Tachikawaryū. (立川流). A strand of Japanese esoteric Buddhism that is generally regarded as heterodox by the mainstream SHINGONSHŪ tradition because of its involvement in ritual sex and magical elements. The school was established in 1114 in the town of Tachikawa (Izu province) by Ninkan (1057–1123), who is known to have combined Daoist yin-yang cosmology with Shingon rituals and taught sexual union as a direct way of attaining buddhahood. Its teachings were subsequently systematized by Raiyu (1226–1304). The school sought to achieve buddhahood in this very body (SOKUSHIN JŌBUTSU) and taught that the loss of self that occurs through ritual sexuality was the most immediate approach to enlightenment; sexual climax, which the school termed the lion’s roar (see SIṂHANĀDA), constituted the moment of awakening. The Tachikawaryū was officially proscribed in the thirteenth century and its practices eliminated from the mainstream esoteric tradition through the efforts of the Shingon monk Yūkai (1345–1416). Although its scriptures were lost (except for a few that are said to have been sealed so that they would never be reopened), some of its practices are thought to have continued to circulate in secret in Shingon circles.
Taegak Ŭich’ŏn. (K) (大覺義天). See ŬICH’ŎN.
T’aego chong. (太古宗). In Korean, “T’aego Order”; an order of Korean married monks established in 1969, in response to the post–Korean War domination of Korean Buddhism by the CHOGYE CHONG of celibate monks. The name of the school is taken from the late Koryŏ-period monk T’AEGO POU (1310–1382), who was presumed to have introduced the lineage of the Chinese LINJI ZONG (K. Imje chong) to Korea at the end of the Koryŏ dynasty. The Korean monastic tradition had traditionally institutionalized celibacy throughout its history, but during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910–1945), the Japanese government-general had officially sanctioned clergy marriage along with many other reforms of Korean Buddhism that mirrored Japanese policies toward Buddhism in Japan during the Meiji Restoration. Following liberation from Japan in 1945, the celibate monks of Korea launched a purification movement (chŏnghwa undong) in 1955 to remove all vestiges of Japanese influence from Korean Buddhism, including the institution of clergy marriage. This campaign was supported by the Korean president Syngman Rhee, who issued a series of orders calling for the resignation of all “Waesaek sŭngnyŏ” (Japanized monks) from monastic positions. The married monks regarded these orders as the beginning of a pŏmnan (C. fanan), or persecution, of their way of life. The schism between the two sides deepened, often involving violent confrontations and continuing litigation. In 1961, a Korean Supreme Court ruling formally returned administrative control of virtually all the major monasteries to the celibate monks of the Chogye chong. In 1969, the remaining married monks who refused to leave their families split from the Chogye chong and, under the leadership of TAERYUN (1884–1979), organized themselves into the T’aego chong. The T’aego chong is now the second largest Buddhist order in Korea, following the Chogye chong, which continues officially to observe celibacy. The major monasteries that remain under the control of the T’aego chong are T’AEGOSA and PONGWŎNSA in Seoul and SŎNAMSA in South Chŏlla province.
T’aego Pou. (太古普愚) (1301–1382). In Korean, “Grand Ancient, Universal Stupidity”; SŎN master of the late Koryŏ dynasty, who is presumed to have introduced the lineage of the LINJI ZONG (K. Imje chong) of the Chinese CHAN school to Korea. T’aego was a native of Hongju in present-day South Ch’ungchŏng province. He is said to have been born into the prominent family of a court official and ordained as a youth in 1313 by the monk Kwangji (d.u.) at the monastery of Hoeamsa (Kyŏnggi province). T’aego later passed the clerical examinations (SŬNGKWA) for specialists of the Hwaŏm (C. HUAYAN) school in 1329. While investigating the Chan case (GONG’AN) “the ten thousand dharmas return to one” (case 45 of the BIYAN LU) in 1333, T’aego is said to have attained his first awakening at the monastery of Kamnosa in Sŏngsŏ (South Chŏlla province). Four years later, he is said to have had another awakening while investigating ZHAOZHOU CONGSHEN’s WU GONG’AN. In 1341, he built a hermitage near the monastery Chŭnghŭngsa on Mt. Samgak (Kyŏnggi province) named T’aegoam, whence he acquired his toponym. In 1346, T’aego headed for China, where he resided at the monastery of Daguangsi in the Yuan capital of Yanjing. T’aego is also said to have visited the eminent Chan master Shiwu Qinggong (1272–1352) and received his seal of transmission (C. YINKE, K. in’ga) and thus an affiliation with Shiwu’s Linji lineage. After T’aego returned to Korea in 1348, he retired to Miwŏn on Mt. Sosŏl (Kyŏnggi province). In 1356, he was summoned to the Koryŏ capital of Kaesŏng, where he taught at the influential monastery of Pongŭnsa. That same year he was appointed the king’s personal instructor, or “royal preceptor” (wangsa), and abbot of the monastery KWANGMYŎNGSA, the major Sŏn monastery in the capital. T’aego continued to serve as the personal advisor to successive kings until his death on Mt. Sosŏl in 1382. His teachings are recorded in the T’aego hwasang ŏrok. ¶ In the last half of the twentieth century, attempts to trace the orthodox lineage of the contemporary Korean CHOGYE CHONG back to T’aego and his Chinese Linji lineage rather than to POJO CHINUL (1158–1210) caused a rift within the Korean Buddhist community. The focus of the critique is Chinul’s putatively “gradualist” approach to Sŏn Buddhist soteriology (viz., his advocacy of tono chŏmsu, C. DUNWU JIANXIU) and Chinul’s lack of an authentic dharma transmission from a recognized Chan or Sŏn master (he is known to have been an autodidact). T’aego was therefore credited with initiating true Sŏn orthodoxy in Korea, based on T’aego’s transmission from Shiwu Qinggong, an authentic successor in the Chinese Linji school with its quintessentially “sudden awakening” (DUNWU) soteriology. This issue remains a matter of unremitting controversy in contemporary Chogye order politics. T’aego’s name has also been adopted by the T’AEGO CHONG, a modern order of Korean married monks, in order to give a patina of orthodoxy to its school as well.
Taehan Pulgyo Chogye Chong. (大韓佛教曹溪宗). In Korean, “Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism”; full name of the largest contemporary order in the Korean Buddhist tradition. See CHOGYE CHONG.
Taehŭngsa. (大興寺). In Korean, “Monastery of Great Flourishing”; the twenty-second district monastery (PONSA) of the contemporary CHOGYE CHONG of Korean Buddhism, located on Turyun Mountain in near Haenam County in South Chŏlla province. According to memorial stele erected for early Koryŏ-dynasty monks, the monastery was founded some time before 900 CE, perhaps by either Chŏnggwan (fl. c. 426) or TOSŎN (827–898). During the Japanese Hideyoshi invasions of the late sixteenth century, the monk CH’ŎNGHŎ HYUJŎNG (1520–1604), also known as SŎSAN TAESA, led a monastic militia based at the monastery in fighting the Japanese. After the fighting ended in 1598, Sŏsan proclaimed that Taehŭngsa would never be touched by the “three disasters” (samjae) of flood, fire, or wind, and it was in part due to his efforts that Taehŭngsa became an important Buddhist center. Sŏsan requested that his personal belongings be kept there even after his death, and today his calligraphy, portrait, robe, and bowls can be seen in the monastery’s museum. A famous resident was the Sŏn master CH’OŬI ŬISUN (1786–1866), the eighteenth-century reviver of the tea traditions of Korea, who developed the tea ceremony as a form of religious practice and is known for synthesizing the tea ceremony and Sŏn practice, as exemplified in his slogan ta Sŏn ilmi (tea and Sŏn are a single taste). The monastery’s main shrine hall (TAEŬNG CHŎN) is approached by use of the Sinjin Bridge and enshrines images of ŚĀKYAMUNI, AMITĀBHA, and BHAIṢAJYAGURU. Taehŭngsa is also known for its Ch’ŏnbul chŏn, “Thousand-Buddha Hall,” which enshrines a thousand miniature jade statues of the Buddha, all carved in Kyŏngju about 250 years ago. There is a story that the ship transporting the buddha images was hijacked by Japanese pirates, but the pirates later had a dream in which the Buddha severely admonished them and voluntarily returned the statues to Taehŭngsa. The grounds of the monastery also include a three-story stone pagoda from the Koryŏ dynasty, which is said to have held relics (K. sari; S. ŚARĪRA) of the Buddha brought to Korea by the VINAYA master CHAJANG (608–686). A five-inch (twelve-cm) high, seated bronze Buddha was found inside the base during repairs in 1967 to one of the other three-story pagodas, which appears to date back to the Silla dynasty. A seated MAITREYA Buddha is carved on a rock at Taehŭngsa, which is dated to the early Koryŏ dynasty. Taehŭngsa is also the home of a highly decorated bronze bell formerly owned by T’apsansa, which is held aloft by a hook shaped like a dragon.
Taehwi. (大煇) (fl. c. 1748). Renowned Korean chanting (pŏmp’ae) monk during the Chosŏn dynasty and author of the Pŏmŭmjong po (“Lineage of the Brahmā’s Voice School”). See FANBAI.
Taehyŏn. [alt. T’aehyŏn] (C. Daxian/Taixian; J. Daiken/Taigen 大賢/太賢) (d.u.; fl. c. mid-eighth century). In Korean, “Great/Grand Sagacity”; Silla-dynasty monk during the reign of king Kyŏngdŏk (r. 742–765) and reputed founder of the Yuga (YOGĀCĀRA) tradition in Korea; also known as Ch’ŏnggu Samun (“Green Hill [viz., Korea] ŚRAMAṆA”) and often referred to as Yuga cho, “Patriarch of Yogācāra,” due to his mastery of that school’s complex doctrine. As one of the three most productive scholars of the Silla Buddhist tradition, Taehyŏn is matched in his output only by WŎNHYO (617–686) and Kyŏnghŭng (fl. c. eighth century). Although renowned for his mastery of Yogācāra doctrine, his fifty-two works, in over one hundred rolls, cover a broad range of Buddhist doctrinal material, including Yogācāra, MADHYAMAKA, Hwaŏm (C. HUAYAN ZONG), and bodhisattva-precept texts. It is presumed that Taehyŏn was a disciple of WŎNCH’ŬK’s (613–696) student Tojŭng (d.u.), and that his scholastic positions were therefore close to those of the Ximing school, a lineage of FAXIANG ZONG thought that derived from Wŏnch’ŭk; their connection remains, however, a matter of debate. Taehyŏn’s Sŏng yusik non hakki (“Study Notes to the CHENG WEISHI LUN [*Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi-śāstra]”) (six rolls), the only complete Korean commentary on the Cheng weishi lun that is still extant, is particularly important because of its copious citation of the works of contemporary Yogācāra exegetes, such as KUIJI (632–682) and Wŏnch’ŭk. Taehyŏn appears to have been influenced by the preeminent Silla scholiast Wŏnhyo, since Taehyŏn accepts in his Taesŭng kisin non naeŭi yak tamgi (“Brief Investigation of the Inner Meaning of the DASHENG QIXIN LUN”) Wŏnhyo’s ecumenical (HWAJAENG) perspective on the “Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna.” Although Taehyŏn never traveled abroad, his works circulated throughout East Asia and were commented upon by both Chinese and Japanese exegetes. His Pŏmmang kyŏng kojŏkki (“Record of Old Traces of the FANWANG JING”), for example, was widely consulted in Japan and more than twenty commentaries on Taehyŏn’s text were composed by Japanese monks, including EISON (1201–1290) and GYŌNEN (1240–1321). Unfortunately, only five of Taehyŏn’s works are extant; in addition to the above three texts, these are his Yaksa ponwŏn kyŏng kojŏkki (“Record of Old Traces of the BHAIṢAJYAGURUSŪTRA”) and Pŏmmang kyŏng posalgyebon chongyo (“Doctrinal Essentials of the Bodhisattva’s Code of Morality from the ‘Sūtra of Brahmā’s Net’”).
t’aenghwa. (幀
). In Korean, lit. “painting”; referring to the large “hanging paintings” painted on cloth or paper, which are hung on the inside walls of Korean shrine halls or behind buddha images on the altars. The term t’aenghwa may have been in use since the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392), since a painting from 1306 includes the Sinograph t’aeng in its title. Because of their vulnerability to fire, most extant t’aenghwa date from the seventeenth century onward, the period following the depredations caused by the Japanese Hideyoshi invasions (1592–1598) of the Korean peninsula. T’aenghwa tend to depict different arrangements of various buddhas, BODHISATTVAs, and ARHATs, with guardians illustrated around the perimeter of the painting. Although t’aenghwa are usually painted in full color, it is possible to find them in various restrained formats such as gold and white on a black or red background; in this type, the lines are generally drawn in gold, while the skin is painted in white. There are no examples of this restrained type of t’aenghwa before the late 1800s. In main shrine halls, t’aenghwa tend to come in sets of three, with a main painting behind the central image and accompanying paintings on the walls to the left and right of the altar. Popular themes for such central t’aenghwa include the Buddha lecturing at Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKŪṬAPARVATA), the PURE LAND of AMITĀBHA, the medicine buddha BHAIṢAJYAGURU with the twelve zodiacal signs, and stories from Buddhist history. The t’aenghwa on the right is usually the “host of spirits” (SINJUNG) hanging painting, and shows the LOKAPĀLAs, with the dharma protector KUMĀRABHŪTA (K. Tongjin) prominently featured. Kumārabhūta is typically portrayed wearing a grand, feathered headdress accompanied by over a dozen associates, who aid him in protecting the religion. The t’aenghwa on the left often commemorates the deceased and features the bodhisattva KṢITIGARBHA, who has vowed to rescue all beings from the hells. Sometimes monasteries with restricted budgets or space will use t’aenghwa without accompanying statues, especially for the t’aenghwas to the left and right. T’aenghwa in smaller shrine halls may include paintings of the mountain spirit (K. sansin), the guardian kings, and the seven star (ch’ilsŏng; see BEIDOU QIXING) spirits of the Big Dipper. ¶ Large hanging t’aenghwa, which were traditionally displayed outdoors during Buddhist ceremonies, are known as KWAEBUL. Kwaebul are generally twenty-five to forty feet (eight to twelve m.) high, although one at SSANGGYESA is fifty feet (fifteen m.) in height. Kwaebul with a depiction of a standing MAITREYA are common. The kwaebul are displayed on the Buddha’s birthday and during rites such as YŎNGSANJAE, as well as for the funerals of important monks. Kwaebul are the equivalent of the Tibetan THANG KA and were especially popular in the seventeenth century.
Taeryun. (大輪) (1884–1979). In Korean, “Great Wheel”; founder of the T’AEGO CHONG of Korean Buddhism. In 1898, at the age of fifteen, he was ordained by Kwagun (d.u.) at the monastery of YUJŎMSA in the Diamond Mountains (KŬMGANGSAN), and later received the full BHIKṢU precepts from the VINAYA master Tongsŏn Chŏngŭi (1856–1936). In 1908, upon the completion of his studies at a Buddhist seminary (kangwŏn), Taeryun left for Seoul, where he served as the administrative director of the monastery of Kakhwangsa (present-day CHOGYESA) for six years. In 1915, he established a branch of Yujŏmsa in Pyongyang. He actively participated in the anti-Japanese and Buddhist reformation movements led by HAN YONGUN. In 1929, he established the monastery of Pŏmnyunsa in Sagandong, Seoul, and became the abbot of Yujŏmsa in 1945. In the 1950s, he served as both the chairman of the board of trustees of what is now Tongguk University and the chief of the general affairs bureau of the CHOGYE CHONG. As a result of an internal conflict between Korean monks over the issue of clerical marriage, he left the Chogye order in 1960 and established the T’aego chong of married monks in 1969.
