Ten Teachers Before Fazang
Classifications of the Teaching, Old and New古今立教
Before Fazang proposes his own famous scheme of Five Teachings in the next part, he does something this combative treatise has not done before: he stops to credit ten people who tried to solve the same problem first. Sorting the entire body of Buddhist scripture into a small number of ranked categories — doctrinal classification, panjiao 判教 — was already, by Fazang's time, a century-old Chinese project, attempted by translators, vinaya masters, and the founders of the Tiantai school alike. This part is a rare piece of straightforward intellectual history inside a treatise that is otherwise pure argument, and it is where several of the technical terms Fazang will reuse in Part 5 — "Gradual," "Sudden," "Perfect" — first enter the story, coined by other hands.
The Text
1. Ten Schools, as a Mirror 十家立教
第三敘今古立教者。謂古今諸賢所立教門差別非一。且略敘十家以為龜鏡。
Third, giving an account of the classifications of the teaching, old and new: the classificatory schemes set up by sages ancient and modern are not one and the same. Here, in brief, ten schools are set out to serve as a mirror.
For orientation before the text itself, the ten schools at a glance:
| # | Teacher | Scheme |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bodhiruci 菩提流支 | One Voice Teaching — a single teaching, understood differently by different hearers |
| 2 | Dharma-Protector Master and others 護法師 | Gradual and Sudden — Lesser-then-Greater versus Greater alone |
| 3 | Vinaya Master Guangtong 光統律師 (Huiguang) | Gradual, Sudden, Perfect — three teachings |
| 4 | Dayan Master 大衍法師 | Four Doctrines — Causes-and-Conditions, Provisional Names, Not-Real, Real |
| 5 | Master Hushen 護身法師 | Five Teachings — Dayan's four, with the Real Teaching split into Real and Dharma-Realm |
| 6 | Master Qishe 耆闍法師 | Six Doctrines — adding a Doctrine of Permanence between Real and Perfect |
| 7 | Huisi 南岳思禪師 and Zhiyi 天台智者禪師 | Four Teachings — Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, Perfect (Tiantai's own scheme) |
| 8 | Master Min of Jiangnan 江南慜法師 | Two Teachings — the Winding Teaching and the Teaching of the Equal Way |
| 9 | Master Yun of Guangzhai 光宅寺雲法師 (Fayun); Xinxing 信行禪師 | Four Vehicles (the parable's three carts plus a fourth); or, per Xinxing, One Vehicle and three vehicles |
| 10 | Xuanzang 玄奘 | Three Dharma-Wheels — Turning, Illumining, Sustaining |
2. Bodhiruci — One Voice 一・菩提流支・一音教
一依菩提流支。依維摩經等。立一音教。謂一切聖教皆是一音一味一雨等霔。但以眾生根行不同。隨機異解遂有多種。如克其本。唯是如來一圓音教。故經云。佛以一音演說法眾生隨類各得解等是也。
One, relying on Bodhiruci, and on the Vimalakīrti Sūtra and the like, is the establishment of the One-Voice Teaching: all the sagely teachings are a single voice, a single flavor, a single rain falling equally on all — it is only because sentient beings' faculties and conduct differ that, following their capacities, understandings differ, and so there come to seem to be many kinds. Getting at the root of the matter, it is nothing but the Tathāgata's one perfect, round voice teaching. Hence the sūtra says: "The Buddha, with a single voice, expounds the Dharma, and sentient beings, each according to their kind, gain understanding of it" — this is what is meant.
3. Dharma-Protector Master — Gradual and Sudden 二・護法師・漸頓二教
二依護法師等。依楞伽等經。立漸頓二教。謂以先習小乘後趣大乘。大由小起故名為漸。亦大小俱陳故。即涅槃等教是也。如直往菩薩等。大不由小故名為頓。亦以無小故。即華嚴是也。遠法師等後代諸德多同此說。
Two, relying on Dharma-Protector Master and others, and on the Laṅkāvatāra and similar sūtras, is the establishment of the two teachings, Gradual and Sudden: one first studies the Lesser Vehicle and only afterward advances to the Great Vehicle — the Great arising out of the Lesser is therefore called "Gradual," and this also holds wherever Great and Lesser are set forth together, as in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the like. As for bodhisattvas who advance directly and so forth — the Great not arising out of the Lesser is therefore called "Sudden," also because there is no Lesser present at all; this is the Avataṃsaka. [Hui]yuan Master and other worthies of later generations mostly follow this same account.
