摩訶止觀 大意·感大果

This unit is the third of the Five Summaries within Great Purport, the first of the Ten Broad Chapters. Its first half distinguishes results at the two extremes from excellent and wondrous results according to opposition or accord with the Middle Way, then discloses their difference through anticipatory results, seven kinds of preparatory means, and the appearance of the City of Many Fragrances. Its second half asks how cultivation and realization in the Sequential Dharma Gate of Dhyāna relate to the results described here, distinguishing habituated cause and habituated result obtained in this life from the realm-retribution received in a later life. Although the passage is extremely short, the author’s own words, Zhanran’s outline and explanations, extant cited texts, and later reception must remain on separate levels.

1. Doctrinal-Outline Placement

This unit begins with 「○第三、為明菩薩清淨大果報故，說是止觀者」 tr. “Third, this calming-and-contemplation is taught in order to clarify the bodhisattva’s pure great fruition”〔T1911 0020a24〕 and ends with 「二乘但有習果，無有果報，大乘具有」 tr. “The Two Vehicles have only habituated result and do not have fruition; the Great Vehicle possesses both”〔T1911 0020b03〕. The following sentence, 「○第四、為通裂大網諸經論故」 tr. “Fourth, in order to interconnect and tear open the great net of scriptures and treatises”〔T1911 0020b04〕, has already entered the next unit.

The Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue (hereafter Fuxing) first classifies this within the Five Summaries as 「次感大果自行果也。」 tr. “Next, Bringing Forth the Great Fruit is the result of one’s own practice”〔T1912 0142a27〕. Its direct commentary then divides the passage into two sections:

Within the first section, opposition and accord, anticipatory result, the City of Many Fragrances, and the pointer to later explanation are a sequence of meanings and are not expanded into four separate divisions. The question and answer of the second section likewise form one division. Bringing Forth the Great Fruit within the Five Summaries indicates the result of one’s own practice and the beginning and end of the whole work; it does not present the later marks of practice in advance.

2. Formation and Transmission

This unit continues the record in Origins of one summer’s exposition at Yuquan, Guanding’s transcription, and the incompleteness of the extant transmission. The threefold evidence of incompleteness and the history of three textual states are detailed there and are not repeated here.

3. Verification of the Scriptures and Treatises Cited

This unit has two identifiable groups of external references: the chapter on cultivation and realization in the work the treatise abbreviates as the Sequential Dharma Gate of Dhyāna, and the City of Many Fragrances plus the ensuing exchange explicitly attributed by the Fuxing to the Dazhidu Lun. The designations, abbreviated canon numbers, and headings of the works are as follows:

Cultivation and Realization in the Sequential Dharma Gate of Dhyāna

Although the table of contents in the Shi Chan Boluomi Cidi Famen separately lists an eighth chapter on fruition, that chapter is absent from the extant text. A listed title cannot be used to fabricate content for the missing body.

The Scriptural Passage on the City of Many Fragrances

The treatise reads 「香城七重，橋津如畫，即其相也。」 tr. “The Fragrant City has seven walls, and its bridges and fords are like a painting: this is its appearance”〔T1911 0020a27〕. The Fuxing explicitly names the source and transmits an excerpt:

The principal points of the extant scriptural passage in the Dazhidu Lun are compared below. These are excerpts; the long passage on towers, railings, a moat of seven treasures, watchtowers, pools, and gardens remains in the Taishō fascicle and is not quoted in full here.

The parallel passage in the Larger Prajñāpāramitā is as follows:

The wording differs across the three levels. Principal differences are recorded without adjudication: first, the treatise says “Fragrant City,” while the Fuxing and both extant texts say “Many Fragrances”; second, the treatise combines Fragrant City and seven walls, while the extant texts first name the city and then record its seven walls; third, the treatise says the bridges and fords are like a painting, while both extant texts say the city is dignified like a painting and its bridges and fords like level ground; fourth, the Fuxing reads “from this” and “there is a great city named,” while the extant texts read “from here” and “there is a city named”; fifth, the Taishō Fuxing reads two thousand yojanas, while its variants and both extant texts read twelve; sixth, the Taishō Fuxing reads seven kinds, a variant reads seven walls, and the extant texts separately give seven walls and seven rows of trees; seventh, the Fuxing reads one graph for “streets” and the extant texts another; seventh-b, the Dazhidu Lun says the line on past karma is “brought about by past karma,” while the Larger Prajñāpāramitā calls it “fruition of past karma”; seventh-c, punctuation within that line differs in detail and each text retains its own; eighth, the Fuxing says hundreds of thousands of sentient beings, while the extant Dazhidu Lun says hundreds of thousands of myriads.

