瑜伽師地論 菩薩地 · 究竟瑜伽處 · 生品

In one line: The ordinary person is pushed into birth by the power of karma; the bodhisattva chooses birth by the power of the vow — the first two births (the quelling of disaster, and into one's own kind) run throughout on the formulaic phrase "by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery" (appearing seven times), and Guṇavarman's text, under "the existence of mastery," glosses outright, "mastery is just the power of the vow" 〔T30n1582 1007b25〕; taking on birth is turned from the recompense of the round of rebirth into an instrument for delivering beings, "the resting-basis for the fruit of great awakening" 〔0563b24〕.

Three Points of the Eye

1. Birth by the power of the vow = the formulaic phrase of the first two births (the point of the eye). The birth for the quelling of disaster runs through six kinds of disaster (famine / plague / war / grudge-quarrels / evil king / heaven of wrong view), and from the second disaster on, every segment reads "by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery" (the first disaster reads "whether by the power of the great vow or by the power of mastery" 〔0562c26〕); the birth into one's own kind follows the same pattern. The latter three births — of great might, the ascendant, the final — are brought out instead by maturation, the ascendant power of karma, and the perfecting of provisions — so birth-by-manifestation of the vow and birth-won-by-cultivation form two groups of their own accord. Dunlun classes the first five kinds of the quelling of disaster as "the stilling and removal of the five present sufferings," and the last as "the cutting off of wrong views and evil deeds" 〔T42n1828 0580a23-25〕 — disaster outside the body and disaster within the mind, removed together.

2. Birth into one's own kind = the gathering-through-shared-work taken to its limit (the point of the eye). "He goes to take birth among the same kind as those sentient beings and becomes their foremost head … The evil they do, the bodhisattva does not do; the good they do not do, the bodhisattva puts into practice" 〔from 0563a18〕 — first the difference is shown by conduct, then the true Dharma is expounded; born as their kind, yet not the same in conduct.

3. "The one thing to be set apart is the birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage" — a line proper to the transmission of Xuanzang alone, plus two pillars judging in reverse (the point of the eye). Both old translations, Dharmakṣema's and Guṇavarman's, lack this line; on the rung from which the "bodhisattva possessed of wisdom" is counted there are two explanations — Kuiji judges it to run also to before the grounds, "the first reading is the stronger" 〔T43n1829 0166b11-16〕; Dunlun records "the Tripiṭaka-master held the latter to be the better," taking only bodhisattvas ascended to the grounds 〔T42n1828 0580b11-18〕 — set side by side, recorded only. The threshold of the five births = the threshold of whether the power of the vow can take charge.

Appended Pointers

• The birth of the ascendant matches the ten abidings to royal ranks (first abiding, wheel-turning king → tenth abiding, the Maheśvara Heaven, which is the pure land; because it is born by uncontaminated karma it is called above the Summit of Form) = Kuiji 〔T43n1829 0166b01-06〕; Jing's sound and sense, "mahā means great, īśvara is here rendered mastery" — see 〈Apparatus〉heading three.
• The passage on the final birth draws out Xuanzang's "to be investigated" case (another scripture records Maitreya born in a brahmin house, life span sixty thousand years, at variance with the Maitreya Sūtra) 〔T43n1829 0166b07-10 · Dunlun records "Ji relates what the Tripiṭaka-master said" T42n1828 0580b07-11〕 — of the same philologist's family method as the "investigation of the Sutra on the Wholesome Precepts" case in the Chapter on Wisdom.
• Alternate translations: Dharmakṣema, "birth for the stilling of suffering / ascendant birth" 〔T30n1581 0953a20-21〕; Guṇavarman renders birth by "existence" (existence-apart-from-suffering / existence-of-following-the-mind / ascendant existence / existence-of-mastery / the bodhisattva's latter existence) 〔T30n1582 1007a29-b01〕 — see 〈Apparatus〉heading two.
• Next follows the Chapter on the Means of Gathering (the second) — the body of the five births having been taken on, next it makes clear the gathering and benefiting of sentient beings by the six means of gathering.

Overall Heading: The Five Kinds of Birth

The births taken on by the bodhisattvas, stated briefly, are of five kinds, and these gather in every birth. In every one of the abidings, every birth taken on by a bodhisattva is a birth free of fault, whereby he benefits and gives ease to all sentient beings. Which five? First, birth for the quelling of disaster; second, birth into one's own kind; third, birth of great might; fourth, birth of the ascendant; fifth, the final birth.