Taesŭng kisin non pyŏlgi. (C. Dasheng qixin lun bieji; J. Daijō kishinron bekki 大乘起信論別
). In Korean, “Separate Record on the ‘Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna,’” written by WŎNHYO (617–686); a short commentary on the “Establishing the Meaning” (Liyi fen) and “Explanation” (Jieshi fen) chapters of the DASHENG QIXIN LUN. As Wŏnhyo himself explains, the Taesŭng kisin non pyŏlgi was meant to serve as personal notes for future reference, and the ideas broached in the Taesŭng kisin non pyŏlgi are expanded upon in detail in Wŏnhyo’s longer commentary on the text, the TAESŬNG KISIN NON SO. There is also some evidence that the pyŏlgi may have been a transcription of his oral lectures on the Dasheng qixin lun, which was to be kept separate from Wŏnhyo’s more formal commentary to the text.
Taesŭng kisin non so. (C. Dasheng qixin lun shu; J. Daijō kishinron sho 大乘起信論疏). In Korean, “Commentary on the ‘Awakening of Faith According to the Mahāyāna’”; an influential commentary on the DASHENG QIXIN LUN composed by the eminent Korean monk WŎNHYO (617–686); also known as the Haedong so (lit. the “Korean commentary”). Wŏnhyo’s commentary is traditionally regarded as one of the three great commentaries on the “Awakening of Faith,” along with FAZANG’s (643–712) DASHENG QIXIN LUN YI JI and JINGYING HUIYUAN’s (523–592) Dasheng qixin lun yishu. Wŏnhyo’s exegesis was especially influential in Fazang’s (643–712) understanding of the text. The Taesŭng kisin non so builds upon the ideas developed in Wŏnhyo’s earlier work, the Taesŭng kisin non pyŏlgi, but provides an exhaustive line-by-line exegesis of the entire text. In this commentary, Wŏnhyo attempts to combine MADHYAMAKA and YOGĀCĀRA thought by demonstrating that the “one mind” (K. ilsim; see YIXIN) or TATHĀGATAGARBHA is the ground of all existence. He explains “mind as suchness” (K. sim chinyŏ; C. xin zhenru) and “mind that is subject to production-and-cessation” (K. sim saengmyŏl; C. xin shengmie) as being two aspects of the “one mind.” Although Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha materials formed the basis of his analysis of the Dasheng qixin lun, Wŏnhyo introduces Madhyamaka method as well into this commentary; for example, he uses the Madhyamaka tetralemma to explicate ineffable suchness. In distinction to Huiyuan, Wŏnhyo explains the ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA as consisting of “three subtle characteristics,” namely, the characteristic of KARMAN (K. ŏpsang; C. yexing), perceiving subject (K. nŭnggyŏn sang; C. nengjian xiang), and perceived objects (K. kyŏnggye sang; C. jingjie xing), which was adopted later by the Chinese Huayan master Fazang in his own commentary on the Dasheng qixin lun.
taeung chŏn. (大雄殿). In Korean, “basilica of the great hero”; the main worship hall in a Korean Buddhist monastery, where the main Buddha image of the monastery will be enshrined. The taeung chŏn is typically the largest shrine hall on the monastic campus and is intended to serve as the center of institutional life. Most of the monastery’s residents will gather in this basilica for daily services in the early morning, before the noontime meal, and in the evening; other ceremonies and rituals that require the attendance of most of the monks will also be held in this hall. “Great hero” is an epithet for a buddha, and which “great hero” is enshrined in the hall will vary from monastery to monastery, although VAIROCANA and ŚĀKYAMUNI are most common. The taeung chŏn at T’ONGDOSA is unusual in Korea for having no enshrined image; instead, the back of the basilica is open and looks out on a STŪPA that is said to contain relics (K. sari; S. ŚARĪRA) of the Buddha himself; the relics thus represent the Buddha’s presence in the monastery, rendering an image superfluous.
taigong. (C) (胎宮). See BIANDI.
taimitsu. (J) (台密). See MIKKYŌ.
Taisekiji. (大石寺). In Japanese, lit., “Great Stone Temple”; located on the lower slopes of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture. The temple was originally named Daibō (Great Lodging) but takes its current name after Ōishigahara (Great Stone Field), the tract of land where it was first established. Taisekiji is the administrative head temple (sōhonzan) of the NICHIREN SHŌSHŪ school of Japanese Buddhism, and its abbot serves as the sect’s leader. Taisekiji was founded in 1290 by NICHIREN’s (1222–1282) principal successor Nichikō (1246–1333), who enshrined at the temple the DAI-GOHONZON (lit. great object of adoration), Nichiren’s unique cosmological chart (MAṆḌALA) of the spiritual universe, along with his teacher’s ashes and extant writings. The temple’s Sanmon gate, built in 1717, is well known, as is the Mutsubō, most recently rebuilt in 1988. The Grand Reception Hall, Daikyakuden, was built in 1465 and rebuilt in 1995. Taisekiji’s five-storied wooden pagoda, dating from 1749, faces toward the west rather than the usual south, signifying that Nichiren Buddhism would eventually spread back to the homeland of Buddhism. The Founders Hall, Mieidō, built in 1522, houses an image of Nichiren made in 1388, and Nichiren’s autograph of the Dai-gohonzon is enshrined in the sanctuary (kaidan), known also as the Hōanden. Because the temple is the home of the sanctuary where the Dai-gohonzon is enshrined, Taisekiji has long been a major pilgrimage center for both Nichiren Shōshū and later SŌKA GAKKAI adherents; since the 1991 excommunication of the Sōka Gakkai lay organization from the Nichiren Shōshū, however, Sōka Gakkai members are barred from viewing the Dai-gohonzon.
Taishō shinshū daizōkyō. (大正新修大藏經). In Japanese, “The Taishō New Edition of the Buddhist Canon”; a modern Japanese edition of the East Asian Buddhist canon (DAZANGJING), edited by TAKAKUSU JUNJIRŌ and Watanabe Kaigyoku and published using movable-type printing between 1924 and 1935, during the Taishō reign era. This edition of the Buddhist canon has become the standard reference source for East Asian Buddhist materials; in Western sources, it is often referred to simply as “The Taishō”; in Korea, it is usually called the Sinsu taejanggyŏng. The Taishō canon includes 2,920 texts in eighty-five bound volumes (each volume is about one thousand pages in length), along with twelve volumes devoted to iconography, and three volumes of bibliography and scriptural catalogues, for a total of one hundred volumes. The Taishō’s arrangement is constructed following modern scholarly views regarding the historical development of the Buddhist scriptural tradition, with scriptures of the MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS opening the canon, followed by Indian MAHĀYĀNA materials, indigenous Chinese (and some Korean) writings, and finally Japanese writings:
1. ĀGAMA (vols. 1–2, nos. 1–151)
2. AVADĀNA (vols. 3–4, nos. 152–219)
9. Miscellaneous sūtras (vols. 14–17, nos. 425–847), e.g.,
10. Esoteric Buddhism (vols. 18–21, nos. 848–1420), e.g.,
11. VINAYA (vols. 22–24, nos. 1421–1506), e.g.,
12. Commentaries to Sūtras (vols. 24–26, nos. 1505–1535), e.g.,
Mahāyāna sūtras (nos. 1509–1535)
13. ABHIDHARMA (vols. 26–29, nos. 1536–1563), e.g.,
15. YOGĀCĀRA (vols. 30–31, nos. 1579–1627), e.g.,
*VIJÑAPTIMĀTRATĀSIDDHIŚĀSTRA (Cheng weishi lun; no. 1585)
16. Treatises (vol. 32, nos. 1628–1692), e.g.,
17. Chinese sūtra commentaries (vols. 33–39)
18. Chinese vinaya commentaries (vol. 40)
19. Chinese śāstra commentaries (vols. 40–44)
20. Chinese sectarian writings (vols. 44–48), e.g.,
HUAYAN school (vol. 45, nos. 1866–1890)
TIANTAI school (vol. 46, nos. 1911–1950)
CHAN school (vols. 47–48, nos. 1985–2025)
21. Histories (vols. 49–52, nos. 2026–2120), e.g.,
22. Encyclopedias and references (vols. 53–54, nos. 2121–2136), e.g.,
23. Non-Buddhist schools (vol. 54, nos. 2137–2144), e.g.,
Saṃkhyakārikā (vol. 54, no. 2137)
24. Scriptural Catalogues (vol. 55, nos. 2145–2184), e.g.,
25. Japanese Buddhist writings (vols. 56–84)
26. Buddhist apocrypha and fragments (vol. 85)
27. Iconography (vols. 86–92)
28. Bibliography and catalogues (vols. 93–100).
The textus receptus for the Taishō was the second Korean xylographic edition of the Buddhist canon, the KORYŎ TAEJANGGYŎNG. This second Koryŏ canon enjoyed such a strong reputation for scholarly accuracy that the Japanese Taishō editors adopted its readings wholesale in preparing their canon—meaning that where there was a Koryŏ edition available for a text, the Taishō editors simply copied it verbatim, listing in footnotes any alternate readings appearing in other canonical editions. Although the Taishō is often considered to be the definitive East Asian canon, it is therefore not a true “critical edition” but, to a large extent, a modern typeset reprint of the xylographical Koryŏ canon, with an updated arrangement of its contents according to modern historiographical criteria. The standard format of the Taishō uses a page with three columns or registers, each register with twenty-nine lines of Sinographs; therefore, it is typical to cite texts included in the Taishō by sequential number in the canon, and/or volume number in the canon, followed by page, register (either a, b, or c) and line number, e.g., Dafangguang fo huayan jing (Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra) 23, T 278:9.542c27 = Chinese text name (Sanskrit name, where relevant), roll (juan) no. 23, T[aishō canon], sequential no. 278, volume no. 9, page no. 542, register c, line 27. (Note that sometimes the sequential number and the Taishō volume number are reversed, or the sequential number is dropped.) See also DAZANGJING; KORYŎ TAEJANGGYŎNG; SUGI; TRIPIṬAKA.
Tai Si tu incarnations. An influential incarnation (SPRUL SKU) lineage in the KARMA BKA’ BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tai Si tu incarnations are traditionally venerated as emanations of the future buddha MAITREYA and, according to Tibetan sources, early members of the line include the Indian MAHĀSIDDHA ḌOMBĪ HERUKA and the Tibetans MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS and TĀRANĀTHA. As one of the leading incarnate lamas of the Karma bka’ brgyud, the Si tu incarnations traditionally maintained a close relationship with the KARMA PAs, the sect’s spiritual leader; indeed, the two often alternated as guru and disciple. The first of the line, Chos kyi rgyal mtshan (Chökyi Gyaltsen, 1377–1448), trained under the fifth Karma pa and in 1407 received the honorary title from the Ming Emperor Yongle (r. 1403–1425). Perhaps most famous in the lineage is the eighth Si tu, CHOS KYI ’BYUNG GNAS, who is renowned for his erudition and literary accomplishments. The Tai Si tu lineage includes:
1. Chos kyi rgyal mtshan (1377–1448)
2. Bkra shis rnam rgyal (Tashi Namgyal, 1450–1497)
3. Bkra shis dpal ’byor (Tashi Paljor, 1498–1541)
4. Mi ’khrugs chos kyi go cha (Mitruk Chökyi Gocha, 1542–1585)
5. Chos kyi rgyal mtshan dge legs dpal bzang (Chökyi Gyaltsen Gelek Palsang, 1586–1657)
6. Mi pham phrin las rab brtan (Mipam Trinle Rapten, 1658–1682)
7. Legs bshad smra ba’i nyi ma (Lekshe Mawe Nyima, 1683–1698)
8. Chos kyi ’byung gnas (Chökyi Jungne, 1699–1774)
9. Padma nyin byed dbang po (Pema Nyinje Wangpo, 1774–1853)
10. Padma kun bzang (Pema Kunsang, 1854–1885)
11. Padma dbang mchog rgyal po (Pema Wangchok Gyalpo, 1886–1952)
12. Padma don yod nyin byed dbang po (Pema Dönyö Nyinje Wangpo, b. 1954)
Taixu. (太
) (1889–1947). In Chinese, “Grand Voidness”; a leading figure in the Chinese Buddhist revival during the first half of the twentieth century. Taixu was ordained at the age of fourteen, purportedly because he wanted to acquire the supernatural powers of the buddhas. He studied under the famous Chinese monk, “Eight Fingers” (Bazhi Toutou), so called because he had burned off one finger of each hand in reverence to the Buddha, and achieved an awakening when reading a PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ SŪTRA. In 1908, he joined a group of radicals, including other Buddhist monks, intent on revolution. In 1911, he organized the first of many groups (many of them short-lived) to revitalize Buddhism during this time of national crisis following the fall of the Qing dynasty. In 1912, he was involved in a failed attempt to turn the famous monastery of Chinshansi into a modern school for monks. After this disgrace, beginning in 1914, he went into retreat for three years, during which time he studied Buddhist scriptures and formulated plans to revitalize Buddhism, outlined in such works as his 1915 Zhengli sengqie zhidu lun (“The Reorganization of the SAṂGHA System”). He drafted a number of such plans over the remainder of his career, although none was ever implemented. In general, these plans called for improved and modernized education for monks and their participation in community and governmental affairs. He believed that Buddhism had become ossified in China and needed to be reformed into a force that would both inspire and improve society. In his view, for an effective reform of the monastic system to take place, Chinese Buddhists had to be educated according to the same standards as those in other Buddhist countries, beginning with Japan. For Taixu, the revival of Chinese Buddhism entailed starting a dialogue with the Buddhist traditions of other Asian countries; hence, a modern Buddhism had to reach out to these traditions and incorporate their intuitions and original insights. It was from these initial ideas that, during the 1920s, Taixu developed a strong interest in Japanese MIKKYŌ and Tibetan VAJRAYĀNA, as well as in the THERAVĀDA tradition of Sri Lanka. Taixu’s participation in the “Revival of Tantra” (mijiao chongxing) debates with Wang Hongyuan (1876–1937), a Chinese convert to Japanese SHINGON, demonstrated his eclectic ideas about the reformation of Chinese Buddhism. The first of Taixu’s activities after his return to public life was the founding of the Bodhi Society (Jueshe) in Shanghai in 1918. He was involved in the publication of a wide variety of Buddhist periodicals, such as “Masses Enlightenment Weekly,” “Sound of Enlightenment,” “Buddhist Critic,” “New Buddhist Youth,” “Modern Saṃgha,” “Mind’s Light,” and the most enduring, “Sound of the Tides” (Haichaoyin). In 1922, he founded the Wuchang Buddhist Institute, where he hoped to produce a new generation of Buddhist leaders in China. In 1923, he founded the first of several “world Buddhist organizations,” as a result of which he began to travel and lecture widely, becoming well known in Europe and America. He encouraged several of his students to learn the languages and traditions of Buddhist Asia. Among his students who went abroad in Tibet and Sri Lanka, FAZUN was the most accomplished in making several commentaries of late Indian Buddhism available to the Chinese public, thus fostering a comparison between the historical and doctrinal developments of Buddhism in China and in Tibet. In 1928 in Paris, Taixu donated funds for the establishment of the World Buddhist Institute, devoted to the unification of Buddhism and science; it would eventually be renamed Les Amis du Bouddhisme. He lectured in Sri Lanka and arranged an exchange program under which Chinese monks would study there. In 1929, he organized the Chinese Buddhist Society, which would eventually attract millions of members. During the Japanese occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s, Taixu followed the Nationalist government into retreat in Sichuan. In this period, as a result of his efforts to internationalize Chinese Buddhism, Taixu founded two branches of the Wuchang Institute of Buddhist Studies specializing in Pāli and Tibetan Buddhism: the Pāli Language Institute in Xi’an, and the Sino-Tibetan Institute in Chongqing. In 1937, at the Sino-Tibetan Institute, in his famous essay “Wo de fojiao geming shibai shi” (“History of My Failed Buddhist Revolutions”), Taixu began an earnest self-reflection on his lifelong efforts to reform Chinese Buddhism, deeming them a failure in three domains: conceiving a Buddhist revolution, globalizing Buddhist education, and reorganizing the Chinese Buddhist Association. When the first global Buddhist organization, the WORLD FELLOWSHIP OF BUDDHISTS, was founded in 1950, Taixu, who had died three years earlier, was credited as its inspiration. His insights would eventually be developed and implemented by later generations of Buddhists in China and Taiwan. His collected works were published in sixty-four volumes. Several of the leading figures of modern and contemporary Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhism were close disciples of Taixu, including Fazun (1902–1980), Yinshun (1905–2005), Shengyan (1930–2009), and Xingyun (1927–).
