The One Vehicle, and Why the Arhat Still Fears
Having established the causal practice across four chapters, Śrīmālā now delivers the fruit: the One Vehicle. It begins with a lake and its eight rivers, moves through six familiar monastic teachings revealed to be secretly aimed at the Mahāyāna all along, and ends with the sūtra's boldest claim so far — that an arhat's "nirvāṇa" was never more than the Buddha's own skillful device.
Translation Method
This page opens Chapter Five (一乘章第五), by far the sūtra's longest chapter — nearly a third of the entire text — which this collection splits across three parts. Jizang frames the whole sūtra as a path unfolding in three stages: arousing bodhicitta, practicing the bodhisattva path, and attaining buddhahood. Chapters One through Four cover the first two stages; embracing the true Dharma, treated across Parts 1 through 3 of this collection, is the causal practice proper to a bodhisattva's whole career, "from the first ground up to just before buddhahood." Only once that causal stage is complete, Jizang says, can the text turn to the fruit that practice produces — the One Vehicle: "once the causal practice is complete, the fruit of the One Vehicle is next attained" (因行既成，次得一乘佛果). See also this site's note on translation method.
The One Vehicle, Like a Lake With Eight Rivers
佛告勝鬘：「汝今更說一切諸佛所說攝受正法！」
勝鬘白佛：「善哉世尊！唯然受教。」即白佛言：「世尊！攝受正法者是摩訶衍。何以故？摩訶衍者，出生一切聲聞、緣覺、世間、出世間善法。世尊！如阿耨大池出八大河。如是摩訶衍，出生一切聲聞、緣覺、世間、出世間善法。世尊！又如一切種子皆依於地而得生長。如是一切聲聞、緣覺、世間、出世間善法，依於大乘而得增長。是故世尊！住於大乘攝受大乘，即是住於二乘攝受二乘、一切世間、出世間善法。」
The Buddha said to Śrīmālā: "Now explain further what every buddha has said about embracing the true Dharma!"
Śrīmālā said to the Buddha: "Excellent, World-Honored One! I humbly receive your teaching." She then said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One! Embracing the true Dharma is the Mahāyāna. Why is this? The Mahāyāna gives rise to every wholesome dharma — of the śrāvaka, of the pratyekabuddha, of the mundane, and of the supramundane. World-Honored One! It is like Lake Anavatapta, from which the eight great rivers flow; just so the Mahāyāna gives rise to every wholesome dharma of the śrāvaka, the pratyekabuddha, the mundane, and the supramundane. World-Honored One! And it is like every seed, which depends on the earth in order to grow; just so every wholesome dharma of the śrāvaka, the pratyekabuddha, the mundane, and the supramundane depends on the Mahāyāna in order to grow. Therefore, World-Honored One, to abide in the Mahāyāna and embrace the Mahāyāna is itself to abide in the two lesser vehicles and embrace the two vehicles, and every mundane and supramundane wholesome dharma besides."
Jizang glosses "Mahāyāna" formally: it is called Great precisely because it is "able to give rise to" (能生) the two lesser vehicles, along with every mundane and supramundane wholesome dharma, all issuing from the one Great Vehicle — some commentators expand this to a fourfold scheme, but Jizang prefers the simpler two-vehicle reading. He reads the lake-and-seed pairing as answering two different objections at once: the lake-and-rivers simile shows how the Great Vehicle generates the lesser vehicles, while the seed-in-earth simile shows how the lesser vehicles remain dependent on and never separate from the Great Vehicle even after they have arisen — blocking the natural worry that a river flowing out of a lake ends up, thereafter, simply outside it.
He also works through a small piece of classical harmonization worth knowing: different scriptures give different counts of the rivers flowing from Lake Anavatapta — four in one Avataṃsaka-related text, eight here and in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, twenty in the āgamas and the Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā, and 8,020 in still other sūtras. Jizang reconciles all four figures geographically: the four great rivers each have four tributaries of their own (4 × 5 = 20, matching the āgama count), but since the people of Jambudvīpa live nearest the eastern river, popular report commonly names that river's own group of five together with the other three great rivers as "eight" (合前為八) — while the finer tributaries, each further divided into 500 of their own, simply go unmentioned in everyday speech, which is where the larger 8,020 figure comes from.