One · Birth for the Quelling of Disaster

What is a bodhisattva's birth for the quelling of disaster? It means that the bodhisattvas — whether by the power of the great vow or by the power of mastery — when all manner of famine, dire straits, and the disaster of the wilderness are present before them, so that beings may live and be saved without having to spend much strength, take birth among such kinds as the great fish: their bodily form vast, so that, wherever they are born, they give of their own flesh universally to all the hungry beings and make them all full.

When many diseases and plagues among sentient beings are spreading, the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, holds the power of all manner of efficacious spells (vidyā) and takes on the body of a vast king of medicines, stilling and dispelling the diseases and plagues of all sentient beings.

When neighboring lands of sentient beings do battle, pressing and harming one another, the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, becomes a great lord of the land (the ruler of a great country), possessed of great might, and by governing with the true Dharma and by skillful means stills the pressing distress of war between the neighboring lands.

When sentient beings contend and bear grudges toward one another, the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, speaks words of sincerity and trust, going back and forth to reconcile them, and dissolves the knot of their grudges.

When beings meet with an evil king and are unrighteously seized, punished, and pressed, so that body and mind are thrown into disorder before them, the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, takes birth in that king's house and becomes a king who acts according to the Dharma, pitying the beings and stilling all the sufferings of pressing distress.

If sentient beings give rise to all manner of wrong views and commit all manner of evil deeds, and moreover conceive a deep faith in some heaven, the bodhisattva, for pity of them, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, takes birth in that very heaven and, by skillful means, cuts off their wrong views and evil deeds.

This is a brief statement of the bodhisattva's birth for the quelling of disaster. Were it stated in full — the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, with pity as his forerunner, taking all manner of births in all manner of places — it should be known to be measureless and boundless.

Two · Birth into One's Own Kind

What is a bodhisattva's birth into one's own kind? It means that the bodhisattvas, by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery, take birth among all manner of kinds of the animal destinies, and among gods, nāgas, yakṣas, asuras, and the like that in turn plot harm against and contend with one another; or take birth among wrong-viewed brahmins; or take birth among kinds that delight in committing evil deeds; or take birth among kinds that delight in maintaining themselves by wrong livelihood; or take birth among kinds of sentient beings who cling to the utmost degree to the desires and put their trust in the desires.

In order to remove their manifold faults, the bodhisattva goes to take birth among the same kind as those sentient beings and becomes their foremost head. Having become the foremost head, he teaches and guides them by skillful means: the evil they do, the bodhisattva does not do; the good they do not do, the bodhisattva himself puts into practice. So that they too may put wholesome dharmas into practice, he expounds the true Dharma for them. In this way the bodhisattva, by the very fact that his conduct differs from theirs and by his expounding of the true Dharma, removes with skillful means every fault of those sentient beings.

This is a brief statement of the bodhisattva's birth into one's own kind. Stated in full, as before, it should be known to be measureless.

Three · Birth of Great Might

What is a bodhisattva's birth of great might? It means that when the bodhisattvas take birth according to their inborn endowment, the maturational fruits they thereby win — of all manner: life span, form and complexion, clan and lineage, mastery, wealth, and the rest — are the most excellent in all the world. As for the undertakings that this maturational fruit is able to accomplish, the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others has expounded them in full. This is a brief statement of the bodhisattva's birth of great might; stated in full — the taking-on of the birth of great might among all manner of kinds — it should be known to be measureless.

Four · Birth of the Ascendant

What is a bodhisattva's birth of the ascendant? It means that the bodhisattvas, from the first abiding of utmost joy on through to the tenth abiding of the bodhisattvas, supreme and fully perfected, take on birth in all the differing manners spoken of before — which are here gathered under the single name of the birth of the ascendant. That is to say: at the first abiding he becomes a wheel-turning king, ruling over Jambudvīpa and winning great mastery; on through to the tenth abiding of the bodhisattvas, supreme and fully perfected, he wields great mastery, surpassing the Summit of Form (Akaniṣṭha), and is the most excellent among all the places of birth — only the great beings (mahāsattvas) who have attained the tenth abiding of the bodhisattvas, supreme and fully perfected, can be born there. Those bodhisattvas win it precisely by the ascendant power of this karma. This is a brief statement of the bodhisattva's birth of the ascendant; stated in full, it should be known to be measureless.

