Da Zhidu Lun

The Da Zhidu Lun is an encyclopedic compendium or summa of Mahayana Buddhist doctrine, which, according to Richard McBride II is "perhaps the single most important document for understanding Buddhism in medieval China...there is nothing in Indian Mahayana literature that remotely approaches the authority this work enjoyed in medieval Chinese Buddhism."

The Da Zhidu Lun was translated into Chinese by the Kuchean monk Kumārajīva and his Chinese team from 402 to 406 CE. The colophon to this work claims it is written by the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 2nd century), but various scholars such as Étienne Lamotte have questioned this attribution. According to Hans-Rudolf Kantor, this work was "fundamental for the development of the Chinese Sanlun, Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan schools."

History

The DZDL survives only in the Chinese translation of 100 scrolls made by the Kuchean monk Kumārajīva (344–413 CE) from 402 to 406 CE. According to the primary sources, the Indic text consisted of 100,000 gāthās (lines), or 3,200,000 Sanskrit syllables, which was condensed by Kumārajīva by two-thirds to obtain the 100 scrolls of the Chinese translation. Kumārajīva translated the first 34 scrolls in full, and abridged the rest of the material. It was translated by Kumārajīva, working together with his student Sengrui, who "stopped writing, argued for the right translation," and "checked his translation against the original for the entire day" as well as with the Qin emperor Yao Xing (366–416 CE).

The DZDL became a central text for the East Asian Sanlun ( J. Sanron) or Madhyamaka school and also influenced all the major schools of Chinese Buddhism. The DZDL acted as a kind of Mahāyāna encyclopedia for East Asian Buddhist thought, similar to the status of the Abhisamayalamkara in Tibetan Buddhism.

Traditionally, it is held that the text is by the Indian Madhyamaka philosopher Nagarjuna. Against the traditional attribution of the work to Nagarjuna, Étienne Lamotte as well as Paul Demiéville, concluded that the author must have been a Buddhist monk of the Sarvāstivāda or Mulasarvāstivāda school from Northwest India, learned in Abhidharma, who later converted to Mahāyāna and Madhyamaka and then composed "a voluminous exegetical treatise which is like a Mahāyāna reply to the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma". This is because the Abhidharma and Vinaya material found in this text coincides with that of the north Indian Sarvāstivāda tradition. This is a widely accepted view among modern scholars. Lamotte also remarked on the internal evidence of the text which shows that its author was likely from a region that was within the Kushan Empire.

Hikata Ryusho however argues that there is an ancient nucleus of material in this text that could be attributed by Nagarjuna (as well as a large amount of later accretions). R. Hikata argued that while a part of the text was by Nagarjuna, it also included many "additions or insertions by Kumārajīva." The Chinese scholar Yin Shun meanwhile, argues for the traditional attribution to Nagarjuna. In a recent study, Po-kan Chou has argued that the DZDL is a product of the editorship of Sengrui (352?-436?), Kumārajīva's student, co-translator and amanuensis.