Buddhist Studies Program of the Department of the Languages and Cultures
指導教授
Hallisey, Charles
畢業年度
2002
附註項
576p
關鍵詞
doctrine; Panjiao systems; Chinese Buddhism; Doctrinal classification; Chinese; Panjiao
摘要
This thesis surveys the schema (Ch. panjiao) for the classification of Buddhist texts and doctrines from their beginnings in the fifth century to Fazang (643–712). The panjiao schema were one of the ways that Chinese Buddhist thinkers ordered and systematized the diversity of Buddhist thought made available to them through translation. Indeed, the history of panjiao schema is tied to that of the translation of Buddhist texts in China. The schema appeared soon after the massive and comprehensive translations by Kumārajīva (334–412) and ended, for all intents and purposes with Fazang, by whose time significant translation had ended.
On the basis of a comprehensive picture of the panjiao schema in Chinese Buddhism afforded by the use of digitized Buddhist texts, I suggest that there were two styles of use of the panjiao schema, sectarian and ecumenical. The sectarian style is well known in modern scholarship, because it is easily visible in the works of individual thinkers who frequently had sectarian orientations. The ecumenical style is more subtle, and only becomes visible when all the panjiao schema of different thinkers are compared. I establish the existence of this ecumenical style by identifying citations and allusions to previous schema in later presentations. Moreover, I explore in the thesis the degree to which there was an interactive relationship between sectarian and ecumenical styles in the development and use of the panjiao schema, and I suggest that keeping this interaction in mind is essential to our understanding of the history of doctrinal classification in Chinese Buddhism.