Jizang ( zh, c=吉藏, p=Jízàng, w=Chi-tsang. Japanese: ) (549–623) was a Persian- Chinese Buddhist

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

and scholar who is often regarded as the founder of

East Asian Mādhyamaka East Asian Madhyamaka is the Buddhist tradition in East Asia which represents the Indian Madhyamaka (''Chung-kuan'') system of thought. In Chinese Buddhism, these are often referred to as the ''Sanlun'' (Chinese language, Ch. 三論宗, Japanese ...

. He is also known as Jiaxiang or Master Jiaxiang ( zh, t=嘉祥, w=chia hsiang) because he acquired fame at the Jiaxiang Temple.

Biography

Jizang was born in Jinling (modern

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

). Although his father had emigrated from

Parthia Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...

, he was educated in the Chinese manner. He was quite precocious in spiritual matters and became a monk at age seven. When he was young, he studied with Falang (法朗, 507–581) at the Xinghuang Temple () in Nanjing, and studied the three

Madhyamaka Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...

treatises ( The Treatise on the Middle Way, The Treatise on the Twelve Gates, and The One-Hundred-Verse Treatise) which had been translated by Kumarajiva more than a century before, and it is with these texts that he is most often identified. He became the head monk at Xinghuang Temple upon Falang's death in 581. At age 42, he began traveling through China giving lectures, and ultimately settled at Jiaxing Temple, in modern

Shaoxing Shaoxing is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. Located on the south bank of the Qiantang River estuary, it borders Ningbo to the east, Taizhou, Zhejiang, Taizhou to the south ...

(),

Zhejiang ) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang i ...

province. Jizang also encountered the Indian monk,

Paramartha Paramārtha (Sanskrit, Devanagari: परमार्थ; ) (499-569 CE) was an Indian monk from Ujjain, who is best known for his prolific Chinese language, Chinese translations of Buddhist texts during the Six Dynasties, Six Dynasties era.Toru ...

who gave him his

Dharma name A Dharma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and Pabbajjā, monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The name is ...

.Buswell, Robert E., Lopez, Donald S. Jr. (2014). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton: Princeton University Press; p. 395 In 597, Yang Kuang, later Emperor Yang, the second son of Emperor Wen of the

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty ( ) was a short-lived Dynasties of China, Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged peri ...

, ordered four new

temples A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

in the capital

Chang'an Chang'an (; zh, t=長安, s=长安, p=Cháng'ān, first=t) is the traditional name of the city now named Xi'an and was the capital of several Chinese dynasties, ranging from 202 BCE to 907 CE. The site has been inhabited since Neolithic time ...

, and invited Jizang to be in charge of one of them, called Huiri Temple (). Jizang accepted, despite the fame of Yang's harshness.

Zhiyi Zhiyi (; 538–597 CE) also called Dashi Tiantai (天台大師) and Zhizhe (智者, "Wise One"), was a Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, Buddhist philosophy, philosopher, meditation teacher, and Exegesis, exegete. He is considered to be the foun ...

(538–597 CE), a respected figure of the

Tiantai Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai () is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in 6th-century China. Drawing from earlier Mahāyāna sources such as Madhyamaka, founded by Nāgārjuna, who is traditionally regarded as the f ...

school, had accepted to become a monk at another one of the new temples, and Jizang sought to visit him, but unfortunately, he died before Jizang was able to meet him.Lin Sen-shou
Chi Tsang
The Tzu Chi Vol. 11 No. 4, Winter 2004 He was, however, able to correspond with him regarding the

Lotus Sutra The ''Lotus Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: ''Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram'', ''Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma'', zh, p=Fǎhuá jīng, l=Dharma Flower Sutra) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. ...

. Later he moved to another new temple, Riyan Temple (). When the Sui dynasty was succeeded by the Tang dynasty in 617, he gained the respect and support of the new emperor, Gaozu as well, and became head abbot of four temples. Between ages 57 and 68, he sought to make more copies of the Lotus Sutra so that more people could be familiar with it. He produced 2,000 copies of the sutra and he also made copies of some of his own commentaries. Jizang was a prodigious writer, producing close to 50 books in his lifetime. He specialized in commentaries on the three treatises as well as texts from other Buddhist traditions, such as the Lotus and

Nirvana Nirvana, in the Indian religions (Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), is the concept of an individual's passions being extinguished as the ultimate state of salvation, release, or liberation from suffering ('' duḥkha'') and from the ...

sutras. His students included Hyegwan, Korean by nationality, who brought the Three Treatise School to Japan.

