The Meaning of Ching (Sutra?) in Buddhist Chinese
By Roger J. Corless

Journal of Chinese Philosophy
V. 3 (1975)
pp.67-72

Copyright 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Soothill and Hodous define ching[a] as a translation of the Sanskrit word suutra, and confidently assert that, "The suutras in the Tripi.taka are the sermons attributed to the Buddha; the other two divisions are [lu [b]] the Vinaya, and [lun [c]] the `Saastras, or Abhidharma..."[1] This has become the standard definition, but no student of Buddhist Chinese texts can fail to notice a number of 'exceptions' to this definition. There are, indeed, so many 'exceptions' that the definition itself would seem to be in doubt. In this article I wish to give some idea of the scope of ching, and suggest a new definition which does not rely entirely on the Sanskrit use of suutra.

    The Mahaavyutpatti[2], entries 1325 through 1429 (section LXV) lists what it calls, saddharma-naamaani, 'the names of the true Dharma', which it translates as, i-ch'ieh ching ming[d], 'the names of all the ching'. The entries do not correspond with the standard definition of ching. For example, entry 1411 cites the entire Tripi.taka as ching, while 1412 through 1414 give each of its separate parts (Suutra, Abhidharma, Vinaya) as ching. Further:

    (i) a great many texts are regularly called ching though they are never, in any extant Sanskrit recension, called suutra: e.g., 1340 Vimalakiirtmirde`sa (Wei-mo-chi Ching[e] ); D. T. Suzuki observed this, but did not know what to make of it[3];
    (ii) some ching are, by their very nature, about, not by the Buddha: e.g., 1331 Lalitavistara (Ta-yu-hsi Ching[f]), which is a biography of `Saakyamuni;
    (iii) some ching are no more than single chapters extracted from suutras: e.g., 1350 Da`sa-bhuumika (Shih-ti Ching[g]), which is chapter 26 in the 80-chuan text (`Sik.saananda, T.279) of the Avata^msaka Suutra (Hua-yen Ching[h])[4];
    (iv) some ching are sections within the Suutra-pi.taka (e.g., 1422 Madhyaagama, Chung A-han Ching[j]) while others are quite outside it, clearly designated as `Saastras (e.g., 1415 Praj~naapti-`saastra, Chung Lun[k]).

Apart from this list, which is itself by no means exhaustive, we might mention two other famous 'exceptions': the Liu Tzu T'am Ching[l] and the Emmei Jukku Kannon Gyo[m], Philip Yampolsky, in his excellent work on the former[5], realises that, "Strictly speaking, of course, it is not [a Suutra]".[6]  Yet he unhesitatingly translates ching as suutra, and tries to justify it by quoting the commentator Ch'i-sung[n] to effect that Hui-neng[o]. "was a Bodhisattva monk, and his preaching of the Platform Suutra is basically no

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different from the Buddha's preaching of the sutras."[7] The appropriateness of this remark as a support for taking ching as suutra will be questioned below. As for the Emmei Jukku Kannon Gyo, 'the ching to Avalokite`svara in ten phrases for prolonging life', this is a most curious 'suutra', since it is clearly a dhaara.nii[8], though doctrinally based upon the Kannon Gyo/ Kuan-yin Ching[9].

    All this confusion is marvellously compressed in the inscrutable definition of kyo/ching offered by the Daito Shuppansha dictionary[10]:

Kyo[a] suutra. The scriptures which convey the Buddha's teachings. In a narrower sense, one of the twelve literary styles of the Buddhist canon. In a broader sense, one of the tripi.taka, i.e., the whole scripture.

By, 'the twelve literary styles of the Buddhist canon', the Junibukyo/shih-erh-pu ching[p], 'twelve divisions of ching' is meant, though this is normally called, in Sanskrit, dvaada`saa^nga-pravacana, 'the twelve-limbed teaching', Within this, the first 'limb' is suutra/sutta, which D. J. Kalupahana[11] finally takes as, "... the word of the Buddha in prose (gadyabhaa.sita) which could be easily understood by the listeners", although he notes that Buddhaghosa classified it under Vinaya, and, indeed, many Mahaayaana suutras (e.g., Saddharmapu.n.dariika Suutra) contain a great deal of verse (gaathaa). The, 'broader sense' is, of course, the custom of referring to the entire body of Chinese Buddhist scriptures as san-tsang ching[q] or ta-tsang ching[r], normally rendered as Tripi.taka, although the corpus is considerably larger than, and divided up quite differently from, the Paa.li Tipi.taka. Then, within this, ching/suutra is one group (as with the Soothill and Hodous definition). Thus, either explicitly or implicitly, the Daito Shuppansha dictionary seems to claim kyo/ching as a translation of (i) pravacana, (ii) suutra; (iii) pi.taka. No wonder then, when it is forced to find a comprehensive meaning for the character, it abandons its search for Sanskrit equivalents and, after a purely Sino-Japanese lexical eisegesis, tells us unhelpfully that, "Suutras are thought to penetrate into the truth and embrace all sentient beings." [12]

    A solution to this phantasmagoria may, I think, be found fairly readily by taking another look at the words suutra and ching in general, before reapplying them to the special case of Buddhist texts. R. L. Turner[13] gives the root-meaning of suutra as, 'thread, cord': it is cognate with English, 'suture'. This fits very well with the root-idea of ching[14] as given by the Shuo-wen Chieh-tzu[s]: 'Ching is a thread in weaving'.[t] Now, such a thread