taizōkai. (S. *garbhadhātu; C. taizang jie; K. t’aejang kye 胎蔵界). In Japanese, “womb realm” or “womb world”; one of the two principal diagrams (MAṆḌALA) used in the esoteric traditions of Japan (see MIKKYŌ), along with the KONGŌKAI (“diamond realm”); this diagram is known in Sanskrit as the garbhadhātu maṇḍala. The taizōkai maṇḍala is believed to be based on instructions found in the MAHĀVAIROCANĀBHISAṂBODHISŪTRA (Dainichikyō); the term, however, does not actually appear in any Buddhist scripture and its pictorial form seems to have developed independently of any written documents. Although KŪKAI (774–835) is often recognized as introducing the taizōkai maṇḍala to Japan, in fact various versions developed over time. Use of the two maṇḍalas flourished during the Heian period, gradually becoming central to Japanese TENDAI Buddhism and SHUGENDŌ. The taizōkai consists of twelve cloisters, which contain various bodhisattvas and deities. At the very center of the maṇḍala is located the Cloister of the Central Dais with Eight Petals (J. Chūdaihachiyōin). There, the DHARMAKĀYA MAHĀVAIROCANA sits in the center of an eight-petaled lotus flower, with four companion buddhas and bodhisattvas sitting on its petals. In the four cardinal directions sit the buddhas Ratnaketu (J. Hōdō), Saṃkusumitarāja (J. Kaifukeō), AMITĀBHA (J. Muryōju), and Divyadundubhi-meghanirghoṣa (J. Tenkuraion). In the four ordinal directions sit the bodhisattvas SAMANTABHADRA (J. Fugen), MAÑJUŚRĪ (J. Monju), AVALOKITEŚVARA (J. Kanjizai; Kannon), and MAITREYA (J. Miroku). The central Buddha and the surrounding four buddhas and bodhisattvas represent the five wisdoms (PAÑCAJÑĀNA). ¶ Mahāvairocana’s central cloister is surrounded by a series of cloisters in all the four directions. In the eastern section (the topside of the maṇḍala), there are three cloisters from the central cloister at the outside: (1) Cloister of Universal Knowledge (J. Henchiin), in which three deities sit on each side of a triangle; (2) Cloister of ŚĀKYAMUNI (J. Shakain), where Śākyamuni sits surrounded by his disciples, as a manifestation of Mahāvairocana in the phenomenal world; and (3) Cloister of Mañjuśrī (J. Monjuin), in which Mañjuśrī sits surrounded by many attendants. In the western section (the bottom of the maṇḍala), there are also three cloisters: (1) The Cloister of the Mantra Holders (J. Jimyōin) includes the bodhisattva Prajñā surrounded by the four VIDYĀRĀJA: ACALANĀTHA (Fudō), TRAILOKYAVIJAYA (Gōzanze), YAMĀNTAKA (Daiitoku), and an alternate manifestation of Trailokyavijaya. (2) The Cloister of ĀKĀŚAGARBHA (Kokūzōin) represents worldly virtue and merit in the form of Ākāśagarbha. (3) The Cloister of Unsurpassed Attainment (Soshitchiin) includes eight bodhisattvas, symbolizing the achievement of the various virtues through which Mahāvairocana benefits sentient beings. In the southern section (the right side of the maṇḍala), there are two cloisters: (1) Cloister of VAJRAPĀṆI (Kongōshuin); in this cloister, VAJRASATTVA is the main deity, representing the Buddha’s wisdom inherent in all sentient beings; and (2) Cloister of Removing Obstacles (Jogaishōin), where sits the bodhisattva SARVANĪVARAṆAVIṢKAMBHIN, representing the elimination of the hindrances to enlightenment. In the northern section (the left side of the maṇḍala), there are also two cloisters: (1) Cloister of the Lotus Division (Rengebuin) where Avalokiteśvara is the central deity; and (2) Cloister of KṢITIGARBHA (Jizōin), dedicated to the bodhisattva who saves those suffering in hell. All of these eleven cloisters are then enclosed by the Cloister of Outer VAJRADHARAs (Ge Kongōbuin), where there are 205 deities, many of them deriving from Indic mythology. In one distinctively Shingon usage, the maṇḍala was placed in the east and the kongōkai stood in juxtaposition across from it. The initiate would then invite all buddhas, bodhisattvas, and divinities into the sacred space, invoking all of their power and ultimately unifying with them. In Shugendō, the two maṇḍalas were often spatially superimposed over mountain geography or worn as robes on the practitioner while entering the mountain.
Takakusu Junjirō. (高楠順次郎) (1866–1945). One of the leading Japanese scholars of Indian Buddhism of the early twentieth century, who played a leading role in establishing Japan as a major center of scholarship in Buddhist Studies. He was born, surnamed Sawai, in today’s Hiroshima prefecture. He was raised in a JŌDO SHINSHŪ family belonging to the NISHI HONGANJIHA, and he remained a devout layman throughout his life. After primary school, he studied at the leading Jōdo Shinshū educational institution, today’s Ryūkoku University, from 1885 to 1889, during which time, through Jōdo Shinshū connections, he was adopted into the Takakusu merchant house of Kōbe. With the support of his adoptive father, he spent the period from 1890 to 1897 in Europe. Through the introduction of the Jōdo Shinshū cleric NANJŌ BUN’YŪ, Takakusu was able to study Indology under FRIEDRICH MAX MÜLLER at Oxford University, receiving a B.A. in 1894 and an M.A. in 1896. While at Oxford, he assisted Müller with the Sacred Books of the East project. The final volume of the series, entitled Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts (1894), included the VAJRACCHEDIKĀPRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀSŪTRA, the PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀHṚDAYA, and the three PURE LAND sūtras, all Indian works (or at least so regarded at the time) but selected because of their importance for Japanese Buddhism. Müller’s choice of these texts was influenced by Takakusu and Nanjō Bun’yū. The works in Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts were translated by Müller, with the exception of the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING, which was translated by Takakusu. Takakusu also studied in Paris with SYLVAIN LÉVI, with whom he would later collaborate on the Hōbōgirin Buddhist encyclopedia project. He returned to Japan in 1897 to lecture in Indian philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, where he served as professor from 1899 to 1927, being appointed to the chair of Sanskrit studies in 1901. He was a devoted supporter of Esperanto and in 1906 was a founding member of the Japanese Esperantists Association. He supervised and contributed substantially to three monumental publishing projects: (1) the Upanishaddo zensho, a Japanese translation of the Upaniṣads (1922–1924); (2) the TAISHŌ SHINSHŪ DAIZŌKYŌ, a modern typeset edition of the East Asian Buddhist canon (see DAZANGJING) (1922–1934); and (3) the Kokuyaku nanden daizōkyō, a Japanese translation of the Pāli canon of what he called “Southern Buddhism” (1936–1941). For his work on editing the Taishō canon, he was awarded the Prix Stanislas Julien in Sinology from the Institut de France in 1929. Among his English-language publications, he is known especially for A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago (1896), which is his translation of YIJING’s pilgrimage record (NANHAI JIGUI NEIFA ZHUAN), and Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy (1947). He died in Shizuoka Prefecture, outside Tokyo.
Takṣaśilā. (P. Takkasilā; T. Rdo ’jog; C. Shishi guo; J. Sekishitsu koku; K. Sŏksil kuk 石室國). Capital of GANDHĀRA (in the Punjab province of modern Pakistan), often known in the West by its Greek name Taxila; an important early center of Indian Buddhist learning and transcontinental trade. The city is mentioned frequently in the JĀTAKAs, but not in the Pāli suttas, although it is presumed that the Buddha’s physician JĪVAKA studied there. AŚOKA is said to have built a dharmarājika STŪPA and monastery there, which were enlarged when the city was rebuilt following Scythian invasions. Takṣaśilā was a center for both Hindu and Buddhist scholarship, which flourished especially between the first and fifth centuries CE. Among the schools of Indian Buddhism, the SARVĀSTIVĀDA was especially strong in the city. Takṣaśilā was visited by the Chinese pilgrims FAXIAN and XUANZANG, who described it in their travel records.
Takuan Sōhō. (沢庵宗彭) (1573–1645). Japanese ZEN master in the RINZAISHŪ, especially known for his treatments of Zen and sword fighting. A native of Tajima in Hyōgo prefecture, he was ordained at a young age and later became a disciple of Shun’oku Sōon (1529–1611) at Sangen’in, a subtemple of the monastery DAITOKUJI, who gave him the name Sōhō. In 1599, Takuan followed Shun’oku to the Zuiganji in Shiga prefecture, but later returned to Sangen’in. In 1601, Takuan visited Itō Shōteki (1539–1612) and became his disciple. In 1607, Takuan was appointed first seat (daiichiza) at DAITOKUJI, but he opted to reside at Tokuzenji and Nanshūji, instead. Takuan was appointed abbot of Daitokuji in 1609, but again he quickly abandoned this position. Takuan later became involved in a political incident (the so-called purple-robe incident; J. shi’e jiken), which led to the forced abdication of Emperor Gomizunoo (r. 1611–1629) and in 1629 to Takuan’s exile to Kaminoyama in Uzen (present-day Yamagata prefecture). Takuan had befriended Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646), the swordsman and personal instructor to the shōgun, and while he was in exile composed for him the FUDŌCHI SHINMYŌROKU (“Record of the Mental Sublimity of Immovable Wisdom”). This treatise on Zen and sword fighting draws on the concept of no-mind (J. mushin; C. WUXIN) from the LIUZU TAN JING (“Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch”) to demonstrate the proper method of mind training incumbent on adepts in both the martial arts and Zen meditation. Takuan later returned to Edo (present-day Tōkyō) and, with the support of prominent patrons, became the founding abbot of Tōkaiji in nearby Shinagawa in 1638. He died at the capital in 1645.
takuhatsu. (C. tuobo; K. t’akbal 托鉢). In Japanese, lit. “lifting up the bowl,” viz., “to seek alms”; the Japanese form of the traditional monastic practice of alms-round (PIṆḌAPĀTA). In Japan, takuhatsu is most commonly associated with the ZEN school and is typically conducted by a small group of monks who walk together through the streets with walking staffs (khakkhara) and bells that alert residents to their presence. Monks typically receive money or uncooked rice in their bowls as alms, rather than the cooked food received by monks in Southeast Asia. See also PĀTRA.
Tambadīpa. The region occupied by PAGAN and Sirīkhettarā (Prome) in Middle Burma (Myanmar), it is the southern portion of the Burmese homeland of Sunāparanta-Tambadīpa. The name is most probably derived from Tambapannidīpa, one of several names of Sri Lanka.
tamnan. In northern (Lānnā) Thai, “chronicle”; a genre of northern Thai historical writing combining local legends, myths, and Buddhist literary traditions, and written in Lānnā Thai, Mon, or Pāli; this genre flourished in the Lānnā kingdom between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. A tamnan generally begins with events in the life of Gotama (S. GAUTAMA) Buddha and continues on to the establishment of the dispensation (P. sāsanā; S. ŚĀSANA) at a specific location. Notable tamnan include the CĀMADEVĪVAṂSA, the JINAKĀLAMĀLĪ, and the MŪLASĀSANA.
tanch’ŏng. (丹靑). In Korean, “red and blue,” or more literally “cinnabar and azure-green”; a style of painting colors and patterns on the wooden beams, rafters, and pillars of Korean Buddhist monastery buildings, as well as on palaces and other traditional-style wooden buildings. The five colors used in tanch’ŏng painting are red, azure-green, yellow, black, and white. These colors are related to the five Chinese elements (metal, wood, fire, water, earth) and the five directions (the four cardinal directions plus the center). The paint, made from a thick coating of minerals mixed with glue, protects the wood from burrowing insects and water damage and sets the monasteries and palaces apart from the buildings of private citizens, who were prohibited by law from using the same decorative techniques. Tanch’ŏng painting may date from early in the inception of Buddhism in Korea during the fourth or fifth centuries, and there is evidence of the use of tanch’ŏng during both the Koguryŏ and Silla kingdoms. There are various types of tanch’ŏng, which range from applying a utilitarian base coat, usually in azure-green, to protect the wood, to much more elaborate styles that uses all five colors in geometric patterns, sometimes interspersed with stylized flowers, water lilies, pomegranates, and bubbles. Tanch’ŏng is usually painted using stencils made from perforated paper dusted with chalk to imprint the pattern on the surface to be painted. After the painting is done, an oil coat is spread over the paint to protect and brighten the colors. Some of the best-known examples of tanch’ŏng can be found at the monasteries of PUSŎKSA and SUDŎKSA.
tanengi. (多念義). In Japanese, “the doctrine of multiple recitations,” in the Japanese PURE LAND traditions, the practice of multiple or even continuous recitations of the buddha Amitābha’s name (J. nenbutsu; C. NIANFO). The debate between multiple recitations and a single recitation (ICHINENGI) emerged in the early JŌDOSHŪ movement of HŌNEN (1133–1212). Hōnen himself emphasized faith, stating that even a single moment of faith would be sufficient to bring about rebirth in Amitābha’s pure land of SUKHĀVATĪ. However, he himself practiced assiduously, chanting the nenbutsu tens of thousands of times a day. Hōnen’s disciples Ryūkan (1148–1228) and Shōkōbō Benchō (1162–1238) are especially well known for promoting the tanengi position. Tanengi emphasized the value of a lifetime of practice, in which each moment of a disciple’s life would come to be imbued with the power of the nenbutsu. It is said that, thanks to such constant practice, a disciple would gain the assurance of rebirth in sukhāvatī through a vision of Amitābha in the moments before death.
Tang gaoseng zhuan. (C) (唐高僧傳). See GAOSENG ZHUAN; XU GAOSENG ZHUAN.
tangho. (堂號). In Korean, lit. “hall epithet”; a new cognomen given to an especially eminent monk, which is bestowed by his teacher some twenty to thirty years after his ordination, often in conjunction with transmitting the master’s lineage to his pupil; this name subsequently serves as the monk’s funerary name. The name is typically selected to reflect the designated monk’s spiritual attainments and/or the specific practices with which he is identified. For example, the monk CH’ŎNGHŎ HYUJŎNG (1520–1604) was given the hall epithet Ch’ŏnghŏdang (Clear and Pure) in recognition of his enlightened understanding. The hall epithet of the monk HWANSŎNG CHIAN (1664–1729), Hwansŏngdang (Calling [People] to Awake), refers to his efforts to disseminate the Buddhist teachings, while Nuram Sikhwal’s (1725–1830) epithet Nuramdang (Reticent at the Hermitage) referred to the fact that he often meditated in seclusion deep in the mountains. The term originates from the designation of a person’s dwelling and thus signifies the owner of a house. The term also is employed in both Confucian and secular contexts, but its usage in Buddhism seems to be unique to Korea, where it became customary to bestow such names from the late Koryŏ period onward. See also SIHO.
tanju. (短珠). In Japanese and Korean, “short rosary.” See JAPAMĀLĀ.
Tanluan. (J. Donran; K. Tamnan 曇鸞) (c. 476–542). Chinese monk and putative patriarch of the PURE LAND traditions of East Asia. He is said to have become a monk at an early age, after which he devoted himself to the study of the MAHĀSAṂNIPĀTASŪTRA. As his health deteriorated from his intensive studies, Tanluan is said to have resolved to search for a means of attaining immortality. During his search in the south of China, Tanluan purportedly met the Daoist master Tao Hongjing (455–536), who gave him ten rolls of scriptures of the Daoist perfected. Tanluan is then said to have visited BODHIRUCI in Luoyang, from whom he received a copy of the GUAN WULIANGSHOU JING. Tanluan subsequently abandoned his initial quest for immortality in favor of the teachings of the buddha AMITĀBHA’s pure land (see SUKHĀVATĪ). He was later appointed abbot of the monasteries of Dayansi in Bingzhou (present-day Shaanxi province) and Xuanzhongsi in nearby Fenzhou. Tanluan is famous for his commentary on the WULIANGSHOU JING YOUPOTISHE YUANSHENG JI attributed to VASUBANDHU.