Six Teachings, Secretly Aimed at the Mahāyāna All Along
「如世尊說六處。何等為六？謂：正法住、正法滅、波羅提木叉、比尼、出家、受具足。為大乘故說此六處。何以故？正法住者，為大乘故，說大乘住者即正法住。正法滅者，為大乘故，說大乘滅者即正法滅。波羅提木叉、比尼此二法者，義一名異，比尼者即大乘學。何以故？以依佛出家而受具足，是故說大乘威儀戒是比尼、是出家、是受具足。是故阿羅漢無出家受具足。何以故？阿羅漢依如來出家受具足故。阿羅漢歸依於佛，阿羅漢有恐怖。何以故？阿羅漢於一切無行怖畏想住，如人執劍欲來害己，是故阿羅漢無究竟樂。何以故？世尊！依不求依。如眾生無依，彼彼恐怖，以恐怖故則求歸依。如阿羅漢有怖畏，以怖畏故依於如來。」
"World-Honored One has spoken of six items. What are the six? The abiding of the true Dharma, the perishing of the true Dharma, the prātimokṣa, the vinaya, going forth from home, and receiving full ordination. These six items are all spoken for the sake of the Mahāyāna. Why is this? The abiding of the true Dharma is, for the Mahāyāna's own sake, called so — to speak of the Mahāyāna's abiding is itself the abiding of the true Dharma. The perishing of the true Dharma is, for the Mahāyāna's own sake, called so — to speak of the Mahāyāna's perishing is itself the perishing of the true Dharma. The prātimokṣa and the vinaya, these two dharmas, are one in meaning though different in name; the vinaya is itself Mahāyāna training. Why is this? Because it is only by going forth from home in dependence on the Buddha and receiving full ordination that one is truly ordained at all — hence the Mahāyāna's own dignified precepts are said to be the vinaya, to be going forth from home, and to be receiving full ordination. This is why the arhat has no going-forth or full ordination of his own — because the arhat's own going-forth and ordination depend entirely on the Tathāgata. The arhat takes refuge in the Buddha; the arhat has fear. Why is this? The arhat dwells in a state of dread toward every unaccomplished action, the way a person dreads someone standing over him with a raised sword — and for this reason the arhat has no final happiness. Why is this? World-Honored One, one takes refuge only in what itself needs no refuge. Just as beings without any refuge feel one fear after another, and it is precisely their fear that makes them seek refuge, so too the arhat, having fear, takes refuge in the Tathāgata because of that very fear."
Jizang groups the six items into three pairs — the Dharma's own duration and cessation; the two aspects of monastic precept, vinaya as restraint of a present transgression and prātimokṣa as the future liberation that restraint secures; and the beginning and end of monastic status itself — and states his key point plainly: though these six items are nominally Hīnayāna teachings, they were taught with a hidden Mahāyāna intent all along: "the words belong to the lesser vehicle, but the intent lies in the greater" (言雖屬小而意在於大). Nothing here is being reinterpreted after the fact; the sūtra's claim is that this was the teaching's real aim from the moment it was first spoken.
On why arhats "have fear," Jizang explains that arhats have eliminated only segmented death — ordinary rebirth — but not yet the death of inconceivable transformation, the subtle residual change even a liberated being still undergoes short of buddhahood. Aware, even if only tacitly, that their liberation remains incomplete, they retain a residual dread of future suffering, and so take refuge in the Buddha — hence the sūtra's own simile, "like someone holding a sword coming to kill oneself" (如人執劍欲來害己). Jizang glosses "one takes refuge only in what needs no refuge" (依不求依) as the entire logic of why refuge is even meaningful: refuge only makes sense directed at something that does not itself need to seek refuge from anything.
