wanted a brief summary of Kegon doctrine. It contains a mere mention of the title of Ch'eng-kuan's work ── see T 1335:72.a22.
雖然澄觀在他的若干作品中也採用這種方法，但表現得最好的還是在
〈三聖圓融觀門〉這篇短文中，這是他晚年的著作。
這像許多華嚴作品一樣，這篇文章在澄觀圓寂後不久就從中國消失了。
幸好保存於韓國和日本，十九世紀末葉，才從日本請回中國。在中國或 在西方，該文還沒有人做應有的研究。
本文旨在比對現有的中文版本，並譯成英文附加評註。在本文和譯註的 前面有一篇簡介，附錄則詳細討論版本史、各種版本，以及現有的若干 意譯和註疏。
關鍵詞：1.澄觀 2.毘盧遮那 3.普賢 4.華嚴 5.文殊
[1] The relationship between Ch'eng-kuan and Li T'ung-hsüan is something of a puzzle. There is good reason to believe that the later monk knew of the earlier layman and his thought. Indeed, this is made all the more likely by the fact that Li was especially revered ── indeed, treated as a kind of local saint──in the vicinity of Wu-t'ai shan where Ch'eng-kuan spent so much time. One might therefore expect from Ch'eng-kuan ample and explicit reference to Li, especially when one notes his very extensive use of the work of nearly all other contributors to the early Hua-yen tradition. And yet such explicit reference is simply not to be found. Recently the Japanese scholar Kojima Taizan 小島岱山, in an interesting effort to construct an innovative scheme for classifying the various kinds of early Hua-yen, has plausibly distinguished between what he calls the Chung-nan shan 終南山 / Ch'ang-an tradition (so-called because its major representatives were associated with monasteries located in the capital and/or the mountains just south thereof) and the Wu-t'ai shan tradition.
(See, for example, Kojima's "Godaisan-kei Kegon shisō no tokushitsu to tenkai" 五台山系華嚴思想の特質と展開 ["The Development and Distinctive Characteristics of the Thought of the Wu-t'ai shan Line of Hua-yen], "Chūgoku kegon shisō saikōchiku e no kokoromi" 中國華嚴思 想再構築えの試み [An Experiment in the Reconstruction Chinese
Hua-yen Thought], and "Aratanaru Chūgoku Kegon shisōshi" 新たなる中 國華嚴思想史5 amp; [A New Intellectual History of Chinese
Hua-yen], Kegongaku kenkyū 華嚴學研究 33 (1991):111-136, 145-164, 165-176.)
Kojima notes that Ch'eng-kuan has strong connections with both lines of Hua-yen, but he also suggests that his strongest doctrinal sympathies lay ultimately with the approach taken by Li T'ung-hsüan and others of the
"Wu-t'ai tradition." And yet Kojima also notes what he takes to be
significant differences between Ch'eng-kuan's and Li T'ung-hsüan's views of the relationships among "the three holy ones." In any case, whichever
hypothesis one might adopt about the influence of Li Tung-hsüan on Ch'eng-kuan, it must reconciled with both the dearth of references to Li in Ch'eng-kuan's writings and the latter's generally conscientious fidelity to Fa-tsang, chief representative of the so-called Chung-nan shan / Ch'ang-an tradition. On the differences between Ch'eng-kuan's and Li T'ung-hsiian's developments of the "three holy ones" theme see Kojima Taizan, "Ri
Tsūgen ni okeru sanshō ennyū shisō no kaimei" 李通玄における三聖円融 思想の解明 [An Elucidation of 'Coalescence of the Three Holy Ones' Thought in Li T'ung-hsüan], Kegongaku kenkyū 1 (1987):105-157, especially 128-129.
[2] See Hua-yen ching shu 華嚴經疏 55 (T 1735:35.918a-b), Yen-i ch'ao 演 義鈔 85 (T 1736.36.663a),Hsing-yüan p'in shu 行願品疏 2 (SSZZ
227:5.7009-17), and Hsing-yüan p'in shu ch'ao 行願品疏鈔 2 (SSZZ 229:5.238a-c).