Tannishō. (歎異抄). In Japanese, “Record of Lamentations on Divergences”; a short collection of the sayings of the JŌDO SHINSHŪ teacher SHINRAN (1173–1263), compiled by his disciple Yuien (1222–1289). The work consists of eighteen short sections: the first ten sections are direct quotations of Shinran’s sayings as recalled by the author; the remaining eight are Yuien’s responses to what he considers misinterpretations of Shinran’s teachings that arose after his death. The first part of the text, in particular, describes such characteristic teachings of Shinran as “evil people have the right capacity” (AKUNIN SHŌKI), i.e., that Amitābha’s compassion is directed primarily to evildoers. The text was little known for centuries after its compilation, even to followers of Jōdo Shinshū, until it was popularized during the Meiji era by the HIGASHI HONGANJI reformer KIYOZAWA MANSHI (1863–1903).
tantra. (T. rgyud; C. tanteluo; J. dantokura; K. tant’ŭngna 檀特羅). In Sanskrit, lit. “continuum”; a term derived from the Sanskrit root √tan (“to stretch out,” “to weave”), having the sense of an arrangement or a pattern (deployed not only in a ritual, but in military and political contexts as well). The term is thus used to name a manual or handbook that sets forth such arrangements, and is not limited to Buddhism or to Indian religions more broadly. Beyond this, the term is notoriously difficult to define. It can be said, however, that tantra does not carry the connotation of all things esoteric and erotic that it has acquired in the modern West. In Buddhism, the term tantra generally refers to a text that contains esoteric teachings, often ascribed to ŚĀKYAMUNI or another buddha. Even this, however, is problematic: there are esoteric texts that do not carry the term tantra in their title (such as the VAJRAŚEKHARASŪTRA), and there are nonesoteric texts in whose title the term tantra appears (such as the UTTARATANTRA). Scholars therefore tend to define tantra (in the textual sense) based on specific sets of elements contained in the texts. These include MANTRA, MAṆḌALA, MUDRĀ, initiations (ABHIṢEKA), fire sacrifices (HOMA), and feasts (GAṆACAKRA), all set forth with the aim of gaining powers (SIDDHI), both mundane and supramundane. The mundane powers are traditionally enumerated as involving four activities: pacification of difficulties (ŚĀNTIKA), increase of wealth (PAUṢṬIKA), control of negative forces (VAŚĪKARAṆA), and destruction of enemies (ABHICĀRA). The supramundane power is enlightenment (BODHI). The texts called tantras began to appear in India in the late seventh and early eighth centuries CE, often written in a nonstandard (some would say “corrupt”) Sanskrit that included colloquial elements and regional terms. These anonymous texts (including such famous works as the GUHYASAMĀJATANTRA, the CAKRASAṂVARATANTRA, and the HEVAJRATANTRA), typically provided mantras and instructions for drawing maṇḍalas, among a variety of other elements, but their presentation and organization were usually not systematic; these texts came to serve as the “root tantra” for a cycle of related texts. The more systematic of these were the SĀDHANA (lit. “means of achievement”), a ritual manual by a named author, which set forth the specific practices necessary for the attainment of siddhi. The standard form was to create a maṇḍala into which one invited a deity. The meditator would either visualize himself or herself as the deity or visualize the deity as appearing before the meditator. Various offerings would be made, mantras would be recited, and siddhis would be requested. Although scholars continue to explore the relation between the tantras and the MAHĀYĀNA sūtras, tantric exegetes viewed the tantras, like the Mahāyāna sūtras, as being the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) and as setting forth forms of practice consistent with the bodhisattva vow and the quest for buddhahood, albeit more quickly than by the conventional path, via what came to be referred to as the VAJRA vehicle (VAJRAYĀNA). Thus, it was said that the Mahāyāna was divided into the pāramitānaya, the “mode of the perfections” set forth in the Mahāyāna sūtras, and the mantranaya, the “mode of the mantras” set forth in the tantras. These two are also, although less commonly, known as the sūtrayāna and the TANTRAYĀNA. In this context, then, the term “tantra” is often used by tantric exegetes in contrast to “sūtra,” which is taken to mean the corpus of exoteric teachings of the Buddha. For those who accept the tantras as the word of the Buddha, the term “sūtras and tantras” would thus refer to the entirety of the Buddha’s teachings. The corpus of tantras was eventually classified by late Indian Buddhist exegetes into a number of schemata, the most famous of which is the fourfold division into KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA, YOGATANTRA, and ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA.
tantrayāna. In Sanskrit, “vehicle of the tantras”; see TANTRA.
tantric vows. (T. rig ’dzin gyi sdom pa; *vidyādharasaṃvara). Any of a number of vows taken as part of a tantric initiation and to be maintained as part of tantric practice. Many tantras list disparate sets of rules, the best known being that found in the Rgyud rdo rje rtse mo (the Tibetan version of the VAJRAŚEKHARASŪTRA, a SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAṂGRAHA explanatory tantra). Such texts enumerate “restraints” or “vows” (SAṂVARA) and pledges (SAMAYA) connected with the five buddha families (BUDDHAKULA; PAÑCATATHĀGATA), and possibly an ordination and confession ceremony modeled on the PRĀTIMOKṢA. These disparate rules were later codified more systematically in a number of tantric texts: the so-called root infractions in the Vajrayānamūlāpatti attributed to AŚVAGHOṢA, and an even shorter list of secondary vows in the Vajrayānasthūlāpatti attributed to NĀGĀRJUNA. In addition, rules of deportment toward the guru were set forth in works such as the GURUPAÑCĀŚIKĀ (“Fifty Stanzas on the Guru”), also attributed to Aśvaghoṣa. In Tibet, these rules were codified and commented on at length in the “three vow” (SDOM GSUM) literature. The “root infractions” are the following: (1) to disparage the guru, (2) to overstep the words of the buddhas, (3) to be cruel to one’s VAJRA siblings (disciples of the same guru), (4) to abandon love for sentient beings, (5) to abandon the two types of BODHICITTA, (6) to disparage the doctrines of one’s own and others’ schools, (7) to proclaim secrets to the unripened, (8) to scorn the aggregates, (9) to have doubts about the essential purity of all phenomena, (10) to show affection to the wicked, (11) to have false views about emptiness, (12) to disillusion the faithful, (13) not to rely on the pledges, and (14) to disparage women. It is noteworthy that, unlike the prātimokṣa, the infractions here involve attitudes and beliefs, in addition to transgressions of body and speech. It was generally said that receiving the bodhisattva vows was a prerequisite for receiving tantric vows; the prior receipt of prātimokṣa precepts was optional. In expositions of the “three vows,” tantric vows are the third, after the prātimokṣa precepts and the bodhisattva precepts. Especially in Tibet there is extensive discussion of the compatibility of the three sets of vows. See also TRISAṂVARA.
tao. (C) (道). The obsolete Wade–Giles transcription for the Sinograph DAO (way, path).
tāpana. (T. tsha ba; yanre diyu; J. ennetsujigoku; K. yŏmyŏl chiok 炎熱地獄). In Sanskrit and Pāli, “heating”; one of the hot hells, usually identified as the sixth in descending order of depth beneath the continent of JAMBUDVĪPA and in ascending order of the suffering incumbent on denizens of that realm. According to some accounts, the denizens of this hell are burned in a great cauldron of molten metal; according to others, they are impaled on burning staves.
tapas. (P. tapa; T. dka’ thub; C. kuxing; J. kugyō; K. kohaeng 苦行). In Sanskrit, “severe austerities”; mortification of the flesh, or other extreme forms of religious penance. The Buddha rejected self-mortification as a valid means of practice, after having practiced it himself, to no avail, prior to his enlightenment. For the authorized list of ascetic practices, see DHUTAṄGA.
Ta pho gtsug lag khang. (Tapo Tsuklakang). An important Tibetan Buddhist institution, also known as Ta pho chos ’khor, located at an altitude of ten thousand feet (3,050 m.) along the Spiti River in the modern-day Lahoul and Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh in northwest India. It is situated along two of the former routes of travel between India and Tibet. Over its long existence, Ta pho has been an important center for both scholarship and artistic activity and remains an active Tibetan monastery, preserving many important Buddhist manuscripts, scroll paintings, statues, and murals. It was established in 996 by the king of the western Tibetan region of GU GE YE SHES ’OD and the translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO. According to traditional histories, at the age of seventeen, Rin chen bzang po was sent to India together with a group of twenty other youths by King Ye shes ’od to study Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages. Rin chen bzang po made several trips to India, spending a total of seventeen years in Kashmir and the Buddhist monastic university of VIKRAMAŚĪLA before returning to Tibet. He is said to have founded 108 monasteries, among which was Ta pho. Among the many monasteries of western Tibet, it was second in importance only to THO LING and was the repository of a trove of old Tibetan texts that contributed to greater understanding of the formation of the Tibetan canon (BKA’ ’GYUR). In 1996, the fourteenth DALAI LAMA gave the KĀLACAKRA initiation at Ta pho in commemoration of the one thousandth anniversary of the monastery’s founding.
Tārā. (T. Sgrol ma; C. Duoluo; J. Tara; K. Tara 多羅). In Sanskrit, lit. “Savioress”; a female bodhisattva who has the miraculous power to be able to deliver her devotees from all forms of physical danger. Tārā is said to have arisen from either a ray of blue light from the eye of the buddha AMITĀBHA, or from a tear from the eye of the BODHISATTVA AVALOKITEŚVARA as he surveyed the suffering universe. The tear fell into a valley and formed a lake, out of which grew the lotus from which Tārā appeared. She is thus said to be the physical manifestation of the compassion of Avalokiteśvara, who is himself the quintessence of the compassion of the buddhas. Because buddhas are produced from wisdom and compassion, Tārā, like the goddess PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ (“Perfection of Wisdom”), is hailed as “the mother of all buddhas,” despite the fact that she is most commonly represented as a beautiful sixteen-year-old maiden. She is often depicted together with BHṚKUTĪ (one of her forms) as one of two female bodhisattvas flanking Avalokiteśvara. Tārā is the subject of much devotion in her own right, serving as the subject of many stories, prayers, and tantric SĀDHANAs. She can appear in peaceful or wrathful forms, depending on the circumstances, her powers extending beyond the subjugation of these worldly frights, into the heavens and into the hells. She has two major peaceful forms, however. The first is SITATĀRĀ, or White Tārā. Her right hand is in VARADAMUDRĀ, her left is at her chest in VITARKAMUDRĀ and holds a lotus and she sits in DHYĀNĀSANA. The other is ŚYĀMATĀRĀ, or Green Tārā. Her right hand is in varadamudrā, her left is at her chest in vitarkamudrā and holds an utpala, and she sits in LALITĀSANA. Her wrathful forms include KURUKULLĀ, a dancing naked YOGINĪ, red in color, who brandishes a bow and arrow in her four arms. In tantric MAṆḌALAs, she appears as the consort of AMOGHASIDDHI, the buddha of the northern quarter; together they are lord and lady of the KARMAKULA. But she is herself also the sole deity in many tantric SĀDHANAs, in which the meditator, whether male or female, visualizes himself or herself in Tārā’s feminine form. Tārā is best-known for her salvific powers, appearing the instant her devotee recites her MANTRA, oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā. She is especially renowned as Aṣṭabhayatrāṇatārā, “Tārā Who Protects from the Eight Fears,” because of her ability to deliver those who call upon her when facing the eight great fears (mahābhaya) of lions, elephants, fire, snakes, thieves, water, imprisonment, and demons. Many tales are told recounting her miraculous interventions. Apart from the recitation of her mantra, a particular prayer is the most common medium of invoking Tārā in Tibet. It is a prayer to twenty-one Tārās, derived from an Indian TANTRA devoted to Tārā, the Sarvatathāgatamātṛtārāviśvakarmabhavatantra (“Source of All Rites to Tārā, the Mother of All the Tathāgatas”). According to some commentarial traditions on the prayer, each of the verses refers to a different form of Tārā, totaling twenty-one. According to others, the forms of Tārā are iconographically almost indistinguishable. Tārā entered the Buddhist pantheon relatively late, around the sixth century, in northern India and Nepal, and her worship in Java is attested in inscriptions dating to the end of the eighth century. Like Avalokiteśvara, she has played a crucial role in Tibet’s history, in both divine and human forms. One version of the creation myth that has the Tibetan race originating from a dalliance between a monkey and an ogress says the monkey was a form of Avalokiteśvara and the ogress a form of Tārā. Worship of Tārā in Tibet began in earnest with the second propagation and the arrival of ATIŚA DĪPAṂKARAŚRĪJÑĀNA in the eleventh century; she appears repeatedly in accounts of his life and in his teachings. He had visions of the goddess at crucial points in his life, and she advised him to make his fateful journey to Tibet, despite the fact that his life span would be shortened as a result. His sādhanas for the propitiation of Sitatārā and Śyāmatārā played a key role in promoting the worship of Tārā in Tibet. He further was responsible for the translation of several important Indic texts relating to the goddess, including three by Vāgīśvarakīrti that make up the ’chi blu, or “cheating death” cycle, the foundation of all lineages of the worship of Sitatārā in Tibet. The famous Tārā chapel at Atiśa’s temple at SNYE THANG contains nearly identical statues of the twenty-one Tārās. The translator Darmadra brought to Tibet the important ANUYOGA tantra devoted to the worship of Tārā, entitled Bcom ldan ’das ma sgrol ma yang dag par rdzogs pa’i sangs rgyas bstod pa gsungs pa. Tārā is said to have taken human form earlier in Tibetan history as the Chinese princess WENCHENG and Nepalese princess Bhṛkutī, who married King SRONG BTSAN SGAM PO, bringing with them buddha images that would become the most revered in Tibet. Which Tārā they were remains unsettled; however, some sources identify Wencheng with Śyāmatārā and Bhṛkutī with the goddess of the same name, herself said to be a form of Tārā. Others argue that the Nepalese princess was Sitatārā, and Wencheng was Śyāmatārā. These identifications, however, like that of Srong btsan sgam po with Avalokiteśvara, date only to the fourteenth century, when the cult of Tārā in Tibet was flourishing. In the next generation, Tārā appeared as the wife of King KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN and the consort of PADMASAMBHAVA, YE SHES MTSHO RGYAL, who in addition to becoming a great tantric master herself, served as scribe when Padmasambhava dictated the treasure texts (GTER MA). Later, Tārā is said to have appeared as the great practitioner of the GCOD tradition, MA GCIG LAP SGRON (1055–1149). Indeed, when Tārā first vowed eons ago to achieve buddhahood in order to free all beings from SAṂSĀRA, she swore she would always appear in female form.
