Introduction

INTRODUCTION Anyone with only the briefest acquaintance with Chinese Buddhism will know that Fazang was one of the greatest Buddhist metaphysicians in medieval Asia. Undoubtedly the most talented disciple of the Ava- tasaka master Zhiyan ཕᦓ (602-668), he was recognized as the third patriarch of the Avatasaka tradition in China, the so-called Huayan zong ဎᣤࡲ. This tradition of thought was based on an Indian text, the Avatasaka stra, known primarily for a sophisticated and often diffi- cult philosophical system that was developed through its commentaries. The text itself is both abstruse and voluminous, and because of Fa- zang’s brilliant work in systematizing Zhiyan’s theoretical legacy and his decisive role in recasting the Avatasaka system in terms of characteristi- cally Chinese Buddhist doctrines derived from the influential apocryphon, Dasheng qixin lun Օଊದॾᓵ (Treatise on Awakening of Faith in the Mahyna), modern Buddhist scholars have unanimously accepted Fa- zang as the de facto founder of the Huayan school. Fazang was a third-generation Sogdian immigrant in China, and perhaps partly for that reason, his influence extended far beyond the borders of the Tang imperium. It seems that he had significant impact on a Korean fellow-disciple under Zhiyan—isang ᆠྉ (625-702), who was, in turn, the initiator of the Avatasaka tradition in Korea (Hwam). Although younger, Fazang seems to have exercised decisive influence on isang’s interpretation of the Avatasaka tradition and in particular Zhiyan’s teachings.1 Fazang was also closely associated with another Korean monk, Simsang ᐉᇡ (?-744+), who became his disciple. It was this Simsang (Jp. Shinj) who was credited with the transmission of Chinese Huayan to Japan, and during his stay in Japan he secured a gifted Japanese monk Ryben (var. Rben) ߜ᥯ (689- 773) as his own disciple. In time Ry1ben became a leader of Nara Bud- dhism and founded the Japanese Avatasaka tradition, known as Kegon. Fazang is regarded today primarily as a scholastic monk who composed a variety of technical and philosophical texts. That modern scholars have focused on Fazang’s philosophical contributions can, no doubt, be attributed to his importance in founding the Avatasaka tradition in East Asia. It can also be justified by the fact that many of Fazang’s extant writings are indeed philosophical texts, some of which have been 1 Chapter 5.2.3. 2 INTRODUCTION productively studied by scholars.2 This “Avatasaka-only” vision of Fazang gives the impression that he was an armchair philosopher, who was almost exclusively preoccupied with metaphysical speculation and who had little or no interest in other forms of religion or other aspects of creativity, such as rites, arts, and technologies. This view of Fazang appears to derive from the positivist and rationalist bias of modern historiography, which ignores “nonrational” elements in the sources as legends not of any use to historians, and focuses on more “rational” elements such as philosophy. It also derives from a tendency to privi- lege doctrine over practice, and to marginalize or ignore altogether the charisma and magical powers of monks. Because of the significance of Fazang’s ideas in the history of East Asian Buddhism, his life has already attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, giving us a number of important works in recent decades. Cover- ing a great deal of primary sources on Fazang’s life, modern scholars have succeeded in retrieving an immense body of data relating to Fa- zang’s biography and hagiography from sources scattered throughout the vast library of Chinese Buddhist literature. The complicated rela- tionships between some of these primary sources have emerged from obscurity thanks to the arduous textual and historical studies that a number of researchers have so painstakingly undertaken, and I hold nothing but high praise for the revealing light that they have shed on Fazang’s complex life. However, some major primary sources, both textual and epigraphic, have been either neglected or misinterpreted, thus producing an incom- plete picture of Fazang and obscuring important aspects of his life. Moreover, many details that have caught scholarly attention have been uncritically accepted. Legendary elements have thus crept into the account of Fazang’s life. Similarly disturbing is the way scholars have dealt with the rich hagiographical materials on Fazang. Admittedly, most of them cannot be used for reconstructing historical facts. My study will investigate the ways they were composed so as to gain clues to the reli- gious concerns and motivations of those who furthered their use.3 A biography is a description of an individual’s life and therefore is at first concerned with aspects of career that reveal social and po- litical standpoints and ethical and intellectual views, whereas a hagiography, an account of the idealized life of a saint, aims at prescribing 2 E.g., Chang, The Buddhist Teaching of Totality; Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism; Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy; Sakamoto, Kegon kygaku no kenky=; Takamine, Kegon shis1 shi; Yoshizu, Kegon ichij1 shis no kenky; and most re- cently, Vorenkamp, Fa-tsang’s Commentary on the Awakening of Faith. 3 The progress modern scholarship has made on Fazang’s life and its limitations are surveyed in detail in Chapter 1.3. .

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