[3] Although it is well beyond the limits of this essay, there would, I believe, be much to gain from a systematic comparison of the Hua-yen Buddhist notion of "yüan-jung" with the Christian trinitarian notion of "perichoresis"
or "circumincession" (mutual inherence) in terms of which the relationship among the three persons of the Christian Trinity was understood. The literature on the latter, of course, is enormous, especially as regards Eastern (i.e., Greek and Russian) Christianity, but for useful introductions to the topic see the entries on these and related terms in The New Catholic Encyclopedia (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1967), vol. 3, p. 880 amp; vol 12., pp. 219-220.
[4] The version of the text embedded in Gyōnen's commentary (Z-NDZK 321:75.195a) reads 案, rather than 按, but then these two characters are commonly interchangeable.
[5] The Taishō, Zokuzōkyō, and Yang Wen-hui editions all read miao 妙/
玅, but the Taishō andZokuzōkyō editors tell us in footnotes that there is at
least one early version of the text in which the word "ming" 名 appears instead. "Ming" is clearly the preferable reading. The version of the text in Gyōnen's commentary (195b) reads "ko" 各 in one instance whereas in every other instance "ming" 名 is used, but the "ko" must surely be only a typographical error.
[6] Gyōnen (196a) suggests that the word "shih" 示 is actually a mistake for "yü" 余, meaning "me." This, however, is not a necessary emendation, for the construal Gyōnen prefers (reflected in my translation) is possible without it.
[7] There is a puzzling discrepancy among the various editions of the text at this point. The version embedded in Gyōnen's commentary (195b) reads "一 毛之智難以度成" and Gyōnen tells us explicitly in his commentary that he takes Ch'eng-kuan's point to be that it is "very difficult indeed" to plumb this teaching with only a little bit of wisdom. Gyōnen's is also the reading
followed in the Zokuzōkyō edition. However, the Zokuzōkyō editors note that there is one version of the text (they do not say which version) which gives "無" rather than "難." The Taishō edition also follows the wording of the Gyōnen text, but theTaishō editors note that the version on which they based their edition ── a Tokugawa printing kept in the library of Ōtani 大 谷 University (probably the 1685 edition) ── lacks the character "難."
The Taishōeditors say nothing about the character "無." The Yang Wen-hui edition, however, reads "一毛之智觀、無難以度成" ── that is to say, Yang Wen-hui gives both "無" and "難," rather than "無" or "難" alone. Of course, Yang's edition is based on a Japanese version of the text, perhaps the very same one that the Zokuzōkyō and Taishō editors used, but Yang does not identify his Japanese source, nor can we be sure that his wording is not the result of his own emendation. The modern editors of the 中國佛教思想資 料選編 follow Yang's version precisely (except in matters of punctuation and page-layout). In the absence of decisive philological evidence I choose to follow the Gyōnen / Zokuzōkyō / Taishō wording, which seems to fit better the general sense of the passage. Indeed, it is hard to make any sense at all of the Yang Wen-hui wording.
[8] The Zokuzōkyō edition mistakenly gives szu 巳, rather than chi 己.
[9] The Gyōnen commentary (211b) mistakenly gives san 三 rather than erh 二.
[10] The Taishō and Zokuzōkyō versions of the text read "ch'i" (起), but the Yang Wen-hui version and the Gyōnen paraplirase read "ch'ao" (超). From the patent sense of the passage it is clear that "ch'ao" (超) is the correct reading.
[11] The text embedded in the Gyōnen commentary (214b) lacks the character "erh" 二.
[12] At this point, the Tsung-mi's paraphrase (SSZZ 229:5.238a8) reads chien 見,rather than chih 知.
[13] The Yang Wen-hui edition reads yu 又, which is preferable to the Zokuzōkyō and Taishō reading of chi 及.
[14] Tsung-mi's wording here is significantly different... Where as all other versions read "shang-hsia chü ching chieh..." 上下諸經皆..., Tsung-mi reads "shang-hsia ching-wen wu-chou yin-kuo..." 上下經文皆五周因果 皆..., on the possible significance of which see note # 54, below.
[15] Whereas the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions read "shih" 視, the Yang Wen-hui edition reads "hsien" 現. Also, the Zokuzōkyō and Taishō editors note that there is a version of the text which lacks the word "shen" 身.
Curiously, the Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "pu-li shen" 不理身, rather than either "pu-hsien shen" 不現身, or "pu-shih shen" 不視身, but I take this to be merely a misprint.