Five · The Final Birth

What is a bodhisattva's final birth? It means that the bodhisattvas, in this very life, having the provisions for awakening (bodhi) already utterly perfected, take birth either in the house of a great brahmin royal preceptor or in the house of a great kṣatriya king, and are able to bring to full realization, present before them, unsurpassed perfect complete awakening (anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhi), broadly performing all the works that a buddha performs. This is a brief statement of the bodhisattva's final birth; stated in full, it should be known to be measureless.

Conclusion: The Five Births Gather in Every Birth a Bodhisattva Takes On

If the bodhisattvas, in the past, the future, and the present, have taken on, will take on, or are taking on birth in a birthplace that is pure, kindly, and excellent, all of it is gathered in by these five births, and beyond them there is nothing further or added. The one thing to be set apart is the birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage. Why? Because what is here intended is the bodhisattva possessed of wisdom, whose manifold births alone are reckoned as the five births.

Births such as these are the resting-basis for the fruit of great awakening, able to make the bodhisattvas swiftly realize unsurpassed perfect complete awakening.

From "What to Learn" to "Where to Be Born"

By the time the Bodhisattva Stage reaches its third section, the treatise's manner of asking has changed. The first section, in eighteen chapters, speaks of what a bodhisattva should learn (lineage, the arousing of the mind, the six perfections, the four means of gathering, and so on); the section on Yoga in Accord with the Dharma speaks of how these matters of learning are brought gradually to fulfillment in dependence on the abidings; and by the section on the Culmination of Yoga the treatise begins to answer head-on a question that has hung over everything until now: this whole course of learning and cultivation — what kind of fruit does it finally form? Kuiji fixes the place of this third section thus: "The first is the dharma to be learned, which must give rise to the practice able to learn it … Having learned the practice, there is then a fruit and benefit; and so next it distinguishes the fruit of the bodhisattva's taking on birth. This is the fulfillment of what was sought as cause, and so it is called the section on the Culmination of Yoga." What is sought is fulfilled as vowed, and so it is named "culmination." And for the first item of that fruit and benefit, the treatise chooses a theme startling at first glance — "birth."

Why birth? The ordinary person hears "birth" and is afraid, because to take on birth is the ripened recompense of the power of karma, and to be born is to have to age, sicken, and die. But this chapter states its meaning at the outset: "In every abiding, every bodhisattva takes on a birth free of fault, benefiting and giving ease to all sentient beings" — the bodhisattva's taking-on of birth is a "birth free of fault," and moreover it is not a birth he cannot help but undergo; it is a birth for the sake of benefiting and giving ease to all sentient beings. The first two kinds of birth (the quelling of disaster, and into one's own kind) repeat throughout one and the same formulaic phrase: "by the power of the great vow attaining the power of mastery" (in the opening segment it reads "whether by the power of the great vow or by the power of mastery," and it is marked even in the closing words of the full statement, appearing seven times in all); and Guṇavarman's translation, under the name of the fourth kind, "the existence of mastery," lays down a definition outright: "Mastery is just the power of the vow." This is the key to the whole chapter: the ordinary person is pushed into birth by the power of karma; the bodhisattva chooses birth by the power of the vow. The birth is the same taking-on; the engine is wholly different. As for the latter three kinds of birth (great might, the ascendant, the final), the treatise no longer uses this formulaic phrase, but brings each out with its own words — "the maturational fruit won when he takes birth according to his inborn endowment," "won precisely by the ascendant power of this karma," "the provisions for awakening already utterly perfected." Birth as manifested by the power of the vow and birth as won by cultivation: the treatise, by the presence or absence of the formulaic phrase, forms these into two groups of its own accord — while their being called, alike, a "birth free of fault" is one and the same.

