The Three Baskets
The twelve genres of scriptural teaching are now sorted into the three baskets of discourse, discipline, and higher teaching, cross-classified again by the śrāvaka basket and the bodhisattva basket — and the treatise gives its own threefold account of exactly why the Tathāgata chose to establish three baskets rather than any other number.
1. How the Twelve Genres Are Distributed
如是契經等十二分，聖教三藏所攝。何等為三？一素怛纜藏、二毘柰耶藏、三阿毘達磨藏。此復有二：一聲聞藏、二菩薩藏。契經、應頌、記莂、諷頌、自說此五，聲聞藏中素怛纜藏攝。緣起、譬喻、本事、本生此四、二藏中毘柰耶藏并眷屬攝。方廣、希法此二，菩薩藏中素怛纜藏攝。論議一種，聲聞菩薩二藏中阿毘達磨藏攝。
The scriptural teaching, comprising discourse and the rest of the twelve genres, is comprehended within three baskets. What are the three? First, the basket of discourse; second, the basket of discipline; third, the basket of higher teaching. Each of these, further, divides into two: the śrāvaka basket and the bodhisattva basket.
Discourse, verse-repetition, prediction, unprompted verse, and spontaneous utterance — these five are comprehended within the basket of discourse belonging to the śrāvaka basket. Occasioned teaching, parable, past-life narrative of the disciples, and past-life narrative of the bodhisattva — these four are comprehended within the basket of discipline, together with its subsidiary texts, common to both baskets. The vast teachings and wondrous phenomena — these two are comprehended within the basket of discourse belonging to the bodhisattva basket. Formal exposition alone is comprehended within the basket of higher teaching, common to both the śrāvaka and bodhisattva baskets.
2. Why the Tathāgata Established Three Baskets
何故如來建立三藏？為欲對治疑隨煩惱故，建立素怛纜藏；為欲對治受用二邊隨煩惱故，建立毘柰耶藏；為欲對治自見取執隨煩惱故，建立阿毘達磨藏。復次為欲開示三種學故，建立素怛纜藏；為欲成立增上戒學、增上心學故，建立毘柰耶藏；為欲成立增上慧學故，建立阿毘達磨藏。復次為欲開示正法義故，建立素怛纜藏；為顯法義作證安足處故，建立毘柰耶藏；為令智者論議決擇受用法樂住故，建立阿毘達磨藏。
Why did the Tathāgata establish three baskets? In order to counteract the secondary affliction of doubt, the basket of discourse was established. In order to counteract the secondary affliction of indulgence in the two extremes, the basket of discipline was established. In order to counteract the secondary affliction of grasping to one's own views, the basket of higher teaching was established.
Further, in order to disclose the three trainings, the basket of discourse was established. In order to establish the higher training in discipline and the higher training in mind, the basket of discipline was established. In order to establish the higher training in wisdom, the basket of higher teaching was established.
Further, in order to disclose the meaning of the correct Dharma, the basket of discourse was established. In order to make manifest the basis on which the meaning of the Dharma is actually realized, the basket of discipline was established. In order that the wise might dwell in the happiness of discussing and determining the Dharma, the basket of higher teaching was established.
T1606 fills in the specific mechanism behind each of these three parallel rationales, and together they show the three baskets answering three genuinely different needs rather than simply repeating the same purpose in three different words. Under the first rationale, discourse settles doubt by directly proclaiming the teaching itself, wherever beings might otherwise waver over one point of Dharma or another; discipline counteracts the two extremes of indulgence in sensual pleasure and indulgence in self-mortification, restraining hoarding while still permitting the many robes and requisites that are actually needed; and higher teaching counteracts entrenched grasping to one's own views by explaining, at length and in every particular, the true, accurate characteristics of the dharmas themselves. Under the second rationale, discourse's own easily-grasped language directly discloses all three trainings at once; discipline specifically supports the trainings in discipline and mind, since it is by relying on discipline's own detailed rules of restraint that pure moral conduct is cultivated, and it is that same purity that allows freedom from remorse and, in due sequence, a concentrated mind to develop; and higher teaching specifically supports the training in wisdom, since it is only here that the discernment distinguishing the dharmas is opened up in full. And under the third rationale, discourse's own accessible language makes the meaning of the true Dharma easy to understand; discipline is the actual basis on which that meaning is directly verified in lived practice, since it supports the two kinds of realization through actual practice; and higher teaching lets those with sufficient wisdom question, discuss, and determine the Dharma's own deepest meaning together, dwelling in the genuine happiness of the Dharma itself.
3. Eighty-Four Thousand Aggregates of Dharma
如是三藏具有八萬四千法蘊，謂依聲聞乘尊者阿難常所受持。
These three baskets, taken together, comprise eighty-four thousand aggregates of Dharma — the very number that, within the śrāvaka vehicle, the Venerable Ānanda constantly retained and preserved.
T1606 pauses over this famous number to explain how it is actually meant to be reckoned rather than taken as a literal head-count of individual passages. "Ten hundred" is simply another way of saying "one thousand" — and the reason the text specifies "ten" and "hundred" separately, rather than stating "one thousand" outright, is to display the very process by which the count is built up: an initial single unit is increased tenfold to reach ten, that ten is increased a hundredfold to reach a thousand, and every subsequent order of magnitude — a hundred thousand, ten million, and beyond — is likewise generated by repeatedly applying this same tenfold-and-hundredfold multiplication. "Eighty-four thousand aggregates of Dharma," on this reckoning, names not a literal enumeration of eighty-four thousand separate discourses but a traditional figure expressing the teaching's own vastness through this same multiplicative convention — a number meant to convey immeasurable abundance rather than to be counted out one by one.
Part 71 Complete
The three baskets, their threefold rationale, and the traditional count of eighty-four thousand aggregates of Dharma are now examined. Part 72 turns to the question of what actually apprehends these teachings — the mind and mental factors born of hearing, reflection, and cultivation — and the treatise's own account of the four kinds of objects such contemplation may take.
Continue to Part 72 — What Apprehends the Dharma, and the Four Kinds of Objects →