Harivarmans Satyasiddhi-sastra

·期刊原文

Harivarman's Satyasiddhi-sastra

By Johannes Rahder

Philosophy East & West

V. 5 (January 1956) p.348

Copyright 1956 by University of Hawaii Press

p.348

THIS INDIAN BUDDHIST philosophical treatise of the first half of the 4th century has come to us only in the Chinese translation of Kumaarajiiva (Taisho Daizokyo, Taisho Chinese Buddhist Canon, Tokyo, 1926, Vol. 32, pp.239-373; Nanjio No. 1274 成實論 Ch'eng Shih Lun). Its study may contribute to a more satisfactory definition of the terms Hiinayaana and Mahaayaana in the field of metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. Takakusu (The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, pp.74-79), following the Chinese learned monks Chi-tsang (549-623) and Tao-hsuan (596-667), classified Harivarman's work as Hiinayaanistic, but Sakaino Koyo, author of a 2-volume history of Chinese Buddhism (Tokyo, 1927), has pointed out its predominantly Mahaayaanistic features in an article contributed to the anniversary volume for the late expert on Chinese Buddhism, Tokiwa Daijo (Tokyo, 1933). The earlier Chinese monks, like Chih-tsang (458-522), Seng-jou, and Hui-Tz'u, minimized the difference between Naagaarjuna's Mahaayaana and Harivarman's doctrines of the Middle Way, nominalism (a development of the Praj~naptivaada and Sautraantika schools), upaaya, the pre-eminence of the truth of annihilation among the Four Noble Truths, and relativistic dialectics. The founder of the Chinese San Lun sect has been strongly influenced by his study of Harivarman. This founder is Seng-lang, who came from Korea to China between 494 and 497. N. Aiyaswaami `Saastri (Santiniketan) is preparing a translation of the Satyasiddhi-`saastra. He points out in his article on "Naagaarjuna and Satkaaryavaada of the Saankhyas" (Sino-Indian Studies, Vol. 4, pp.47-50) that the Satyasiddhi-`saastra rejects the theory that the effect exists in a potential state in its cause. He refers to the Satyasiddhi-`saastra in notes of his recent translation of Naagaarjuna's Dvaadaa`samukha-`saastra, Visvabharati Annals, Vol. 6, pp.165-231 (Santiniketan, 1954).