On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s6.18

Language: English

v1.c8.s6.18.1

After mastering the Siddham the Indian child, according to Yuan-chuang, was introduced to the “great śāstras of the Five Sciences (Wu-ming-ta-lun 五明大論). The word ming of this phrase is often used to translate the Sanskrit word vidyā, but a five-fold classification of vidyā does not seem to be known to Indian literature. We find, however, our pilgrim’s list in certain Chinese translations of Buddhist books and the “sciences” are there acquired by aspiring Bodhisattvas.¹ They are called the “Five Science places” or the “Five Science śāstras”. In his translation of the present passage Julien has treated the name of each ming as the name of a treatise. This is evidently a mistake, and the context shews that ming here denotes a department of knowledge, and that the Wu-ming named are the literatures of five categories of learning and speculation. Yuan-chuang properly places at the head the Shêng-ming or “Science of Sounds”, i. e. Grammar. Julien agrees with I-ching in giving Śabdavidyā as the original for this term. But Śabdavidyā was apparently the Buddhist name for Grammar which by the people of India generally was called Vyākarana. It is this latter word also which Yuan-chuang elsewhere uses as the original for Shêng-ming. The next group is called Chiao-or in some texts Kung-chiao(工巧)-ming, the “Science of the Arts and Crafts”. Julien retranslates the Chinese name by Śilpasthānavidyā, which seems to be rather the original for the “Arts-place Science” of the sūtra.

v1.c8.s6.18.2

The third group is the I-fang-ming, “Healing-prescriptions Science”, that is Medical science in all its branches. Julien gives as the Sanskrit original for the Chinese name Chikitsāvidyā or Science of Medicine, but this seems to be only a conjecture. The fourth group in our passage is the Yin(因)-ming or the Science of Reasoning. Julien restores the Sanskrit equivalent as Hetuvidyā which, like Yin-ming, means literally “Science of causation”. But Yin-ming is the technical term used to translate the Nyāya or Logic of Indian writers, and Julien learned afterwards that it was Nyāya which was the original for Yin-ming. The fifth is the Nei(內)-ming or "Internal Science"; Julien translates "la science des choses intérieures" and gives as the Sanskrit original Adhyātma-vidyā. This word adhyātma means (1) the highest spirit and (2) belonging to oneself. In Kapila's system adhyātmika means self-caused (in Chinese i-nei 依內), and it is opposed to that which is due to external influences. But in the present passage, as the context shows, and as we learn from other authorities, the nei-ming or Inner science is Buddhism. The son of Buddhist parents went through a course of secular instruction like other boys, and he also studied the books of his religion including the metaphysical and argumentative treatises of the great Doctors of Abhidharma. In these he learned all about the Five degrees or "Five Vehicles, the fivefold gradation of moral beings.

v1.c8.s6.18.3

These "vehicles" or progressive stages are given as lay believer (or "inferior degree"), ordained disciple, Pratyeka Buddha, Bodhisattva, Buddha. They are also said to be Men, Devas, ordained disciples, Pratyeka Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas, and there is further difference of opinion as to the classes of beings which form the successive groups.¹ In the Buddhist śāstras moreover the student found the doctrine of karma stated, defended, and illustrated with a subtlety of intellect and boldness of imagination almost matchless. All the five groups of learning here enumerated were apparently comprised in the training of an Indian Buddhist; and no one could be a leader in the church, or an authority on dogma, who did not shew himself a proficient in these departments of learning. We are told of Kumārajīva that he studied the śāstras of the Five sciences, and of Guṇabhadra it is recorded that in his youth he learned all the śāstras of the Five sciences, astronomy, arithmetic, medicine, exorcisms. The religious training in the Tripitaka was according to some authorities a separate affair, while others treat it as a part of the "Inner Science".