Jizang

Main texts

The Sanlun xuanyi (T45 no.1852), the Erdi yi (T45 no.1854) and the Zhongguan lun shu (T42 no.1824) are T1; the Dasheng xuanlun (T45 no.1853) is titled as by Jizang, but its compilation and the attribution of parts of its content are discussed, and it is listed as T2. Biography: Daoxuan, Xu gaoseng zhuan, fascicle 11 (T50 no.2060).

Core original-text marks

諸法實相言忘慮絕，實無可破亦無可收｜悟斯正理則發生正觀｜如來說有說無，為表一道｜因於中道發生正觀，觀辨於心論宣於口

Current six-position placement

② “Direct Seeing of the Ground” (B); ① has a well-grounded competing interpretation at C; the core question is whether the actual function of right contemplation can be deleted

The four core original-text marks on the front page come respectively from E-06 Sanlun xuanyi, E-07 Sanlun xuanyi, E-15 Erdi yi and E-17 Zhongguan lun shu, all T1 material in this archive. The marks serve only to identify the archive and cannot become structural evidence independently of their original context. Quotations follow the CBETA electronic edition of the Taishō canon;

right contemplation arises → conceptual proliferation ceases → the wheel of suffering is destroyed” “the great aim of the Three Treatises” (E-07), and the Zhongguan lun shu links not awakening to the eight negations with afflictions and birth-and-death (E-19). By the deletion test of functions within the complete structure of liberation, the current placement is ② “Direct Seeing of the Ground” (B), with the competing ① reading kept at C.

Most distinctive: while refuting the false and revealing the right, Jizang also subjects the verbal teaching he uses, his refutations, and names such as “non-proliferation” to continual reflection (E-06, E-18, E-21). He also positively explains the connection of “substance-right / function-right” and of “the Middle Way — right contemplation — the treatise proclaimed by the mouth” (E-08, E-17). Fascicle 3 of the Dasheng xuanlun further sets side by side the general and specific gates on whether grasses and trees become buddhas, but the authorship of this material can only be used at T2 and cannot replace the T1 evidence for the relation of completion.

The final load-bearing point is divided into three layers: at the ground layer, the Middle Way real mark and the twelve links of dependent origination as buddha-nature do not await awakening (E-06, E-20, T1);

in the withdrawal layer, refuting and accepting, names and forms, attainer and attained, and treating the buddha-fruit as a substantial new arising are negated (E-06, E-18, E-21, E-23, T1); in the completion layer, “awakening to this right principle → right contemplation arises → conceptual proliferation ceases → the wheel of suffering is destroyed” and “not awakening to the eight negations → the two wisdoms do not arise → the afflictions of craving and views” form a positive-negative relation (E-07, E-19, T1), and E-13 and E-14 further explain awakening to the teaching, awakening to the principle and the two wisdoms. The T2 Dasheng xuanlun fascicle 3 supplements this with the awakened mind, the general and specific gates on grasses and trees becoming buddhas, the rule for naming the direct cause and so on, but “only then can it be named” does not mean that buddhahood or liberation itself must be newly produced. The B-grade inference for ② centres on the T1 relation of completion; the T1 competing evidence for ① is still retained.

Most delicate point: the present Dasheng xuanlun says “if one awakens to the equality of all dharmas and does not see the two marks of environment and person, then in principle there is truly no mark of attaining or not attaining buddhahood. Because there is nothing not attained, one speaks provisionally of attaining buddhahood” (E-27, T2).

Here “if one awakens” is the entry point of the statement and cannot prove that the ground exists because of awakening; “in principle there is truly no attaining or not attaining” dismantles the reification of buddhahood as a separate attained event. It supports the competing ① interpretation at the ground layer, but does not by itself prove that the function of correct cognition can be deleted from the complete structure of liberation. The T1 relation of delusion and awakening — right contemplation — the wheel of suffering in E-07 and E-19 still requires a positive explanation. The safest present judgment is ② (B), with the ① interpretation kept at C.

Note on the texts: the Sanlun xuanyi is titled “composed by imperial command by the śramaṇa Jizang of the Huiri bodhimaṇḍa”, and is Jizang’s outline of the aim of the Three Treatises; the three-fascicle Erdi yi and the ten-fascicle Zhongguan lun shu (a commentary on the Madhyamaka-śāstra) were composed by Jizang, with stable traditional attribution. The five-fascicle Dasheng xuanlun is titled “composed by Hu Jizang” and has many parallels with the Erdi yi and the Zhongguan lun shu; the problems of its compilation and authorship can now be located concretely: Cai Xiaojing (2021) argues that the present text combines several fascicles, excerpting different sources such as Jizang, Huijun and Dharma Master Shuo, and has undergone additions and deletions in transmission;

