Chengguan (澄觀, 738-839), the fourth patriarch of the Huayan School during the Tang Dynasty, used the Sui Dynasty Jizang’s (吉藏, 549-623) theories of the fundamental dharma wheel ( 根本法輪 ) and the dharma wheel of assimilating the derivative into the origin (攝末歸本法輪) to expound the relationship between the Lotus Sūtra (法華經) and the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (華嚴經, also known as Flower Adornment Sūtra or Huayan Sūtra). Chengguan believed that the Avataṃsaka Sūtra was the fundamental dharma wheel, while the Lotus Sūtra was the dharma wheel that assimilated the derivative into the origin, in which the “origin” referred to the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. However, Chengguan did not provide any explanation on how the Lotus Sūtra was assimilating the derivative into the origin, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Yet, Chengguan’s viewpoints had drawn severe criticism from Tientai (天台) masters Congyi (從義, 1042-1091) and Chuyuan (處元, 1030-1119?). The discourses of these two masters could be traced back to the Tang-Dynasty Zhanran’s (湛然, 711-782) The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sūtra (法華文句記). It is difficult to conclude that whether Zhanran was criticizing Chengguan or not, but Congyi and Chuyuan had disagreed about Chengguan’s viewpoint certainly. For they thought Jizang had then turned to believe in Zhiyi (智顗, 539-598), and thus the three turnings of the dharma wheel had to be abolished. In addition, by applying the “milk metaphor” (乳喻) of the five flavors to advocate his viewpoint in different time periods, which are fresh milk (乳), cream (酪), curdled milk (生酥), butter (熟酥) and ghee (醍醐), could he explain how the Avataṃsaka Sūtra surpass a teaching regarded as the flavor of ghee since it is only compared to the flavor of fresh milk? In The Essential Meaning of the Huayan School (華嚴宗要義), Japanese monk Ningran (凝 然 , 1240-1321) of the Huayan School wrote that he considered that Cengguan’s proposal of “Lotus Sūtra’s Assimilating the Derivative into the Origin, Avataṃsaka Sūtra” actually implied that there were theoretic paths leading to the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Special Teaching of the One Vehicle (別教一乘) through the Lotus Sūtra, the Common Teaching of the One Vehicle (同教一乘). These paths consisted of three courses: (1) The adherents of the Two Vehicles believed in the Mahāyāna (大乘) and became the “Detour-path Bodhisattvas,” ( 迴心菩薩 ) detouring into the Special Teaching of the One Vehicle through the Common Teaching of the One Vehicle; (2) If the “Straight-path Bodhisattvas” (直進菩薩) believed the causes and effects theory of the Two Vehicles, they also needed to detour into the Special Teaching of the One Vehicle through the Common Teaching of the One Vehicle; (3) As for the “Straight-path Bodhisattvas” who did not believe the causes and effects theory of the Two Vehicles, they could approach straight into the Special Teaching of the One Vehicle when advancing to the bodhisattva grounds.
