Academic literature on the topic 'Daoxuan'

ABSTRACTThe first recorded biography of Daoxuan 道宣 (596–667) – regarded as the de facto founder of the Vinaya ‘school’ in China – was a stele inscription composed by the scholar-official Li Yong 李邕 (678–747). No longer extant, this inscription was the main biographical source on Daoxuan until the Song Dynasty as well as Zanning’s 贊寜 (919–1001) primary source for his entry on Daoxuan in the Song gaoseng zhuan 宋高僧傳 (Biographies of Eminent Monks [Compiled] under the Song Dynasty). This paper investigates how Li Yong engaged with a monastic community headed by Daoxuan’s disciples in the prefecture of Zizhou 淄州, Henan Circuit. We argue that this group of monks commissioned Li Yong to compose a number of stele inscriptions for Daoxuan himself and several of his disciples and associates.

AbstractAs one of the earliest records pertaining to Bodhidharma, Daoxuan's Xu gaoseng zhuan is a crucial text in the study of so-called Early Chan. Though it is often thought that Daoxuan was attempting to promote the Bodhidharma lineage, recent studies have suggested that he was actually attacking Bodhidharma and his later followers. The present article suggests that such readings are in correct and that Daoxuan was in fact attacking the followers of the Three Levels (Sanjie) movement founded by Xinxing, whose role in defining the meaning of chan during the seventh century has not been sufficiently appreciated. Étant un des premiers documents à parler de Bodhidharma, le Xu Gaoseng zhuan de Daoxuan constitue une source cruciale pour l'étude du "Chan primitif". Même si l'on considère le plus souvent que Daoxuan s'efforçait de promouvoir la lignée de Bodhidharma, plusieurs études récentes suggèrent qu'en fait il attaquait Bodhidharma et ses héritiers. L'auteur suggère que cette interprétation n'est pas correcte: en réalité Daoxuan s'attaquait aux adhérents du mouvement des "Trois niveaux" (Sanjie) fondé par Xinxing, dont la contribution à la définition du sens du chan pendant le VIIe siècle n'a pas encore été suffisamment appréciée.

This article presents a case of the application of Buddhist yinming logic in a public debate between Buddhists and Daoists at the court of Emperor Tang Gaozong, as recorded by Daoxuan in his Ji Gujin Fo Dao Lunheng. The application was successful in the sense that the Buddhist vanquished his Daoist opponent. Yet, yinming logic was not used in other debates against Daoists, not even by Buddhists trained in this particular logic. Why? Looking for answers to this question, the article argues for the importance of common analytical ground in inter-religious, and by extension intercultural debate.

