On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.68

v2.c19.68

The story of the controversy here related by Yuan-chuang was apparently derived from an unscrupulous Buddhist of Magadha. It does not agree with Yuan-chuang's statement that the site of the mountain monastery was the scene of the discussion, and it need not be taken seriously. The Guṇamati of our author cannot be the āchārya of the same name who was the teacher of Vasumitra and wrote a commentary on the "Abhidharmakośa". Nor can he be the Guṇamati of Tāranātha, contemporary with king Pantshama-siṃha, and beaten in discussion by a disciple of the philosopher against whom he had written a treatise.¹ I-ching mentions a distinguished Buddhist named Guṇamati as having lived in a time not remote from his own period, but this sage was devoted to dhyāna.² Our pilgrim styles his Guṇamati a Bodhisattva, and describes him as coming from "South India"; he also associates him with Sthiramati; and represents the two as being distinguished in Nalanda for the elegance of their compositions, and as having sojourned and written in Valabhi in South India.¹ It may have been this Guṇamati who composed the treatise with the name, as rendered in Chinese, “Sui-hsiang-lun” (隨相論). This work, translated by Paramārtha about A. D. 560, is apparently only an extract from a large treatise with this name. B. Nanjio retranslates the title by “Lakṣaṇānusāra śāstra”, but the original name may have been something very different. This treatise cites the Vibhāshā and Sūtra-Upadeśa Masters, Vasubandhu, Bavarika (?), and others, and it shews an intimate acquaintance with the Sāṅkhya teachings²