Against the Five Periods and the Two Truths
Jizang now presses the attack on the five-period scheme sūtra by sūtra and treatise by treatise, arguing that only two real divisions of the Buddha's teaching are ever attested — Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna — and that each of the five supposed periods collapses on inspection. He then turns to the two truths, diagnosing three distinct ways people lose them, before closing the entire refuting-the-false half of the treatise and opening straight into revealing the true: Nāgārjuna's own prophesied authority.
1. Three Sūtras and Three Treatises: Only Two Divisions, Not Five
Jizang opens his detailed case against the five periods with direct citation: three sūtras and three treatises, he argues, each independently confirm that the Buddha's teaching divides only into two — Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, or "the Three Baskets" and "the Bodhisattva Basket" — never into the five stages Huiguan's scheme proposes.
次難五時。前總難。次別責。難曰。但應立大小二教。不應制於五時。略引三經三論證之。大品經云。諸天子歎曰。我於閻浮見第二法輪轉。龍樹釋云。鹿苑已轉小輪。今復轉大法輪。法華經云。昔於波羅捺轉於四諦。今在靈鷲山說於一乘。
Next, challenging the five periods. First a general challenge, then a particular indictment. The challenge runs: one ought simply to establish the two teachings of Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna; one ought not fabricate a scheme of five periods. Let three sūtras and three treatises be briefly cited as proof. The Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says: the sons of the gods exclaimed in praise, "In Jambudvīpa we now see the second turning of the Dharma-wheel." Nāgārjuna comments on this: "At the Deer Park he had already turned the lesser wheel; now he turns the great Dharma-wheel once more." The Lotus Sūtra says: "Long ago at Vārāṇasī I turned the wheel of the four truths; now, on Vulture Peak, I teach the one vehicle."
涅槃經云。昔於鹿林轉小。今於雙樹說大。故知教唯二門無五時也。智度論云。佛法有二。一者三藏。二者大乘藏。地持論云。十一部經名聲聞藏。方等大乘名菩薩藏。正觀論云。前為聲聞說生滅法。次為菩薩說無生滅法。以經論驗之。唯有二藏無五時矣。
The Nirvāṇa Sūtra says: "Long ago in the Deer Park I turned the lesser; now, between the twin śāla trees, I teach the great." From this it is known that the teaching has only two gates, and no five periods. The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: "The Buddha's teaching is of two kinds: first, the Three Baskets; second, the Mahāyāna Basket." The Bodhisattvabhūmi-śāstra says: "The eleven divisions of scripture are named the Śrāvaka Basket; the broad Mahāyāna canon is named the Bodhisattva Basket." The Treatise on Correct Contemplation says: "First he taught arising-and-ceasing dharmas for the śrāvakas' sake; next he taught the dharma without arising or ceasing for the bodhisattvas' sake." Verifying the matter by these sūtras and treatises, there are only two baskets, and no five periods at all.
2. Four Propositions on How the Teaching Divides
An objection follows immediately: if everything beyond the Hīnayāna Three Baskets is simply "the Bodhisattva Basket," how do the Avataṃsaka, the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lotus, and the Nirvāṇa differ from one another at all? Jizang answers with a fourfold classification distinguishing open and secret teaching to the two vehicles — a scheme he offers as the genuine alternative to the five periods.