Birth for the Quelling of Disaster: Wherever There Is Disaster, There He Is Born

The first of the five births is the most concrete. The treatise lists six scenes of disaster present before one: famine, plague, war between neighboring lands, quarrels and grudges among people, the tyranny of an evil king, and wrong views deluding the multitude — and the bodhisattva, by the power of the great vow and the power of mastery, is born into the very midst of the disaster. In famine he is born as a great fish, "giving of his own flesh universally to all the hungry beings"; in plague he holds the power of efficacious spells and takes on "the body of a king of medicines" — Dunlun explains this body's use: by the power of the vow together with the power of spells, he makes his whole body, its limbs and joints above and below, become good medicine, dividing and giving it out to the sick; in war he is born as a mighty lord of a great country, stilling the war by the Dharma; in quarrels he reconciles by words of sincerity and trust, going back and forth; under tyranny he is born into the royal house as a king who acts according to the Dharma; and when beings, deluded into faith in some heaven, thereby commit evil, he simply takes birth in that very heaven and cuts off the wrong view from within.

Dunlun classes the first five kinds as "the stilling and removal of the five present sufferings" (famine, disease, war, foes, and punishment), and sets the sixth apart as "the cutting off of wrong views and evil deeds". The five sufferings are disasters outside the body; wrong view is a disaster within the mind — and the birth for the quelling of disaster removes even the disaster of the mind along with the rest.

Birth into One's Own Kind: Born into the Very Worst of Company, to Be Their Head

The second kind of birth goes a step further. The birth for the quelling of disaster still goes to "save" from disaster; the birth into one's own kind is to be born directly as "one of their number" — born among the kinds of gods, nāgas, yakṣas, and asuras that plot harm against one another, born among wrong-viewed brahmins, born among the company that delights in doing evil, that maintains itself by wrong livelihood, that clings to the utmost to the desires. Born in among them to do what? The treatise says it with the utmost economy: "He goes to take birth among the same kind as those sentient beings and becomes their foremost head. Having become the foremost head, he teaches and guides them by skillful means. The evil they do, the bodhisattva does not do; the good they do not do, the bodhisattva puts into practice."

Note the mechanism of this teaching: the bodhisattva does not go in to preach; he first becomes their leader, and then uses conduct itself to draw the difference — the evil you do, I do not do; the good you do not do, I do. The treatise lists this very difference as the first cause of his guidance: "By the very fact that the bodhisattva's conduct differs from theirs, and by his expounding of the true Dharma, he removes with skillful means every fault of those sentient beings." First there is the difference in conduct, and then the Dharma he expounds has someone to hear it. This is the taking-to-the-limit of the gathering-through-shared-work (the fourth of the means of gathering, in the Chapter on the Means of Gathering): the same kind, the same body — and yet not the same conduct.

Birth of Great Might, Birth of the Ascendant: Blessed Recompense Too Is a Work of the Vow

The third, the birth of great might, is when the bodhisattva takes birth according to his inborn endowment, and the maturational fruits — life span, form and complexion, clan and lineage, mastery, wealth — are "the most excellent in all the world." As for the undertakings these excellent fruits can accomplish, the treatise points back to itself, to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others: there it was said that the excellent maturation is the bodhisattva's capital for delivering beings. The fourth, the birth of the ascendant, is where, with the climb through the ten abidings, the place of birth too mounts step by step. Kuiji matches this ladder rung by rung: at the first abiding he becomes king of one continent (a wheel-turning king, ruling Jambudvīpa); at the second, king of the four continents; on to the eighth abiding, lord of a lesser-thousand world; at the ninth, lord of a two-thousand world; at the tenth, he "takes birth in the Maheśvara Heaven, which is the pure land" — and Kuiji especially notes: "In truth it lies between the two lower [heavens]; because it is born by uncontaminated karma, it is called above the Summit of Form," and this is stated with respect to the phase before the body-of-enjoyment of the dharma-realm has been attained. Jing then supplies the sound and sense: Maheśvara, spoken in full, should be "Mahā-Īśvara"; mahā means great, and īśvara is here rendered "mastery" — the Heaven of Great Mastery.

The Final Birth: The One Life in Which the Provisions Are Perfected

The fifth, the final birth: the provisions for awakening already utterly perfected, he takes birth either in the house of a great brahmin royal preceptor or in the house of a great kṣatriya king, "able to bring to full realization, present before him, unsurpassed perfect complete awakening, broadly performing all the works that a buddha performs." Jing judges this to be the mode of awakening in the emanation body.

