解脫道論 身之生起與次第

The first six of the thirteen modes speak in order of seed, place, conditions, flow, and sequential formation. As what grows from poisonous seed, this body arises from the impurities of father and mother. It does not arise from three kinds of flowers, but in the constrained place of the mother’s womb. It does not grow through gold, silver, or sandalwood; both in the womb and after birth it grows through a foul flow of food and liquid. Like a many-holed leather bag filled with feces and urine, various impurities overflow from the nine apertures; the text gives two reasons, many openings and not becoming full.

Next comes the list of sequential formation. “This body is established in sequence through initial action” introduces the source’s series from 迦羅邏 in the first seven-day period through completion of the body’s parts at twenty-nine seven-days. At nineteen seven-days, it separately says that “wind produced by action pervades every place.” The order is discontinuous at “nine seven-days and ten seven-days” and again at “twenty seven-days / twenty-five seven-days.” Both discontinuities are retained.

“It is further said” gives another account with seven and forty-two seven-days, without reconciling it with the first. At forty-two seven-days, wind produced by action turns the feet upward and head downward toward the birth passage. This passage says only, “At this time it is born into the world and is called a person by designation.” It gives no further explanation of “designation.”

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Body’s Arising and Sequence · Doorway · Summer 2026

Recollecting the Nature of the Body by Seed

Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by seed?

Answer: Just as a poisonous seed gives rise to 茱萸, 拘沙, 多紀, and other plants, this body arises from the impurities of father and mother. Arising from an impure seed, this body becomes impure. The three names 茱萸, 拘沙, and 多紀 are retained from the source; the passage does not explain them.

The question speaks of recollecting “the nature of the body,” but the conclusion says, “thus one should recollect the nature of mind by seed.” The two expressions do not agree, and are not silently corrected here.

Recollecting the Nature of the Body by Place

Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by place?

Answer: This body is not born from the 欝多羅 flower, nor from the 拘牟陀 or 分陀利迦 flower. It is born in the mother’s womb. It arises in an impure, foul, constricted, and oppressive place; it arises from “the two repositories, raw and cooked”; it is wrapped in sacs at the left and right sides and abides supported by the spine. The passage gives no further explanation of “the two repositories, raw and cooked” or of these spatial relations. Because that place of birth is impure, the body becomes impure.

Thus one should recollect the nature of the body by place.

Recollecting the Nature of the Body by Conditions

Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by conditions?

Answer: This impure body grows and persists not through gold, silver, jewels, and the like, nor through sandalwood, 多伽羅, agarwood, and similar conditions.

In the mother’s womb, the body is nourished by what the mother eats. The source reads, “nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and tears mixed together,” and says that it grows and persists through a “flow of foul food and liquid.” After birth, what it eats is rice, milk, 䉽, and beans. The source then reads, “nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and 淡 mixed together,” and says that the body continues to grow and persist through a foul and impure flow. 䉽 is the base-text character. Within the same paragraph, the first list ends with “tears” and the second with 淡; the two are not made uniform.

Thus one should recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by conditions.

Recollecting the Intrinsic Nature of the Body by Flow

Question: How should one recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by flow?

Answer: It is like a leather bag filled with feces and urine: because it has many openings, impurities flow out. This body is the same, filled with feces and urine.

The food and drink consumed by this body are mixed with nasal mucus, spittle, feces, urine, and foulness. The various impurities “overflow from the nine apertures.” The source closes with two reasons: because there are many openings, and because it does not become full.

Thus one should recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by flow.

Recollecting the Intrinsic Nature of the Body by Sequential Formation

Question: How should one recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by sequential formation?

Answer: The source first says, “This body is established in sequence through initial action,” then lists in order: in the first seven-day period, 迦羅邏 forms; in the second, 阿浮陀; in the third, 俾尸; in the fourth, 阿那; in the fifth, five joints; in the sixth, four joints; in the seventh, another four joints arise; in the eighth, another twenty-eight joints; at nine seven-days and ten seven-days, the spine further arises; at eleven seven-days, three hundred bones; at twelve, eight hundred joints; at thirteen, nine hundred sinews; at fourteen, one hundred balls of flesh; at fifteen, blood; at sixteen, a membrane; at seventeen, skin; at eighteen, the color of the skin; at nineteen seven-days, “wind produced by action” pervades every place; at twenty seven-days, the nine apertures form; at twenty-five seven-days, seventeen thousand 湊 arise; at twenty-six, the body becomes firm; at twenty-seven, it has strength; at twenty-eight, ninety-nine thousand pores arise; and at twenty-nine seven-days, all parts of the body are complete.

