Zhiyan’s Interpretation of the Buddha Land in the Context of the One-Vehicle Teaching of Huayan

Abstract

This paper explores Zhiyan’s 智儼 (602–668) interpretation of the Buddha Lands and his influence on one of his successors, Fazang 法蔵 (643–712). Zhiyan advocated two accounts of the Buddha Lands on the basis of the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. These two accounts, citing the same passage, are mentioned in his earlier Souxuan ji 捜玄記 and later Kongmu zhang 孔目章. In the former composition, he employed the passage to explain inner awareness of the Buddha Lands, while in the latter work, he referred to the sentence in order to define outer awareness of the Buddha Lands. Although these two accounts are supposed to be integrated by Zhiyan, there remained some inconsistency between the two; it was Fazang who identified this disagreement and produced a new Huayan doctrine.