Tāranātha. (1575–1634). The appellation of Kun dga’ snying po (Kunga Nyingpo), a Tibetan scholar affiliated with the JO NANG tradition. Tāranātha was an author of exceptional scope, writing on a vast range of philosophical and doctrinal topics. Born in Drong, he was a precocious child, famously declaring himself to be an incarnate lama (SPRUL SKU) at the age of one, an identification that was eventually confirmed. He was installed at Chos lung rtse monastery at the age of four. By age fifteen, he had studied many tantric cycles, becoming adept at both the six yogas of NĀROPA (NA RO CHOS DRUG) and MAHĀMUDRĀ. He also developed an interest in Indian languages; several of his translations of Sanskrit works are included in the Tibetan canon. Tāranātha had a strong interest in India throughout his life, not simply its ancient past but also its contemporary present, chronicling events of the Mughal period. He even declared that he and the Mughal emperor Jahangir were emanations of the same person. He also had a strong interest in the SIDDHA tradition and studied with many Buddhist and non-Buddhist YOGINs. At the age of sixteen, Tāranātha met his most influential Indian teacher, Buddhaguptanātha, who had traveled throughout the Buddhist world and studied directly with some of the last remaining members of the siddha tradition. Tāranātha surveyed the Indian siddha lineages in his BKA’ BABS BDUN LDAN GYI RNAM THAR (“Biographies of the Seven Instruction Lineages”). His most famous work, informally called the RGYA GAR CHOS ’BYUNG (“History of Indian Buddhism”), is highly regarded by later Tibetan historians. Tāranātha was a great master of the KĀLACAKRATANTRA and its surrounding topics, writing extensively about them. He restored the STŪPA built by the Jo nang founder DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN. Tāranātha saw Dol po pa in many visions and strongly promoted his teachings, writing in support of the GZHAN STONG view. In 1615, with the patronage of the rulers of Gtsang, he began work on JO NANG PHUN TSHOGS GLING, northwest of Gzhis ka rtse (Shigatse) in central Tibet. It was completed in 1628. Renowned for its beautiful design and sumptuous artwork, the monastery would be his primary residence in the last years of his life. After his death, the fifth DALAI LAMA suppressed the Jo nang sect, converting the monastery into a DGE LUGS establishment. He also identified Tāranātha’s incarnation in Mongolia as the first RJE BTSUN DAM PA, a line of incarnations who would serve as titular head of the Dge lugs sect in Mongolia until the twentieth century. The reasons for this identification are debated. The Dalai Lama claimed in one of his autobiographies that his mother had been the tantric consort of Tāranātha and that Tāranātha was his biological father. It was also the case that Tāranātha had been supported by the rulers of Gtsang, the opponents that the Dalai Lama’s faction had defeated in the civil war that resulted in the Dalai Lama gaining political control over Tibet.
tariki. (C. tali; K. t’aryŏk 他力). In Japanese, “other power.” The term tariki came to be used frequently by followers of SHINRAN and his JŌDO SHINSHŪ tradition. Tariki often appears in contast with JIRIKI, or “self-power.” While tariki refers to the practitioner’s reliance on the power or grace of the buddha AMITĀBHA, jiriki is often used in a pejorative sense to refer to practices requiring personal effort, such as keeping the precepts and cultivating the six PĀRAMITĀs. Reliance on jiriki was often condemned as a more difficult path than that based on tariki, such as reciting Amitābha’s name (see NIANFO). The tariki and jiriki distinction is traditionally attributed to the Chinese monk TANLUAN and his commentary on the WULIANGSHOU JING YOUPOTISHE YUANSHENG JI. Basing his claims on the vows of Amitābha that appear in the SUKHĀVATĪVYŪHASŪTRA, Tanluan argued that true power belonged not to the practitioner but to Amitābha. While Tanluan himself did not condemn practices involving self-power, SHINRAN and his Japanese followers argued for exclusive faith in the power of Amitābha and denounced jiriki as inappropriate for the final age of the DHARMA (J. mappō; C. MOFA).
tarjanīmudrā. (T. sdigs mdzub phyag rgya; C. qike yin; J. kikokuin; K. kigŭk in 祈克印). In Sanskrit, “wrathful” or “threatening gesture.” The tarjanīmudrā may be formed in several ways: with the index finger raised like a hook from the loosely closed fist of either hand, or with index and pinky fingers extended and remaining fingers closed lightly in a fist. This gesture is common in images of semiwrathful and wrathful deities, such as Acala and VAJRAPĀṆI, as well as dharma protectors (DHARMAPĀLA), and may be formed in combination with other hand gestures. See also MUDRĀ.
tarjanīyakarman. (P. tajjaniyakamma; T. bsdigs pa’i las; C. yinghe/lingbu; J. ōka/ryōfu; K. ŭngga/yŏngp’o 應訶/令怖). In Sanskrit, “act of censure” or “act of rebuke”; a formal and public criticism of a monk or nun for untoward behavior that does not require a formal punishment. Such behavior would include being quarrelsome, living among householders, and speaking disrespectfully about the Buddha, DHARMA, or SAṂGHA. A monk or nun who acknowledges such misbehavior may then request that the censure be rescinded.
tarka. (T. rtog ge; C. size; J. shichaku; K. sat’aek 思擇). In Sanskrit, “logic”; conceptual knowledge that relies on reasoning. Although often used in this neutral sense, in some contexts the term is used pejoratively to refer to a pedantic logic that is unrelated, and in some cases detrimental, to progress on the path of enlightenment. In this latter sense, the term might be better translated as “sophistry.”
Tarkajvālā. (T. Rtog ge ’bar ba). In Sanskrit, the “Blaze of Reasoning”; the extensive prose autocommentary on the MADHYAMAKAHṚDAYA, the major work of the sixth-century Indian MADHYAMAKA (and, from the Tibetan perspective, *SVĀTANTRIKA) master BHĀVAVIVEKA (also referred to as Bhavya and Bhāviveka). The Madhyamakahṛdaya is preserved in both Sanskrit and Tibetan; the Tarkajvālā only in Tibetan. It is a work of eleven chapters, the first three and the last two of which set forth the main points in Bhāvaviveka’s view of the nature of reality and the Buddhist path, dealing with such topics as BODHICITTA, the knowledge of reality (tattvajñāna), and omniscience (SARVAJÑATĀ). The intervening chapters set forth the positions (and Bhāvaviveka’s refutations) of various Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools, including the ŚRĀVAKA, YOGĀCĀRA, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika, Vedānta, and Mīmāṃsā. These chapters (along with ŚĀNTARAKṢITA’s TATTVASAṂGRAHA) are an invaluable source of insight into the relations between Madhyamaka and the other Indian philosophical schools of the day. The chapter on the śrāvakas, for example, provides a detailed account of the reasons put forth by the śrāvaka schools as to why the MAHĀYĀNA sūtras are not the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA). Bhāvaviveka’s response to these arguments, as well as his refutation of Yogācāra in the subsequent chapter, are particularly spirited.
tārkika. (T. rtog ge ba). In Sanskrit, “logician,” but generally used in a pejorative sense of a sophist or pendant obsessed with argumentation and thus prevented from perceiving reality.
tathāgata. (T. de bzhin gshegs pa; C. rulai; J. nyorai; K. yŏrae 如來). In Sanskrit and Pāli, lit., “one who has thus come/gone,” and generally translated into English as the “thus gone one.” Tathāgata is, along with BHAGAVAT, one of the most common epithets of the Buddha and a term the Buddha commonly uses in the SŪTRAs to refer both to himself and to the buddhas of the past. The Sanskrit compound may be parsed to mean either “one who is thus gone” (tathā + gata), or “one who has thus come” (tathā + āgata), and for this reason the translations of the Sanskrit vary across languages. The Sanskrit root √gam is also used with prepositions in words that mean “understand,” so a secondary denotation of the term is to “understand” things “as they are” (tathā). The Chinese settled on the translation “thus come one” (rulai). The Tibetan translation de bzhin gshegs pa reflects the ambiguity of the Sanskrit and can mean either “one who has thus gone” or “one who has thus come.” The Pāli commentaries typically provide eight (and sometimes as many as sixteen) denotations of tathāgata, some of which may be of pre- or non-Buddhist origin, perhaps deriving from the JAINA tradition. In the early Pāli scriptures, the term seems to evoke the infinite knowledge of the Buddha, with little attempt to provide a clear etymology. Later commentators would offer a number of interpretations, among the most common of which are that the Buddha has “thus come” into the world like the other buddhas of the past, or that he has “thus gone” on to achieve NIRVĀṆA like the other buddhas of the past. Other explanations equate it with the word TATHATĀ.
tathāgatabhūmi. (T. de bzhin gshegs pa’i sa; C. rulai di; J. nyoraiji; K. yŏrae chi 如來地). The “stage of a thus gone one,” the name given in the LAṄKĀVATĀRASŪTRA to an eleventh ground or stage (BHŪMI) of the BODHISATTVA path that constitutes the fruition of buddhahood (buddhaphala). The tenth BODHISATTVABHŪMI, DHARMAMEGHĀ, the culminating stage of the “path of cultivation” (BHĀVANĀMĀRGA), still contains both subtle remnants of the cognitive obstructions (JÑEYĀVARAṆA) as well as seeds of the afflictive obstructions (KLEŚĀVARAṆA). These obstructions will be completely eradicated through the diamond-like samādhi (VAJROPAMASAMĀDHI), which marks the transition to the “ultimate path” (NIṢṬHĀMĀRGA), or the “path where no further training is necessary” (AŚAIKṢAMĀRGA). This stage is the tathāgatabhūmi, which is also sometimes known as the “universally luminous” (samantaprabhā).
tathāgatagarbha. (T. de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po; C. rulaizang; J. nyoraizō; K. yŏraejang 如來藏). In Sanskrit, variously translated as “womb of the TATHĀGATAs,” “matrix of the tathāgatas,” “embryo of the tathāgatas,” “essence of the tathāgatas”; the term probably means “containing a tathāgatha.” It is more imprecisely interpreted as the “buddha-nature,” viz., the potential to achieve buddhahood that, according to some MAHĀYĀNA schools, is inherent in all sentient beings. The tathāgatagarbha is the topic of several important Mahāyāna sūtras, including the TATHĀGATAGARBHASŪTRA (with its famous nine similes about the state), the ŚRĪMĀLĀDEVĪSIṂHANĀDASŪTRA, the MAHĀPARINIRVĀṆASŪTRA, and the LAṄKĀVATĀRASŪTRA (where it is identified with the ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA), as well as the important Indian ŚĀSTRA, the RATNAGOTRAVIBHĀGA (also known as the Uttaratantra), with a commentary by ASAṄGA. The concept is also central to such East Asian apocryphal scriptures as the DASHENG QIXIN LUN and the KŬMGANG SAMMAE KYŎNG. The concept of tathāgatagarbha seems to have evolved from a relatively straightforward inspiration that all beings are capable of achieving buddhahood to a more complex doctrine of an almost genetic determination that all beings would eventually become buddhas; the Laṅkāvatāra goes so far as to describe the tathāgatagarbha itself as possessing the thirty-two marks of a superman (MAHĀPURUṢALAKṢAṆA). Tathāgatagarbha thought seeks to answer the question of why ignorant beings are able to become enlightened by suggesting that this capacity is something innate in the minds of all sentient beings, which has become concealed by adventitious afflictions (ĀGANTUKAKLEŚA) that are extrinsic to the mind. “Concealment” (S. saṃdhi/abhisaṃdhi; C. yinfu) here suggests that the tathāgatagarbha by the presence of the afflictions; or, second, it is an active agent of liberation, which secrets itself away inside the minds of sentient beings so as to inspire them toward enlightenment. The former passive sense is more common in Indian materials; the latter sense of tathāgatagarbha as an active soteriological potency is more typical of East Asian presentations of the concept. Tathāgatagarbha thought could thus claim that enlightenment need involve nothing more rigorous than simply relinquishing the mistaken notion that one is deluded and accepting the fact of one’s inherent enlightenment (see also BENJUE; HONGAKU). The notion of tathāgatagarbha was a topic of extensive commentary and debate in India, Tibet, and East Asia. It was not the case, for example, that all Mahāyāna exegetes asserted that all sentient beings possess the tathāgatagarbha and thus the capacity for enlightenment; indeed, the FAXIANG ZONG, an East Asian strand of YOGĀCĀRA, famously asserted that some beings could so completely lose all aspiration for enlightenment that they would become “incorrigible” (ICCHANTIKA) and thus be forever incapable of liberation. There was also substantial debate as to the precise nature of the tathāgathagarbha, especially because some of its descriptions made it seem similar to the notion of a perduring self (ĀTMAN), a doctrine that is anathema to most schools of Buddhism. The Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda, for example, described the tathāgatagarbha as endowed with four “perfect qualities” (GUṆAPĀRAMITĀ): permanence, purity, bliss, and self, but states that this “self” is different from the “self” (ĀTMAN) propounded by the non-Buddhists. In an effort to avoid any such associations, CANDRAKĪRTI explains that the tathāgatagarbha is not to be understood as an independent quality but rather refers to the emptiness (ŚŪNYATĀ) of the mind; it is this emptiness, with which all beings are endowed, that serves as the potential for achieving buddhahood. In Tibet, Candrakīrti’s view was taken up by the DGE LUGS sect, while the more literal view of the tathāgatagarbha as an ultimately real nature obscured by conventional contaminants was asserted most famously by the JO NANG. Both the extensive influence of the doctrine and the controversy it provoked points to an ongoing tension in the Mahāyāna between the more apophatic discourse on emptiness, found especially in the PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ sūtras, and the more substantialist descriptions of the ultimate reality implied by such terms as tathāgatagarbha, DHARMADHĀTU, and DHARMAKĀYA. The term is also central to the larger question of whether enlightenment is something to be achieved through a sequence of practices or something to be revealed in a flash of insight (see DUNWU). See also HIHAN BUKKYŌ.
Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. (T. De bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po’i mdo; C. Dafangdeng rulaizang jing; J. Daihōdō nyoraizōkyō; K. Taebangdŭng yŏraejang kyŏng 大方等如來藏經). In Sanskrit, “Discourse on the Embryo of the TATHĀGATAS”; also known by the longer title of Tathāgatagarbhanāmavaipulyasūtra, an influential Mahāyāna sūtra, and the earliest to set forth the doctrine of the womb or embryo of buddhahood (TATHĀGATAGARBHA). The sūtra, which is preserved only in Chinese and later Tibetan translations, was probably composed in the second half of the third century CE. The sūtra, set ten years after the Buddha’s enlightenment, opens with the Buddha seated on Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKŪṬAPARVATA) surrounded by one hundred thousand monks and bodhisattvas equal in number to the sands of the Ganges (GAṄGĀNADĪVĀLUKĀ). The Buddha causes myriad closed lotuses to fill the sky, each enclosing a buddha who is emitting rays of light. The petals of the lotuses open and then became wilted and finally rotten, but the buddhas seated upon them remain pristine. The bodhisattva Vajramati then asks the Buddha to explain what has occurred. In the most famous section of the sūtra, the Buddha then sets forth nine similes of the tathāgatagarbha. (1) Just as there was a buddha seated cross-legged within decaying lotus petals, so in each sentient being, there is a buddha encased in the sheaths of the afflictions. (2) Just as a honeycomb is surrounded by bees, so the buddhahood within each being is surrounded by afflictions and impurities; just as the beekeeper removes the bees, so the Buddha removes the afflictions and impurities of sentient beings. (3) Just as a kernel is encased in a husk, so buddhahood is encased by the afflictions. (4) Just as a piece of gold covered with excrement would be hidden until its presence was revealed by a god, so the buddha within each being, covered as he is by the filth of the afflictions, remains unknown until a buddha reveals his presence. (5) Just as a treasure buried deep beneath the house of a poor man would be unknown to him, leaving him to presume he was poor, so is the buddha-nature hidden deeply within all beings unknown to them, causing them to wander in SAṂSĀRA. The Buddha sees the body of a buddha within all beings and teaches them how to become treasures of the dharma. (6) Just as hidden within a fruit is a seed and sprout that will produce a tree, so the Buddha sees the body of a buddha within the sheaths of the afflictions. (7) Just as a jeweled image of the Buddha wrapped in putrid rags would lie unnoticed by the side of the road until its presence was revealed by a god, so the body of a buddha wrapped in afflictions inside even an animal is seen only by the Buddha. (8) Just as a poor and ugly woman who carried the embryo of a universal emperor (CAKRAVARTIN) in her womb would remain discouraged by her lot, so sentient beings who carry a buddha within them continue to be distressed by saṃsāra. (9) Just as a golden statue remains hidden within a blackened clay mold until the goldsmith breaks the mold with a hammer, so the knowledge of a buddha remains invisible within the afflictions until the Buddha uses the dharma to remove the afflictions.
tathāgatagotra. (T. de bzhin gshegs pa’i rigs; C. rulai xing; J. nyoraishō; K. yŏrae sŏng 如來性). In Sanskrit, “tathāgata lineage”; a term used to describe that element in the mental continuum (SAṂTĀNA) of a sentient being that makes it destined to achieve enlightenment as a buddha. In this sense, the term is roughly synonymous with TATHĀGATAGARBHA and BUDDHADHĀTU (“buddha element,” or “buddha-nature”). The Mahāyāna schools differ on the question of whether all sentient beings are endowed with this lineage, with the MADHYAMAKA asserting that they are, while some followers of the YOGĀCĀRA argue that beings are endowed with different lineages, which will lead them to follow the paths of the ŚRĀVAKA or PRATYEKABUDDHA to become an ARHAT, and still other beings have no spiritual lineage at all (see ICCHANTIKA).
tathāgatakula. (T. de bzhin gshegs pa’i rigs; C. rulai bu; J. nyoraibu; K. yŏrae pu 如來部). In Sanskrit, the “tathāgata family”; one of the three families of the KRIYĀTANTRA, together with the VAJRAKULA (whose chief deity is VAJRASATTVA) and the PADMAKULA (whose chief deity is AVALOKITEŚVARA). The chief deity of the tathāgatakula is often ŚĀKYAMUNI. In the three-family schema, the tathāgatakula is considered the supreme of the three families, with initiates of this family allowed to perform the rituals of the other two. In the evolution to four and then five buddha families (with the addition of the RATNAKULA and then the KARMAKULA), the tathāgatakula remains supreme, with VAIROCANA then becoming the main deity of the tathāgatakula and holding the central position in many MAṆḌALAs. Each of the five families is associated with one of the five SKANDHAs, five wisdoms (JÑĀNA), five afflictions (KLEŚA), five elements, and five colors. For the tathāgata or buddha family, these are the form (RŪPA) skandha, the wisdom (JÑĀNA) of the DHARMADHĀTU (dharmadhātujñāna), the affliction of ignorance (AVIDYĀ), the element space (ĀKĀŚA), and the color blue. See PAÑCATATHĀGATA.
