Sengzhao's Understanding Of Buddhist Doctrine And Geyi Buddhism

Geyi Buddhism was a series of philosophical activities targeting on an accurate understanding of Indian Praj?āthought, and it flourished especially during the East Jin dynasty. In past studies, Zhufaya's practice of"matching of meanings", by which translators seeking Chinese equivalents for Indian Buddhist technical terms and concepts borrowed heavily from Taoist literature, and the six major Praj?āschools, were widely accepted as typical Geyi Buddhism. However, the essential meaning of Geyi should not be determined merely by the area of its application. On the contrary, it lies in the attempt of Chinese intelligentsia to apprehend Buddhist teachings from the perspective of native Chinese traditions. Indeed being popular amongst Chinese literati at that time, Geyi ideas and practices had developed into a common attitude toward assimilation of Indian Buddhism, rather than a concept of culture contact which merely describes a mode of interpretation applied by the host culture. Based on this essential definition of Geyi, this thesis aims at examining the approach employed by Sengzhao, a principal advocate of authentic Indian Buddhism in the late East Jin period, to the understanding of Indian Praj?ādoctrine. The focus of discussion will be placed on how Sengzhao asserted the distinctiveness of Buddhist concepts from neo-Taoism (Xuanxue), and established his system of thought, while still using certain beliefs and notions strongly held by the indigenous philosophies as a point of departure for Buddhist study.Sengzhao's thought has a triple identity. It is a Chinese form of the Indian Praj?āschool, a philosophical sect derived from native Chinese traditions, and also an offshoot of early Chinese Praj?āthought. In view of this reason, this thesis will make a comparison between Sengzhao and the aforementioned three schools of thoughts respectively, with an objective to illuminate his train of thinking, his absorption and transformation of these schools, and most importantly, the subtle relations between his Buddhist ideas and the Chinese philosophical concepts, such as those of neo-Taoism. With implementation of this comparison process, it is expected that an unbiased review on Taoist terminologies in Sengzhao's writings will be achievable.Sengzhao's philosophy is the fruit of cultural exchange. He formulated his Praj?āthought in the light of neo-Taoist system of meanings. At times he utilized the insights of Taoism to resolve certain problems posed for him in Buddhist texts and, conversely, utilized Buddhist texts to answer fundamental problems in Taoist writings. For instance, he chose the neo-Taoist ideology of nonduality to grasp Mādhyamika theory. Also, from a neo-Taoist soteriological standpoint, he criticized the discrepancy...