4. Vinaya Master Guangtong — Gradual, Sudden, Perfect 三・光統律師・漸頓圓
三依光統律師立三種教。謂漸頓圓。光師釋意。以根未熟先說無常後說常。先說空後說不空。深妙之義。如是漸次而說故名漸教。為根熟者。於一法門具足演說一切佛法。常與無常。空與不空。同時俱說更無漸次。故名頓教。為於上達分階佛境者。說於如來無礙解脫究竟果海圓極祕密自在法門。即此經是也。後光統門下。遵統師等諸德。並亦宗承大同此說。
Three, relying on Vinaya Master Guangtong is the establishment of three kinds of teaching: Gradual, Sudden, and Perfect. Master Guang's own explanation of the intent: for those whose faculties are not yet ripe, impermanence is taught first and permanence taught afterward, emptiness is taught first and non-emptiness — the profound and subtle meaning — taught afterward; being taught in this gradual sequence, it is therefore called the Gradual Teaching. For those whose faculties are ripe, within a single dharma-gate the whole of the Buddha's teaching is expounded in full — permanence and impermanence, emptiness and non-emptiness, spoken together at the same time, with no gradual sequence at all — it is therefore called the Sudden Teaching. For those who have already ascended and stand at the level bordering on the Buddha's own state, the Tathāgata teaches his unobstructed liberation, the ultimate ocean of fruition, the perfect and consummate, secret and self-mastered Dharma-gate — this very sūtra is that teaching. Afterward, among Guangtong's own disciples, Master Zunentong and the other worthies likewise inherited and upheld this same teaching, largely unchanged.
Watch these three names. "Gradual" 漸教, "Sudden" 頓教, and "Perfect" 圓教 are not Fazang's own coinages — Guangtong (Huiguang, one of the most influential Vinaya masters of the Northern Wei and Northern Qi) had already fixed all three as technical terms, and Master Hushen and Master Qishe, cited two schools further on, use "Perfect" for the very summit of their own six- and five-teaching schemes. When Fazang's own Five Teachings appear in Part 5 — Hīnayāna, Initial, Final, Sudden, Perfect — three of his five names are already a century old by the time he uses them. What Fazang contributes is not the vocabulary but a specific new arrangement of it, and a specific new content poured into "Perfect" once it arrives at his own hands.
5. Dayan, Hushen, and Qishe — Four, Five, and Six Doctrines 四・五・六・大衍・護身・耆闍
四依大衍法師等一時諸德立四宗教。以通收一代聖教。一因緣宗。謂小乘薩婆多等部。二假名宗。謂成實經部等。三不真宗。謂諸部般若說即空理明一切法不真實等。四真實宗。涅槃華嚴等。明佛性法界真理等。五依護身法師立五種教。三種同前衍師等。第四名真實宗教。謂涅槃等經。明佛性真理等。第五明法界宗。謂華嚴明法界自在無礙法門等。六依耆闍法師立六宗教。初二同衍師。第三名不真宗。明諸大乘通說諸法如幻化等。第四名真宗明諸法真宗理等。第五名常宗。明說真理恒沙功德常恒等義。第六名圓宗。明法界自在緣起無礙德用圓備。亦華嚴法門等是也。
Four, relying on Dayan Master and a number of worthies of the same period is the establishment of Four Doctrines, meant to comprehensively gather in the whole of the age's sagely teaching. One, the Doctrine of Causes and Conditions — the Sarvāstivāda and similar schools of the Lesser Vehicle. Two, the Doctrine of Provisional Names — the Satyasiddhi and the Sautrāntika school and the like. Three, the Doctrine of the Not-Real — the various Perfection of Wisdom texts, which teach the principle of emptiness itself, clarifying that all dharmas are not truly real. Four, the Doctrine of the Real — the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, the Avataṃsaka, and the like, which clarify buddha-nature, the dharma-realm, and the true principle.
Five, relying on Master Hushen is the establishment of five kinds of teaching: the first three are the same as Master Dayan's account above. The fourth is named the Doctrine of the Real Teaching — the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and similar texts, which clarify buddha-nature and the true principle. The fifth clarifies the Doctrine of the Dharma-Realm — the Avataṃsaka, which clarifies the Dharma-gate of the dharma-realm's own mastery, unobstructed.
