Appendix C · Glossary of Terms

In the main text, every term was glossed in plain words at its first appearance; the Sanskrit romanizations and diacritics are gathered here, so as not to disturb the text.

Each entry gives: English rendering — Chinese — Sanskrit romanization — one plain sentence. As a Mahāyāna volume, the romanizations are Sanskrit. Terms native to the Chinese translations, or names laid down by the later classifiers, carry no romanization and are marked (Ch.) or (classifiers' term).

I. The Gate and the Vehicle

• Bodhicitta / arousing the mind — 菩提心／發菩提心 — bodhicitta — the resolve to seek unsurpassed awakening for the liberation of all beings; the bodhisattva path's sole entrance, entered in one thought.
• Bodhisattva — 菩薩 — bodhisattva — one who has aroused bodhicitta and walks its path; counted among the bodhisattvas from the arising itself.
• Great Vehicle — 大乘 — mahāyāna — the vehicle whose aim is buddhahood for the sake of beings; a parallel track to the two vehicles, not their sequel.
• Śrāvaka — 聲聞 — śrāvaka — the hearer who cultivates the four fruits and takes realization; his road is the previous volume, The Four Fruits of the Path.
• Pratyekabuddha — 辟支佛／獨覺 — pratyekabuddha — the solitary awakened one; with the śrāvaka, the "two vehicles."
• Turning from the lesser to the greater — 回小向大 — (Ch.) — the notion of converting from the two vehicles to the Great Vehicle; the single-ladder misreading the first chapter dismantles attaches itself to this phrase.
• Lineage — 種姓 — gotra — the native capacity for buddhahood, innate and cultivated; the bodhisattva's own lineage, not a promotion earned by fruits.
• All-knowledge — 一切智 — sarvajñatā — the Buddha's unobstructed knowing; what the arising of the mind seeks.
• Not taking realization / non-abiding — 不取證／不住涅槃 — (Ch.) — arriving at the very place of realization and not taking it; the character of the whole path, against the śrāvaka's exit.
• The two provisions — 二資糧 — puṇya-jñāna-saṃbhāra — merit and wisdom, the two stores; what the road of accumulation amasses.
• Three incalculable eons — 三大阿僧祇劫 — asaṃkhyeya-kalpa — three spans of innumerable eons; the road's full length.
• Perfection — 波羅蜜 — pāramitā — "gone to the far shore"; the six earn the name only with prajñā leading.

II. The Fifty Stations and the Non-Regresses

• Ten Faiths — 十信 — (part label: śraddhā, faith) — the first ten stations, outer-ordinary, before the abodes; the tidal zone where faith regresses.
• Ten Abodes — 十住 — (part label: sthāna, abode) — the second ten; entering the Buddha's house as a son of the Buddha; position-non-regress begins.
• Ten Practices — 十行 — (part label: caryā, practice) — the third ten; going out to benefit others, the six perfections enacted.
• Ten Dedications — 十迴向 — (part label: pariṇāmanā, dedication) — the fourth ten; turning the amassed good over; the close of the worthy ranks.
• Ten Grounds — 十地 — daśabhūmi — the fifth ten; the ten noble ones, where severance runs its course.
• Outer-ordinary / three worthy / ten noble — 外凡／三賢／十聖 — (Ch.) — the three tiers: the Ten Faiths outer-ordinary; abodes, practices, dedications the three worthy; the grounds the ten noble.
• The three non-regresses — 位不退／行不退／念不退 — (classifiers' term) — of position (from the abodes: no falling to the two vehicles or the ordinary), of practice (the dedications: the practice of benefit not retreating), of mindfulness (the eighth ground: the discriminating mind not stirring). The proper names are the classifiers'; the scriptures say "advancing portion," "never regressing," "avaivartika."
• Avaivartika — 阿鞞跋致 — avaivartika — non-regressing; the sources' own word for the non-regress.
• Regressing portion / advancing portion — 退分／上進分善根 — (Ch.) — the Keyūra's pair: the faith-position's roots can fall away; from the Abode of Arousing the Mind, they ascend without falling.
• Bodhisattva in name — 信想／假名／名字菩薩 — (Ch.) — the three provisional titles of one before the abodes; honest names for a standing not yet solid.
• Son of the Buddha — 佛子 — (Ch.) — one who has entered the family of the buddhas of the three times; the real title from the abodes onward.
• Consecration — 灌頂 — abhiṣeka — the Indian rite of royal investiture, water poured upon the crown; once at the end of the abodes, once at the end of the grounds.
• Dharma-Prince — 法王子 — (Ch.) — son of the Dharma-King; the ninth abode's name, and the ninth-ground bodhisattva's style.
• Fallen within the number of the buddhas — 墮在佛數 — (Ch.) — entered in the buddhas' register; the tenth ground's investiture mark—and not yet final buddhahood.