問若乃皆是菩薩藏者。華嚴般若法華涅槃。此四何異。答須識四句。眾經煥然。一但教菩薩不化聲聞。謂華嚴經也。二但化聲聞不教菩薩。謂三藏教也。三顯教菩薩密化二乘。大品以上法華之前諸大乘教也。命小乘人說於大法。謂顯教菩薩。密示此法。以為己任。如付窮子財。謂密化聲聞也。四顯教聲聞顯教菩薩。法華教也。菩薩聞是法疑網皆已除。化菩薩也。千二百羅漢悉亦當作佛。化二乘也。四句之中。三義屬菩薩藏內開之。但化二乘為三藏教矣。
Question: If all of these belong to the Bodhisattva Basket alike, then how do these four — the Avataṃsaka, the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lotus, and the Nirvāṇa — differ from one another? Answer: One must recognize four propositions, and the whole body of scripture becomes luminously clear. First, teaching bodhisattvas alone and not transforming śrāvakas at all — this is the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Second, transforming śrāvakas alone and not teaching bodhisattvas at all — this is the teaching of the Three Baskets. Third, openly teaching bodhisattvas while secretly transforming the two vehicles — this describes the various Mahāyāna teachings from the Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra onward, up to but not including the Lotus: commanding those of the Hīnayāna to expound the great Dharma is what is meant by openly teaching bodhisattvas, while secretly showing them this very Dharma as their own task to take up — like handing over a father's wealth to the destitute son without his yet knowing it — is what is meant by secretly transforming śrāvakas. Fourth, openly teaching śrāvakas and openly teaching bodhisattvas both at once — this is the teaching of the Lotus Sūtra: the bodhisattvas, hearing this Dharma, have their whole net of doubt entirely removed, which is the transformation of bodhisattvas; and the twelve hundred arhats are all, every one, to become buddhas, which is the transformation of the two vehicles. Among these four propositions, three senses belong to what unfolds from within the Bodhisattva Basket; only the transformation of the two vehicles alone constitutes the teaching of the Three Baskets.
The image of the destitute son secretly being groomed to inherit his own father's wealth is the parable of Chapter Four of the Lotus Sūtra, one of the sūtra's seven great parables; Jizang uses it here with the assumption that his reader already knows the story in full. The logic of this fourfold scheme is worth holding onto because it replaces Huiguan's five sequential periods with something structurally different — not a timeline of five successive stages, but a matrix of who is being taught, openly or secretly, in any given sūtra, with the Lotus occupying a unique position as the first and only text to teach both vehicles in the open at once.
3. Five Periods, Five Refutations
Jizang now returns to Huiguan's scheme and dismantles each of its five stages individually — showing that the supposed markers separating one period from the next do not actually hold up against the Abhidharma, Satyasiddhi, and Mahāyāna traditions' own accounts of what happens within each period.
次別難五時。問若立五時有何過耶。答五時之說非但無文。亦復害理。若言第一名三乘別教。是義不然。依毘曇宗。三乘則同見四諦。然後得道。就成實義。但會一滅方乃成聖。據大乘宗。同契無生。然後隔凡。是則初教亦通。何以言別。
Next, a particular refutation of the five periods. Question: If the five periods are established, what fault is there in this? Answer: The theory of the five periods is not only without scriptural basis; it also does damage to the underlying principle. If the first period is named "the differentiated teaching of the three vehicles," this claim does not hold. According to the Abhidharma tradition, the three vehicles alike see the four truths in common, and only afterward attain the path. According to Satyasiddhi's own doctrine, it is only by comprehending the single cessation in common that one becomes a sage at all. According to the Mahāyāna tradition, it is by contemplating the unborn in common that one afterward sets oneself apart from the ordinary. This being so, even the very first period is, in fact, held in common — how, then, can it be called "differentiated"?
次云大品是三乘通教。是亦不然。釋論云。般若不屬二乘。但屬菩薩。若大品是三乘通教。則應通屬。何故不屬二乘。問若依釋論明般若但屬菩薩。在經何故勸三乘同學般若。答般若有二種。一者摩訶般若。此云大慧。蓋是菩薩所得。故不屬二乘若以實相之境名為般若。則三乘同觀。故勸三乘令並學之。經師不體二種之說。便謂般若是三乘通教。
Next, to say that the Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra is "the common teaching of the three vehicles" — this too does not hold. The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom says: "Prajñā does not belong to the two vehicles; it belongs to the bodhisattva alone." If the Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra were truly the common teaching of the three vehicles, then prajñā ought to belong to all three in common — why, then, does it not belong to the two lesser vehicles? Question: If, following the treatise, prajñā belongs to the bodhisattva alone, then why does the sūtra itself urge all three vehicles to study prajñā together? Answer: Prajñā is of two kinds. First, Mahā-prajñā, translated as "the great wisdom" — this is what the bodhisattva alone attains, and does not belong to the two vehicles. But if prajñā is named with reference to the object that is the real character of things, then all three vehicles contemplate it in common — this is why the sūtra urges all three vehicles to study it together. The sūtra-masters, failing to grasp this distinction between the two senses, simply concluded that prajñā must be the common teaching of the three vehicles.
