Apropos the Feng-Fa-Yao of Hsi Ch'Ao

Abstract

On pp. I64-I76 of his scholarly work, The Buddhist Conquest of China (Leiden I959), E. Ziircher has given us a translation of the extremely valuable text, Feng-fa-yao * jfJ f, Essentials of Religion (Taisho 52. 86a-89b). He rightly calls attention to the importance of this text as an indication of how well and to what extent the gentry class in South China, of which Hsi Ch'ao A$ X was a member, understood Buddhism during the 4th century, and it is for this reason that he has translated the work in its entirety (see p. I35). The outstanding fact in the history of Buddhism during the 4th century in China was the intellectual rapprochement between the followers of the Prajfia school and the Neo-Taoists. Ziircher has provided his readers with a most detailed treatment of this important episode, the first occasion that Buddhist monks and the Chinese literati were able to meet on a basis of equality to discuss philosophical problems of mutual interest. In part this was due to the fact that some of the learned Buddhist monks of the age arose out of the same gentry class as did the Neo-Taoists. In part it was also due to their concern with similar problems of ontology, or the discussion of the essence of things, pen-t'i A; as the Chinese put it. The basis of the discussion was provided by a passage in the Tao-te-ching, that non-being or wu f is the basis of all phenomena. This non-being was regarded as the ultimate truth, while the world of phenomena, ytu f, was the outward manifestation of that absolute truth. Such a bifurcation also occurred in Buddhism