1. being and non-being are gates to the Way, not the principle (E-15).
2. Self-reflexivity: names and forms are all conceptual proliferation, even non-proliferation is proliferation (E-21); there is truly nothing to refute and nothing to accept (E-06).
3. Awakening and wisdom: the conventional is preached to bring awakening to the real (E-16); awakening to the teaching gives rise to wisdom (E-13); recognizing the teaching and awakening to the principle gives rise to the two wisdoms (E-14); contemplation arises from the middle (E-17).
4. Removing subject and object: both object and wisdom are extinguished (E-22); no attaining, no arriving (E-23); both original and inceptive existence are dismissed (E-26).
5. Completion: awakening — right contemplation — proliferation ceases — the wheel of suffering is destroyed (E-07); not awakening — saṃsāra (E-19); seeing buddha-nature when sitting at the bodhimaṇḍa (E-20).
6. Buddha-nature: the Middle Way as the direct cause (E-24); pointing to this awakened mind as the direct cause (E-25); in principle no attaining or not attaining (E-27) and no awakening without mind (E-28); only on awakening is it named the direct cause (E-29); all are equally so (E-31); if one awakens, all the views are right (E-32).

disputed = the text points to several reasonable readings; neutral = the text is verifiable but does not form a core limit for this deletion test. E-01—E-04 concern his life; E-05—E-08 the outline of the Three Treatises; E-09—E-16 the two truths and the verbal teaching; E-17—E-23 the Zhongguan lun shu and related arguments; E-24—E-32 fascicle 3 of the Dasheng xuanlun on buddha-nature.

• The layer of the great Way of equality: “the great Way of equality, as the nature of awakening of all sentient beings, is called buddha-nature … the principle and its function perfectly still is called nirvāṇa” (E-30 context passage); “the great Way of equality, being without direction and without abiding, all are equally not; being without direction and without obstruction, all are equally attained” (after E-31).

Therefore Jizang’s ground is neither an object established by the verbal teaching nor a fruit accomplished by cultivation, but the Middle Way real mark that is originally so. This layer does not await awakening: E-06, E-20 and the E-27 context passage directly support the ground being originally so. The inference to ② comes not from the ground layer, but from Jizang’s determinations of liberation, the direct-cause buddha-nature and attaining buddhahood.

The differences of all things: Jizang explains all things through the “two truths”: whether or not there is a buddha this object is always present; deluded about it there are the six destinies in confusion, awakened to it there are the three vehicles and ten stages (Erdi yi, the old view quoted in the E-13 context passage); his own formulation is “awakening to non-arising, there are the sages of the three vehicles; deluded about the eight negations, there are the six destinies in confusion” (E-19 context passage).

“the great Way of equality”, “in principle no attaining or not attaining” and so on are further developed in the T2 Dasheng xuanlun. When the actual act of awakening to the principle is deleted, these statements about the ground itself still hold. Here the deletion passes, but that the ground does not depend on cognition does not by itself imply ①. (A: the original text states the determination of the ground explicitly; B: the distinction of structural layers)

(2) The withdrawal of names and forms, of verbal teaching and of independent fruit-objects: the two truths are teaching, not principles of two realities (E-09, T2; E-15, T1); “non-proliferation” can also become proliferation (E-21, T1); refuting is setting forth (E-18, T1); “no attaining, no arriving” denies attainer and attained, arriver and arrived, and the reified new arising of the buddha-fruit (E-23, T1); the fuller wording “neither wisdom nor object” and so on is in T2 (E-22). These materials show that there is no externally attainable object as the ground, nor any need to keep a substantial cognizer. They must still be examined separately from the functional relation “awakening to the principle and right contemplation arising”.

(3) The core T1 evidence for the relation of completion: E-07, in its self-statement of “the great aim of the Three Treatises”, gives “awakening to the right principle → right contemplation arises → proliferation ceases →

the wheel of suffering is destroyed”, and gives “right contemplation does not arise → annihilationism and eternalism are not extinguished → the wheel of suffering turns constantly”; E-19 writes “not awakening to the eight negations → not recognizing the two truths → the two wisdoms not arising → the afflictions of craving and views → karma and birth-and-death” as the corresponding relation of losing the root; E-13 and E-14 write “awakening to the teaching gives rise to wisdom” and “awakening to the principle gives rise to the provisional and real wisdoms”; E-17 also explains “from the Middle Way right contemplation arises; contemplation is discerned in the mind, the treatise is proclaimed by the mouth”. These are not independently existing cognizing entities, but the actual transformation and relation of liberation repeatedly established by Jizang in the T1 texts checked. The T2 “awakened mind”, “only then can it be named the direct cause”, “general gate / specific gate” and so on serve only as disputed supplements and do not independently bear the main conclusion.