[16] The Zokuzōkyō and Taishō editions read "i" 已 or "szu" 巳 instead of "wang" 亡, but clearly "wang" is the correct reading.
[17] This repetition of the word "hsing" 行 is found in the Yang Wen-hui edition and in the Tsung-mi and Gyōnen paraphrase (see SSZZ
229:5.238b14 and Kegon hokkai gikyō 華嚴法界義鏡 ── Kitabatake edition, p. 260), but not in the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions.
[18] Interestingly, both Tsung-mi's and Gyōnen's paraphrases of this line add the word "hsing" 行 at this point, giving the reading "ku sui suo-ch'eng li hsing pu chü" 故隨所證理行無不具 (see SSZZ 229:5.238bl3 and Kegon hokkai gikyō ── Kitabatake edition, p. 260), whereas all other versions lack this occurrence of hsing and read simply "ku sui suo-ch'eng li pu chü" 故隨 所證理無不具. The Tsung-mi/Gyōnen reading seems more in harmony with
the sense and rhythm of the immediately preceding sentences ── see the translation below.
[19] Here the Tsung-mi paraphrase "wu-k'o-shuo pu-k'o-shuo" 無可說不可 說, rather than simply "pu-k'o-shuo" 不可說. The effect of Tsung-mi's wording is simply to intensify the point.
[20] Here the Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "fa-chieh" 法界 rather than "li"
理. However, as "principle" and "dharmadhātu" had previously been equated, this results in no difference of meaning.
[21] The Tsung-mi paraphrase reverses the order of these two characters, reading li-t'i 理體, rather than t'i-li 體理.
[22] At this point the Yang Wen-hui edition and the Gyōnen paraphrase (Kegon hokkai gikyō ── Kitabatake edition, p. 261) read "chih" 止, whereas the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions read "cheng" 正.
[23] At this point the Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "pu-i pu-i" 不一不異, rather than simply "pu-i" 不異, but this does not materially alter the meaning.
[24] Whereas the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions read "fan" 反, the Yang Wen-hui edition reads "chi" 及.
[25] Again, the Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "shang-hsia ching-wen" 上下經 文 rather than "shang-hsia chu ching" 上下諸經.
[26] The Tsung-mi paraphrase lacks the word "hsing", reading "...ming P'u-hsien" 名普賢 rather than "... ming P'u-hsien hsing" 名普賢行. Also, the Tsung-mi's version adds here an illustrative quotation from the Man-shu ch'ien-po ching 曼殊千缽經 that is entirely absent from all other versions;
see note # 67, below.
[27] Tsung-mi reads "i-chen fa-chieh" 一真法界, whereas all other versions read "i-hsin fa-chieh" 一心法界. One can only speculate as to whether or not the latter variation is significant.
[28] In the Tsung-mi paraphrase these two sentences are worded as a question and its answer:
問既二聖相何以不名文殊行耶答為攝智屬理唯一真法界故舉一全收也.
[29] Tsung-mi's paraphrase inserts at the beginning of this sentence the clause, "erh ch'e-na wei kuo che" 二遮那為果者. I can make no sense of this intrusive and incoherent clause; perhaps it is the result of textual corruption.
[30] The Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "yüan" 圓 rather than "man" 滿.
[31] The Zokuzōkyō and Taishō editions read "yin" 因 instead of "t'ung"
同.
[32] Tsung-mi's paraphrase is interrupted at this point and lacks the
subsequent analysis of the three holy ones in connection with the words of the scriptures title.
[33] The Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions read "chi" 即, whereas the Yang Wen-hui edition reads "shih" 是.
[34] Here the Tsung-mi paraphrase resumes.
[35] The Tsung-mi paraphrase reads "te" 得 rather than "ai" 礙, but this must be simply a misprint of 碍, the abbreviated form of "ai."
[36] The Taishō and Zokuzōkyō editions here read "san-sheng" 三聖 (three holy ones), but the Yang Wen-hui edition and the Tsung-mi and Gyōnen paraphrases both read "san-sheng" 三生 (three lifetimes). The latter makes eminently better sense.
[37] The somewhat recherché and deliberately elegant phrase "an-chih fa-hui" 按指發揮 ── chosen, perhaps, in respect of the cultivated literary tastes of Ch'eng-kuan's intended audience ── means literally "apposite or pertinent and explicit or perspicuous" ── the opposite, in other words, of
"generic and vague."