Six, relying on Master Qishe is the establishment of Six Doctrines: the first two are the same as Master Dayan's. The third is named the Doctrine of the Not-Real, clarifying how the Mahāyāna texts in general teach that all dharmas are like illusions and transformations. The fourth is named the Doctrine of the Real, clarifying the true principle of all dharmas. The fifth is named the Doctrine of Permanence, clarifying the meaning that the true principle and its merits, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, are eternally constant. The sixth is named the Perfect Doctrine, clarifying how the dharma-realm's own mastery and the unobstructed function of dependent origination are perfectly complete — this too is the Dharma-gate of the Avataṃsaka and the like.
These three schemes visibly build on one another — Hushen keeps Dayan's first three doctrines and splits the fourth in two; Qishe keeps Dayan's first two and inserts a Doctrine of Permanence between the Real and a newly named Perfect Doctrine at the summit. What all three agree on, and what every scheme in this part agrees on, is that the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the Avataṃsaka belong together near or at the very top — it is only whether the Avataṃsaka deserves a rank of its own, separate from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, that keeps splitting these schemes into ever finer-grained categories. Fazang's own Five Teachings, arriving in the next part, will resolve this exact tension by giving the Nirvāṇa Sūtra its own Final Teaching and reserving the very summit, the Perfect Teaching, for the Avataṃsaka alone.
6. Huisi and Zhiyi — Tiantai's Four Teachings 七・南岳智者・四教
七依南岳思禪師及天台智者禪師立四種教。統攝東流一代聖教。一名三藏教。謂是小乘。故彼自引法華經云不得親近小乘三藏學者。又智論中說小乘為三藏教。大乘為摩訶衍藏。二名通教。謂諸大乘經中。說法通益三乘人等。及大品中乾慧等十地。通大小乘者是也。三名別教。謂諸大乘經中所明道理。不通小乘等者是也。四名圓教。為法界自在具足一切無盡法門一即一切一切即一等。即華嚴等經是也。
Seven, relying on Chan Master Huisi of Nanyue and Chan Master Zhiyi of Tiantai is the establishment of Four Teachings, meant to comprehensively gather the whole age's sagely teaching that had flowed east. One is named the Tripiṭaka Teaching, meaning the Lesser Vehicle — hence they themselves cite the Lotus Sūtra's saying that one should not draw near students of the Lesser Vehicle's Tripiṭaka; and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra likewise speaks of the Lesser Vehicle as the Tripiṭaka Teaching, and the Great Vehicle as the Mahāyāna-piṭaka. Two is named the Shared Teaching, meaning that within the Mahāyāna sūtras there is teaching of a Dharma that benefits the three vehicles in common — including, in the Larger Perfection of Wisdom, the ten stages beginning with "dry wisdom," a scheme shared by the Great and Lesser Vehicles alike. Three is named the Distinct Teaching, meaning the principle clarified within the Mahāyāna sūtras that is not shared with the Lesser Vehicle and so forth. Four is named the Perfect Teaching, for the dharma-realm's own mastery, replete with every inexhaustible Dharma-gate, one being simply all and all being simply one, and so forth — this is the Avataṃsaka and similar sūtras.
This is the scheme translated in full on this site's Fahua Xuanyi pages: Tripiṭaka 三藏教, Shared 通教, Distinct 別教, and Perfect 圓教. Two collisions with Fazang's own vocabulary are worth flagging precisely, since it would be easy to blur them. First, Tiantai's "Distinct Teaching" 別教 and "Shared Teaching" 通教 are not the same pair as Fazang's own "Separate Teaching" 別教 and "Common Teaching" 同教 introduced in Part 1 — the same first character, 別, names two unrelated categories in two unrelated four- and two-way schemes, which is why this collection renders Fazang's pair differently in English precisely to keep them apart. Second, and more consequentially: Tiantai's summit here is already called "the Perfect Teaching" 圓教, attached to the very same claim about the Avataṃsaka and the Lotus Sūtra being of the highest rank. When Fazang crowns his own Five Teachings with a "Perfect Teaching" of his own in Part 5, he is not innocently reusing a free label — he is reaching for the summit position in a scheme that a rival, already prestigious school had occupied with the identical two characters. This is a genuine historical rivalry between two schools over the highest honorific in Chinese Buddhist doctrinal classification, not a coincidence of translation.
