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The Heart of the Heart Sūtra: A Comparison of Medieval Chinese Interpretations of the Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra / 《心經》之心:《般若波羅蜜多心經》在中世紀中國的解釋比較

碩士 / 佛光大學 / 佛教學系 / 103 / This thesis is engaged in a scriptural interpretation contrast upon the Heart Sūtra (The referred title as the Heart Sūtra will be adopted hereafter on many occasions on behalf of its Sanskrit title, the Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya Sūtra.) among the commentarial traditions in Medieval China. The commentarial campaign of the Heart Sūtra launched from the 7th century, and the ensuing mission of commentating was still undertaken by a number of commentators amidst the later hundreds of years. Those commentators including Kuījī窺基, Fǎzáng法藏, Dàdiān大顛 and Zhìyuán智圓, who represented their individual monastic genealogies were all formally transmitted the teachings by the patriarchs of religious traditions, Yogācāra, Huáyán, Chán and Tiāntái.

The contrast is administered amongst the four traditions corresponding to the specific illustrations towards the implications within the texts of the Heart Sūtra. At first, Huáyán and Tiāntái stand for the two major religious denominations which were noted for their individual teachings in commentating the Buddhist scriptures, which the Fivefold Teachings of Huáyán School went together with the Fourfold Teachings of Tiāntái School in Medieval China. On the other hand, Yogācāra and Chán hold quite divergent perspectives upon the explanations of phenomena. Yogācāra School stresses the existence of dependent origination in all phenomena, whereas Chán School emphasizes the emptiness of all phenomena. In the course of the scriptural interpretation contrast among these four commentarial traditions, we can see that they hold variant opinions on commentating the Heart Sūtra, but they actually did not contradict one another. Sometimes we can find that they mutually take advantage of the tenets of the other religious sects but not just the teaching of themselves in doing their commentaries.

Furthermore, the introduction of the historical legends happened upon Xuánzàng and Kūkai as well as the linguistic inspection within the shorter text of the Heart Sūtra helps to acknowledge the origin of it, and which brings about a series of discussions over the main text and the mantra of this sūtra. Next, the quest towards the exegetical recognitions upon the heart of the Heart Sūtra corresponding to the above four Chinese commentarial traditions favors to identify the hermeneutical methodologies of them quite to accord with the individually monastic heredities.

It is also noteworthy that in the process of contrasting the specific commentaries, we can find that the above four Chinese commentarial traditions play dramatic roles in offering their idiosyncratically philosophical thoughts, and that also favors us to cognize the respective teachings which convey the monastic experiences and Buddhist academic disciplines that specify the individually religious inheritances, and meanwhile makes us embrace a deeper and broader speculation upon the entailments within the text of the Heart Sūtra illustrated by the four traditions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:TW/103FGU00841003
Date January 2015
CreatorsTZU-HSIAO SHIH, 釋自孝
ContributorsYung-Dong Shih, 釋永東
Source SetsNational Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
Type學位論文 ; thesis
Format131

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