This sequence is visibly broken and must be read as it stands. “At nine seven-days and ten seven-days” combines two numbers in one item and cannot be silently divided or altered. After nineteen seven-days, the base reads “at twenty seven-days the nine apertures form,” and the next item is immediately “at twenty-five seven-days”; no twenty-one through twenty-four seven-days occur between them. The character 十 in the first phrase is read 十四 in four witnesses, which would produce “at twenty-four seven-days,” but the base reading remains here and the matter is unresolved. A later item says “at twenty-seven seven-days, it has strength”; it must not be merged with the earlier “at twenty seven-days, the nine apertures form.”

It Is Further Said

The source introduces another account with “It is further said”: at seven seven-days the body exists, leaning against the mother’s back with its head downward, crouching and sitting. At forty-two seven-days, wind produced by action turns the feet upward and the head downward toward the birth passage. At this time it is born into the world and is called “a person by designation.” The passage does not explain the meaning of “designation.”

This further account moves directly from seven seven-days to forty-two seven-days and does not connect with the preceding sequence, which ended at twenty-nine seven-days. The source does not reconcile the two sequences.

Thus one should recollect the nature of the body by sequential formation.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Body’s Arising and Sequence · Vernacular · Summer 2026

The first six of the thirteen modes—seed, place, condition, flow, sequence, and formation—make five questions and six paragraphs here. Sequence and formation are combined under one question, “by sequential formation,” while the sixth paragraph begins separately with “It is further said.” The six paragraphs proceed through the impure seed from father and mother, the constrained place in the mother’s womb, the condition of foul food and liquid, overflow from the nine apertures, and formation in successive seven-day periods. Their conclusions use both “should recollect” and “ought to recollect”; what is recollected appears under three names, nature of the body, intrinsic nature of the body, and nature of mind. The received text does not make these expressions uniform.

Two Sets of Questions and Answers on Seed and Place

“Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by seed? Answer: Just as a poisonous seed gives rise to 茱萸, 拘沙, 多紀, and all the others, so this body arises from the impurities of father and mother. Arising from an impure seed, this body becomes impure” 〔T32 433a13–16〕. The answer first names 茱萸, 拘沙, and 多紀 as arising from poisonous seed, then turns the comparison to this body: it arises from the impurities of father and mother and becomes impure because its seed is impure. Only seed and what it produces are connected here; the passage gives no separate account of how poisonousness is transmitted. None of the three names is explained in this passage, and 拘沙 and 多紀 occur nowhere else in the treatise. The question reads “nature of the body,” but the paragraph ends, “Thus one should recollect the nature of mind by seed.” The distinction between nature of the body and nature of mind at this point cannot be supplied from the passage itself.

“Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by place? Answer: This body is not born from the 欝多羅 flower, nor from the 拘牟陀 or 分陀利迦 flower. It is born in the mother’s womb, in an impure, foul, constricted, and oppressive place; it arises from the two repositories, raw and cooked; it is wrapped in sacs at the left and right sides and abides supported by the spine. That place is impure, and the body becomes impure” 〔T32 433a16–20〕. The answer first uses “not born from” and “nor from” to exclude the three flowers 欝多羅, 拘牟陀, and 分陀利迦, then affirmatively says that the body is born in the mother’s womb. The womb’s place is described in layers: impure and foul, constrained and oppressive; between the two repositories, raw and cooked; wrapped in sacs at the left and right sides; and supported by the spine. This passage does not further explain the referent of “the two repositories, raw and cooked” or the precise relation among the locations. The conclusion proceeds only from “that place is impure” to “the body becomes impure.” The focus of this question is thus the place of birth.

The seed and place paragraphs each state their own reason. The seed paragraph speaks of the body’s seed through “arises from the impurities of father and mother.” The place paragraph begins again from “born in the mother’s womb” and lists the environment of birth. Both close with “the body becomes impure,” but the first paragraph then abruptly changes to “one should recollect the nature of mind,” whereas the second retains “one should recollect the nature of the body.” These conclusions cannot be rewritten to match one another, because the received text itself preserves the difference.

Conditions of Growth and Flow through the Nine Apertures

“Question: How should one recollect the nature of the body by conditions? Answer: If this impure body grows and persists, gold, silver, jewels, and the like cannot make it grow, nor can conditions such as sandalwood, 多伽羅, and agarwood make it grow. This body arises in the mother’s womb. What the mother eats is mixed with nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and tears. Arising in the womb, it grows and persists through a flow of foul food and liquid. After it emerges, the rice, milk, 䉽, and beans that it eats are mixed together with nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and 淡. This body grows and persists through a foul and impure flow” 〔T32 433a21–27〕. “Grows and persists” supplies the thread of this answer. It first excludes two groups of conditions: neither gold, silver, and jewels, nor sandalwood, 多伽羅, agarwood, and the like make the body grow. It then positively states conditions of growth in two phases, in the womb and after birth. In the womb, what the mother eats is mixed with “nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and tears,” and the body grows and persists through a “flow of foul food and liquid.” After birth, rice, milk, 䉽, and beans are mixed with “nasal mucus, spittle, saliva, and 淡,” and the body grows and persists through a “foul and impure flow.”