次云淨名是抑揚教者。是亦不然。大品呵二乘為癡狗。淨名貶聲聞為敗根。挫小既齊。揚大不二。何得以大品為通教。淨名為抑揚。次法華為同歸應無所疑。但在五時之說。雖辨同歸。未明常住。而天親之論釋法華初分。有七處佛性之文。解後段壽量品。辨三身之說。斯乃究竟無餘。不應謂為不了之教。
Next, to say that the Vimalakīrti Sūtra is "the teaching of praise and depreciation" — this too does not hold. The Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra itself rebukes the two vehicles as mad dogs; the Vimalakīrti Sūtra disparages the śrāvakas as scorched seeds. The pressing-down of the lesser is, in both cases, equally severe, and the praising of the great is, in both cases, undivided. How, then, can the Larger Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra be called "the common teaching" while the Vimalakīrti alone is singled out as "praise and depreciation"? Next, that the Lotus Sūtra represents "the common return" ought to raise no doubt at all. But within the theory of the five periods, though it discriminates the common return, it does not yet make clear eternal abiding — whereas Vasubandhu's own treatise, in commenting on the opening portion of the Lotus, cites seven separate passages on buddha-nature, and in explaining the later chapter on the measure of the lifespan, discriminates the doctrine of the three bodies in full. This is, in fact, the ultimate teaching, without remainder — it ought not to be dismissed as an incomplete teaching still awaiting a later period to finish it.
次涅槃為常住教者。然常與無常皆是對治用門。若論涅槃。體絕百非。理超四句。舊宗但得用門未識其體。故亦失旨也。
Next, as for calling the Nirvāṇa Sūtra "the teaching of eternal abiding" — permanence and impermanence are both, in fact, functional gates of remedial teaching, adopted according to what needs to be countered. Speaking of nirvāṇa itself as it truly is, its essence cuts off the hundred negations, and its principle transcends the four propositions entirely. The old tradition has grasped only the functional gate, and has not yet recognized nirvāṇa's own essence — and so it, too, has lost the true purport.
Vasubandhu's treatise on the Lotus Sūtra is the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-upadeśa, and the "scorched seeds" (敗種, more fully 焦芽敗種) is one of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra's most quoted images for śrāvakas whose attainment leaves them, on the Mahāyāna's own account, unable to generate the seed of buddhahood at all — sterile ground rather than fertile. The refutation of the fifth period repeats, almost verbatim, the same language used of "the way" itself in the very first of the ten faults against the Abhidharma back in Part 3 — "its essence cuts off the hundred negations, and its principle transcends the four propositions" — extending that same standard to nirvāṇa, and implying that no scheme built from fixed categories, however refined, can finally capture what nirvāṇa actually is.
4. Challenging the Two Truths: Three Ways of Losing Them
With the five periods dismantled, Jizang turns to the fourth sect's second pillar — its account of the two truths. He diagnoses three distinct groups who each lose the two truths, in three different ways, none of whom actually holds them correctly.
次難二諦。迷失二諦凡有三人。一者毘曇。執定性之有迷於假有。故失世諦。亦不知假有宛然而無所有。復失一真空。二者學大乘者。名方廣道人。執於邪空不知假有。故失世諦。既執邪空迷於正空。亦喪真矣。三者即世所行。雖具知二諦。或言一體。或言二體。立二不成。復喪真俗也。
Next, challenging the two truths. Those who lose sight of the two truths are, in all, of three kinds. First, the Abhidharma masters, who cling to a fixed-nature existence and thereby lose sight of provisional existence, and so lose the conventional truth; and since they likewise do not recognize that provisional existence, vivid as it appears, is ultimately without anything really there, they also lose the one true emptiness — the ultimate truth as well. Second, those who study the Mahāyāna yet are named "Vaipulya-śramaṇas": they cling to a heterodox emptiness and do not recognize provisional existence, and so they too lose the conventional truth; and since, in clinging to this heterodox emptiness, they are thereby confused about correct emptiness, they lose the ultimate truth as well. Third, those who are simply what is currently practiced in the world: though they claim to know the two truths in full, they say either that the two are a single substance, or that they are two separate substances — and since neither way of establishing "two" actually succeeds, they too lose both the ultimate and the conventional truths together.
