Tripitaka; Sutrapitaka; Samdhinirmocanasutra; Truth
摘要
The Samdhinirmocana-sutra is the primary scriptural basis for the Yogacara school, one of the two main philosophical schools of Indian Mahayana Buddhism (the other being Madhyamaka). This dissertation is a detailed examination of the concept of the ultimate as set forth in this text and contains materials from a wide range of commentarial literature from India, Tibet, and China. This topic is central to the sutra's presentation of hermeneutics, which is based on the understanding of the ultimate as outlined in the text and figures prominently in the sutra's explication of the ideal worldview of someone who understands its thought.
The first part of the dissertation is an introduction to scholarly study of the text, then discusses the various Tibetan and Chinese recensions of the sutra, its position in the literature of Indian Buddhism and particularly the Yogacara school, and the two largest commentaries on the sutra, by Wonch'uk and Jang-chup-dzu-trul.
The next section discusses the meaning of the title of the sutra and defends my rendering of this title as "Sutra Explaining the Thought".
This is followed by a discussion of the sutra's presentation of the ultimate, which is said to be "ineffable and of a non-dual character", "a character that transcends all argumentation", "a character that transcends sameness and difference", and "a character that is everywhere of one taste". The dissertation examines the ramifications of these characterizations and how the commentaries explain them.
Chapter three discusses theories about hermeneutics in the sutra and examines the relation between reasoning, tradition, and implicit notions of authority in the text.
The preface to the translation discusses the various Tibetan versions of the sutra, the opinions of contemporary scholars concerning their relations, and my own observations based on my study of the Samdhinirmocana. This is followed by a translation of the sutra, which consists of ten chapters of uneven length. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