Why "Nirvāṇa" Is Only the Buddha's Skillful Device
「世尊！阿羅漢、辟支佛有怖畏，是故阿羅漢、辟支佛，有餘生法不盡，故有生；有餘梵行不成，故不純；事不究竟，故當有所作；不度彼故，當有所斷。以不斷故，去涅槃界遠。何以故？唯有如來、應、正等覺得般涅槃，成就一切功德。故阿羅漢、辟支佛，不成就一切功德。言得涅槃者，是佛方便。唯有如來得般涅槃，成就無量功德。故阿羅漢、辟支佛成就有量功德，言得涅槃者，是佛方便。唯有如來得般涅槃，成就不可思議功德。故阿羅漢、辟支佛成就思議功德，言得涅槃者，是佛方便。唯有如來得般涅槃，一切所應斷過，皆悉斷滅，成就第一清淨。阿羅漢、辟支佛有餘過，非第一清淨，言得涅槃者，是佛方便。唯有如來得般涅槃，為一切眾生之所瞻仰，出過阿羅漢、辟支佛、菩薩境界。是故阿羅漢、辟支佛去涅槃界遠，言阿羅漢、辟支佛觀察解脫四智究竟得蘇息處者，亦是如來方便有餘不了義說。」
"World-Honored One! Because arhats and pratyekabuddhas have fear, they still retain a residue of birth-generating dharmas not yet exhausted, and so they still take rebirth; a residue of the holy life not yet accomplished, and so their practice is not pure; their task not yet complete, and so there remains something for them to do; beings not yet saved, and so there remains something for them still to cut off. Because of this incompleteness, they remain far from the realm of nirvāṇa. Why is this? Only the Tathāgata, Worthy One, Perfectly and Fully Awakened, attains parinirvāṇa, having accomplished every virtue — arhats and pratyekabuddhas have not accomplished every virtue. To say that they have "attained nirvāṇa" is only the Buddha's own skillful device. Only the Tathāgata attains parinirvāṇa, having accomplished immeasurable virtue — arhats and pratyekabuddhas accomplish only a measured virtue, and to say they have "attained nirvāṇa" is only the Buddha's skillful device. Only the Tathāgata attains parinirvāṇa, having accomplished inconceivable virtue — arhats and pratyekabuddhas accomplish only virtue that can still be conceived of, and to say they have "attained nirvāṇa" is only the Buddha's skillful device. Only the Tathāgata attains parinirvāṇa, in whom every fault to be cut off has been cut off entirely, accomplishing supreme purity — arhats and pratyekabuddhas retain a residue of fault, and are not supremely pure, and to say they have "attained nirvāṇa" is only the Buddha's skillful device. Only the Tathāgata attains parinirvāṇa, looked up to by every being, transcending the domain of arhats, pratyekabuddhas, and even bodhisattvas. This is why arhats and pratyekabuddhas remain far from the realm of nirvāṇa — and why to say that arhats and pratyekabuddhas, having examined liberation with their four kinds of knowledge, have reached the final resting place, is likewise only the Tathāgata's own skillful device: an incomplete, provisional teaching, not the complete and final meaning."
This is the doctrinally sharpest claim in the chapter so far, and Jizang states it without softening: when the sūtra says arhats are said to have "attained nirvāṇa," this was never literally true — "in reality they have not attained it; the Buddha only, as an expedient, spoke of them as having attained it" (其實不得，但昔方便言其得耳). He maps this directly onto two of the Lotus Sūtra's own famous expedients: believing one has the four kinds of knowledge complete when one does not is like the parable of the three carts, offered to children who would not otherwise leave a burning house; believing one has reached final quiescence when one has not is like the parable of the phantom city, a way-station conjured to keep exhausted travelers from giving up before the real destination. He names this kind of teaching directly: "an incomplete, provisional [meaning]" (有餘不了義), as distinct from a fully exhaustive, definitive one (了義).
Extending the same logic to the arhat's own four proclamations of attainment — "my births are ended," "the pure life is established," "what had to be done is done," "there will be no further becoming" — Jizang shows each is only provisionally true, since arhats have overcome only the coarse, segmented level of rebirth, never the subtle, transformational level that persists until buddhahood itself. Only the Tathāgata, having "accomplished every virtue" (成就一切功德), truly attains parinirvāṇa — setting up, though not yet explaining, the "two kinds of death" distinction that Part 5 takes up directly.
Part 4 Complete
This closes Part 4: the One Vehicle as the source and support of every other vehicle, six familiar monastic teachings shown to have been secretly Mahāyāna teachings all along, and the sūtra's boldest claim so far — that an arhat's own "nirvāṇa" is only the Buddha's skillful device. Part 5 explains exactly why: the two kinds of death, the four dwelling-grounds of affliction, and the ignorance-dwelling-ground whose power exceeds all four combined beyond any possible reckoning.
Continue to Part 5 — Two Kinds of Death, and the Ground Beneath All Affliction →