Catuḥśatakaśāstranāmakārikā/Full text
Catuḥśataka. (T. Bzhi brgya pa; C. Guang Bai lun ben; J. Kōhyakuronpon; K. Kwang Paengnon pon 廣百論本. In Sanskrit, "Four Hundred [Stanzas]"; the magnum opus of Āryadeva, a third century CE Indian monk of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy and the chief disciple of Nāgārjuna, the founder of that tradition. The four-hundred verses are divided into sixteen chapters of twenty-five stanzas each, which cover many of the seminal teachings of Madhyamaka philosophy. The first four of the sixteen chapters are dedicated to arguments against erroneous conceptions of permanence, satisfaction, purity, and a substantial self. In chapter 5, Āryadeva discusses the career of a bodhisattva, emphasizing the necessity for compassion (karuṇā) in all of the bodhisattva's actions. Chapter 6 is a treatment of the three afflictions (kleśa) of greed or sensuality (lobha or rāga), hatred or aversion (dveṣa), and delusion (moha). Chapter 7 explains the need to reject sensual pleasures. In chapter 8, Āryadeva discusses the proper conduct and attitude of a student of the tathāgata's teaching. Chapters 9 through 15 contain a series of arguments refuting the erroneous views of other Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools. These refutations center on Āryadeva's understanding of emptiness (śūnyatā) as the fundamental characteristic of reality. For example, in chapter 9, Āryadeva argues against the conception that anything, including liberation, is permanent and independent of causes. In chapter 11, Āryadeva argues against the Sarvāstivāda claim that dharmas exist in reality in the past, present, and future. Chapter 16, the final chapter, is a discussion of emptiness and its centrality to the Madhyamaka school and its doctrine. There is a lengthy and influential commentary on the text by Candrakīrti, entitled Catuḥśatakaṭīkā; its full title is Bodhisattvayogacaryācatuḥśatakaṭīkā. The Catuḥśataka was translated into Chinese by Xuanzang and his translation team at Daci'ensi, in either 647 or 650-651 CE. The work is counted as one of the "three treatises" of the Chinese San lun zong, where it is treated as Āryadeva's own expansion of his *Śataśāstra (C. Bai lun; "One Hundred Treatise"); hence, the Chinese instead translates the title as "Expanded Text on the One Hundred [Verse] Treatise." Some have speculated, to the contrary, that the Śataśāstra is an abbreviated version of the Catuḥśataka. The two works consider many of the same topics, including the nature of nirvāṇa and the meaning of emptiness in a similar fashion and both refute Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika positions, but the order of their treatment of these topics and their specific contents differ; the Śataśāstra also contains material not found in the Catuḥśataka. It is, therefore, safer to presume that these are two independent texts, not that one is a summary or expansion of the other. It is possible that the Śataśāstra represents Kumārajīva's interpretation of the Catuḥśataka, but this is difficult to determine without further clarity on the Indian text that Kumārajīva translated. (Source: "Catuḥśataka." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 169. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27)
| Reference | Āryadeva (slob dpon 'phags pa lha). catuḥśatakaśāstranāmakārikā [चतुःशतकशास्त्रनामकारिका]. bstan bcos bzhi brgya pa zhes bya ba'i tshig le'ur byas pa [བསྟན་བཅོས་བཞི་བརྒྱ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ]. [A Verse Treatise called "The Four Hundred" (84000)]. Tengyur, RKTST 3191 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3191&typ=2. |
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| People | Āryadeva, Patsab Lotsāwa Nyima Drakpa, Sūkṣmajñāna |
