Ci'en Sect in Han Buddhism
The Ci'en sect, that is, the Dharma Laksana or Vijnanavada sect, was founded by Xuan Zang, the celebrated Tang Dynasty (618-907) Buddhist translator who once resided in the Ci'en Monastery of Xi'an, and his disciple Kuiji (632-682).
Xuan Zang (600-664), a native of Goushi (present-day south Yanshi County, Henan Province) with the surname of Chen, lived in a monastery during his childhood with his elder brother, Changjie, who was a monk. At the age of 13 he also became a monk and began studying Buddhist doctrines. In 622, he received his ordination in the commandments and began traveling and calling on established Buddhist masters.
Puzzled by contradictions and discrepancies in the Buddhist instructions then available in this country, he hit upon the idea to study in India. In 629, Xuan Zang began his pilgrimage to the West. In 633, having weathered all the hardships of the road, he arrived at central India's Nalanda Monastery, the Buddhist and cultural center of India, and started learning the philosophy of Yogacara under the tutelage of Silabhgdra (c. 6th-7th century), a famous Buddhist scholar who happened to be the abbot of the monastery. During his stay in India Xuan Zang was able to travel widely, and for his superb accomplishments in his studies, Indian Buddhist scholars honored him as a Mahayanadeva, or Deity of Mahayana.
In 649, he returned to China with a full load of scriptures and treatises in Sanskrit. With the support of the imperial court, he put together a translation workshop, and personally translated 75 scriptures in 1,335 volumes, an unprecedented feat in Chinese Buddhist translation history. One of his translations was the Vijnanamatrasiddhi-sastra (Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine on Consciousness Only), which became the foundation for the Ci'en sect that he established. But it was through the efforts of his disciple Kuiji that the Ci'en sect finally stood on its own as an independent religious sect.
Kuiji, a man of Chang'an with the secular surname of Chiwei, was a son of a noble house who began reading Confucian classics and writing as a child. His talent was not lost on Xuan Zang, who offered to accept him as a disciple in 648 (22nd year of the Zhenguan reign, Tang Dynasty). It is said Kuiji's parents were happy about the offer but that their son thought otherwise. Finally he raised three conditions for accepting the offer: first, he would never abstain from worldly desires and feelings; second, he would be allowed to eat meat; and third, he would be allowed to eat in the afternoon. All these conditions violated Buddhist taboos. Xuan Zang feigned consent in order to obtain this gifted disciple, but his true intention was to educate the boy after he became a monk. The following story shows the result of this education.
For a time Kuiji was known as the "Monk with Three Carts," a nickname he earned during a lecture tour in which he employed an impressive procession of three carts. While the chart that led the way was packed with scriptures and reference books, he himself rode on the cart in the middle and had the third cart loaded with his concubine, maidservants, and food. Midway along the road he came across a respectful old man, who, attract an exchange of pleasantries, asked him what was loaded on the first cart. After he received the answer, the old man asked what was on the cart at the back. Kuiji was nonplussed by the questioning, but, feeling compelled to give a reply, he told the old man the truth. The man smiled faintly, and said, "Your Excellency is such a well-known Buddhist master, yet you are preaching Buddhist doctrines by bringing your concubine and servants along. Doesn't that clash with the holy teachings?" Kuiji was so embarrassed that he immediately asked his concubine and servants to go home, and traveled on alone with the cart loaded with sutras.
Despite this unseemly tale about his nickname, Kuiji's reputation remains untarnished. He was a famed scholar and Xuan Zang's most trusted student. In Chinese Buddhist history, he was the "Master Explainer of a Hundred Scriptures." It was through his efforts that the Ci'en sect emerged as a major Buddhist sect in China.
At the heart of the Ci'en sect is the philosophy of idealism that had its origin in the teachings of Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubandhu, who lived during the 4th and 5th centuries in India. Vasubandhu was the author of the Vijnaptimatrasiddhi-trimsaikakarika-sastra (Idealism in Thirty Lines), which was later studied and enunciated by ten masters. While in India, Xuan Zang studied Vijnanavada under Silabhdra. After his return to China, his study was concentrated on the theories of Dharmapala (c. mid-6th century) on Vasubandhu's work. Incorporating the theories of the other nine masters, he compiled the Vijnaptimatrata-siddhi-sastra, which became the canon of the Ci'en sect.
It is the belief of the Ci'en sect that the "three realms originate from the mind, and the cornucopia of laws are geared to realism." That is to say, all things in the universe are converted into reality through the heart's perception. There are eight major perceptions, of which alaya-vijnana (storage consciousness), whose store of seeds spawn all the things in the universe, is the most important. The Ci'en sect's doctrine boils down to the pancadharma (five dharmas, governing 1) phenomena; 2) their names; 3) ordinary mental discrimination; 4) corrective wisdom, which corrects deficiencies and errors; 5) absolute wisdom, reached through the understanding of the law of the absolute), three aspects of the nature of things (trisvabhavata: consisting of three aspects: the illusory parikalpita, the dependent paratantra and the perfected parinispanna), eight parijnana (kinds of consciousness: the five senses of 1) seeing (caksur-vijnana), 2) hearing (srotra-v), 3) smelling (ghrana-v), 4) tasting (jihva-v), and 5) touch (kaya-v), as well as 6) intellect or the mental sense (mano-vijnana), 7) the discriminating and constructive sense (klista-mano-vijnana), and 8) the basis from which come all "seeds" of consciousness (alaya-vijnana)), and two categories of anatman (non-ego: 1) there is no permanent human ego, or soul; and 2) no permanent individuality in or independence of things). In this sect the Buddha's teachings fall into three periods of time: Bhava Canon (the teaching of reality of ego and things), Sunya Canon (the teaching of unreality of ego and things), and Madhyama Canon (the teaching of the mean, that mind or spirit is real while things are unreal). The Ci'en sect's analyses of conception are so meticulous that they are akin to modern psychology.
The fact that the Ci'en sect has been a subject of academic study since its founding during the Tang Dynasty perhaps has something to do with the prestige of Xuan Zang. However, this did not protect it from the destructive blow sustained during Emperor Wuzong's crackdown on Buddhism. Its literature fell into oblivion as a result, and some of it was not retrieved from Japan until the modern times. During the interregnum between the Qing Dynasty and the Republic, there was an upsurge in the study of the Vignanamatrasiddhi-sastra. Today, the treatise is a compulsory course for students at the Chinese Buddhist Academy.
