讀僧叡〈小品經序〉 =Treading a New Course--Coalescence of the Saddharmapundarika and the Prajnaparamita in Sengrui's "Preface to the Small Version of Prajnaparamita"
By deciphering Sengrui's"Preface to the Small Version of Prajnaparamita, "this paper presents a departure point where the Buddhist development in China differed from its counterpart in India. In the beginning of the fifth century，Chinese Buddhism was dominated by two modes of interpretation of the Prajnaparamita：native concept-matching (geyi) and Indian Sarvastivada. Kumarajiva diverted the interpretation to the Madhyamika philosophical discourse by introducing four Madhyamika sastras and retranslating many Mahayana sutras (including Saddharmapundarika and two versions of Prajnaparamita). To antagonize concept-matching and Sarvasitvadin Buddhist thoughts, while avoiding the nihilist aftermath of Madhyamika, Kumarajiva brought up the doctrine of ekayana and argued that it underlay in both the Prajnaparamita and the Saddharmapundarika. With the doctrine of ekayana, Kumarajiva demonstrated the Buddha's wisdom and compassion as a unity represented in the Prajnaparamita and the Saddharmapundarika and asserted that the coalescence of these two scriptures was the full unfolding of Mahayana Buddhism. Such an argument，noted in Sengrui's Preface，was never seen in Indian Madhyamika Buddhism，but it since became the foundation of the subsequent Buddhist development in China.