[38] These opening lines resist literal translation but, as Gyōnen explains them in his commentary (195b), they refer to the Buddha's consummate skill in making his teachings intelligible and tailoring them to the particular
capacities and widely varying circumstances of those whom he seeks to save.
His teachings, in other words, are so far from being nondescript and obscure
as to be specific, compellingly clear, and exhaustively applicable to all concrete situations.
[39] The two earliest and most important biographies of Ch'eng-kuan, on which all later accounts of his life are based, are:
The Miao-chüeh t'a chi 妙覺塔記 is an epitaph for Ch'eng-kuan written by his lay disciple, the scholar and quondam T'ang Prime Minister, P'ei-hsiu's 裴休 (787?-860?). This epitaph was composed for inscription at
Ch'eng-kuan's reliquary stūpa, which was erected shortly after his death at the Hua-yen ssu 華嚴寺, a famous monastery located near the village of Hsia-hou 夏候 on the Fan 樊 river plain south of Ch'ang-an, just below the northern slopes of the Chung-nan 中南 mountains. The stele on which P'ei-hsiu's epitaph was originally inscribed does not survive, although
digests or excerpts of the epitaph are incorporated into several later accounts of his life ── e.g., the Lung-hsing fo-chiao pien-nien t'ung-lun 隆興佛教編 年通論 chüan 25 (SSZZ 1512:75.232c-233b), compiled in 1164; the Fo-tsu li-tai t'ung-tsai 佛祖歷代通載 16 (T 2036:49.634c), compiled in 1341; and the Ch'üan-T'ang wen 全唐文, chüan 743, compiled in 1814. What may well be the whole ── or at least most ── of the epitaph was incorporated into a late thirteenth century work, the Hua-yen hsüan-t'an hui-hsüan chi 華嚴懸談 會玄記 by P'u-jui's 普瑞 (chüan 1, SSZZ 236:8.93a-94a).
(Little is known about P'u-jui, but one may note that he was a resident of the Ta-li 大理 area, in what today is the province of Yunnan. During the T'ang and Sung this region had been an independent kingdom known first as Nan-chao 南詔 and later as Ta-li; it was not fully incorporated into China proper until the Mongol conquest. Throughout its long history
Nan-chao/Ta-li had had a rich and variegated Buddhist culture. It may well be that Buddhist materials lost in China proper during the late T'ang, Five Dynasties, and Sung periods had been preserved in that remote southwestern kingdom, and this may be why P'u-jui was able to include in his work the whole, or nearly the whole, of an inscription that was no longer commonly available in its entirety elsewhere.)
See also the précis of P'ei-hsiu's epitaph inscribed on a stele erected in 1272 to mark the Yüan dynasty reconstruction of Ch'eng-kuan's reliquary stūpa. A rubbing of this inscription was made in the 1930's by Yūki Reimon's 結城 令聞, and a photograph of that rubbing may be found in the front matter of
Kamata Shigeo's 鎌田茂雄, Chūgoku kegon shisōshi no kenkyū 中國華嚴 思想の研究 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai 東京大學出版会, 1965);
Kamata provides a transcription of the rubbing on pp. 157-158 of the same book. On P'ei Hsiu and his Buddhism, see Yoshikawa Tadao 吉川忠夫,
"Hai Kū den: Tōdai no ichi shidaifu to Bukkyō" 裴休伝: 唐代一士大夫と 仏教, Tōhō gakuhō 東方學報 [Kyoto] 64 (1992):115-277.
Tsan-ning's 贊寧 (919-1001) biography of Ch'eng-kuan in the Sung kao-seng chuan 宋高僧傳, chüan 5 (T 2061:50.737a-c; cf. the 1987 Chung-hua shu-chü edition, pp. 104-107). Note, however, that Tsan-ning biography must be used with care as it is riddled with errors.
Both of these biographies indicate that in the later decades of his long life, while he was at the height of his eminence and was residing in or near the capital, he received numerous requests from high-ranking court dignitaries for brief and accessible expositions of various topics in Buddhist doctrine.