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must be continuous, or unchanging, so it is no surprise to find the Pure Land Master T'an-luan[15] telling us that, 'Ching is "constant/eternal" ' [16] [v] Thus the general (non-Buddhist) meaning of ching, normally translated into English as, 'Classic': the ching is authoritative, it comes from the sages, it cannot be gainsaid, only commented upon; it is constant/eternal. Hence, for example, the I Ching[w] is, in one sense, 'the unchanging book on Change'. When T'an-luan use ching in a Buddhist sense, he understands it as referring both to the supposed ipsissima verba of `Saakyamuni (in this case, the three Pure Land Suutras), and to authoritative commentaries coming from the Buddhist 'sages' (in this case, an Upade`sa, 'instruction' [17], claiming to be by Vasubandhu). He explains:

Within the twelvefold ching[p] spoken by the Buddha there are lun-i ching[x] called upade`sa[y]. If the Buddha's disciples explain the teaching of the Buddha's ching in accordance with the Buddha's essential meaning[z], the Buddha then permits [the explanations] to be called upade`sa, because they enter into what pertains to[18] the Buddhadharma.[19]

T'an-luan, then, uses ching to refer to the dvaada`saa^nga-pravacana, but also to upade`sa, which is a division within the dvaada`saa^nga-pravacana. The link is that they both come to us with the Buddha's authority, either directly, or through a commentator who thoroughly understands the teaching, and whose work is thus 'permitted'[ab] (the exact force of this character is unclear to me), by the Buddha, to be included in the dvaada`saa^nga-pravacana. Such an explanatory commentary is called lun-i ching[x], which I take to be, 'the constant (authoritative) text which discusses the essential meaning', or, more shortly, 'standard commentary'.

    If this explanation, which also appears in K'ung An-kuo's preface to the 'older text' of the Book of Filiality[ac], and is used by Seng Chao[ad] in his Vimalakiirti Commentary[20], was generally accepted by Chinese Buddhists of the time, it might solve at a stroke the problem of why all suutras are ching, but not all ching are suutras. If all ching are 'authoritative', are 'as if spoken by the Buddha', then the entire collection of scriptures, or a part of them, or a single chapter, or a dhaara.nii, could be labeled ching, just so that it be regarded as constant/authoritative. And again, there would be no prevarication in the remark of Ch'i-sung[n], that the Liu Tzu T'an Ching[l] is a ching because Hui-neng properly understood the essential meaning of the Buddha's ching, such that, "his preaching... is basically no different from the Buddha's preaching of the sutras."[21] It is then irrelevant to remark that, "strictly speaking ...it is not [a Suutra]".[22]

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    What we seem to have is an example of what might be called, 'synecdoche translation', where either more or less of the meaning of a term in the source language (Sanskrit) passes over into the target language (Chinese), without there being a strict correspondence. Occasions where the Sanskrit term is narrowed in this process are well known. For instance, ruupa, which means 'Form-with-color' becomes merely, se[ae], 'color', and dharma is reduced to fa[af], 'method, law': but the Chinese characters must be understood in the richer sense of the source language. In the case of ching, on the other hand, it appears that an originally rather restricted term, suutra, has been expanded in accordance with general (non-Buddhist) Chinese associations. If so, ching in Buddhist Chinese might better be translated as, 'standard text' rather than, suutra.

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

NOTES

1.    A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, compiled by Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous, Oxford, 1934, p. 409a.

2.    Honyaku Myogi Taishu (Mahaavyutpatti), compiled by R. Sakaki. Kyoto: Kyoto Teikoku Daigaku, Bunka Daigaku Sosho, 1916. 2vols. Cited by entry number.

3.    "It is remarkable that [the Vimalakiirti] bears the title 'suutra' in spite of the fact that it was given by a Buddhist philosopher and not by the Buddha himself..." D. T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, Princeton University Press, 1959, p. 410. That this knowledgeable scholar should have entirely failed to notice that although the Chinese text is called ching, the Sanskrit text is not called sutra, is a measure of the depth of confusion over these terms.

4.     Similarly, commonly known though not noted here by the Mahaavyutpatti, is the Kuan-yin Ching[i], 'the ching on Avalokite`svara', which is chapter 24 (in the Sanskrit text) of the Saddharmapu.n.dariika Suutra, called Samantamukha Parivarta, 'the chapter on He-Who-Faces-Everywhere'.

5.    Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, New York, Columbia University Press, 1967.

6.     Ibid.,p.126,n.1.

7.    Idem.

8.    For a diverting story of its effectiveness, see Philip B. Yampolsky, The Zen Master Hakuin, New York, Columbia University Press, 1971, pp. 18-24.

9.    See note 4.

10.     Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary, Tokyo, Daito Shuppansha, 1965, p. 189b.

11.     Encyclopaedia of Buddhism (ed. by G. P. Malalasekara), Colombo (Ceylon), 1965, sub A^nga (2), pp.616a-619b.

12.     Op.cit.,p.156b.

13.    R. L. Turner, A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, Oxford, 1966, entry 13561.

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14.    See Dai Kanwa Jiten, edited by Morohashi Tetsuji, Tokyo, 1966-68, 12 vols., entry 27508.

15.    Shih T'an-luan[u] is counted by the Jodo Shinshu as the first Chinese Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism. His traditional dates are 476-542 A.D., but c. 488-c. 554 A.D. is more probable. See my Dissertation, T'an-luan's Commentary on the Pure Land Discourse: An Annotated Translation and Soteriological Analysis of the Wang-sheng-lun Chu (T.1819), University of Wisconsin (Ph.D.), 1973, pp.5 - 11.

16.    Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo, vol. XL, p. 826, column c, line 4.

17.     Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary, Delhi, Motilal-Banarsidass (reprint), 1970, p. 135a.

18.    I here understand hsiang[aa] as the marker of a Bahuvriihi compound.

19.     Taisho, XL, 826b20-23. Translation modified from my Dissertation, op. cit., p. 91.

20.     Taisho,vol.XXXVIII.

21.    See note 7.

22.    See note 6.

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CHARACTER INDEX