This passage also draws out a piece of philological scrutiny by Xuanzang himself, set down by Dunlun 〔"Ji relates what the Tripiṭaka-master said"〕: there is another scripture recording that the Buddha told Maitreya — you are to be born in a brahmin house, I in a kṣatriya house; I am born from the right side, you are born by transformation atop the head; my life span is eighty, yours sixty thousand years. Xuanzang points out that this scripture is at variance with what is recorded in the Maitreya Sūtra, and he writes two words upon it: "to be investigated" — held in doubt, awaiting inquiry. Not forcing a verdict, not forcibly harmonizing, but setting down the contradiction as it stands and leaving it to those who come after — this is the philologist's family method handed down by Xuanzang (the "investigation of the Sutra on the Wholesome Precepts" case at the end of the Chapter on Wisdom is of the same character).

Who Is Qualified for the "Five Births"? — A Thousand-Year Discussion Drawn Out by One Line at the Chapter's End

At the chapter's end the treatise draws to a close, saying: all the births taken on by the bodhisattvas of the three times in pure birthplaces are gathered in by the five births, "and beyond them there is nothing further or added." Then it adds a line: "The one thing to be set apart is the birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage. Why? Because what is here intended is the bodhisattva possessed of wisdom, whose manifold births alone are reckoned as the five births." — The birth taken on by bodhisattvas at the ordinary stage is not counted in; the five births refer specifically to the "bodhisattva possessed of wisdom."

This line deserves a second look: both of the two old translations, Dharmakṣema's and Guṇavarman's, lack it (see 〈Apparatus〉heading two) — it is a distinction proper to the transmission handed down by Xuanzang alone. From which rung does "possessed of wisdom" begin to count? Kuiji records two positions: one takes it from the second abiding and above (reaching also to before the grounds); one takes only the first ground and above. Kuiji himself judges that "the first reading is the stronger," on the ground that the bodhisattvas of the ten abidings can already attain awakening through the eight aspects. But the verdict Dunlun records is the reverse: of the two explanations, "the Tripiṭaka-master held the latter to be the better" — Xuanzang inclined to take only bodhisattvas ascended to the grounds, because bodhisattvas before the grounds have not yet won an even-minded regard toward sentient beings, and moreover the five births from the first ground to the seventh pertain to both transformation [-birth] and [ordinary birth], while from the eighth ground and above they are transformation-birth alone. The two pillars record opposite choices; the two are here set side by side without a verdict — what is to be marked is the substance of this discussion: the threshold of the five births is precisely the threshold of "whether the power of the vow can take charge."

The One Meaning This Chapter Casts into Light

The Chapter on Birth may look as though it recounts all manner of biographical manifestations of a bodhisattva, but from first to last it establishes only one meaning: the very matter of taking on birth can be turned from the recompense of the power of karma into an instrument of the power of the vow. The ordinary person asks, "Why am I born here?"; the bodhisattva asks, "Where do sentient beings need me to be born?" The five births, from the quelling of disaster and into one's own kind on to great might, the ascendant, and the final, are five gears of one and the same power of the vow, from shallow to deep; and the line at the chapter's end, "the resting-basis for the fruit of great awakening," makes it plain: these births are not a prolonging of the round of rebirth, but a stairway to buddhahood — the bodhisattva, treading upon one willingly chosen birth after another, "swiftly realizes unsurpassed perfect complete awakening."

Carrying Forward

The Chapter on Birth opens the five chapters of the section on the Culmination of Yoga. Dunlun's overall outline: the chapters on Birth, on the Means of Gathering, and on the Grounds distinguish the practice of one's own portion; the Chapter on Practice distinguishes the practice of ascent; and the Chapter on the Establishing distinguishes the fruit over against the practice — the present chapter and the Chapter on the Means of Gathering directly succeed one another: "The first makes clear the five-births practice of benefiting beings; the latter makes clear the six-kinds practice of gathering beings". Having taken on the body of the five births, one must next ask how to gather sentient beings with this body — and so follows the Chapter on the Means of Gathering (the second). The birth of great might points back to the Chapter on the Benefit of Self and Others (the eightfold completeness of maturation); the birth of the ascendant is said with reference to the differing births of the twelve abidings in the Chapter on the Abidings (the section on Yoga in Accord with the Dharma) — the present chapter points back to the first section and to Yoga in Accord with the Dharma, and points forward, opening the six means of gathering: the web of the section on the Culmination of Yoga is already spread from its very first chapter.