"Vaipulya-śramaṇas" (方廣道人) were a real target of criticism in early Chinese Buddhist polemics — practitioners who took Mahāyāna emptiness teaching to an extreme of denying provisional, everyday reality altogether, sometimes associated with an antinomian rejection of moral distinctions. Jizang's charge that they "lose the conventional truth" by clinging to a heterodox emptiness is structurally the mirror image of his charge against the Abhidharma masters, who lose it by clinging to fixed existence instead — both errors are one-sided, and both, by this treatise's own logic, end up losing the ultimate truth as a direct consequence of first losing the conventional.
5. Neither One Substance Nor Two
The third group's error — holding the two truths to be either one substance or two — receives its own detailed refutation, using exactly the kind of logical analysis of what "one" and "different" could even mean that this treatise has used against the outsiders' causal theories from the very beginning.
問真俗一體。此有何過。答若俗與真一真。真俗亦真。若真與俗一俗。俗真亦俗。若真真俗不真。則俗與真異。若俗俗真不俗。則真與俗異。故二途並塞一體不成。
Question: If the conventional and the ultimate are held to be a single substance, what fault is there in this? Answer: If the conventional, being one with the ultimate, is thereby true, then the conventional and the ultimate are both simply the true. If the ultimate, being one with the conventional, is thereby conventional, then the ultimate and the conventional are both simply the conventional. But if the ultimate is true while the conventional is not true, then the conventional and the ultimate are, after all, different from one another; and if the conventional is conventional while the ultimate is not conventional, then the ultimate and the conventional are, after all, different from one another as well. So both paths of this position are equally blocked, and "one substance" cannot be made to stand.
問一既有過。異應無咎。答經云。色即是空空即是色。若言各體。相即便壞。若有雙即。便二體不成。故進退無通。異義亦屈。然五時不立。真俗又傾。大乘之宗言將何寄。
Question: Since "one substance" carries this fault, surely "different substances" ought to escape all blame? Answer: A sūtra says, "Form is itself emptiness, and emptiness is itself form." If it is held that each has its own separate substance, then this very mutual identity is thereby destroyed; and yet if there is a mutual identity of the two at once, then "two substances" cannot be made to stand either. So whether one advances or retreats, no passage through is found, and the position of "different substances" likewise collapses under its own weight. And so, with the five periods unable to be established, and the two truths likewise toppled, on what, then, could the Mahāyāna master's own central teaching possibly still rest?
This closes the entire refuting-the-false half of the treatise, and Jizang's final rhetorical question — "on what, then, could the Mahāyāna master's own central teaching possibly still rest?" — is the same move that ended the treatment of every prior sect: not a dismissal of the Mahāyāna itself, but a demonstration that this particular teacher's confident account of it has no remaining ground to stand on. The "one substance versus different substances" dilemma applied here to the two truths is structurally identical to the "self versus caused" dilemma used against the outsiders' self-origination theory all the way back in Part 1 — the same tool, sharpened across five parts, now turned on the most sophisticated opponent the treatise has faced.
6. Revealing the True: Why Doubt Nāgārjuna at All?
With all four sects refuted, Jizang turns the page to the treatise's second gate — revealing the true — and names, with disarming honesty, the obvious objection this entire project has provoked: if the three treatises rebuke outsiders and fellow Buddhists alike, on what authority does Nāgārjuna himself stand to do the rebuking?