This study provides the first complete translation into a Western language of a fairly unknown but yet important Chinese work, titled the Zhong tianzhu shewei guo qiyuan si tujing (Illustrated Scripture of Jetavana Monastery in the Sravasti Kingdom in Central India), which describes Jetavana Monastery through textual and diagrammatic representations. To understand better the background of the text, I first discussed the life and times of its author Daoxuan (596-667 C.E.), an important figure in the history of Chinese Buddhism particularly in relation to the formation of Chinese Buddhist monasticism. I also explored the scriptural and historical records which might have served as sources for Daoxuan's own portrayal for the history and myth of the Jetavana Monastery. Finally, I offered a synoptic analysis of the text itself. The significance of Daoxuan's representation of Jetavana lies precisely in its function as a blueprint of a utopian Buddhist monastery for the early Tang Buddhists rather than as a faithful reconstruction of the historical site in India. The spatial complex and architectural design of the monastery visibly appropriates the symmetrical structure of the Chang'an City. The monastic compound is spatially organized into specialized cloisters and halls for the Buddha, the various ranks of Buddhist saints, the immortals and heavenly beings, the different commoners and laity who are visiting or living in the monastery. The text interfuses fact and fantasy, historical reality and religious vision; its description of extraordinary artifacts, divine creatures, and plants certainly mirror the Buddhist paradisal representations in texts and art. It is equally important to realize that such imagery is also derived in part from the exotic products, cultural curiosities, fantastical creatures imported from foreign lands that pervaded the markets of the cosmopolitan Chang'an in the Tang. Further investigation in my study of Daoxuan's portrayal of Jetavana suggests that the influence of this text is not only found in the Chinese monastic setting and Dunhuang cave art in the later periods, but its impact is also visible in Japanese Buddhism.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
歷史學研究所
103
Quan-ti Da-yong 全體大用, proposed by Zhu Xi 朱熹 in his annotations of the Great Learning, is an important idea to both Zhu Xi’s own system of Daoxue 道學 and historians’ understanding of early modern Chinese intellectual history. The main contention of this thesis is that Quan-ti Da-yong is the fundamental structure of Zhu Xi’s Daoxue, arguing that ti-yong 體用 is a momentous way in which Zhu Xi interpreted the Dao, cultivating himself and improving the society. Meanwhile, this thesis will venture that scrutinizing Zhu Xi’s Quan-ti Da-yong is of vital importance to our understanding of the intellectual foundations of early modern China. In order to fully appreciate Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong, this study will not be confined to specific methodological claims; it will rely on a sort of idea analysis which takes both the examination on unit-ideas of the history of ideas and the emphasis on the historical contexts of historical agents into account. This thesis consists of four parts that respectively deals with four independent yet closely related issues: First, why did Zhu Xi choose ti-yong as the way to constitute the idealistic learning of sage? Second, what was the characteristic of the mode of thinking of ti-yong through which Zhu Xi constituted the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong? Thirdly, how did the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong work in one’s mind-and-heart 心, as well as what was its ultimate goal? The fourth part of this thesis goes beyond Zhu Xi, comparing the fundamental structure of Zhu Xi’s thoughts with that of his contemporary thinkers in order to determine the position of Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong in the intellectual history of Southern-Song China. In the first part, this study indicates that Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong was a learning tending to solve the problems to which the dualistic worldview originated in the middle ages gave rise. The dualistic worldview means that one may settle down his interior world by Taoism and Buddhism on the one hand, while simultaneously establishing the socio-political order, the order of outer world, according to the teachings of Confucianism on the other. It was incomprehensible for Zhu Xi that one could, at the same time, lead a Taoist-Buddhist and Confucian life; therefore, Zhu Xi tried to conceive a monistic system of value or worldview exclusively belonged to Confucianism. The learning of Quan-ti Da-yong provided the solution to this problem in the sense that ti-yong is compatible with both the viewpoints of the heaven and the human, an argument that could be found in Zhu Xi’s interpretation of sincerity 忠 and empathy 恕. It was due to this characteristic of ti-yong that turned Zhu Xi to employing it in constituting his ideal learning of sage, instead of other prevailing ideas in Song China resulted from the continuation, transformation, and even opposition of the dualistic worldview, such as nei-wai 內外 and ben-mo 本末. The second part of the thesis investigates the process of ti-yong’s development into a mode of thinking, as well as its characteristic. Ti- yong, as a specific idea, came into being during the metaphysical debate, the debate of body and spirit 形神之爭, in Neo-Taoism 玄學. It then became the prevailing idea in the Sui-Tang period due to the preference for metaphysics of Taoism and Buddhism; that is to say, ti-yong had been an idea exclusively dealing with metaphysics since medieval China. However, in the age of Song, the nature of ti-yong gradually changed, when the term was employed by scholars to express or realize the relations of various things. In other words, ti-yong was on its way toward becoming a mode of thinking in terms of its meaning as the way in which things were conceived by scholars. This development of ti-yong as a mode of thinking is prominent in the case of Zhu Xi. Ti-yong has been a mature and critical mode of thinking through which Zhu Xi constituted the learning of sage, the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. It is important to note that although Zhu Xi sometimes used ti-yong to articulate the fundamental structure of Dao, ti-yong should not be construed as the synonym of li-qi 理氣, the elementary composition of the world, as many scholars have suggested. This thesis also argues that the relation of body to its functions is the original model that constituted Zhu Xi’s understanding of ti-yong. This will lead to two main characteristics of Zhu Xi’s mode of thinking of ti-yong: First, ti and yong are inseparable; second, ti is the premise of yong. To some extent, the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong could be regarded as a learning of mind-and-heart 心學 because of its great emphasis upon the cultivation of the mind-and-heart. The third part of this study argues that Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong entailed a structure of mind-with-ti-yong 心有體用, whilst pursuing an ultimate state of consciousness called everything-is-one. Having recourse on repeated meditation on the problem of zhong he 中和 and the delicate reinterpretation of the key idea “mind-and-heart governs xing and qing 心統性情” proposed by Zhang Zai 張載, Zhu Xi finally established the structure of mind-with-ti-yong, the core of his learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. This structure signifies that the operation of mind-and-heart, for instance, self-cultivation, should be accorded with the mode of ti-yong. However, for Zhu Xi, it was necessary to stress that ti-yong, as a mode of self-cultivating, is arranged for ordinary people, for sages are born to be perfect and , therefore, there would be no need for them to cultivate themselves. In spite of the differences between ordinary people and sages, ordinary people can still, by illuminating their own mind-and-heart, reach the ultimate state of consciousness, everything-is-one, as same as the sages born to be. The last part of this thesis turns to a viewpoint of comparative analysis devoting to discuss the position of Zhu Xi’s learning of Quan-ti Da-yong in the intellectual history of Southern-Song. By closely investigating the fundamental structures of the thoughts of the members of the community of Daoxue, this part of the thesis aims at exploring the nuances between Zhang Shi 張栻, Lu Zu-qian 呂祖謙 and Zhu Xi. This part will then go on to argue that, amongst the members of the community, it seems that only Lu Jiu-yuan 陸九淵 refused to embrace the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong, although the disciples of Lu Jiu-yuan gradually adopted the word of ti-yong. In spite of these unnoticeable nuances, Zhedong 浙東 scholars, the rivals of Zhu Xi’s scholarship, still considered ti-yong as a main character of Daoxue. For instance, Chen Liang 陳亮 had ever been convinced by Daoxue in his early days, knowing the importance of ti-yong to Daoxue. But after converging to an utilitarian Confucianism, he vehemently repudiated Daoxue’s inclination for searching the essence of the world. Similar with Chen Liang, Ye Shi 葉適 was skeptical about the idea of ti-yong. Furthermore, Ye Shi disagreed with Zhu Xi’s interpretation of sincerity and empathy, the foundation of the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong. It is worth noting that, despite his unsatisfaction with Zhu Xi’s learning, Ye Shi paid the same attention to the question of nei-wai, a question inquires how one deal with his own spiritual world and outer socio-political world. In fact, Ye Shi even revised Daoxue’s insight into that question, proposing his own opinion that entailed active actions in the realm both of nei and wai. Last but not least, this thesis argues that the learning of Quan-ti Da-yong was widely accepted by the successors of Zhu Xi’s scholarship, such as Huang Han 黃榦, Chen Chun 陳淳, Chen Te-xiu 真德秀. Despite the fact that their learnings of Quan-ti Da-yong were of some differences from the original model of Zhu Xi, it is still evident that Quan-ti Da-yong was a predominant idea in the tradition of Daoxue in Southern-Song China.