III. The Six Perfections and the Dedication

• The six perfections — 六波羅蜜／六度 — ṣaṭ-pāramitā — giving, discipline, patience, energy, meditation, wisdom; the substance of the bodhisattva's practice.
• Giving — 檀／布施 — dāna — enacted as the Practice of Joy.
• Discipline — 尸羅／持戒 — śīla — enacted as the Practice of Benefiting.
• Patience — 羼提／忍辱 — kṣānti — enacted as the Practice of Non-Opposition.
• Energy — 毘梨耶／精進 — vīrya — enacted as the Practice of Indomitability.
• Meditation — 禪／禪定 — dhyāna — enacted as the Practice of Freedom from Confusion (right mindfulness).
• Wisdom — 般若 — prajñā — the guide of the five; without it, the five are blind.
• Merit-portion and wisdom-portion — 福智二分 — (Ch.) — the six perfections' two threads: giving, discipline, patience to merit; prajñā to wisdom; energy and meditation through both.
• Non-attainment — 無所得 — (Ch.) — prajñā's working mark: no hold taken on giver, receiver, gift; the ground for matching Excellent Manifestation to wisdom.
• Dedication — 迴向 — pariṇāmanā — the turning-over of what is amassed; redirecting the good from settling into self-fruit.
• The threefold dedication — 三處迴向 — (classifiers' synthesis) — to beings, to bodhi, to the real; a later synthesis of the chapter's dispersed showings.
• Suchness — 真如 — tathatā — the way things are; what the eighth dedication accords with, and what the path of seeing beholds.
• Good spiritual friend — 善知識 — kalyāṇa-mitra — the friend on whom the faith-position's destination hangs.

IV. The Grounds and the Severances

• Ground of Joy — 歡喜地 — pramuditā — the first ground; first realizing the noble's place; Xuanzang: "Supreme Joy."
• Ground of Stainlessness — 離垢地 — vimalā — the second; the stain of transgression left behind.
• Light-Emitting Ground — 發光地 — prabhākarī — the third; the dharmas shining forth; the treatise glosses "Radiance."
• Ground of Blazing Wisdom — 焰慧地 — arciṣmatī — the fourth; wisdom-fire burning the fuel of afflictions; the treatise: "Flaming."
• Hard-to-Conquer Ground — 難勝地 — sudurjayā — the fifth; world-transcending wisdom ferrying the hard-to-ferry.
• Manifest Ground — 現前地 — abhimukhī — the sixth; its gloss not unfolded in this book.
• Far-Reaching Ground — 遠行地 — dūraṃgamā — the seventh; passing beyond the place where the two vehicles stop.
• Immovable Ground — 不動地 — acalā — the eighth; unbreakable, unmovable; application cast off for spontaneity.
• Ground of Good Wisdom — 善慧地 — sādhumatī — the ninth; unobstructed teaching, the benefit of others accomplished.
• Dharma-Cloud Ground — 法雲地 — dharmameghā — the tenth; the great dharma-body like a covering cloud; the second consecration.
• Path of seeing / path of cultivation — 見道／修道 — darśana-mārga / bhāvanā-mārga — the first ground's direct beholding of suchness / the later grounds' gradual severing; the two times of the ground-architecture.
• Bonds of view — 見縛 — (Ch.) — the afflictions the path of seeing severs: born of discrimination and wrong view, dead the moment the principle is seen.
• Discriminated / innate afflictions — 分別惑／俱生惑 — (classifiers' term) — the later Yogācāra names for what seeing and cultivation sever; the sources say "bonds of view," "afflictions of the path of cultivation."
• Suppression / severance — 伏／斷 — (Ch.) — the stone on the grass against the root pulled out; the worthy suppress, the noble sever.
• The ten obstacles — 十障 — (Ch.) — one countered by each ground, coarse to fine: the mark of self, wrong conduct, forgetting, conceit of understanding, conceit of purity, subtle afflictive habit, fine-mark habit, applied effort amid the markless, failing to benefit beings, lacking mastery over dharmas.
• Forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas — 無生法忍 — anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti — the settled consent that dharmas neither arise nor cease, unbreakable and unmovable; its accomplishment is the eighth ground's gate. "Forbearance" here is acceptance, not endurance.
• Non-application — 無功用 — anābhoga — without deliberate exertion; the eighth ground's casting off of applied practice.
• Spontaneity — 任運 — (Ch.) — running of itself, unforced; Xuanzang's word for the eighth ground.
• The ten masteries — 十自在 — (Ch.) — the eighth-ground bodhisattva's: over life, mind, wealth, action, birth, vow, understanding, will, wisdom, dharma (Xuanzang's renderings differ slightly); countering ten terrors. The bodhisattva's roster, distinct from the buddhas' own ten masteries.
• The two obstructions — 煩惱障／所知障 — kleśa-āvaraṇa / jñeya-āvaraṇa — the affliction-obstruction barring liberation, and the knowledge-obstruction veiling all-knowledge; the two vehicles purify the first, the bodhisattva lineage both.
• The subtle obstacle of cognition — 微智障 — (Ch.) — the last fine veil remaining above the tenth ground; for its counteraction the buddha-ground is spoken of separately.
• Equal awakening / sublime awakening — 等覺／妙覺 — (classifiers' term) — the two stations the later classifiers set between the tenth ground and the buddha-ground; the matter of this series' next volume.

V. Others

• The thirty-seven factors of the way — 三十七道品 — (Ch.) — the śrāvaka's curriculum, which the bodhisattva fully contemplates without taking realization.
• Keeping a residue to moisten rebirth — 留惑潤生 — (Ch.) — the bodhisattva's device of not severing to the final exit, retaining a trace for the sake of rebirth among beings.
• Anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhi — 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提 — anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhi — unsurpassed, perfect awakening; the fruit the arising of the mind seeks.
• Dharma-body — 法身 — dharmakāya — the body of the Dharma; what the Dharma-Cloud Ground attains "complete in mastery."
• Omniscience in all modes — 一切種智 — sarvākārajñatā — the Buddha's knowing in its finality; to which the dedication of suchness consigns all roots of good.