大唐內典錄 7.3

7.3

The preface states: That which is called the Hīnayāna canon refers to the gradual teaching of the Buddhas, which accords with conditions and responds to capacities. This is truly because [beings'] intellectual capacities are narrow and shallow, and their attachments are stubborn and unyielding. Emptiness and existence are divided as separate domains, and the mind and sensory dust are distinct spheres. Confining themselves to the bounds of the three realms, their stages are arrayed according to causes and conditions. They overturn the foundational basis of an inverted 'self' and snap the entangling bonds of transmigration. Fearing the long and distant path to Buddhahood, they reside in the conjured city; shrinking from the sūtra-reciting Śrāvakas following masters, they take abode in the realm of emptiness. Sūtras of this kind are called the paths of the Two Vehicles.

Investigating the Teacher of the Doctrine, it particularly traces back to Śākyamuni. Manifesting radiance by relying on the eight phases, he assumed his title while abiding in the three realms. Emerging at birth from the right flank, he attracted his own kind and gathered living beings. Relinquishing royal status as if discarding it, he welcomed deluded wanderers stained by desire. For forty-nine years, the three wheels appeared among humans and gods; living for eighty years, the Four Noble Truths were proclaimed throughout the paths of rebirth. When this path was bestowed upon the world, its openings and guidance were indeed abundant. Yet it was not the Buddha's original intent, but a provisional arrangement responding to capacities. Therefore the sūtra states: In the Buddha-lands of the ten directions, there is only the One Vehicle; according to what is fitting and expedient, three teachings are spoken.

Yet practitioners who matched these capacities cultivated themselves based on the teaching: they severed the entanglements of [clinging to rules and wrong] views, and brought down the birth and death of fragmented lifespans. When those of dull faculties realize this, they claim to have exhausted the origin of the defilements; when those of sharp wisdom clarify their thoughts, they sink into doubt yet rest in the nature of emptiness. Hence the five schools held divergent views and divided into separate calculations to investigate their errors; the eighteen [schools] traced back to the original two to seek their root and know the unity of principle. Thus we know that when the hare and the horse wade across the water, they do not exhaust the prowess of the fragrant elephant; when sheep and deer carry loads, how can they equal the strength of the great ox? Therefore the fundamental principle of the Mahāyāna reaches its culmination in the doctrine of nature-emptiness, whereas the principle of the Hīnayāna is shallow, converging on true understanding through arising and ceasing. Hence the Buddhadhātuśāstra states: Persons of the Two Vehicles regard the observation of arising and ceasing as Thusness. Judging from this, the avenues of the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna are made manifest.

As for that which is subsumed under the Sūtra-piṭaka, it necessarily takes the four Āgamas as its ancestors; responding to capacities in its preaching and guiding, it further opens into the Miscellaneous Piṭaka. The transmission and dissemination of the Vinaya precepts is not included in the sūtras, while the commentaries and expositions of the treatises are the most voluminous and extensive. Moreover, the Great Sage's bestowal of transformation was originally meant to dispel the bonds of delusion: applying medicine according to the disease without being restricted to name or essence. Therefore, when he first expounded the Four Noble Truths, eighty thousand gods produced the aspiration for awakening; later, when he expounded the Six Pāramitās, countless monks awakened to the four fruits. But the remaining shallow ordinary people hold fast to literal teachings and watch the stump, censuring one another, entirely contrary to the original intent. The account of the visiting and old physicians clarifies the ultimate teaching; the slander against the two-legged revered original master is recorded in miscellaneous phrases. The Hīnayāna has no words describing the Mahāyāna, confining itself to its own conceptual calculations; the Mahāyāna contains the purport of the Hīnayāna, penetratingly illuminating and clearing away obscurations. Thus we know that Kāśyapa gave rise to sorrow over being a 'spoiled seed', feeling constrained among his fellow practitioners; and Śāriputra felt regret and distress regarding the nature of dharmas, returning from delusion to awakening. For the rest of the old habitual tendencies, gradual change was difficult, ultimately awaiting the gathering of capacities under different names to confer transformation.

The sūtras now collected here began at the Sage's Deer Park and ended at the Golden River. What was expounded as the 'half-word' teaching is designated the Śrāvaka-piṭaka. The dates of its transmission eastwards are identifiable. In all there are 272 works in 1,494 fascicles, used as the catalogue of the Hīnayāna canon. In addition, there are collections and biographies of worthy and holy figures, amounting to nearly 200 fascicles, whose texts combine both Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna and whose principles mix the noble and the ordinary; these are not subsumed under either of the two canons and are displayed according to their own separate catalogue. As for single translations and retranslations, extant or lost, there is no need to list them separately: they are comprehensively incorporated into the Tripiṭaka. It is hoped that those who examine this may follow each according to its category, and thereby using this broad overview, clearly and easily discern them.