顯正第二。自上已來破外道毘曇成實大乘。從此已後序前四宗斥於三論。故通其邪難顯明正理。上既遍斥四宗。於時群難競起咸疑。龍樹非是正師。所造之論應為邪法。是故此章次明顯正義。正義雖多略標二種。一明人正。次顯法正。
Revealing the true, second. From the discussion above, the outsiders, the Abhidharma, Satyasiddhi, and the mistaken Mahāyāna have all been refuted in turn. From this point onward, having set out how the four preceding sects rebuke the three treatises, this section resolves those heterodox objections and makes the true principle manifest. Now that all four sects have been rebuked in full, doubts of every kind have risen up together in competition, all alike suspecting that Nāgārjuna is not, after all, a legitimate teacher, and that the treatises he composed ought therefore to count as heterodox teachings themselves. This is why this chapter next makes clear the meaning of revealing the true. Though the true meaning is manifold, let two kinds be briefly set forth: first, making clear the right person; next, revealing the right teaching.
This single paragraph is the hinge of the entire treatise. Every part of this collection from here forward — nine parts remaining, more than half the whole work — falls under "revealing the true," and Jizang's decision to open it by stating the strongest objection against his own project, in its bluntest form, rather than simply asserting Nāgārjuna's authority, is entirely consistent with the method used against every sect refuted so far: state the opposing case honestly, then answer it.
7. The Right Person: Nāgārjuna's Own Prophesied Authority
Jizang's answer to "why trust Nāgārjuna?" is neither philosophical argument nor appeal to his own judgment — it is direct scriptural prophecy. Two sūtras are cited verbatim: the Laṅkāvatāra's prediction of a bodhisattva named Nāgārjuna, and the Mahāmāyā Sūtra's five-hundred-year transmission lineage naming him as the one who would arise to "kindle the torch of the true Dharma and extinguish the banner of wrong views."
言人正者。楞伽經大慧菩薩問。世尊滅度後。是法何人持。佛說偈答。於我滅度後。南天大國中。有大德比丘。名龍樹菩薩。住初歡喜地。為人說大乘。能破有無見。往生安養國。
As for making clear the right person: in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, the bodhisattva Mahāmati asks, "After the World-Honored One's parinirvāṇa, who will uphold this Dharma?" The Buddha answers in verse: "After my parinirvāṇa, in a great country of southern India, there will be a monk of great virtue named the bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, abiding on the first ground of great joy, who will teach the Mahāyāna for the sake of others, able to refute the views of both existence and non-existence, and who will be reborn in the land of peace and nurture."
次摩耶經云。摩耶問阿難曰。佛滅度後。何人持法。阿難答曰。如來正法五百年。第一百年優婆掘多說法教化住持正法。次二百年尸羅難陀比丘於閻浮提度十億人。次三百年青蓮華眼比丘說法教化度半億人。次四百年間牛口比丘演說法要度一萬人。第五百年寶天比丘度二萬人。八萬眾生發菩提心正法便滅。六百年間九十六種邪見競興破滅佛法。馬鳴比丘摧此外道。七百年間有一比丘。名曰龍樹。善巧說法。燃正法炬滅邪見幢。
Next, the Mahāmāyā Sūtra says: Māyā asks Ānanda, "After the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, who will uphold the Dharma?" Ānanda answers: "The Tathāgata's true Dharma will last five hundred years. In the first hundred years, Upagupta will teach the Dharma and transform beings, upholding and maintaining the true Dharma. In the next two hundred years, the monk Śīlānanda will, in Jambudvīpa, bring a billion beings across. In the next three hundred years, the monk Nīlotpaladṛṣṭi will teach and transform beings, bringing half a billion across. Within the next four hundred years, the monk Gośīrṣa will expound the essentials of the Dharma, bringing ten thousand across. In the fifth hundred years, the monk Ratnadeva will bring twenty thousand across; eighty thousand beings will give rise to the thought of awakening, and then the true Dharma will come to an end. Within the sixth hundred years, ninety-six kinds of wrong view will arise in competition and destroy the Buddha's teaching, and the monk Aśvaghoṣa will crush these outsiders. Within the seventh hundred years, there will be a monk named Nāgārjuna, skilled and clever in teaching the Dharma, who will kindle the torch of the true Dharma and extinguish the banner of wrong views."