碩士
法鼓佛教學院
佛教學系
100
The concept of lineage is very important in the study of Chan School (Chanzong) 禪宗. It is because belonging to a lineage indicates that a Chan practitioner has received transmission, which connects all the way back to Śākyamuni Buddha. Chan scholar Faure said: “It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that everything in Chan revolves around the patriarchal lineage”.Faure （1991: 11) Chan Masters and their disciples have faithfully associated themselves with their lineage, tradition, and meditation methods. Contemporary scholars of Chan studies tend to doubt the authenticity of the lineage of the early Chan patriarchs, particularly the lineage between the Third patriarch Sengcan 僧璨 and Fourth patriarch Daoxin 道信. This thesis takes issue with such doubt by re-examining the lineage between Sengcan and Daoxin. Based on a close survey on both Buddhist and non-Buddhist materials as well as newly found archeological excavation, this thesis concludes that the lineage between Sengcan and Daoxin is genuine. This study also addresses a methodological issue. In my view, the distinction between historiography and hagiography cannot be equated to distinction between history and legend. More precisely, I would argue that hagiographical materials should not be rejected of their historical value simply because they are regarded as “hagiography.” In my research, I found that the materials considered as “non-historical” texts or hagiography of later years, like Records of Lamp (Denglu) 燈錄, by the modern scholars, agree with the facts in the recent archeological findings. I may not be able to resolve all the related issues regarding the lineage of early Chan, because it is impossible to exhaust all the related historical records and texts completely. I hope that my study will be able to throw in some new light regarding the following: 1) The modern scholars’ skepticism on some of the existing texts/documents of the early Chan schools shows that cautious attitude on the study of these texts is necessary, especially towards the nature and genre of texts/documents, as well as the obscurity of the records; 2) To show that there is a possible legitimacy of the lineage between Sengcan and Daoxin through analyzing various Chan and non-Buddhist history texts, archaeological findings and their meditation methods.