Tathāgatoṣṇīṣasitātapatrā. (T. De bzhin gshegs pa’i gtsug tor nas byung ba’i gdugs dkar po can). In Sanskrit, “She of the White Parasol [who arose from] the UṢṆĪṢA of the TATHĀGATA”; also known as Uṣṇīṣasitātapatrā. This goddess is a female protective deity, sometimes associated with TĀRĀ, who is propitiated to remove illness and other obstacles. Her most famous form is depicted with a thousand heads, a thousand hands, and a thousand feet.
tathatā. (T. de bzhin nyid/de kho na nyid; C. zhenru; J. shinnyo; K. chinyŏ 眞如). In Sanskrit, “suchness” or “thusness”; a term for ultimate reality, especially in the MAHĀYĀNA schools. Along with terms such as DHARMATĀ, DHARMADHĀTU, and BHŪTAKOṬI, it has a more “positive” connotation than emptiness (ŚŪNYATĀ), referring to the eternal nature of reality that is “ever thus” or “just so” and free of all conceptual elaborations. In YOGĀCĀRA/VIJÑĀNAVĀDA, the term refers to the ultimate wisdom that is free from the subject–object distinction (GRĀHYAGRĀHAKAVIKALPA). Buddhahood is sometimes described as tathatāviśuddhi, or “purity of suchness,” that is, ultimate reality purified of all obstructions. In the MADHYAMAKA school, any attempt to substantiate the nature of reality is rejected, and tathatā is instead identified with emptiness and the cessation of all dichotomizing tendencies of thought. The Chinese equivalent, ZHENRU, is a seminal term in in East Asian Buddhist philosophy, figuring prominently, for example, in the DASHENG QIXIN LUN. See also TATTVA.
tathyasaṃvṛti. (T. yang dag pa’i kun rdzob). In Sanskrit, “real conventionality”; a term used in MADHYAMAKA philosophy in connection with MITHYĀSAṂVṚTI, “false conventionality.” Real conventionality is a conventional truth (SAṂVṚTISATYA) in the sense that it is not the object of an ultimate consciousness and is falsely imagined to possess SVABHĀVA, or intrinsic existence. However, although it is falsely conceived, it is not utterly nonexistent (like a false conventionality) because a real conventionality is capable of performing its function (ARTHAKRIYĀ). For example, a lake would be a true conventionality because it can perform the function of a lake, whereas a mirage would be a false conventionality because it could not perform the function of a lake. Only a real conventionality is a conventional truth; it is true in the sense that it can perform a function. A false conventionality is not a conventional truth because it does not exist even conventionally.
tatpṛṣṭhalabdhajñāna. (S). See PṚṢṬHALABDHAJÑĀNA.
tattva. (T. de nyid/de kho na nyid; C. shixiang; J. jissō; K. silsang 實相). In Sanskrit, lit., “thatness”; a term with two important denotations. First, it can mean “ultimate reality,” a synonym of PARAMĀRTHA, the reality, free from all conceptual elaboration, that must be understood in order to be liberated from rebirth as well as the inexpressible reality that is the object of the Buddha’s omniscient consciousness. Second, more prosaically, the term may be translated as “principle” and refer to the central doctrine of a particular philosophical school, as in the title of the works TATTVASAṂGRAHA or TATTVASIDDHI. When contrasted with TATHATĀ, tattva is the essential identity of a particular dharma, while tathatā is the common essential reality in which all dharmas partake.
Tattvaratnāvalī. (T. De kho na nyid rin po che’i phreng ba). In Sanskrit, the “Necklace of Principles”; a scholastic exposition of Buddhist TANTRA by Advayavajra, the apparent pen name of the Indian master Maitrīpāda, who flourished in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries CE. The work provides some insight into how Buddhism was understood in the late period of Indian Buddhism, dividing it into the three vehicles of the ŚRĀVAKAYĀNA, PRATYEKABUDDHAYĀNA, and MAHĀYĀNA, with the Mahāyāna further subdivided into the “way of the perfections” (pāramitānaya) and the “way of mantra” (mantranaya). The work also states that the Madhyamaka school is divided into the two, the Māyopamādvayavāda, or “Proponents of Illusion-like Nonduality,” and the Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda, or “Proponents That All Dharmas Are Nonabiding.”
Tattvasaṃgraha. (T. De kho na nyid bsdus pa). In Sanskrit, the “Compendium of Principles”; one of the major works of the eighth-century Indian master ŚĀNTARAKṢITA. It is a massive work in 3,646 verses, in twenty-six chapters. The verses themselves are called the Tattvasaṃgrahakārikā; there is also an extensive prose commentary by Śāntarakṣita’s student, KAMALAŚĪLA, entitled the Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā. The Tattvasaṃgraha is a polemical text, surveying the philosophical positions of a wide variety of non-Buddhist (and some Buddhist) schools on a number of topics or principles (TATTVA) and demonstrating their faults. These topics include matter (prakṛti), the person (PURUṢA), God (īśvara), the self (ĀTMAN), and valid knowledge (PRAMĀṆA), among many others. Among the schools whose positions are presented and critiqued are Sāṃkhya, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāmsā, Advaita Vedānta, JAINA, and VĀTSĪPUTRĪYA. The work is of great value to scholars for its presentation (albeit polemical) of the tenets of these schools as they existed in eighth-century India. The commentary often provides the names and positions of specific philosophers of these schools. ¶ The term is also the abbreviated title of the Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgraha; see SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAṂGRAHA.
Tattvasiddhi. [alt. Tattvasiddhi-nāma-prakaraṇa] (T. De kho na nyid grub pa zhes bya ba’i rab tu byed pa). In Sanskrit, “Proof of Reality”; a work of tantric philosophy, extant in Sanskrit, attributed to the eighth-century Indian master ŚĀNTARAKṢITA. The text presents a philosophical argument in support of the achievement of the states of yogic perception (YOGIPRATYAKṢA) and bliss (SUKHA) through tantric practice, citing a number of early tantras by name. In the work, the author argues that bodhisattvas endowed with PRAJÑĀ and UPĀYA are not bound by ethical conventions.
*Tattvasiddhi. (C. Chengshi lun; J. Jōjitsuron; K. Sŏngsil non 成實論). In Sanskrit, the “Proof of Reality”; an important ABHIDHARMA text by HARIVARMAN, probably composed between 250 and 350 CE. (The Sanskrit reconstruction *Tattvasiddhi is now generally preferred over the outmoded rendering *Satyasiddhi.) The text was translated into Chinese by KUMĀRAJĪVA and was studied widely in China during the fifth and sixth centuries. The text is valued for its presentation of the abhidharma of the BAHUŚRUTĪYA school of Indian Buddhism and for its refutations of the positions of rival schools, which are organized in terms of ten points of controversy, including the person (PUDGALA), the status of past and present, and the existence of an intermediate state (ANTARĀBHAVA) between death and rebirth. See the extensive discussion in CHENGSHI LUN.
Taung-hpila Pagoda. A pagoda (Burmese, JEDI) built by King Thalun of AVA (r. 1629–1648) on the Taung-hpila spur of the Sagaing Hills in Upper Burma (Myanmar). Thalun also built a monastery at this locale, whose abbot came to be known as the royal preceptor, or “SAYADAW,” of Taung-hpila. This first Taung-hpila Sayadaw wrote a famous commentary in Pāli on the five books of the VINAYA titled the Vinayālaṅkāraṭīkā. He also composed a bilingual Pāli–Myanmar commentary (nissaya) on the same five books, but when he discovered that another monk had already written such a treatise, Taung-hpila Sayadaw buried his own commentary in Thalun’s pagoda. It was because of this act that the pagoda came to be known as Taung-hpila Pagoda. The works of Taung-hpila Sayadaw and other scholars of the Ava period were renowned throughout the THERAVĀDA world and were highly praised by the monks of Sri Lanka for their erudition.
Taxila. The Greek name for the Indian city of TAKṢAŚILĀ, an important center of Buddhist learning in the GANDHĀRA region (in Punjab province of modern Pakistan). See TAKṢAŚILĀ.
Teishō. (J) (提唱). In Japanese, “ZEN lecture.” See TICHANG.
Tejaprabha. (C. Chishengguang rulai; J. Shijōkō nyorai; K. Ch’isŏnggwang yŏrae 熾盛光如來). In Sanskrit, “Effulgence”; proper name for a buddha who personifies the Pole Star as master of all asterisms, and especially the seven stars of the Big Dipper, viz., Ursa Major (see BEIDOU QIXING); this buddha is so named because light is said to stream out from every pore of his body. Tejaprabha was a popular figure within Chinese esoteric Buddhist circles after the eighth century, when the worship of the seven stars became well established during the Tang dynasty. While the cult of Tejaprabha Buddha gradually disappeared in China after the thirteenth century, the worship of the seven stars (K. ch’ilsŏng) was transmitted to Korea, where it continues even today. Starting in the twelfth century, during the Koryŏ dynasty, court rituals to the seven stars and Tejaprabha TATHĀGATA were frequently performed, and worship of the seven stars spread widely during the following Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). Chosŏn-period monasteries commonly included “seven-stars shrines” (ch’ilsŏnggak), inside of which were hung seven-stars paintings (T’AENGHWA), which typically depicted the seven-star tathāgatas, with Tejaprabha presiding at the center. There were also several comprehensive ritual and liturgical manuals compiled during the Chosŏn dynasty and Japanese colonial period in Korea, which include rituals and invocations to the seven stars and Tejaprabha Tathāgata, most dedicated to the prolongation of life.
tejas. [alt. tejodhātu] (P. tejo; T. me; C. huoda; J. kadai; K. hwadae 火大). In Sanskrit, lit. “fire,” viz., the property of “temperature” or “luminosity”; one of the four “great elements” (MAHĀBHŪTA) or “major elementary qualities” of which the physical world of materiality (RŪPA) is composed, along with earth (viz., solidity, PṚTHIVĪ), water (viz., cohesion, ĀPAS), and wind (viz., motion, movement, VĀYU). “Fire” is understood to be that which gives light and provides the other elements with varying temperatures. Because fire, however, persists (viz., earth), has cohesion (viz., water), and moves (viz., wind), the existence of all the other three elements may also be inferred even in that single element. In the physical body, this element is associated with physical warmth, digestion, and maturation or aging.
tejokasiṇa. (S. tejaskṛtsnāyatana; T. me zad par gyi skye mched; C. huo bianchu; J. kahensho; K. hwa p’yŏnch’ŏ 火遍處). In Pāli, “fire device”; one of the ten devices (KASIṆA) described in the PĀLI tradition for developing meditative concentration (P. JHĀNA, S. DHYĀNA); the locus classicus for their exposition is the VISUDDHIMAGGA of BUDDHAGHOSA. Ten kasiṇa are enumerated there: visualization devices that are constructed from the elements (MAHĀBHŪTA) of earth, water, fire, air; the colors blue, yellow, red, white; and light and empty space. In each case, the meditation begins by looking at the physical object; the perception of the device is called the “beginning sign” or “preparatory sign” (P. PARIKAMMANIMITTA). Once the object is clearly perceived, the meditator then memorizes the object so that it is seen as clearly in his mind as with his eyes. This perfect mental image of the device is called the “eidetic sign,” or “learning sign” (P. UGGAHANIMITTAs), and serves as the subsequent object of concentration. As the internal visualization of this eidetic sign deepens and the five hindrances (NĪVARAṆA) to mental absorption are temporarily allayed, a “representational sign” or “counterpart sign” (P. PAṬIBHĀGANIMITTA) will emerge from out of the eidetic image, as if, the texts say, a sword is being drawn from its scabbard or the moon is emerging from behind clouds. The representational sign is a mental representation of the visualized image, which does not duplicate what was seen with the eyes but represents its abstracted, essentialized quality. Continued attention to the representational sign will lead to all four of the meditative absorptions of the subtle-materiality realm (RŪPADHĀTU). In the case of the tejokasiṇa, the meditator begins by making a fire of dried heartwood, hanging a curtain of reeds, leather, or cloth in front of it, then cutting a hole four fingerwidths in size in the curtain. He then sits in the meditative posture and observes the flame (rather than the sticks or the smoke) through the hole, thinking, “fire, fire,” using the perception of the flame as the preparatory sign. The eidetic sign, which is visualized without looking at the flame, appears as a tongue of flame and continually detaches itself from the fire. The representational sign is more steady, appearing motionless like a red cloth in space, a gold fan, or a gold column. With the representational sign achieved, progress through the various stages of absorption may begin. The tejokasiṇa figures prominently in the dramatic story of the passing away of the Buddha’s attendant, ĀNANDA. According to FAXIAN, when Ānanda was 120 years old, he set out from MAGADHA to VAIŚĀLĪ in order to die. Seeking control of the saint’s relics after his death, AJĀTAŚATRU followed him to the Rohīni River, while a group for Vaiśālī awaited him on the other side. Not wishing to disappoint either group, Ānanda levitated to the middle of the river in the meditative posture, preached the dharma, and then meditated on the tejokasiṇa, which caused his body to burst into flames, with his relics dividing into two parts, one landing on each side of the river.
temple. See VIHĀRA; CHŎL; TERA; DGON PA.