The break after deletion: the ground layer remains complete; the withdrawal of names and of attained objects is also unaffected. But in Jizang’s statement of aim about how proliferation is stilled and the wheel of suffering destroyed, without the actual transformation of right contemplation and awakening to the principle, the chain of completion “right contemplation arises → proliferation ceases →

the wheel of suffering is destroyed” cannot hold as in the original text; E-19 provides parallel counter-evidence that “without awakening there are still the afflictions of craving and views”. Here the relation of completion of the complete ultimate structure breaks at the structural layer, not merely meeting obstruction at the teaching layer or the general path layer. The B-grade inference is limited to the structure of liberation that Jizang has explained, and is not an assertion that all Buddhist modes of practice have in practice only one form. E-29’s “only then can it be named” only proves a condition of naming and does not serve as independent evidence for the necessity of liberation.

The mutual constraint of the two strongest groups of evidence: E-18’s “stilling the four views of the inner mind is nirvāṇa” can make refuting the false coincide with completion, so a further attained fruit-object may not lightly be posited; E-23’s “no attaining, no arriving” further denies the new arising of a fruit-object. These T1 pieces of evidence are the genuine completion-layer counter-pressure in the ① direction and must be kept. On the other side, E-07 writes awakening to the principle — right contemplation — the stilling of proliferation as “the great aim of the Three Treatises”, and E-19 connects non-awakening with afflictions and birth-and-death; one cannot declare their function deletable merely on the strength of “non-attainment”.

The safest present reading: the holding of liberation is explained through a non-substantial cognitive transformation, main class ② (B); whether completion can be fully stated as “stilling the four views” without an independent function of right contemplation is kept as a C-grade competing interpretation.

T1/T2 symmetry: without using any of the T2 passages of the Dasheng xuanlun, ② still has the relational evidence of E-07, E-13, E-14, E-17 and E-19; the ① direction also still has T1 texts such as E-06, E-08, E-18, E-20, E-21 and E-23, and it would be wrong to say that only E-06 and E-23 remain. The T2 E-22, E-27, E-31 and E-25, E-28, E-29, E-32 are treated under the same risk of authorial attribution; the meaning of the present text can be discussed, but none of them serves as an independent T1 proof for Jizang himself.

The strongest competing interpretation for ① is: the real mark has nothing to refute or accept; stilling the four views is nirvāṇa; the name “non-proliferation” should also be withdrawn; nirvāṇa is no attaining and no arriving, with no substantial new arising of a buddha-fruit. From this one can claim that “awakening” and “right contemplation” are also only names for the stilling of wrong views, and that deleting the name does not change completion itself. This reading does have T1 support;

but within the material checked it is not yet sufficient to prove that, once the function of actual awakening to the principle and right contemplation is deleted, the aim-stating chain of liberation of E-07 and E-19 still holds completely. One may not infer from “not yet found in the evidence bank” that none of Jizang’s other works gives another answer; hence the local dispute is kept at C, and no argument is built on an unproven defect.

What has been withdrawn or de-substantialized: the two truths as two objects and principles (E-09, E-15); refuting and accepting (E-06); names and forms and “non-proliferation” (E-21); subject and object of object and wisdom (E-22); attainer and attained, arriver and arrived (E-23); original and inceptive buddha-nature (E-26); the direct causes clung to by the eleven schools (E-24, E-32).

Final load-bearing point: the real mark does not take cognition as a precondition of its existence; verbal teaching, object and wisdom, attaining and arriving, and the mark of “attaining buddhahood” are continually de-reified. The complete relation of liberation that can still be obtained from T1 is the functional chain between actual awakening to the principle, the arising of right contemplation, and the stilling of proliferation and destruction of the wheel of suffering. Its load-bearing belongs to the structural layer;

Self-inclusion: there is reliable positive structural evidence, but this does not mean the ① deletion test has been passed. E-08 (T1) explains speech, through “substance-right / function-right”, as the function of the substance; E-17 (T1) more directly explains, through “Middle Way → right contemplation → the treatise proclaimed by the mouth” and “giving rise to contemplation through the treatise”, how discourse returns to the one who understands — precisely a structural account of the “contemplation” and the “treatise” carried out in the Zhongguan lun shu; E-13 (T1) places wisdom and object in the dependently originated relation “non-two yet two”. It should therefore not be belittled as only “speech can teach”. The limit is equally clear: this structure works through awakening to the principle and right contemplation, and cannot yet prove that the function of correct cognition has been placed internally such that it can be deleted from the complete ultimate structure. (B; the first condition for ① has considerable positive evidence, the second condition is not passed)

The relation of the highest structure to cognition: Jizang explains the ground through the Middle Way real mark and the non-arising, non-ceasing of dependent origination (E-06, E-20), and does not set up a substantial “awakened one” as a condition for the ground to hold. But from “the ground is not defined by awareness” one cannot infer “complete liberation needs no cognitive transformation”;

• (3) Attaining buddhahood is only a provisional name: in principle no attaining or not attaining (E-27); original and inceptive both dismissed (E-26).
• (4) The thoroughgoing self-reflexivity of the verbal teaching: the fourfold two truths (E-10); non-proliferation too is proliferation (E-21); principle and teaching too are suited to conditions.