7. Master Min of Jiangnan — Two Teachings 八・江南慜法師・二教
八依江南慜法師立二教。一釋迦經。謂屈曲教。以逐物機隨計破著故。如涅槃等。二盧舍那經。謂平等道教。以逐法性自在說故。即華嚴是也。
Eight, relying on Master Min of Jiangnan is the establishment of Two Teachings: one, the Śākyamuni sūtras, called the Winding Teaching, since it follows beings' capacities, addressing and breaking their particular attachments in turn, as with the Nirvāṇa Sūtra and the like. Two, the Rocana sūtras, called the Teaching of the Equal Way, since it speaks by following the dharma-nature's own mastery directly — this is the Avataṃsaka.
8. Master Yun and Xinxing — Four Vehicles, or One and Three 九・雲法師・信行禪師
九依梁朝光宅寺雲法師立四乘教。謂臨門三車為三乘。四衢所授大白牛車方為第四。以彼臨門牛車亦同羊鹿俱不得故。餘義同上辯。信行禪師依此宗立二教。謂一乘三乘。三乘者。則別解別行及三乘差別。并先習小乘後趣大乘是也。一乘者。謂普解普行唯是一乘。亦華嚴法門及直進等是也。
Nine, relying on Master Yun of Guangzhai Monastery under the Liang dynasty is the establishment of Four Vehicles: the three carts at the gate are the three vehicles, and the great white-ox cart bestowed at the crossroads becomes the fourth, since the ox-cart at the gate is likewise the same as the goat- and deer-carts, and all three alike are not attained. The remaining points are as discussed above.
Chan Master Xinxing, following this same tenet, established Two Teachings: the One Vehicle and the three vehicles. As for the three vehicles: these are distinct understandings, distinct practices, and the differences among the three vehicles, together with first studying the Lesser Vehicle and only afterward advancing to the Great Vehicle. As for the One Vehicle: this means universal understanding and universal practice, which is the One Vehicle alone — this too is the Dharma-gate of the Avataṃsaka and the path of direct advance, and so forth.
Master Yun's "four vehicles" is the same reading of the Lotus parable that Fazang himself uses as raw material throughout Parts 1 through 3 — the three carts at the gate, plus a genuinely separate fourth cart at the crossroads. Fazang does not credit Master Yun with inventing his own conclusions, but the resemblance is close enough to be worth the reader's notice: much of what looks, in the opening parts of this treatise, like Fazang's own close reading of the parable was already common exegetical ground among earlier Chinese Buddhist teachers.
9. Xuanzang — Three Dharma-Wheels 十・玄奘・三法輪
十依大唐三藏玄奘法師。依解深密經金光明經及瑜伽論。立三種教。即三法輪是也。一轉法輪。謂於初時鹿野園中。轉四諦法輪。即小乘法。二名照法輪。謂中時於大乘內密意說言諸法空等。三名持法輪。謂於後時於大乘中顯了意說三性及真如不空理等。此三法輪中。但說小乘及三乘中始終二教。不攝別教一乘。何以故。以華嚴經在初時說。非是小乘故。彼持法輪在後時說。非是華嚴故。是故不攝華嚴法門也。
Ten, relying on the Tang Tripiṭaka Master Xuanzang is the establishment, based on the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, the Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra, and the Yogācārabhūmi, of Three Teachings — namely, the Three Dharma-Wheels. One, the Wheel That Turns, meaning that, in the first period, at the Deer Park, the wheel of the Four Truths was turned — this is the Lesser Vehicle's dharma. Two, named the Wheel That Illumines, meaning that, in the middle period, within the Great Vehicle, it was said with hidden intent that all dharmas are empty, and so forth. Three, named the Wheel That Sustains, meaning that, in the later period, within the Great Vehicle, it was said with plainly disclosed intent that the three natures and the non-empty principle of suchness are real, and so forth. Among these three Dharma-Wheels, only the Lesser Vehicle and, within the three vehicles, the Initial and Final Teachings are spoken of — the One Vehicle as its own Separate Teaching is not included. Why is this? Because the Avataṃsaka Sūtra was taught in the first period, and is not the Lesser Vehicle; while that Wheel That Sustains was taught in the later period, and is not the Avataṃsaka. This is why it does not include the Dharma-gate of the Avataṃsaka.
