A Research On The Formation Of Tiantai Zhiyi’s Harmony Philosophy

Zhiyi’s "All in a Thought" and "Three Harmony realms" are results of the combination between Indian Buddhism and Chinese culture. They are outcomes of the dissemination of Nagarjuna’s theory. Throughout the dissemination progress, they came into Nagarjuna’s theory that the Daoism Natural world, Buddha Nature Treatise, Equality of maha-vaipulya-buddh vata saka-sutra, Converging Three to One of Saddharma Pundarlka Sutra. All of these fuse together and lead to the Harmony philosophy of Zhiyi.Nagarjuna’s theory is summarized as "entities empty and illusion exist". It is the double negation of phenomena and entities."Entities empty" is the negation of entities. Early Buddhism justifies that lives are unreal and always changing. The Hinayana Buddhism insists that there is an eternal truth behind the changing phenomena. That is the entity world which consists of all the interrelated conceptual entities. Nagarjuna considers that the entity world does not exist. All we have is entity-less phenomena. The phenomena are all unreal illusions which do not exist too. So, it is said that Nagarjuna’s theory is the double negation of phenomena and entities.All in all, Nagarjuna’s "entities empty" is the negation of entity world, his "illusion exist" is the negation of phenomena. However, by Nagarjuna’s theory importing into China, Chinese philosophy does not contains the distinction between entities and phenomena."Emptiness" and "exist" both point to objective world. The objective world not only "empty" but also "exist". So, Sengzhao draws the illusion empty realm out. Sengzhao invited Daoism Natural world into Nagarjuna’s theory in the name of "illusion". The harmony elements came into Nagarjuna’s theory. The "all in a thought" is the systematized description of illusion empty realm.Influence by Maha Parinirvana-Sutra, Daosheng considers Buddha-dhatu as the ultimate truth. Daosheng insist that Buddha-dhatu is the essence of the persons and the world. Every one has the pure essence of becoming Buddha, and the Buddha-dhatu is the reality of the world. Daosheng holds that Buddha-dhatu is truth, and it is the only real existence. Buddha Nature Treatise of Daosheng provides a platform for Zhiyi’s "all in a thought" and "three harmony realm". They both spreads on that platform.The most important feature of "all in a thought" is that "a thought" and "all the worlds" are the same. Zhiyi holds that the nature of everyone fully contains the all the worlds. This view point can be traced back to Sengzhao. Anatman is the common view of Indian Buddha, so there is no subject-object relationship in Nagarjuna’s theory. Nagarjuna considers that atman does not exist, and Prajna is the only real existence. After Nagarjuna’s theory came into China, Prajna is divided into two parts, such as "wisdom" and "all things on earth","prajna" and "illusion empty realm" in Sengzhao’s theory. That is caused by the language pattern of Chinese philosophy. And Sengzhao knows that only is Prajna the real existence. So Sengzhao has to glue the Prajna and the illusion empty realm together. He holds that subject and object are the same. Otherwise, Daosheng also insists that the essence of ataman and the world are the same Buddha-dhatu. Influenced by Sengzhao and Daosheng, Zhiyi considers that "a thought" and "all the worlds" are the same.Sengzhao points "empty" and "exist" onto objective world, and he formed the Chinese madhyama-pratipad. After Sengzhao, Chinese scholars try to consider paramartha-satya, samvrti-satya and madhyama-pratipad as three noumenons. To cure this problem, Sanlun School brought relative realms theory out. They holds that paramartha-satya, samvrti-satya and madhyama-pratipad are all relative, and they are not the truth. But Chinese scholars ignored the opinion of Sanlun School. Zhiyi’s "three harmony realm" regards the paramartha-satya, samvrti-satya and madhyama-pratipad as three noumenons.Zhiyi’s "three realm" came from Yingluobenyejing and Renwangjing. Zhiyi’s "three harmony realm" can be traced back to "three wisdom no differences" in Pancavimsati-sahasrika-prajnaparamita. Three wisdom are the wisdom of Hinayana, bodhi-sattva and Buddha. It is said that the three wisdom has no distinctions, and they are relative. Nagarjuna holds the same opinion. Zhiyi matched the three wisdom to three realm, and developed "three wisdom no differences" into "three realm in a thought". The mode that Zhiyi used to deal with the three realms came from Sengzhao. Zhiyi holds that "empty""false""middle" are three perspectives of the truth. From now on, Zhiyi owns all the elements of "three harmony realm", his Harmony philosophy formed.