Tendaishū. (天台宗). In Japanese, “Platform of Heaven School,” the Japanese counterpart of the Chinese TIANTAI ZONG, the name of the Chinese tradition from which Tendai derives. The pilgrim–monk SAICHŌ (767–822) is presumed to have laid the doctrinal and institutional foundations on which the Tendai tradition in Japan was eventually constructed. Like its Chinese counterpart, the Japanese Tendai tradition took the SADDHARMAPUṆḌARĪKASŪTRA (“Lotus Sūtra”) and the commentaries on this sūtra by TIANTAI ZHIYI as its central scriptures. The Tendai tradition also came to espouse the doctrine of original or inherent enlightenment (HONGAKU). An important step in the development of an autonomous Japanese Tendai tradition was the establishment of a MAHĀYĀNA precepts platform (daijō kaidan). Saichō made numerous petitions to the court to have an independent Mahāyāna precepts platform established on HIEIZAN (see ENRYAKUJI), which would provide him with institutional autonomy from the powerful monasteries of the well-established Buddhist sects in Nara. Saichō’s petition was finally granted after his death in 823. The following year, his disciple GISHIN (781–833) was appointed head (zasu) of the Tendai tradition, and several years later, a precepts platform was constructed at the monastery of Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei. The Tendai tradition prospered under the leadership of ENNIN (794–864) and ENCHIN (814–891). A controversy in 993 between the lineages of Enchin and Ennin over the issue of succession led to a schism between Ennin’s Sanmon branch at Mt. Hiei and Enchin’s Jimon branch at Onjōji (see MIIDERA). The Tendai tradition also produced important figures in the history of the PURE LAND movement in Japan, such as GENSHIN, RYŌNIN, HŌNEN, and SHINRAN. DŌGEN KIGEN, founder of the SŌTŌSHŪ of ZEN, began his career in the Tendai tradition, practicing as a monk at Mt. Hiei, as did NICHIREN. From the medieval period up through the Tokugawa era (1600–1868), Tendai was a dominant force in Japanese Buddhism. By extension, it had considerable political influence at the court in Kyōto and later with the Tokugawa Bakufu. In order to weaken the powerful Mt. Hiei institution, at the start of the Tokugawa era, the shogunate constructed Tō Eizan in the capital of Edo (“tō” means eastern, thus setting up a juxtaposition with the western Mt. Hiei), which received more funding and prestige than its western counterpart. A major factor in the success of the Tendai institution in Japan was its incorporation of esoteric Buddhism, or MIKKYŌ, beginning with a limited number of tantric practices that Saichō brought back with him from China. The extensive training that KŪKAI (774–835), the founder of the SHINGONSHŪ, received in esoteric Buddhism in China ultimately rivaled that of Saichō, a challenge that would eventually threaten Tendai’s political sway at court. However, after Saichō’s disciples Ennin, Enchin, and ANNEN (841–889?) returned from China with the latest esoteric practices, Tendai’s preeminence was secured. This Tendai form of mikkyō, which Ennin called TAIMITSU, was considered equal to the teachings of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra. Tendai also heavily influenced the esoteric practices of SHUGENDŌ centers around the country. During the Tokugawa era, many of these mountain practice sites became formally institutionalized under Tendai Shugendō (referred to as Honzan), and were administered by the monastery of Shōgoin in Kyōto. In addition, Tendai monks were among those who made major efforts to incorporate local native spirits (KAMI) into Tendai practice, by acknowledging them as manifestations of the Buddha (see HONJI SUIJAKU).
ten directions. See DAŚADIŚ.
Tenkei Denson. (天桂傳尊) (1648–1735). Japanese ZEN master and scholar in the SŌTŌSHŪ. Tenkei was born in Kii (present-day Wakayama prefecture). He left home at an early age and served under various teachers during his youth. In 1677, he became the dharma heir of Gohō Kaion (d.u.) at the temple of Jōkoji in Suruga (present-day Shizuoka prefecture). He served as abbot of various other temples throughout his career. Tenkei is often remembered as the opponent of fellow Sōtō adept MANZAN DŌHAKU and his efforts to reform the practice of IN’IN EKISHI, or “changing teachers according to temple,” whereby a monk would take the dharma lineage of the monastery where he was appointed abbot. Tenkei rejected Manzan’s call for direct, face-to-face transmission (menju shihō) from a single master to a disciple (isshi inshō) and supported the in’in ekishi custom. The military bakufu favored Manzan’s reforms and Tenkei’s efforts were ultimately to no avail. Tenkei is also remembered for his extensive commentary to DŌGEN KIGEN’s magnum opus SHŌBŌGENZŌ, entitled the Shōbōgenzō benchū.
Ten Oxherding Pictures. See OXHERDING PICTURES, TEN.
tera. (寺). Vernacular Japanese term for a Buddhist “temple” or “monastery”; synonymous with the Sino-Japanese reading of ji. The term is presumed to derive either from the vernacular Korean term CHŎL or the Pāli/Prakrit term THERA (elder).
Tevijjasutta. (C. Sanming jing; J. Sanmyōkyō; K. Sammyŏng kyŏng 三明經). In Pāli, “Discourse on the Three-fold Knowledge”; the thirteenth sutta of the DĪGHANIKĀYA (a DHARMAGUPTAKA recension appears as the twenty-sixth SŪTRA in the Chinese translation of the DĪRGHĀGAMA); preached by the Buddha to the two brāhmaṇa youths, Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja, in a mango grove outside the village of Manasākaṭa in Kosala. Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja request the Buddha to resolve their debate as to which path proposed by various brāhmaṇa teachers learned in the three Vedas truly leads to union with the god BRAHMĀ. The Buddha responds that since none of the brāhmaṇa teachers learned in the three Vedas themselves have attained union with Brahmā, none of the paths they teach can lead there. They are unable to attain this goal, he continues, because their minds are obstructed by the five hindrances (NĪVARAṆA) of sensuous desire (KĀMACCHANDA), malice (VYĀPĀDA), sloth and torpor (P. thīnamiddha, S. STYĀNA-MIDDHA), restlessness and worry (P. uddhaccakukkucca, S. AUDDHATYA-KAUKṚTYA), and doubt (P. vicikicchā, S. VICIKITSĀ) about the efficacy of the path. The Buddha then describes the true path by means of which a disciple may attain union with Brahmā as follows: the disciple awakens to the teaching, abandons the household life, and enters the Buddhist order, trains in the restraint of action and speech, and observes even minor points of morality, guards the senses, practices mindfulness, is content with little, becomes freed from the five hindrances and attains joy and peace of mind. Then the disciple pervades the four quarters with loving-kindness (P. mettā; S. MAITRĪ), then compassion (KARUṆĀ), sympathetic joy (MUDITĀ), and finally equanimity (P. upekkhā; S. UPEKṢĀ). In this way one attains union with Brahmā. Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja are pleased with the discourse and become disciples of the Buddha. In adapting the term tevijja (S. TRIVIDYĀ), the Buddha is intentionally redefining the meaning of the three Vedas, contrasting his three knowledges with that of brāhmaṇa priests who have merely memorized the three Vedas.
Thammakai. (Thai). See DHAMMAKĀYA.
Thammayut. (P. Dhammayuttika). In Thai, “Adherents of the Dharma,” the name of the “reformed” minority school (NIKĀYA) of the Thai tradition of Buddhism; sometimes also seen transcribed as Thommayut, or by its Pāli equivalency, Dhammayuttika. This fraternity was founded in 1830 by King RĀMA IV (Mongkut), who ruled from 1851 to 1868. From 1824 to 1851, before ascending the throne, Mongkut was a monk (P. BHIKKHU; S. BHIKṢU) in the Thai monastic community (P. SAṄGHA; S. SAṂGHA). Mongkut believed that superstition had corrupted the contemporary monastic community, obscuring the pure teachings of the tradition; he was also concerned that the monks of the predominate order, the MAHANIKAI (P. Mahānikāya), did not adhere strictly to the precepts of the PĀLI VINAYA. In response, Mongkut drew on an ordination lineage from the Mon people of Burma (Myanmar) to establish this new reform tradition of Thai Buddhism. Mongkut also emphasized the rational aspects of Buddhism that made it compatible with science and modernity. Mongkut eventually became abbot of WAT BOWONNIWET in the Thai capital of Bangkok, which continues to this day to be the headquarters of the Thammayut sect. After becoming king, Mongkut continued to promote and sponsor his new school. In the nineteenth century, the Thammayut movement was also introduced into both Cambodia and Laos. Thammayut monks are known for being strict constructionists in their understanding of the precepts and seek to adhere closely to both the word and the spirit of the vinaya. For example, Thammayut monks strictly adhere to the practice of eating nothing in the afternoon (and often eating only one meal a day), never wearing sandals outside the monastery grounds, and never handling money. Since the time of AJAHN MUN BHŪRIDATTA (1870–1949), the Thammayut tradition has also been closely associated with the Thai forest-dwelling tradition (see ARAÑÑAVĀSI), whose monks engage in ascetic practices (Thai, THUDONG, P. DHUTAṄGA) and meditation.
thang ka. In Tibetan, “scroll painting”; a Tibetan term for an image (usually of a deity or religious figure) drawn, painted, or sewn onto cloth (or sometimes paper), sewn into a border of silk brocade, and then mounted on dowels at the top and the bottom to allow the image to be rolled up and transported. It is the most common format for the presentation of Tibetan art. The term is also seen spelled as thang kha and thang ga. See also KWAEBUL; T’AENGHWA.
Thang stong rgyal po. (Tangtong Gyalpo) (1361–1485). A great adept famed throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world for his illustrious career as a YOGIN and teacher, as well as his many contributions to the fields of engineering, metallurgy, temple construction, and the performing arts. His biographies credit him with a life span of 124 years, during which he traveled widely throughout Tibet and the Himālayan regions, including India, Ladakh, Mongolia, China, and Bhutan. As a youth he studied under numerous masters and spent much of early life in meditation retreat. He received, and is said to have mastered, the corpus of teachings of the SHANG PA BKA’ BRGYUD sect as well as the BYANG GTER (Northern Treasure) tradition of the RNYING MA. He is venerated as a treasure revealer (GTER STON) who extracted treasure teachings (GTER MA) from the CHIMS PHU retreat complex near BSAM YAS monastery, from STAG TSHANG in Bhutan, and the region of TSA RI in southern Tibet. His best known teachings include instructions on the system known as “severance” (GCOD) and a visionary meditation SĀDHANA based on the bodhisattva of compassion AVALOKITEŚVARA called ’Gro don mkha’ khyab ma (“The Benefit of Others, Vast as Space”), which continues to be practiced by Tibetan Buddhists of many sectarian affiliations. Thang stong rgyal po is also remembered for his construction of iron chain-link bridges throughout Tibet and Bhutan—an activity inspired directly by visions of Avalokiteśvara. For this reason, he is often called Lcags zam pa, literally the “Iron Bridge Man,” and his lineage the “Iron Bridge” (lcags zam) tradition. He is most commonly depicted as holding links of iron chains in one hand. Thang stong rgyal po founded numerous geomantically important religious structures, including the great STŪPA of GCUNG RI BO CHE in western Tibet, which became an important seat of the master’s tradition, and the ZLUM BRTSEGS temple in Bhutan. Thang stong rgyal po is also traditionally acknowledged as the father of the Tibetan performing arts, with his image commonly displayed prior to theatrical performances.
Thảo Đường. (草堂) (c. eleventh century). Vietnamese monk traditionally regarded as the founder of the third school of THIỀN in Vietnam. The THIỀN UYỂN TẬP ANH does not provide a full biography of Thảo Đường, giving only a list of the monks belonging to his school with a remark that he was the abbot of Khai Quốc monastery in the capital city of Thăng Long, and that he transmitted the lineage of the XUEDOU CHONGXIAN (980–1052) line of the YUNMEN ZONG of Chinese CHAN. The legend about Thảo Đường in the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition can be found in the An Nam Chí Lược. According to this source, Thảo Đường followed his teacher to live in Champa. King Lý Thánh Tông (1023–1072), in an expedition against Champa in 1069, captured him and gave him to a monk scribe as a servant. The king came to have great respect for Thảo Đường’s virtue and learning and made him state preceptor.
Thar pa rin po che’i rgyan. (Tarpa rinpoche gyen). In Tibetan, “Jewel Ornament of Liberation”; a systematic presentation of Buddhist teachings and a seminal textbook for the BKA’ BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism written by SGAM PO PA BSOD RNAM RIN CHEN. The text belongs to the genre of Tibetan literature known as LAM RIM, or “stages of the path,” presenting an overview of the elementary tenets of MAHĀYĀNA doctrine through scriptural citation, philosophical reflection, and direct illustration. Its clear, concise, and unpedantic style has made it accessible to generations of readers. The doctrinal content reflects Sgam po pa’s training in both the BKA’ GDAMS sect and the tradition of MAHĀMUDRĀ, fusing Buddhist theory prevalent in both SŪTRA and TANTRA and presenting what has been called sūtra mahāmudrā—a tradition of mahāmudrā that does not rely on prerequisite tantric initiations and commitments. Sgam po pa thus transmits the underlying insights of tantric theory outside traditional methods of the VAJRAYĀNA. This system was later criticized by certain scholars such as SA SKYA PAṆḌITA KUN DGA’ RGYAL MTSHAN. The work is also commonly known as the Dwags po thar rgyan, after the author’s residence in the region of Dwags po (Dakpo).
that. In Thai, “a relic” (S. DHĀTU), typically of the Buddha; in Thailand there are numerous monasteries known as “Wat Phra That” or WAT MAHATHAT, which are said to house authentic relics of the Buddha. These monasteries are popular pilgrimage sites and have legends concerning their founding filled with descriptions of miraculous events and sometimes recounting the Buddha’s visit to that site. See also ŚARĪRA.
theg pa dgu. In Tibetan, the “nine vehicles”; an important formulation of the Buddhist path, especially in the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. In this schema, the three vehicles of ŚRĀVAKAYĀNA, PRATYEKABUDDHAYĀNA, and BODHISATTVAYĀNA and the three vehicles of HĪNAYĀNA, MAHĀYĀNA, and VAJRAYĀNA are reorganized into nine, with three groups of three. The first group is called the “causal vehicle of characteristics” (rgyu mtshan nyid kyi theg pa) and consists of the śrāvakayāna, pratyekabuddhayāna, and bodhisattvayāna. The second group is called the “outer tantras” (phyi’i rgyud) and consists of KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA (also called upatantra), and YOGATANTRA. The third group is called the “inner tantras” (nang gi rgyud) and consists of MAHĀYOGA, ANUYOGA, and ATIYOGA (also called RDZOGS CHEN). Although there are precedents for such a schema in Indian sources, this specific formulation appears to have originated in Tibet.
Theragāthā. In Pāli, “Verses of the [Male] Elders”; the eighth book of the KHUDDAKANIKĀYA of the Pāli SUTTAPIṬAKA, a collection of 1,279 verses ascribed to 264 elder monks (P. thera, S. STHAVIRA), organized by the number of verses in each poem. The Theragāthā contains verses said to have been composed by enlightened elder monks during the lifetime of the Buddha or shortly thereafter. In some instances, the verses recount the life stories of the elders, in others they record their spontaneous utterances of ecstasy at the moment of their enlightenments. Not all verses are said to have been recited by the monk in question; sometimes they are addressed to a particular monk or describe that monk. The dates of the verses are difficult to determine; according to tradition, the collection was recited at the first Buddhist council (see COUNCIL, FIRST), but some of its verses are said to have been recited at the second or third Buddhist councils (SAṂGĪTI), suggesting that the verses were composed over the course of several centuries. A large number of the verses describe the path to and attainment of enlightenment, while others take the form of religious instruction. The pervasive sense of ecstasy appearing in these verses belies the common Western scholarly portrayal of the ARHAT as apathetic, cool, and aloof.
