| Part ofa series on |
| Buddhism |
|---|
 |
TheTattvasiddhi-Śāstra ("The Treatise that Accomplishes Reality";Chinese:成實論, Chengshilun; Japanese pronunciation:Jōjitsu-ron, also reconstructed asSatyasiddhi-Śāstra), is an IndianAbhidharma Buddhist text by a figure known as Harivarman (250–350).[1][2]
It was translated into Chinese in 411 byKumārajīva and this translation (Taishō number: T1646) is the only extant version, which became popular in China.[1][3][4] This text was translated into English by N. Aiyaswami Sastri in 1978.[5]
What little information exists aboutHarivarman is from Chinese sources which put him sometime between 250 and 350 CE.[6] According to Xuanzang's biography, Harivarman was born a Brahmin, ordained with theSarvāstivāda, and became a student of the Sarvāstivāda teacherKumāralāta (possibly the same as the original teacher ofSautrantika) who taught him the "great Abhidharma of Kātyāyana (迦旃延) with thousands of gāthās" probably theJnanaprasthana.[7] However Harivarman was unhappy with the Abhidharma teachings and spent years studying the sutras to find the source of the disputes of the differentAbhidharma schools and after engaged in many debates with various Abhidharma teachers, becoming unpopular among them. Xuanchang says he later took up living among theMahāsāṅghikas and wrote the Tattvasiddhi while living inPataliputra. The goal of this work was to “eliminate confusion and abandon the later developments, with the hope of returning to the origin”[8]
The school affiliation of the author and his text has been debated for hundreds of years, even the early Chinese sources disagree. Jizang (吉藏 549–623 CE) states that various Chinese teachers consider him as being either a Dharmaguptaka, a Sautrantika, a Dārṣṭāntika, an eclectic teacher, aBahuśrutīya or a Mahayanist.[9] Three monks,Zhiyi (531–597),Jizang (549–623) and Jingying, labeled it aHinayana school; it wasDaoxuan (596–667) who first identified it as Sautrāntika.[3]
The Japanese scholars Katsura Shōryu and Fukuhara Ryōgon, in analyzing the doctrinal content, maintain that Harivarman is closest to theBahuśrutīya school.[10] This is also the position of A.K. Warder.[11] Kumārajīva's student Sengrui discovered Harivarman had refused theabhidharma schools' approach to Buddhist seven times in the text, suggesting a strong sectarian division between them and the Sautrāntikas.[3]
Qian Lin notes the difficulty of using doctrinal analysis to pin down a specific school affiliation due to the fluidity of said schools and the terms used to refer to them. He cautiously places him among the Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika.[12]
The Tattvasiddhi is preserved in sixteen fascicles in the Chinese with 202 chapters, it is organized according to the four noble truths.[13]
I. Introduction (發聚) (chapters 1–35)
II. The truth of suffering (苦諦聚) (36–94)
III. The truth of origin (集諦聚) (95–140)
IV. The truth of cessation (滅諦聚) (141–154)
V. The truth of the path (道諦聚) (155–202)
In the text Harivarman attacks theSarvastivada school's doctrine of "all exists" and the Pudgalavada theory of person. TheTattvasiddhi includes the teaching ofdharma-śūnyatā, the emptiness of phenomena.[14] This text also mentions the existence of aBodhisattva Piṭaka.[15] A central teaching of the text is that dharmas have no substance or substratum, they appear real but they are "like bubbles or like a circle of fire seen when a rope torch is whirled around very quickly."[16] Harivarman writes:
"All parts being analyzed again and again are reduced to atoms which again being broken become non-existent. All things culminate necessarily in the idea ofShunyata."[17]
Another important argument covered in the text is on the relationship between mind or consciousness (citta) andmental factors (caitasikas). Harivarman argues against the common Abhidharma idea of "association" (samprayoga) which held that caitasikas and citta were separate elemental constituents of experience which "associate" or join together.[18] Instead, according to Lin, his view is that "“mental factors” are not actually things different from consciousness but are in their nature precisely consciousness manifested in different modes".[19]
The Tattvasiddhi outlines a conception of thetwo truths doctrine, explaining conventional or nominal truth and ultimate truth.[20]
The Tattvasiddhi also outlines the importance of asamadhi which is a "cause of knowledge of things as they are, which is the same as knowledge ofShunyata."[21]
The Tattvasiddhi school (Chinese:成實宗; pinyin:Chéngshí zōng; Japanese pronunciation:Jōjitsu-shū) was a sect based on theTattvasiddhi which was influential but short-lived in India and had a brief continuation in China and theAsuka andNara periods of Japan.
The Tattvasiddhi was initially promoted by three of Kumarajiva's students, Sengrui (僧叡 or 僧睿, ca. 4th–5th c. CE), Sengdao (僧導 362–457 CE) and Sengsong (僧嵩 date unknown).[22] Sengdao wrote a commentary on the text and his lineage was centered in Shouchun while the lineage of Sengson was centered in Pengcheng.
Other major expounders of the Tattvasiddhi inChina include the group named "Three Great Masters of theLiang dynasty": Sengmin (僧旻, 467–527), Zhizang (智蔵) (458–522) and Fayun (法雲, 467–529), who initially interpreted the sect asMahayana in outlook.[3] The three of them in turn received instructions in this treatise from the monk Huici (慧次, 434–490). The three of them also possibly influenced the writing of theSangyō Gisho, a sutra commentary supposedly authored byPrince Shōtoku.
The tradition of the Tattvasiddhi remained strong up until theTang dynasty, up to 24 commentaries were written on the text, all of which are now lost.[23] The Madhyamaka teacherJizang (549–623) strongly criticized the work as "Hinayana" (lesser vehicle) and possibly due to the rise of new more influential schools such as the Huayan and Tiantai schools, the Chinese tradition of the Tattvasiddhi died out.[24]
It was introduced to Japan asJōjitsu in 625 by themonk Ekwan ofGoryeo. In Japan, it was classified as one of the three approaches ofEast Asian Mādhyamaka instead of a separate lineage.[25] East Asian Mādhyamaka (三論宗,Sanron-shū) was one of thesix Nara sects (南都六宗,Nanto Rokushū).[26]
.svg)
