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The Brahma’s Net Sutra plays an important niche role in the
development of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism. It is the primary
extant Vinaya text that articulates the precepts from a Mahayana
perspective. That is, it takes its main audience to be
“bodhisattva practitioners,” mainly householders who remain
engaged with society rather than becoming renunciant monks or nuns.
The Vinayas, and especially the discourse in this sutra, show
monastic and lay Buddhist practitioners engaged at every level of
society, from top to bottom. Buddhist practitioners were involved
in military affairs, political intrigues, matchmaking, and every
other sort of “mundane” social activity. The Vinaya texts
reveal how the Buddhist community in its time judged and dealt with
such matters. The Brahma’s Net Sutra was written in two
fascicles, each radically different in structure, content, theme,
grammar, etc., from the other. The first fascicle discusses the
forty Mahayana stages: the ten departures toward the destination,
the ten nourishing states of mind, the ten adamantine states of
mind, and the ten bodhisattva grounds. The second fascicle explains
the ten grave precepts and the forty-eight minor precepts. These
came to be referred to as the “bodhisattva precepts,” the
“great Brahma’s Net precepts,” the “buddha precepts,” and
so forth. The second fascicle has been especially esteemed,
studied, and circulated separately for more than a millennium as
the scriptural authority for the Mahayana bodhisattva precepts.
[Adapted from the Translators' Introduction.]
This volume makes available in English the seminal treatises in
Korea's greatest interreligious debate of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. On Mind, Material Force, and Principle and An
Array of Critiques of Buddhism by Confucian statesman Chong Tojon
(1342-1398) and Exposition of Orthodoxy by Son monk Kihwa
(1376-1433) are presented here with extensive annotation. A
substantial introduction provides a summary and analysis of the
philosophical positions of both Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism as
well as a germane history of the interactions between these two
traditions in East Asia, offering insight into religious tensions
that persist to this day. Translator A. Charles Muller shows how,
from the time Confucianism and Buddhism met in China, these thought
systems existed, along with Daoism, in a competing relationship
that featured significant mutual influence. A confrontative
situation eventually developed in China, wherein Confucian leaders
began to criticize Buddhism. During the late-Koryo and early-Choson
periods in Korea, the Neo-Confucian polemic became the driving
force in the movement to oust Buddhism from its position as Korea's
state religion. In his essays, Chong drew together the gamut of
arguments that had been made against Buddhism throughout its long
history in Korea. Kihwa's essay met Neo-Confucian contentions with
an articulate Buddhist response. Thus, in a rare moment in the
history of religions, a true philosophical debate ensued. This
debate was made possible based upon the two religions' shared
philosophical paradigm: essence-function (ch'e-yong). This
traditional East Asian way of interpreting society, events,
phenomena, human beings, and the world understands all things to
have both essence and function, two contrasting yet wholly
contiguous and mutually containing components. All three East Asian
traditions took this as their underlying philosophical paradigm,
and it is through this paradigm that they evaluated and criticized
each other's doctrines and practices. Specialists in philosophy,
religion, and Korean studies will appreciate Muller's exploration
of this pivotal moment in Korean intellectual history. Because it
includes a broad overview of the interactive history of East Asian
religions, this book can also serve as a general introduction to
East Asian philosophical thought.
Leading East Asian Buddhist thinkers of the seventh century
compared, analyzed, and finalized seminal epistemological and
soteriological issues that had been under discussion in India and
East Asia for centuries. Among the many doctrinal issues that came
to the fore was the relationship between the Tathagatagarbha (or
"Buddha-nature") understanding of the human psyche and the view of
basic karmic indeterminacy articulated by the new stream of Indian
Yogacara introduced through the translations and writings of
Xuanzang and his disciples. The great Silla scholiast Wonhyo
(617-686), although geographically located on the periphery in the
Korean peninsula, was very much at the center of the intense
discussion and debate that occurred on these topics. Through the
force of his writings, he became one of the most influential
figures in resolving doctrinal discrepancies for East Asian
Buddhism. Although many of Wonhyo's writings are lost, through his
extant work we are able to get a solid glimpse of his profound and
learned insights on the nature and function of the human mind. We
can also clearly see his hermeneutical approaches and methods of
argumentation, which are derived from apophatic Madhyamika
analysis, the newly introduced Buddhist logic, as well as various
indigenous East Asian approaches. This volume includes four of
Wonhyo's works that are especially revelatory of his treatment of
the complex flow of ideas in his generation: System of the Two
Hindrances (Yijang ui), Treatise on the Ten Ways of Resolving
Controversies (Simmun hwajaeng non), Commentary on the
Discrimination between the Middle and the Extremes (Chungbyon
punbyollon so), and the Critical Discussion on Inference (P'an
piryang non).
This volume makes available in English the seminal treatises in
Korea's greatest interreligious debate of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. On Mind, Material Force, and Principle and An
Array of Critiques of Buddhism by Confucian statesman Ch?ng Toj?n
(1342-1398) and Exposition of Orthodoxy by S?n monk Kihwa
(1376-1433) are presented here with extensive annotation. A
substantial introduction provides a summary and analysis of the
philosophical positions of both Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism as
well as a germane history of the interactions between these two
traditions in East Asia, offering insight into religious tensions
that persist to this day. Translator A. Charles Muller shows how,
from the time Confucianism and Buddhism met in China, these thought
systems existed, along with Daoism, in a competing relationship
that featured significant mutual influence. A confrontative
situation eventually developed in China, wherein Confucian leaders
began to criticize Buddhism. During the late-Kory? and early-Chos?n
periods in Korea, the Neo-Confucian polemic became the driving
force in the movement to oust Buddhism from its position as Korea's
state religion. In his essays, Ch?ng drew together the gamut of
arguments that had been made against Buddhism throughout its long
history in Korea. Kihwa's essay met Neo-Confucian contentions with
an articulate Buddhist response. Thus, in a rare moment in the
history of religions, a true philosophical debate ensued. This
debate was made possible based upon the two religions' shared
philosophical paradigm: essence-function (ch'e-yong). This
traditional East Asian way of interpreting society, events,
phenomena, human beings, and the world understands all things to
have both essence and function, two contrasting yet wholly
contiguous and mutually containing components. All three East Asian
traditions took this as their underlying philosophical paradigm,
and it is through this paradigm that they evaluated and criticized
each other's doctrines and practices. Specialists in philosophy,
religion, and Korean studies will appreciate Muller's exploration
of this pivotal moment in Korean intellectual history. Because it
includes a broad overview of the interactive history of East Asian
religions, this book can also serve as a general introduction to
East Asian philosophical thought.
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