Philosophy

The general outlook of the Madhyamaka school is that commitments or attachments to anything, including a

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

al viewpoint, lead to '' dukkha'' (suffering). In commenting on Buddhist treatises, Jizang developed a general methodology of ''poxie xianzheng'' ("refuting what is misleading, revealing what is corrective"), by-passing the pitfalls of asserting the truth or falsehood of certain propositions in a final or rigid sense, but using them if they pragmatically lead to the ability to overcome the commitment to dichotomy. He noted that the tendency of many Buddhists to become committed to becoming unattached ('' shunyata'' or "emptying") is also itself a commitment that should be avoided. One can avoid this by engaging in the same deconstruction that allowed liberation in the first place but applied to the

false dichotomy A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false ...

between attachment and non-attachment (''shūnyatā shūnyatā'', or "emptying of emptiness"). Applying this to the traditional two levels of discourse inherited from the Madhyamaka tradition (the conventional, regarding everyday thoughts, and the authentic, which transcends this by analyzing the metaphysical assumptions made in the conventional thinking), Jizang developed his ''sizhong erdi'' ("four levels of the two kinds of discourse"), which takes that distinction and adds metadistinctions on three more levels: # The assumption of

existence Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does ...

is conventional, and the idea of nonexistence is authentic. # The commitment to a distinction between existence and nonexistence is now considered conventional, and the denial of this duality is authentic. # The distinction between committing to a distinction between existence and nonexistence is now conventional, and the denial of the difference between duality and non-duality is authentic. # All of these distinctions are deemed conventional, and the authentic discourse regards that any point of view cannot be said to be ultimately true, and is useful only so far as it is corrective in the above sense.Allen Fox, "Jizang", ''Great Thinkers of the Eastern World'', Ian McGreal, ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1995. Page 87. Thus, the attachment to any viewpoint is considered detrimental and is a cause of life's

suffering Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence (psyc ...

. To repudiate the misleading finality of any viewpoint, on any level of discourse, is thus corrective and helps overcome destructive attachment.

Selected works

* Dapin youyi (大品遊意; "Contemplation of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra") Taishō no. 1696 in Vol. 34 * Jingang banruo shu (金剛般若疏; "Commentary on the Diamond Sūtra") Taishō no. 1699 in Vol. 34 * Renwang banruo jing shu (仁王般若經疏; "Commentary on the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra for Humane Kings") Taishō no. 1707 in Vol. 34 * Fahua xuanlun (法華玄論; "Profound Discourse on the

") Taishō no. 1720 in Vol. 35 * Fahua yishu (法華義疏; "Commentary on the Meaning of the

") Taishō no. 1721 in Vol. 35 * Fahua youyi (法華遊意; "Contemplation of the

") Taishō no. 1722 in Vol. 35 * Huayan youyi (華嚴遊意; "Contemplation of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Avataṃsaka Sūtra") Taishō no. 1731 in Vol. 37 * Shengman baoku (勝鬘寶窟; "Jewel Cave of the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra") Taishō no. 1744 in Vol. 38 * Wuliangshou jing yishu (無量壽經義疏; "Commentary on the Meaning of the Infinite Life Sūtra") Taishō no. 1746 in Vol. 38 * Guan wuliangshou jing yishu (觀無量壽經義疏; "Commentary on the Meaning of the Contemplation Sūtra") Taishō no. 1752 in Vol. 38 * Niepan jing youyi (涅槃經遊意; "Contemplation of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra") Taishō no. 1768 in Vol. 39 * Mile jing youyi (彌勒經遊意; "Contemplation of the Maitreya Sūtra") no. 1771 in Vol. 39 * Jingming xuanlun (淨名玄論; "Profound Discourse on the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra") Taishō no. 1780 in Vol. 39 * Weimo jing yishu (維摩經義疏; "Commentary on the Meaning of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra") Taishō no. 1781 in Vol. 39 * Jingguangming jing shu (金光明經疏; "Commentary on the

Golden Light Sutra The Golden Light Sutra or (; ) is a Buddhist text of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the full title is ''Suvarṇaprabhāsottamasūtrendrarājaḥ'' "The King of Sutras on the Sublime Golden Radiance" History The sutra was origina ...

") Taishō no. 1787 in Vol. 40 * Fahua lun shu (法華論疏; "Commentary on the Treatise on the Lotus Sutra") Taishō no. 1818 in Vol. 40 * Zhongguanlun shu (中觀論疏; "Commentary on the

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā The ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' (), abbreviated as ''MMK'', is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. It was composed by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna (around roughly 150 CE).Siderits and Katsura ...

") Taishō no. 1824 in Vol. 42 * Shi er men lun shu (十二門論疏; "Commentary on the Twelve Gate Treatise) Taishō no. 1825 in Vol. 42 * Bailun shu (百論疏; "Commentary on the Śata Śāstra/Śataka") Taishō no. 1827 in Vol. 42 * Sanlun xuanyi (三論玄義; "Profound Meaning of the Three Treatises") Taishō no. 1852 in Vol. 45 * Dasheng xuanlun (大乘玄論; "Treatise on the Mystery of the

Mahayana Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...

") Taishō no. 1853 in Vol. 45 * Erdi zhang (二諦章 "Essay on the Two Levels of Discourse") also called 二諦義 Taishō no. 1854 in Vol. 45

Notes

External links

Jizang
by Allen Fox, University of Delaware

by Lin Sen-shou, on Tzu Chi Humanitarian Centre page {{Authority control 549 births 623 deaths 7th-century Chinese philosophers Chinese scholars of Buddhism Northern and Southern dynasties philosophers Liang dynasty Buddhists Chen dynasty Buddhists Sui dynasty Buddhists Tang dynasty Buddhist monks Writers from Nanjing Sui dynasty philosophers Tang dynasty philosophers Iranian philosophers Iranian Buddhists Madhyamaka scholars Sanron Buddhist monks

Biography

Philosophy

Selected works

Notes

Further reading

External links