Commentarial Interpretations of the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa in the Controversy over Requiring Buddhist Monastics to Pay Homage to the Emperor During the Sui and Tang Dynasties
Once Buddhism had become established in China, one of the central issues in the relations between the Saṃgha and the state was the ongoing controversy over requiring Buddhist monastics to pay homage to the emperor. When this controversy resurfaced at the end of the Sui dynasty and the beginning of the Tang dynasty, the participants in the debate frequently referred to the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa to support their arguments. In this paper, I discuss these references to the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa and how they were interpreted by various participants. I argue that the ideas of “the distinction between expedient means and monastic conventions” and “the distinction between individual realization and general ethics” prevalent in the Buddhist circles of the Sui and Tang dynasties are in line with the concepts of “veneration out of gratitude” and “signless veneration” used for interpreting the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa, indicating that the Sui and Tang Buddhist communities had a common understanding on this issue. A more extreme position was that of Kuiji, who interprets the relevant passages in the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa in terms of “forgetting decorum out of ignorance” in his arguments against the institutional feasibility of requiring monastics to pay homage to the emperor. The arguments put forth in this debate clearly reflect the interaction between Buddhism, absolute monarchy, and historical events in China, in a fusion of intellectual and social history.
目次
Abstract 1 Keywords 1 1. Introduction 1 2. Emperor Yang of Sui’s Interpretation of the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa 3 3. The Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa in the Debate on Monastics Paying Homage to the Emperor during the Early and Middle Tang Dynasty 5 4. The Commentarial Interpretation of the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa 9 (1) Veneration out of gratitude 10 (2) Signless veneration 10 (3) Forgetting decorum out of ignorance 11 5. Conclusions 12 Notes 13 References 14 Primary Source 14 Secondary Source 15
