberation; also, by observing one precept, one attains one liberation.) Sūtras are spoken through five kinds of beings, (The *Dazhidulun* states: the five persons are: 1. the Buddha, 2. disciples, 3. divine ṛṣis, 4. devas, and 5. apparitional beings.) to manifest good and denounce evil, guide beings to arouse faith, and determine the false and the true; thus all can be called having the sense of a 'carpenter's marking line'. ('Manifest' means to make clear; 'denounce' means to treat as an illness. It treats evil as an illness and makes good clear, guiding and arousing them. If there are those who do not believe, it guides them to believe; what is undetermined, it settles; what is crooked, it rectifies—just as a worldly marking line can rectify the crookedness of timber.) Exhaustively encompassing the nature and characteristics without letting them scatter and be lost, and threading them through human minds, all can be called having the sense of 'stringing garlands'.