Perhaps the most famous of the many literati-officials who may have known Ch'eng-kuan was the great poet Po Chü-i 白居易 (772-846). I know of no source that explicitly links the two men, but both were residents of
Ch'ang-an in the 820's and Po's well-known devotion to the Hua-yen ching may well have drawn him to, and been nourished by, the teachings of the eminent monk ── See Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-i (London: Allen and Unwin, 1949) and Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 184-239. Included among the other dignitaries whom the P'ei Hsiu and Tsan-ning biographies do explicitly connect with Ch'eng-kuan are the following (each provided with a notation as to the location of his
biographies in the Chiu T'ang shu 舊唐書 (CTS) andHsin T'ang shu 新唐書 (HTS) ── with chüan and page numbers in the Chung-hua shu-chü edition
── as well as his entry in Fu Hsüan-tsung 傅璇琮, et al., eds., T'ang Wu-tai jen-wu chuan-chi tzu-liao tsung-ho so-yin 唐五代人物傳記資料綜合索引 [TWT-SY] (Peking: Chung-hua shu-chü, 1982):
Wu Yüan-heng 武元衡 (758-815) CTS 158/4127, HTS 152/4833, TWT-SY 193c.
Li Ch'i-fu 李吉甫 (758-814) CTS 158/3992, HTS 146/4738, TWT-SY 417a-b.
ChengYin 鄭絪 (752-829) CTS 159/4180, HTS 165/5074, TWT-SY 702b.
Li Feng-ch'i 李逢吉 CTS 168/4365, HTS 174/5221, TWT-SY 412a-b.
Ch'ien Hui 錢徽 CTS 168/4382, HTS 177/5271, TWT-SY 690b.
Kuei Teng 歸登 CTS 149/4019, HTS 164/5038, TWT-SY 289a.
Ch'üan Te-yü 權德輿 CTS 148/4001, HTS 90/5076, TWT-SY 540a-b.
Ch'i Hang 齊杭 CTS 136/3756, HTS 128/4471, TWT-SY 37c-38a.
Wei Ch'u-mou 韋渠牟 CTS 135/3718, HTS 167/5019, TWT-SY 458a.
Yen Shou 嚴綬 CTS 146/3959, HTS 129/4485, TWT-SY 613b.
Meng Chien 孟簡 CTS 163/4257, HTS 160/4968, TWT-SY 198c-199a.
Wei Tan 韋丹 HTS 197/5629, TWT-SY 467b.
Lu Ch'ang-yüan 陸長源 CTS 145/3937, HTS 151/4822, TWT-SY 655a.
Hsieh Hua 薛華 Fo-tsu li-tai t'ung-tsai 佛祖歷代通載 14 (T 49.609c), TWT-SY 522.
The work at hand, like several other of Ch'eng-kuan's shorter works, was apparently composed in response to request from one or more of these worthies.
[40] See note # 43, below.
[41] My translation of the final sentences of this introductory passage is informed by Gyōnen's glosses on them in his Sanshō ennyūkan giken 三聖 圓融義顯 (196b). He takes the phrase "i-mao chih-kuan" 一毛智觀 to be self-deprecatory, an expression both of Ch'eng-kuan's humility (章主示謙) and of his awareness of his own limitations as he addresses the limitlessness of ultimate truth. The phrase "tu-ch'eng" 度成 he takes to mean "to assay and confirm" (度量 ... 成立). "Doctrinal formulations" ("chiao-li" 教理) he understands to refer to the actual words of the holy one's teachings (教文) together with the doctrinal principles (道理) those teachings convey. To the extent that such formulations "do not contradict" (不乖) the dharma but
"tally with its true meaning" (契正義), they may provide at least general outlines (大網簡要) of the truth. The implication is that only by means of approximations, which all doctrines necessarily are, can finite insight
approach infinite reality. In all of this Gyōnen quite plausibly hears an echo of famous lines in the invocatory verse found in the preface of
Ch'eng-kuan's great commentary on the Hua-yen Sūtra, the Hua-yen ching shu 華嚴經疏 (T1735:35.503c2-5):我今欲以一毛智 測量無邊法界空 願承三寶同體慈 句句冥符諸佛意
"I now wish, with the mere speck of wisdom [I possess], to fathom the boundless emptiness of the dharmadhātu.