Theravāda. (S. *Sthaviravāda/*Sthaviranikāya; T. Gnas brtan sde pa; C. Shangzuo bu; J. Jōzabu; K. Sangjwa pu 上座部). In Pāli, “Way of the Elders” or “School of the Elders”; a designation traditionally used for monastic and textual lineages, and expanded in the modern period to refer to the dominant form of Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, which is associated with study of the Pāli Buddhist canon (P. tipiṭaka; S. TRIPIṬAKA). The denotation of the term Theravāda is fraught with controversy. Buddhaghosa’s commentaries to the four Pāli NIKĀYAs typically refer to himself and his colleagues as MAHĀVIHĀRAVĀSIN (lit. “Dweller in the Great Monastery”), the name of the then dominant religious order and ordination lineage in Sri Lanka; in his fifth-century commentary to the Pāli VINAYA, the SAMANTAPĀSĀDIKĀ, Buddhaghosa uses the term Theravāda, but in reference not to a separate school but to a lineage of elders going back to the first Buddhist council (see SAṂGĪTI; COUNCIL, FIRST). According to some accounts, the term Theravāda is equivalent to the Sanskrit term *STHAVIRAVĀDA (“School of the Elders”), which is claimed to have been transmitted to Sri Lanka in the third century BCE. However, the term Sthaviravāda is not attested in any Indian source; attested forms (both very rare) include sthāvira or sthāvarīya (“followers of the elders”). In addition, the Tibetan and Sinographic renderings of the term both translate the Sanskrit term *STHAVIRANIKĀYA, suggesting again that Sthaviravāda or Theravāda was not the traditional designation of this school. By the eleventh century CE, what is today designated as the Theravāda became the dominant form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, achieving a similar status in Burma in the same century, and in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As a term of self-designation for a major branch of Buddhism, Theravāda does not come into common use until the early twentieth century, with ĀNANDA METTEYYA playing a key role. In the nineteenth century, the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia was typically referred to in the West as “Southern Buddhism,” in distinction to the “Northern Buddhism” of Tibet and East Asia. (See, e.g., EUGÈNE BURNOUF and TAKAKUSU JUNJIRŌ, whose treatments of Pāli materials described them as belonging to the “Southern tradition.”) With increased interest in Sanskrit MAHĀYĀNA texts and the rise of Japanese scholarship on Buddhism, the term “Southern Buddhism” began in some circles to be replaced by the term HĪNAYĀNA (“lesser vehicle”), despite that term’s pejorative connotations. Perhaps in an effort to forestall this usage, Pāli scholars, including THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS (who often referred to Pāli Buddhism as “original Buddhism”), began referring to what had been known as “Southern Buddhism” as Theravāda. The term has since come to be adopted widely throughout Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. “Theravāda” had often been mistakenly regarded as a synonym of “hīnayāna,” when the latter term is used to designate the many non-Mahāyāna schools of Indian Buddhism. In fact, to the extent that the Theravāda is a remnant of the Sthaviranikāya, it represents just one of the several independent traditions of what many scholars now call MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. In the 1950s, the WORLD FELLOWSHIP OF BUDDHISTS adopted a formal resolution replacing the pejorative term hīnayāna with the designation Theravāda in descriptions of the non-Mahāyāna tradition. This suggestion was reasonable as a referent for the present state of Buddhism, since the only mainstream Buddhist school that survives in the contemporary world is Theravāda, but it is not historically accurate. Despite the way in which scholars have portrayed the tradition, Theravāda is neither synonymous with early Buddhism, nor a more pristine form of the religion prior to the rise of the Mahāyāna. Such a claim suggests a state of sectarian statis or inertia that belies the diversity over time of doctrine and practice within what comes to be called the Theravāda tradition. In fact, the redaction of Pāli scriptures postdates in many cases the redaction of much of Mahāyāna literature. Even conceding this late coinage of the term Theravāda, it should still be acknowledged that many South and Southeast Asian Buddhists who self-identify as Theravāda do in fact regard the Pāli tipiṭaka (S. TRIPIṬAKA) as representing an earlier and more authentic presentation of the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) than that found in other contemporary Buddhist traditions, in much that same way that many North and Northeast Asian Mahāyāna Buddhists hold that certain sūtras that most scholars identify as being of later date are authentically the teachings of the historical Buddha. Although Theravāda soteriological theory includes a path for the bodhisatta (S. BODHISATTVA), the bodhisattva is a much rarer sanctified figure here than in the Mahāyāna; the more common ideal being in Theravāda is instead the ARHAT. The difference between the Buddha and the arhat is also less pronounced in the Theravāda than in the Mahāyāna schools; in the Theravāda, the Buddha and the arhat achieve the same type of NIRVĀṆA, the chief difference between them being that the Buddha finds the path to nirvāṇa independently, while the arhat achieves his or her enlightenment by following the path set forth by the Buddha. (For other distinctive beliefs of the Theravāda tradition, see STHAVIRANIKĀYA.)
Therīgāthā. In Pāli, “Verses of the [Female] Elders”; the ninth book of the KHUDDAKANIKĀYA of the Pāli SUTTAPIṬAKA. It contains 522 verses in seventy-three poems, organized according to the number of verses in each poem, composed by approximately one hundred female elders (although one poem is said to have been uttered by thirty therīs, another by five hundred). It said to have been composed by enlightened therīs, or elder nuns, during the lifetime of the Buddha, including many of his most famous female disciples, such as his stepmother MAHĀPRAJĀPATĪ. According to tradition, the collection was recited at the first Buddhist council (SAṂGĪTI; see COUNCIL, FIRST) held shortly after the death of the Buddha, although some verses are clearly added later. In any case, it represents one of, if not the earliest record of women’s religious experience. It corresponds to the THERAGĀTHĀ in content. The precise date and authorship of the verses is difficult to determine, although many of the poems are written from the women’s points of view, describing the sufferings of childbirth, marriage, and the loss of a child, a husband, and physical beauty, experiences that lead the author to enter the SAṂGHA. The spontaneous ecstatic utterances that are said to have accompanied these women’s experiences of enlightenment belie the common Western scholarly portrayal of the ARHAT as apathetic, cool, and aloof.
Thích. (V) (釋). The Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese transcription of the first syllable of the Buddha’s clan name, ŚĀKYA. In East Asian Buddhism, monks traditionally have abandoned their family’s surname and replaced it with the Buddha’s own clan name. See also SHI; FAMING.
Thích Minh Châu. (釋明珠) (1918–2012). Vietnamese monk born in Quảng Nam (Central Vietnam), he received ordination in 1946 from Venerable Thích Tịnh Khiết at Tường Vân Temple in Huế. In 1951, he went to India to study Pāli and Buddhism at Nalanda University. He obtained a PhD in 1961 with a thesis entitled “A Comparative Study between the Pāli MAJJHIMA NIKĀYA and the Chinese MADHYAMA ĀGAMA.” After returning to South Vietnam, he became a founding member of Vạn Hạnh University as well as its rector from 1964 until its disestablishment in 1975 when South Vietnam fell to communist forces from the North. A prolific writer and translator, Thích Minh Châu single-handedly translated into Vietnamese more than thirty works from the PĀLI canon. He also wrote a three-volume Pāli grammar. After the closing of Vạn Hạnh University, he founded the Vạn Hạnh Buddhist Institute, where he continued his research and translation. In 1989, he became president of the Vietnam Institute of Buddhist Studies and head of the Committee on the Translation of the Tripiṭaka. Many expatriate Vietnamese Buddhists regard Thích Minh Châu with some suspicion because of his alleged collaboration with the Communist government after 1975, while acknowledging his important contributions to Vietnamese Buddhist literature.
Thích Nhất Hạnh. (釋一行) (1926–). Internationally renowned Vietnamese monk and one of the principal propounders of “Engaged Buddhism.” He was born in southern Vietnam, the son of a government bureaucrat. Nhất Hạnh entered a Buddhist monastery as a novice in 1942, where he studied with a Vietnamese Zen master, and received full ordination as a monk in 1949. His interests in philosophy, literature, and foreign languages led him to leave the Buddhist seminary to study at Saigon University. While teaching in a secondary school, he served as editor of the periodical “Vietnamese Buddhism,” the organ of the Association of All Buddhists in Vietnam. In 1961, he went to the United States to study at Princeton University, returning to South Vietnam in December 1963 after the overthrow of the government of the Catholic president Ngô Đình Diem, which had actively persecuted Buddhists. The persecutions had led to widespread public protests that are remembered in the West through photographs of the self-immolation of Buddhist monks. Nhất Hạnh worked to found the Unified Buddhist Church and the Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies, which later became Vạn Hạnh University. He devoted much of his time to the School of Youth for Social Service, which he founded and of which he was the director. The school’s activities included sending teams of young people to the countryside to offer various forms of social assistance to the people. He also founded a new Buddhist sect (the Order of Interbeing), and helped establish a publishing house, all of which promoted what he called Engaged Buddhism. A collection of his pacifist poetry was banned by the governments of both North and South Vietnam. While engaging in nonviolent resistance to the Vietnam War, he also sought to aid its victims. In 1966, Nhất Hạnh promulgated a five-point peace plan while on an international lecture tour, during which he met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (who would later nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize) and Thomas Merton in the United States, addressed the House of Commons in Britain, and had an audience with Pope Paul VI in Rome. The book that resulted from his lecture tour, Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, was banned by the South Vietnamese government. Fearing that he would be arrested or assassinated if he returned to Vietnam after the lecture tour, his supporters urged him to remain abroad and he has lived in exile ever since, residing primarily in France. He founded a center called Plum Village in southern France, whence he has sought to assist Vietnamese refugees and political prisoners and to teach Engaged Buddhism to large audiences in Europe and the Americas. A prolific writer, he has published scores of books on general, nonsectarian Buddhist teachings and practices, some of which have become bestsellers. He has made numerous trips abroad to teach and lead meditation retreats. In his teachings, Nhất Hạnh calls for a clear recognition and analysis of suffering, identifying its causes, and then working to relieve present suffering and prevent future suffering through nonviolent action. Such action in bringing peace can only truly succeed when the actor is at peace or, in his words, is “being peace.”
Thích Quảng Đức. (釋廣德) (1897–1963). Vietnamese monk who became internationally known for his self-immolation (see SHESHEN) to protest the oppression of Buddhism by the government of the partisan Catholic president Ngô Đình Diệm. Thích Quảng Đức was born in Khánh Hòa province (Central Vietnam) and his personal name was Lâm Văn Tức. He left home to become a monk at the age of seven and received full ordination at the age of twenty. Subsequently, he went to Mount Ninh Hòa to practice austerities and led the life of a mendicant monk for five years. In 1932, he was invited to be a preceptor at the Ninh Hòa branch of the An Nam Association of Buddhist Studies. In 1934, he moved to South Vietnam, working with Buddhist communities in various provinces for several years. He then traveled to Cambodia and lived there for three years, devoting himself to rebuilding monasteries and studying Pāli literature. In 1953, the Nam Việt Association of Buddhist Studies invited him to be the abbot of Phước Hòa Temple. The last temple he supervised was Quán Thế Âm Temple in Gia Định. On June 11, 1963, when the tension between Buddhism and the government reached a high point, he led a procession of more than one thousand monks through the streets of Saigon. At a crossroad, he calmly sat down in lotus posture, doused himself in gasoline, and set himself on fire. He is revered by Vietnamese Buddhists, who refer to him as Bodhisattva Quảng Đức.
Thích Thiên Ân. (釋天恩) (1926–1980). The first Vietnamese Buddhist monk to spread Buddhism in the West. He was born in 1926 in Huế (Central Vietnam) in a Buddhist family. He was ordained at age fourteen. In 1953, he went to Japan to study and earned a doctorate in literature at Waseda University in 1963. He returned to Vietnam and took a teaching position in the Department of Buddhist Studies at Vạn Hạnh University in 1964. In 1966 he was invited by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to be a visiting professor. At the urging of American students, he founded the International Buddhist Meditation Center (IBMC) in 1970 in Los Angeles, the first Vietnamese center to offer full monastic ordination to Westerners. In 1973 the College of Oriental Studies was established. After South Vietnam fell in 1975, many Vietnamese refugees relocated to Southern California and the IBMC became a shelter and residence for many of them. Eventually, it could no longer accommodate the increasing number of refugees who kept arriving in Southern California. Thích Thiên Ân purchased two houses in the same neighborhood and converted them into the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple and Amida Temple. These were the first Vietnamese Buddhist temples in North America. He was also the first Vietnamese monk to write books on Chan history and practice in Japanese and English.
Thích Trí Quang. (釋智光) (1923–). Vietnamese monk born into a Buddhist family in Đồng Hới (Central Vietnam). He became a monk at the age of thirteen in 1936. The following year he entered the Buddhist Studies Institute of the Huế Association of Buddhist Studies. He graduated in 1945 and received full ordination in 1946. In 1947, he joined the resistance movement against the French together with his three brothers. In 1949, he went to Huế to teach at the Báo Quốc Institute of Buddhist Studies. He traveled to Saigon for the first time in 1950. During his sojourn there he campaigned to found the Nam Việt Institute of Buddhist Studies and the Nam Việt Association of Buddhist Studies, and assumed editorship of the Buddhist periodical Viên Âm. He also contributed to the founding of the General Association of Vietnamese Buddhism, whose goal is to unify Vietnamese Buddhism. In 1956, two years after the French withdrew from Vietnam, he became director of the Association of Buddhist Studies and fought to change the term “Buddhist Studies” to “Buddhism” (during French rule, Buddhism was not recognized as a religion). Thích Trí Quang was one of the most eminent Buddhist figures in numerous protests against the oppression of Buddhism by the Ngô Đình Diệm and subsequent South Vietnamese regimes throughout the 1960s.
Thiền. (禪). In Vietnamese, “Meditation”; the Vietnamese strand of the broader East Asian Chan school, which includes Chinese CHAN, Japanese ZEN, and Korean SŎN. According to the THIỀN UYỂN TẬP ANH (“Outstanding Figures in the Thiền Garden”), one of the few primary sources of the school’s history, Chan teachings were assumed to have been transmitted to Vietnam by VINĪTARUCI (d. 594), a South Indian brāhmaṇa who is claimed (rather dubiously) to have studied in China with the third Chan patriarch SENGCAN before heading south to Guangzhou and Vietnam. In 580, he is said to have arrived in Vietnam and settled at Pháp Vân monastery, where he subsequently transmitted his teachings to Pháp Hiền (d. 626), who carried on his Chan tradition. In addition to the Vinītaruci lineage, there are two other putative lineages of Vietnamese Thiền, both named after their supposed founders: VÔ NGÔN THÔNG (reputedly a student of BAIZHANG HUAIHAI), and THẢO ĐƯỜNG (reputedly connected to the YUNMEN ZONG in China). Much of this history is, however, a retrospective creation. The Thiền school is in reality a much more amorphous construct than it is in the rest of East Asia: in Vietnam, there is no obvious Chan monasticism, practices, or rituals as there were in China, Korea, and Japan. Thiền is instead more of an aesthetic approach or a way of life than an identifiable school of thought or practice. Some of the few recognizable influences of Thiền in Vietnam are the traces of Chan literary topoi in Vietnamese Buddhist literature. There is little else, whether physical sites, ecclesiastical institutions, or textual or praxis evidence, that points to a concrete school of Thiền in Vietnam. See also CHAN; CHAN ZONG.
Thiên Mụ Tự. [alt. Linh Mụ Tự] (天姥寺/靈姥寺). In Vietnamese, “Heavenly Matron Monastery”; important Vietnamese Buddhist sacred site, located in Huế, the ancient capital of Vietnam; also commonly known as the Chùa Thiên Mụ, or Thiên Mụ Pagoda. The pagoda was the residence of THÍCH QUẢNG ĐỨC (1897–1963), the monk whose self-immolation (see SHESHEN) in 1963 drew attention to the persecution of Buddhists by the pro-Catholic Vietnamese government of Ngô Đình Diệm. The pagoda is sometimes known as the Numinous Matron monastery (Linh Mụ Tự), because it was built in 1601 by the governor of Huế, Nguyễn Hoàng (d.u.), after a vision in which an old woman told him that the site was rife with numinous power. Afterward, the site was renovated several times by the local governors or the kings of the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945). It consists largely of two parts: the Phúc Điền tower, a seven-story octagonal tower at the entrance to the site that was erected in 1884, and the main hall at the center. Since its construction, the Thiên Mụ Pagoda has been an important center of Buddhist religious and political activity in modern and contemporary Vietnam. In 1993, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Thiền Uyê̈n Tập Anh. (禪苑集英). In Vietnamese, “Outstanding Figures in the THIỀN Garden.” Compiled by an unknown author around the third decade of the fourteenth century, this anthology is a collection of the biographies of eminent Thiền masters in Vietnam from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries, organized around the transmission of the three major Vietnamese Thiền schools: VINĪTARUCI, VÔ NGÔN THÔNG, and THẢO ĐƯỜNG. The Thiển Uyển purports to be a narrative history of Vietnamese Buddhism and as such is modeled upon the Chinese CHAN literary genre known as the “transmission of the lamplight” (CHUANDENG LU). According to the account presented in the Thiển Uyển, Vietnamese Buddhist history is a continuation of the development of the Chinese Chan tradition. In the same period during which the Thiền Uyển was compiled, there emerged a number of texts of the same genre, but only fragments of those are extant. The Thiền Uyển is the only such lineage history that appears to have been preserved in its entirety and is the only text that attempts to provide a cohesive narrative history of Vietnamese Buddhism. The Thiển Uyển, however, was all but forgotten for centuries until a later recension of the text was accidentally discovered by the scholar Trần Văn Giáp in 1927. Trần wrote a long article outlining the content of text, which accepts the record of the Thiển Uyển as veridical history. Since that time, the account of the order provided in the Thiển Uyển has been widely regarded as the official history of Vietnamese Buddhism.