These T1/T2 materials together form a well-grounded competing reading for ①; the most crucial T1 challenge is not whether concepts have self-nature, but whether “stilling the four views is nirvāṇa” and “no attaining, no arriving” have already said everything about complete liberation.

Why it is still ②:

• (1) The chain of aim: “awakening to this right principle, right contemplation arises; once right contemplation arises, conceptual proliferation ceases; once conceptual proliferation ceases, the wheel of suffering is destroyed. Such is the meaning of the great aim of the Three Treatises” (E-07, T1). Jizang directly calls this chain the great aim of the Three Treatises.
• (2) The chain of saṃsāra: “not awakening to the eight negations, one does not recognize the two truths … the two wisdoms not arising, there are the afflictions of craving and views” (E-19, T1).

• (3) The purpose of the verbal teaching: the fourfold two truths “bring awakening to the non-three” (E-10); capacities are distinguished by awakening (E-11, T1); “the conventional is preached … to make one awaken, through the conventional, to the non-conventional” (E-16 context passage, T1).
• (4) The arising of the two wisdoms: “recognizing the teaching, one awakens to the principle. Awakening to the principle gives rise to the two wisdoms, provisional and real” (E-14, T1).
• (5) Supplementary limits from the theory of buddha-nature: fascicle 3’s “pointing to this awakened mind”, “grasses and trees have no mind, are not deluded and so have no awakening” and so on all belong to T2. E-29’s “only then can it be named” is a permission to name, and E-32’s “if one awakens, the eleven schools are all right” is an interpretive perspective; neither may alone constitute a necessary condition of ultimate completion.
• (6) The deletion test: when the actual transformative function of “awakening / right contemplation” is deleted, the ground still holds; but the account of completion stipulated by Jizang in T1 — right contemplation extinguishing proliferation and destroying the wheel of suffering — breaks at the structural layer.

Boundaries of source and layer: the main chain of completion for ② and the account of self-inclusion both have T1 evidence. ① also has T1 completion-layer counter-pressure such as E-18, E-21 and E-23, which cannot be demoted to mere teaching material; the T2 Dasheng xuanlun evidence is used symmetrically for both sides. This archive does not decide the six-position placement on the general and specific gates of fascicle 3 of the Dasheng xuanlun alone, nor by a vote of the number of local quotations.

Grade and range of openness: A = explicit wording in Jizang’s texts such as “awakening to the principle gives rise to right contemplation”, “stilling the four views is nirvāṇa” and “no attaining, no arriving”; B = after cross-reading of T1, the actual cognitive transformation bears a structural function in the complete relation of liberation he describes; C = right contemplation can be understood as a non-independent name for “stilling the four views”, thereby attempting to delete an independent cognitive mediation, but this must still explain the functional chain of E-07 and E-19. C is a competing reading with evidence, not a proof that the whole figure’s ① / ② main class cannot be decided.

Conditions for reopening: if a reliable T1 text of Jizang is found that explicitly withdraws the actual function of “awakening to the principle / right contemplation” as well, while still fully explaining the holding of the liberation referred to by E-07 and E-19;

Why it cannot yet be ①: ① in v1.3 requires proving at the same time: (1) that cognition and the thought’s own proposing, speaking and understanding are positively taken into a more basic structure; (2) that after the function of “correctly cognizing the ground” is deleted, the complete structure of the ground and ultimate completion still holds. On the first condition Jizang has solid T1 positive evidence such as E-08, E-13 and E-17, which cannot be belittled as merely an account of teaching; but the second condition still conflicts with the aim and the conditional chain of delusion and awakening in E-07 and E-19, and there is no T1 evidence sufficient to eliminate this function. The burden of proof for ① is therefore not met — not because Jizang lacks a substantial knower, nor because he gives no positive account of self-inclusion.

Why not ③: Jizang is not inquiring into the ground; through refuting the false and revealing the right he directly points to the Middle Way real mark and stipulates the awakening into it.

Why not ④: Jizang has extensive discussions classifying the teachings and refuting other schools, but their endpoint is right contemplation and liberation, not the explanation of the world or of the teachings as such.

Historical background: Jizang is an important representative of the Chinese Sanlun tradition.