The Dazhidu Lun Exchange

After citing the City of Many Fragrances, the Fuxing also excerpts the Dazhidu Lun exchange about the body manifested by Bodhisattva Dharmodgata. The six comparisons are as follows:

This exchange is a subsidiary discussion in the treatise transmitted by the Fuxing to explain the bodhisattva’s manifestation in the City of Many Fragrances. The Mohe Zhiguan itself draws only on the appearance of the Fragrant City and does not unfold this exchange about the body.

4. Essential Explanations from the Fuxing [the Mirror]

Zhanran first distinguishes the general and specific senses of fruition: 「言果報者在實報土。若言實報無障礙土。必出方便有餘之外。若單云果報其名猶通。」 tr. “To speak of fruition here is to locate it in the land of real reward. If one says ‘the unobstructed land of real reward,’ it necessarily lies beyond the land of skillful means with remainder. If one says only ‘fruition,’ the name remains general”〔T1912 0214c02〕. The treatise speaks only of the two extremes and the excellent and wondrous. The Fuxing further judges: 「故對方便同居曰邊。獨以實報稱順曰妙。是故但未破無明未證中道。皆名為違。」 tr. “Thus, in contrast to the lands of skillful means and common residence, they are called extremes. The real-reward land alone is called accord and wondrous. Therefore, all who have not broken ignorance and realized the Middle Way are called opposed”〔T1912 0214c06〕. It marks the stage boundary with 「初住已上法身所居。方名為順。」 tr. “Only the dwelling of the Dharma body from the first abode upward is called accord”〔T1912 0214c08〕 and 「唯有別圓初地初住獲妙果報。」 tr. “Only the first ground of the Separate Teaching and first abode of the Perfect Teaching attain wondrous fruition”〔T1912 0214c17〕. The four lands, teaching stages, and analysis through ignorance all belong to the mirror and are not written backward as lists made by the treatise itself.

For anticipatory result, the Fuxing says 「若破無明得無生忍。設未出分段者。猶未入滅。所居之土名為華報。」 tr. “If one breaks ignorance and attains patience with the non-arising of dharmas, yet has not left fragmentary birth and death, one has still not entered extinction; the land in which one dwells is called anticipatory result”〔T1912 0214c20〕. It explicitly enumerates the seven preparatory means as 「七方便者。謂人天二乘三教菩薩。別取教道地前位也。」 tr. “The seven preparatory means are humans, devas, the Two Vehicles, and bodhisattvas of the three teachings, with the Separate Teaching taking the stages before the grounds in the teaching path”〔T1912 0215a12〕. The treatise gives only the total number; the names and stage limits are Zhanran’s explanation. Comparison of the Fragrant City again shows that the treatise says the bridges and fords are like a painting while both extant texts say the city is dignified like a painting and the bridges and fords like level ground. The wording is recorded side by side without adjudication; the image of one level cannot replace the other’s verbatim phrase.

The treatise explicitly points to the later eighth Broad Chapter, but the Fuxing also preserves the boundary of the missing text: 「至大章第八應廣說之。夏終雖即緣闕不說。何妨至此且指後文。下第九第十指後亦爾。」 tr. “It should have been extensively explained in the eighth major chapter. Although the summer ended and, because conditions were lacking, it was not taught, what prevents the present passage from pointing provisionally to the later text? The later ninth and tenth pointers are the same”〔T1912 0215a14〕. The pointer is valid, but no extant body exists to be filled backward.

The final distinction preserves two meanings of “result.” Zhanran says 「修之與證雖似因果。但是習因習果。」 tr. “Although cultivation and realization resemble cause and result, they are only habituated cause and habituated result”〔T1912 0215a19〕 and 「故云修名習行即是習因。證名發得即是習果。並在現世。」 tr. “Thus cultivation is called habituated practice and is habituated cause; realization is called arising attainment and is habituated result. Both are in the present life”〔T1912 0215a20〕. The fruition here, however, is such that 「果報既在來世故與禪門不同。」 tr. “since fruition occurs in a future life, it differs from the Dhyāna Gate”〔T1912 0215a21〕. Regarding the Two Vehicles, he adds 「二乘但有習果等者。判大小乘也。果報之名。言不涉小。」 tr. “‘The Two Vehicles have only habituated result’ distinguishes the Small and Great Vehicles. The term fruition does not apply to the Small”〔T1912 0215a22〕, concluding with 「小乘教不說二乘更有處。言方便土者。出自大教耳。」 tr. “The Small Vehicle teachings do not say that the Two Vehicles have another place. The expression ‘land of skillful means’ comes from the Great Teaching”〔T1912 0215a25〕. Present-life cultivation and realization and future-life realm-retribution cannot be merged merely because both use the word “result.”

