{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/taf/taf12.htm","path":"bud/taf/taf12.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/taf/taf12.htm","text":"The works ascribed to A\u00e7vaghosha and still existing in Chinese translations are eight in number. They are: (1) The Tai sh\u00eang ch\u2018i hsin lun (Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na\u00e7raddhotp\u00e2da\u00e7\u00e2stra): discourse on the awakening of\nfaith in the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na. It is the principal work of A\u00e7vaghosha, and through this we are able to recognise what an important position he occupies in the development of the Mahayanistic world-conception and theory of final emancipation. Its outlines and the accounts of its Chinese translation will be given below. (2) The Ta sung ti hs\u00fcan w\u00ean p\u00ean lun, a fundamental treatise on the spiritual stages for reaching final deliverance. The book has a decided tendency to mysticism, explaining a gradual development of religious consciousness through fifty-one different spiritual stages. It may be considered a precursory work out of which Vajrabodhi's Mantrism finally made a full manifestation. It was translated by Param\u00e2rtha between A. D. 557-569. Twenty fasciculi, forty chapters. (3) The Ta chuang yen lun ching (Mah\u00e2lamk\u00e2ras\u00fbtra\u00e7\u00e2stra), the Book of Great Glory, or a compilation of stories illustrating the retribution of karma. The stories relate mostly to the events that occurred in Western India. Beal translated some of them in his Buddhist Literature in China. The Chinese translator is Kum\u00e2raj\u00eeva, circa A. D. 405. Fifteen fasciculi.. (4) The Fo shu hing tsan (Buddha-caritak\u00e2vya), a well known poem on the life of Buddha. The Chinese translation is by Dharmaraksha between A. D. 414-421. Five fasciculi, twenty eight chapters, Beal's English translation forms Vol. XIX. of The Sacred Books of the East; and Cowell's translation from Sanskrit, Vol. XLIX of the same. (5) The\n[paragraph continues] Ni kan tz\u016d w\u00ean wu wu i ching, a s\u00fbtra on a Nirgrantha's asking about the theory of non-ego. The book foreshadows the M\u00e2dhyamika philosophy of N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna, for the two forms of truth are distinguished there, Pure Truth (Parm\u00e2rtha-satya) and Practical Truth (Samv\u1e5btti-satya), 1 and the \u00c7\u00fbnyat\u00e2 theory also is proclaimed. (6) The Shih pu shan yeh tao ching, a s\u00fbtra on the ten no-good deeds. (7) The Shih shih fa wu shih sung, fifty verses on the rules of serving a master or teacher. (8) The Lu tao lun \u2018hui ching, a s\u00fbtra on transmigration through the six states of existence. These last four works are very short, all translated by Jih-ch\u2018\u00eang (Divaya\u00e7as?), between A. D. 1004-1058.","title":"The Awakening of Faith: Introduction: Works in Chinese Translations","type":"page"}