Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3Eliot, Charles
Religion
Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3
Eliot, Charles
Asia -- Religion; Buddhism; Hinduism
(_c_) The literature of several Chinese sects is well represented.
Thus there are more than sixty works belonging to the T'ien T'ai
school beginning with the San-ta-pu or three great books attributed to
the founder and ending with the ecclesiastical history of Chih-p'an,
written about 1270. The Hua-yen school is represented by the writings
of four patriarchs and five monks: the Lü or Vinaya school by eight
works attributed to its founder, and the Contemplative School by a
sûtra ascribed to Hui-nêng, the sixth patriarch, by works on the
history of the Patriarchs and by several collections of sayings or
short compositions.
(_d_) _Controversial_.--Under this heading may be mentioned
polemics against Taoism, including two collections of the
controversies which took place between Buddhists and Taoists from A.D.
71 till A.D. 730: replies to the attacks made against Buddhism by
Confucian scholars and refutations of the objections raised by
sceptics or heretics such as the Chê-i-lun and the Yüan-jên-lun, or
Origin of man[740]. This latter is a well-known text-book written by
the fifth Patriarch of the Hua-yen school and while criticizing
Confucianism, Taoism, and the Hînâyana, treats them as imperfect
rather than as wholly erroneous[741]. Still more conciliatory is the
Treatise on the three religions composed by Liu Mi of the Yüan
dynasty[742], which asserts that all three deserve respect as teaching
the practice of virtue. It attacks, however, anti-Buddhist
Confucianists such as Han-Yü and Chu-Hsi.
The Chinese section contains three compositions attributed to imperial
personages of the Ming, viz., a collection of the prefaces and laudatory
verses written by the Emperor T'ai-Tsung, the Shên-Sêng-Chuan or memoirs
of remarkable monks with a preface by the Emperor Ch'êng-tsu, and a
curious book by his consort the Empress Jên-Hsiao, introducing a sûtra
which Her Majesty states was miraculously revealed to her on New Year's
day, 1398 (see Nanjio, No. 1657).
Though the Hindus were careful students and guardians of their sacred
works, their temperament did not dispose them to define and limit the
scriptures. But, as I have mentioned above[743], there is some
evidence that there was a loose Mahayanist canon in India which was
the origin of the arrangement found in the Chinese Tripitaka, in so
far as it (1) accepted Hinayanist as well as Mahayanist works, and (2)
included a great number of relatively late sûtras, arranged in classes
such as Prajnâpâramitâ and Mahâsannipâta.
2
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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