Fazang closes his survey with the scheme most awkward for his own school: Xuanzang's three-period division of the Dharma-wheel, based on the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra's own account of its Buddha's teaching career, simply has no slot for the Avataṃsaka at all. The Avataṃsaka was traditionally held to have been taught in the first seven days after the Buddha's awakening — before even the Deer Park sermon that opens Xuanzang's first Dharma-wheel — while the mature, "plainly disclosed" teaching of the three natures that Xuanzang's newly imported Yogācāra tradition prized most highly belongs to the third and final wheel. On a strict reading of Xuanzang's own timeline, the Avataṃsaka falls chronologically before the scheme even starts, and is passed over by all three wheels. This is precisely the gap Fazang's own Five Teachings, in the next part, are built to close — not the only motive for that scheme, but one of its most immediate provocations, from the most prestigious rival then active in Chang'an.
10. In Praise of All Ten 結歎十家
此上十家立教諸德並是當時法將英悟絕倫。歷代明模階位叵測。秪如思禪師及智者禪師。神異感通迹參登位。靈山聽法憶在於今。諸餘神應廣如僧傳。又如雲法師。依此開宗。講法華經感天雨花等。神迹如僧傳。其餘諸法師行解超倫。亦如僧傳。此等諸德豈夫好異。但以備窮三藏覿斯異軫。不得已而分之。遂各依教開宗務存通會。使堅疑碩滯氷釋朗然。聖說差異其宜各契耳。
All these ten schools' teachers of classification were, in their own time, outstanding commanders of the Dharma, of unmatched brilliance, whose model has illumined every generation since, their attainments beyond ordinary reckoning. Consider only Chan Master Huisi and Chan Master Zhiyi: their spiritual marvels and responsive powers, their traces mingling with attainment itself — Huisi's hearing of the Dharma on Vulture Peak, he still recalled as though it were the present. Their other spiritual responses are recorded at length in the monks' biographies. So too Master Yun: expounding his own tenet on this basis, when he lectured on the Lotus Sūtra he moved the heavens to rain down flowers, and the like — his spiritual traces, too, are in the monks' biographies. And the other masters, whose conduct and understanding surpassed the ordinary, are likewise recorded there. How could such worthies as these have merely loved to differ from one another? It was only because, having exhaustively mastered the Tripiṭaka and beheld these various discrepancies within it, they had no choice but to distinguish them — and so each, according to his own reading of the teaching, opened up his own tenet, striving always to preserve an overall coherence, so as to melt away, like ice, whatever doubts and difficulties remained fixed, and make everything shine clear. The sages' own words differ from one another, and it is fitting that each account should meet its own portion of the truth appropriately.
This closing paragraph is uncharacteristically generous for a treatise that has, up to this point, been willing to say quite bluntly that the Lotus Sūtra's own reading of its central parable falls short of the truth. Fazang credits every one of the ten teachers surveyed here — including Zhiyi, whose own "Perfect Teaching" his coming Five Teachings will directly rival — with genuine spiritual attainment and sincere effort, framing their disagreements not as error but as ten legitimate readings of an inexhaustibly rich body of scripture, "each meeting its own portion of the truth appropriately." Readers who find Parts 1 through 3 sharp-elbowed should notice this passage: Fazang can distinguish ranking a teaching's ultimate scope, which he does without hesitation, from impugning the sincerity or attainment of the person who taught it, which he here explicitly refuses to do. The next part is where his own entry into this same hundred-year conversation finally arrives.
Part Four Complete
This closes Part Four: ten Chinese teachers' attempts, across two centuries, to classify the whole of the Buddha's teaching — from Bodhiruci's single voice, through Guangtong's Gradual-Sudden-Perfect and Tiantai's own rival Four Teachings, to Xuanzang's three Dharma-wheels, which leave the Avataṃsaka with nowhere to stand at all — closed by Fazang's own unusually generous assessment of every one of his predecessors.
Part Five delivers what this whole survey has been building toward: Fazang's own Five Teachings and Ten Doctrines, the single most cited passage in this entire treatise, and the classification scheme that would define how the Huayan school ranked every other school's teaching for the rest of its history.