Abstract
In traditional Chinese expressions, guannian 观念 (ideas) are results of guan 观 (viewing). However, viewing can be understood to have two different levels of meanings: one is “viewing things,” that is, viewing with something to view; another is “viewing nothing,” that is, viewing with nothing to view. What are viewed in “viewing things” are either physical beings—all existing things and phenomena—or the metaphysical being (for example, the “Dao as a thing”). In both cases, something is being viewed. What is viewed in “viewing nothing” is the being itself, or “nothing,” in which there is nothing to view. According to Confucianism, the existence of “nothing” manifests itself as life sentiments, especially the sentiment of love, which is the very root and source of benevolence; moreover “viewing nothing” is, in essence, a perception of life. Life sentiments or the perception of life is “the thing itself ” prior to any being or any thing.
Highlights
The *Saddharmaparikathā or “Sermons on the True Law” is a Buddhist homiletician’s guidebook composed probably around the 5th century ce
The artefact was discovered for modern scholarship by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana (1893–1963) and Dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903–1951) in 1934, during a somewhat hurried visit to Spos khang monastery in Gtsang province
The famous Indian scholar was able to study it for a short time during a subsequent trip, enough for a brief scholarly report, which was published in 1938.2 This is what he says in the introductory part of the said report: In my second trip to Tibet, I visited the monastery of Pökhang [i.e., Spos khang] where I saw three bundles of Sanskrit mss. in which I noticed an important work by the great poet Aśvaghôṣa
Summary
The *Saddharmaparikathā or “Sermons on the True Law” is a Buddhist homiletician’s guidebook composed probably around the 5th century ce. The manuscript in question ( Ms) was kept in Tibetan custody for possibly as long as nine centuries, but it was apparently never translated or even engaged with until modern times. Last time, [i.e., on his third journey to Tibet] I tried my best to visit Pökhang, but I could not go. When the three volumes were brought, I found that one was Tridaṇḍamālā by Aśvaghôsha with a separate work named Parikathā by a later author.
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