博士
國立中正大學
歷史所
93
The Daoxue（道學）of the Southern Sung dynasty was not only greatly influential in the philosophy history but also the academic mainstream of that time. It also affected the Chinese cultural development during 12th and 13th century. Generally speaking, people’s impression of the Daoxue of the Southern Sung dynasty is mostly ethical, metaphysical,deductive, therefore, an appraisal of theorizing the Mind and the principles of the Mind and failing to help the real world. In struggling between “heavenly principles and human desires”（天理人欲）, the philosophy of Daoxue favored more the former than the latter; however, its advocates remained highly interested in the actual life and government affairs. Supported by the academic theory and being highly independent, the Daoxue philosophers were often frustrated in the more autocratic political system of the Southern Sung dynasty; consequently, they favored practicing what they believed in academies or local affairs. This study emphasized “being an official” and “teaching”, with the subjects of Hu-Xiang School（湖湘學）, Zhu Xi and Min School（朱熹閩學）, Jiang-Xi Lu School（江西陸學）, East-Chekiang School（浙東學術）, Shu School（蜀學）, and Ling-Nan School（嶺南學） in reference to the area distribution and academic content. In research method, this study, through collecting and reorganizing address and expression of minds of the representative personage of all schools from their anthologies and consulting other historic records, discussed the performance of the subjects on “being an official” and “teaching”. From the process of being an official of the selected subjects, the interaction between the inner thoughts and the political environment when they did their jobs was analyzed. Generally, they conformed to the common philosophy of “Excellence in scholarship leads to officialdom.“ of Confucianism and became officials via the “Imperial Examination”（科舉）; meanwhile, they conformed to the principle of “to advance or retreat based on Dao”（以道進退）, being an eremite when they had different philosophy from the authority. They also proposed discreet theories for the abstract “Dao”, like deducing the “Book of Changes”, in order to discuss the more realistic “Shi Yi”（時義）. The Daoxue philosophers were more close to “Shi Ru”（師儒）, complying with personality and emphasizing teaching. They valued lecture and taught through “Monastery”（精舍） or “Academy”（書院）. They bore in mind the calling to teach, trying to guide and lead the mode. They also had various approaches to studying and ethical pursuits: inwardly aware（察識）, cultivate（存養）, and practicing in earnest（力行）, for instance. In addition, as the “Imperial Examination” became a required issue of the epoch, their teachings also dealt with the topic. To sum up, the “Double practice” in the study referred to the practice of the involvement with the mundane world and civil service of Daoxue philosophers in the Southern Sung dynasty, as well as the practice of “to advance or retreat based on Dao” principle and their philosophy, with the “Imperial Examination” interlacing between them, examining the process of being an official and related discourses on the “Imperial Examination” of Daoxue philosophers. Moreover, through their performance on “being an official” and “teaching”, the subjects discussed in the study were compared. It is hoped that the subsequent study will be inspired and new research topics will be generated through comparing among their performance and thoughts.

Buddhism in early medieval Japan encompassed multiple discourses, logics, and explanatory frameworks for addressing death. Understanding Buddhism not as a fixed, internally unified system but as a shifting repertoire or “toolkit” of resources makes sense of such tensions and inconsistencies without privileging one element as normative and the others as second-tier accommodations. It also challenges the stance of Buddhist modernism that would dismiss concern with death and the afterlife as a falling away from the Buddha’s putative original focus on the “here and now” and his no-self doctrine. Belief in the power of the last thought to affect one’s postmortem destination is attested in early Indian Buddhist sources. With the rise of the Mahāyāna, especially in China, it was assimilated to aspirations for birth in a pure land (ōjō), such as Amida Buddha’s realm. Daoxuan, Daoshi, and Shandao wrote instructions for deathbed practice that would prove influential in Japan.

Chapter 6 focuses on the link between the eleventh-century ritual discussions on imperial ancestral sacrifices and the Daoxue conception of the Imperial Temple, as represented by the prominent Daoxue scholar Zhu Xi 朱熹‎ (1130–1200) and some of his best students in ritual scholarship. With a special focus on Zhu Xi’s Yili jingzhuan tongjie儀禮經傳通解‎, the chapter demonstrates how Zhu’s and his students’ perception of the Imperial Temple and relevant ritual ideas were deeply influenced by previous ritual discourses, especially those launched by New Learning scholars in Northern Song ritual debates.

This chapter compares the oldest surviving accounts of Bodhidharma to slightly earlier narratives that sought to explain how the essence of Buddhism moved from India into the possession of certain Chinese men. The first part of the chapter looks at how two late-sixth-century masters—Zhiyi (532–597) and Xinxing (540–594)—were presented as perfect receptacles of truth; the second part then covers the earliest accounts of Bodhidharma and his teachings. The final section of the chapter looks closely at Huike, the supposed disciple of Bodhidharma, to try to make sense of the way his biography in Daoxuan's Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks was rewritten so that he appears to stand at the head of a lineage that passes on the essence of Buddhist truth in a man-to-man manner.