The Awakening of Faith 大乘起信論 (AF) is a well-known Buddhist text about Tathāgatagarbha, which profoundly influenced Fazang 法藏’s thought and played an essential role in the development of Huayan Buddhism. As a disciple of Fazang, Huiyuan慧苑 (673?–743?) attached great importance to Tathāgatagarbha, but rarely mentioned the AF in the Xu huayan lüeshu kanding ji 続華厳略疏刊定記.In Huiyuan’s view, the AF is basically a treatise about the theory of “the non-obstruction between the absolute and phenomena 理事無碍”, and its content could be comprehended through the concepts of “mind-only (唯心)” and “dharmatā 法性”. Huiyuan’s twofold interpretation of “ten mysteries (十玄)”,a concept developed from “three greatnesses (三大)”, apparently has a deep relation to the Ratnagotravibhāga (RGV). In Huiyuan’s Huayan Budddhism, the superiority of AF is no longer emphasized. It is reasonable to say that this change may be genuinely related to the inheritance of Fazang’s attention to RGV in his later years.