5. Explanations of Various Masters

A passage-by-passage check of the unit’s anchor sentences and scene terms—fruition, anticipatory result, habituated result, realm-retribution, Many Fragrances, real reward, land of skillful means, and Middle Way—found no direct quotation or consecutive reception of this unit in T1936, the Siming Shiyi Shu, or T1937, the Siming Zunzhe Jiaoxing Lu. This clean result extends only to those two works and does not claim that all Song Tiantai literature lacks reception.

The Zhiguan Fuxing Souyao Ji in volume fifty-five of the Xuzangjing, X55n0919, directly compresses the commentary on this unit. It first receives the judgment that “fruition” is general while the present intent is specific, that the lands of skillful means and common residence are extremes, and that the real-reward land is wondrous〔0768c24–0769a03〕. It next receives anticipatory result, the seven preparatory means, and the list of humans, devas, Two Vehicles, and bodhisattvas of the three teachings〔0769a06–08〕. It closes by receiving the distinction that cultivation and realization are only habituated cause and result, while the fruition here lies across a future life〔0769a09–12〕. Its account follows the Fuxing and provides another witness to its transmission.

The Tiantai Zong Weijue (with Shiyi) in volume fifty-six of the Xuzangjing, X56n0942, cites the treatise and Fuxing to ask: since perfect-and-sudden correct contemplation of the Middle Way breaks ignorance and aims toward the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light, why does this passage take real reward as its aim〔0687c19–0688a01〕? The answer treats correlating the four teachings with four lands as a teaching-path explanation, then reconciles the two by calling the phenomenal land real reward and the principle Quiescent Light, adding that real reward takes the three contemplations as conditions〔0688a02–07〕. This is the position of a later inherited exchange. It is recorded side by side and not projected backward as the original meaning of Zhiyi or Zhanran.

6. Terminology

7. Similes · Cross-Reading · Carrying Forward

The Fragrant City is the unit’s only concrete image. Its seven walls, streets, bridges, and Dharma seat prevent anticipatory result from remaining only a name. Yet the treatise briefly says the bridges and fords are like a painting, while the extant texts say the city is dignified like a painting and its bridges and fords like level ground. The images can be read together, but their wording cannot be blended.

The Zhiguan Yili defines the function of this passage on fruition within Great Purport: 「大意雖有行及果報等文。但是示行及果報等。令知始末。非謂即是修行相也。」 tr. “Although Great Purport has passages on practice, fruition, and the rest, they only indicate practice, fruition, and the rest so that beginning and end are known; this does not mean that these are themselves the marks of cultivation”〔T1913 0453a23〕. This is the boundary established by the Zhiguan Yili for the fruition passage in Great Purport.

The Zhiguan Dayi restates the Five Summaries as 「初略明中又開為五。謂發圓心。修圓行。感圓果。起八教歸三德。」 tr. “Within the initial summary, five are further opened: arouse the perfect mind, cultivate perfect practice, bring forth perfect fruition, raise the eight teachings, and return to the three virtues”〔T1914 0459b18〕. It also says 「感圓果者。由諸行故得入圓位。近在初住名無生忍。遠期妙覺名寂滅忍。」 tr. “Bringing forth perfect fruition means that through the practices one enters the perfect stages. Proximally, the first abode is called patience with non-arising; remotely, wondrous awakening is called patience of quiescence and extinction”〔T1914 0459c19〕. This is a later synopsis carrying forward perfect fruition and may be cross-read with the unit and the stage boundaries in the Fuxing, but it is not the treatise’s original sentence.

The treatise identifies the eighth Broad Chapter as the place for later extensive explanation, but that chapter is absent from the extant text. Cross-reading can disclose its direction within the Ten Broad Chapters; it cannot assemble a lost chapter from later synopses or explanations in the mirror.

8. Placement of the Editions

This edition uses the Taishō-canon Mohe Zhiguan, T1911, as its base text. Page-column-line anchors identify the nearest line marker before the citation’s first graph, not the line on which its final graph occurs. This unit contains one collation note in the treatise:

The direct commentary in the Fuxing has four additional, directly relevant collation notes. They are recorded without adjudicating superiority:

The notes preserve only visible differences. Agreement between a variant and an extant text does not authorize alteration of the Taishō reading; nor does the Fuxing’s phrasing adjudicate the treatise’s variant between “fruition” and “result-fruition.”