尋大小乘經。親記龍樹破邪顯正。今內外並呵。大小俱斥。何所疑哉。又馬鳴龍樹佛有誠記。尚復生疑。法勝訶梨無經所印。云何輒受。
Searching through both the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna sūtras, one finds it recorded, in the Buddha's own words, that Nāgārjuna would refute the false and reveal the true. Given this, the present treatise's rebuking of both the outsiders and fellow Buddhists at once, and its rejection of Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna errors alike, ought to raise no doubt whatsoever. Moreover, if doubt can still arise even where the Buddha's own sincere prophecy names Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna directly, how much less should one simply accept Dharmaśrī and Harivarman, for whom no such scriptural seal exists at all?
This transmission lineage from the Mahāmāyā Sūtra is one of the foundational texts behind the traditional count of Indian patriarchs, and its placement of both Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna within a single continuous five-hundred-year narrative — Aśvaghoṣa crushing the outsiders in the sixth century after the Buddha, Nāgārjuna completing the work in the seventh — matches exactly how this treatise has used both figures throughout: Aśvaghoṣa's Awakening of Faith and Nāgārjuna's own Mūlamadhyamakakārikā as two stages of one continuous rescue operation, not as rival schools.
8. A Final Question: What of Dharmaśrī and Harivarman?
The last objection of this part turns Jizang's own argument back on him: Dharmaśrī and Harivarman, he had just said, lack any scriptural prophecy naming them directly — yet a defender of Satyasiddhi can point to an Āgama passage about the "semblance and final" ages of the Dharma and claim it applies to Harivarman all the same.
問法勝乃未見誠文。訶梨亦有明據。阿含經云。實名四諦。是故比丘當成四諦。佛垂此勅。懸鑒有在。逮茲像末。允屬訶梨。為成是法。故造斯論。紘宗若斯。豈虛搆哉。答蓋是通指像末。豈別主訶梨。故非所據也。
Question: Granted that no sincere prophecy naming Dharmaśrī has yet been found — yet Harivarman, too, has clear scriptural grounds. The Āgama sūtras say: "'Real' names the four truths; therefore the monk should accomplish the four truths." In handing down this decree, the Buddha's foresight already had someone particular in view — and by the time of the semblance and final ages, this properly falls to Harivarman: it was in order to accomplish this very Dharma that he composed this treatise. Its far-reaching doctrine being of this order, how could it possibly be an empty fabrication? Answer: This passage simply points, in general terms, to the semblance and final ages as a whole — how could it possibly be singling out Harivarman by name in particular? This is why it cannot serve as valid grounds for his claim.
Jizang's answer here is brief almost to the point of terseness, and deliberately so: he does not need an elaborate rebuttal, because the asymmetry between "the Buddha names Nāgārjuna specifically, in a particular country, at a particular time" and "the Buddha mentions an age when someone will need to teach the four truths" is meant to be obvious to any reader who has just read both prophecies side by side. This exchange closes the case for the right person; Part 7 turns to the second half of revealing the true — whether the three treatises' own teaching, and not merely their author's credentials, can really be called ultimate.
Part Six Complete
This closes Part Six, and with it the entire refuting-the-false half of the treatise: the five periods dismantled sūtra by sūtra, a fourfold alternative classification offered in their place, three ways of losing the two truths diagnosed, and the "one substance or two" dilemma resolved against both options. The treatise then turns the page entirely, opening revealing-the-true with Nāgārjuna's own scriptural prophecy from the Laṅkāvatāra and Mahāmāyā sūtras, answering the very doubt that four parts of relentless refutation was bound to provoke.
Part Seven takes up the second half of revealing the true — whether the three treatises, dedicated as they are to emptiness, can really be called the ultimate, unsurpassed teaching, or whether, as one objection has it, they remain merely "a preliminary, one-sided emptiness" next to the fuller teachings of the broad Mahāyāna canon.