I aspire to receive the grace of the triune treasure, so that word for word [my explanations] may tally with the Buddha's intentions."The somewhat
obscure last sentence of the San-sheng yuan-jung kuan-men's opening paragraph Gyōnen takes as the author's exhortation to the readers for whom the piece was composed (章主勸人). To the term "yüan-shih" 遠識 ── in conventional usage a kind of stock phrase meaning something like
"farsightedness" or "sagacity" ── he attributes a particularly Buddhist significance, understanding it to mean "consciousness or intellect purged of affective delusion" (遣情遮情識). The term "hsü-chi" 虛己 he interprets as referring to attainment of "an unimpeded mind" (虛通心) "free of
misconceptions and purged of discriminations" (無倒見泯分別). He
overlooks, however, the likely possibility that the latter phrase may also be allusive to the "Shan-mu" 山木 chapter of the Chuang-tzu 莊子, where it is said that "if a man could empty himself and so roam the world, who could harm him?" (人能虛已以遊世、其孰能害之). Ch'eng-kuan's general point, Gyōnen suggests, is that he hopes the reader will "empty himself of bias"
(hsü-huai 虛懷) and approach the theme of the text "objectively"
(yüan-ching 緣境), in the manner of the Diamond Sūtra's (Chin-kang ching 金鋼經) ideal of "non-abiding thought" (wu suo-chu erh sheng ch'i hsin 無 所住而生其心).
[42] Taking "ch'en" 塵 as a contraction of "wei-ch'en" 徽塵 and "sha" as a contraction of "heng-ho sha" 恆河沙 (i.e., gaṅga-nadī-vāluka = "sands of the river Ganges"). Here, as Gyōnen explains in his commentary (212b), Ch'eng-kuan has recourse to the traditional notion that the Buddha is an infinitely versatile teacher who has at his disposal as many forms of assistance to extend to sentient beings as there are "grains of sand in the Ganges." Rather than offer only one teaching to all, without regard to the diversity of their circumstances and abilities, he crafts a virtual infinity of teachings, each especially suitable to one particular kind of circumstance or to one particular degree of spiritual capacity, among the numberless
conditions and capacities that comprise the realm of sentient existence.
[43] Sūtras are conventionally defined as buddhavacana, i.e., as the very words of the Buddha, and in most such texts the Buddha himself is the
principal speaker. The Hua-yen ching, however, is a notable exception to this rule. Throughout its extraordinary length the Buddha (whether he be Śākyamuni or the primal Buddha, Vairocana) remains silent, deeply absorbed in the ecstasy of his recently achieved, but really timeless,
enlightenment. The actual discourse of the sūtra is conducted by members of his cosmic audience ── most particularly by the great bodhisattvas
Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra. The Hua-yen tradition has often noted this peculiarity of its fundamental scripture and has attached various kinds of significance to it. It is just this feature of the scripture that prompted the requests in response to which Ch'eng-kuan wrote the present text.
[44] The phrase which Ch'eng-kuan here uses is "wei-yin" 為因 ──
literally, "constitute cause" or "comprise cause." Such phrasing implies a rather strong claim. It is not simply that Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra serve as metaphors for the realm of practice that "causes" or engenders the "fruit"
(kuo 果) of enlightenment; rather they actually embody it. Thus, when I translate "wei" as "symbolize" I employ a very strong sense of the concept of symbolization, not unlike that employed in Christian sacramental
theology, whereby a symbol differs from a mere sign insofar as it also embodies that to which it refers. Such notions of symbol are by no means foreign to the Mahāyāna tradition and are even given systematic formulation in Buddhist esoterism (with which, it should be recalled, Ch'eng-kuan was quite familiar).
[45] The term "piao" 表 ── here translated as "represents" ── must be understood in a strong sense as referring to the way in which the
boddhisattva "bodies forth," or gives concrete expression to, the dharmadhātu.
[46] The term "tsai-ch'an ju-lai-tsang" 在纏如來藏 encapsulates a key theme of the Tathāgatagarbha tradition, broached perhaps for the first time in the Śrīmālādevīsimhanāda Sūtra, one of that tradition's fundamental scriptural sources. In its discussion of the third of the four noble truths, i.e., the truth of cessation (nirodha), the Śrīmālā Sūtra distinguishes sharply between the misinterpretation of cessation, in which it is taken to mean the annihilation of dharma-s, and its correct interpretation, in which it is
understood to mean just the cessation of suffering. Cessation of suffering, the scripture continues, is nothing other than the truth-body (dharmakāya) of the Buddha, which is "beginningless, uncreate, unarisen, endless, free from