Within this answer, the two strings end differently, one with 淚, “tears,” and the other with 淡. Four witnesses read 痰 for 淚, but the edition follows the Taishō base and retains both occurrences rather than making them identical. 䉽 is likewise the character in the base and occurs only here in the entire treatise. The question asks how to recollect “the nature of the body” by conditions, whereas the paragraph closes, “Thus one should recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by conditions.” Nature of the body and intrinsic nature of the body form another difference in the received wording. What can be established within this paragraph is that the mother’s food in the womb and rice and milk after birth are narrated as two distinct conditions of growth, both through foul liquid.

“Question: How should one recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by flow? Answer: It is like a leather bag filled with feces and urine: because it has many openings, impurities flow out. This body is the same, filled with feces and urine. The food and drink consumed by this body are mixed with nasal mucus, spittle, feces, urine, and foulness. Various impurities overflow from the nine apertures, because it has many openings and because it does not become full” 〔T32 433a28–433b03〕. Each part of the leather-bag comparison can be read against its counterpart. The leather bag is “filled with feces and urine,” and so is the body. Because the bag has “many openings,” impurities flow out; for the body, various impurities overflow from the nine apertures. The body’s food and drink are also placed beside nasal mucus, spittle, feces, urine, and foulness, stating what flows. At the close, “because it has many openings” and “because it does not become full” are two coordinate reasons, not one combined reason.

This question moves from “conditions” to “flow.” The preceding answer states what enables the body to grow and persist; this answer states where the impurities within the body overflow. On the leather-bag side are being filled, having many openings, and flowing out. On the body side, the nine apertures are expressly named, along with the added phrase “because it does not become full.” Thus, in a point-by-point reading, the body’s nine apertures correspond to the bag’s many openings; the nine apertures cannot be inserted as an additional item on the comparison’s side. This paragraph alone begins with the fuller “Question says,” and alone closes “ought to recollect the intrinsic nature of the body,” rather than the other paragraphs’ “Question” and “should recollect.” Each difference must be preserved as it stands.

The Sequence Listed by Seven-Day Periods

“Question: How should one recollect the intrinsic nature of the body by sequential formation? Answer: This body is established in sequence through initial action. In the first seven-day period 迦羅邏 forms; in the second, 阿浮陀; in the third, 俾尸; in the fourth, 阿那; at five seven-days, five joints; at six, four joints; at seven, another four joints arise; at eight, another twenty-eight joints; at nine seven-days and ten seven-days, the spine further arises; at eleven, three hundred bones; at twelve, eight hundred joints; at thirteen, nine hundred sinews; at fourteen, one hundred balls of flesh; at fifteen, blood; at sixteen, a membrane; at seventeen, skin; at eighteen, skin color; at nineteen, wind produced by action pervades every place; at twenty, the nine apertures form; at twenty-five, seventeen thousand 湊 arise; at twenty-six, the body becomes firm; at twenty-seven, it has strength; at twenty-eight, ninety-nine thousand pores arise; at twenty-nine seven-days, all parts of the body become complete” 〔T32 433b03–16〕. “This body is established in sequence through initial action” introduces twenty-four items in the received text. The first through fourth seven-day periods have four names in order: 迦羅邏, 阿浮陀, 俾尸, and 阿那. This passage does not explain any of the four. The fifth through eighth turn to numbers: five joints, four joints, another four joints, and another twenty-eight joints. The two occurrences of “four joints” differ, one saying “forms” and the other “further arises”; both must be retained.

Next the received text says “at nine seven-days and ten seven-days, the spine further arises,” combining nine and ten seven-days in a single item. It then moves directly to three hundred bones at eleven seven-days, eight hundred joints at twelve, nine hundred sinews at thirteen, and one hundred balls of flesh at fourteen. The respective numbers for bones, joints, sinews, and balls of flesh are three hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred, and one hundred; adjacency does not permit interchanging them. Fifteen through eighteen seven-days give blood, membrane, skin, and skin color in sequence. At nineteen seven-days comes the separate statement, “wind produced by action pervades every place.” Wind does not occur before nineteen in this series, and the four source characters 業所生風 can only be retained in their stated sense.

After nineteen seven-days, the base does not give twenty-one but reads, “at twenty seven-days, the nine apertures form.” The next item then jumps to “at twenty-five seven-days, seventeen thousand 湊 arise.” At 433b13, four witnesses read 十四 for the base 十. Under that reading, the phrase would become “at twenty-four seven-days” and would connect with twenty-five, but the Taishō base remains “at twenty seven-days” and cannot be changed here. The list then has the firm body at twenty-six, strength at twenty-seven, ninety-nine thousand pores at twenty-eight, and all parts of the body complete at twenty-nine seven-days. “At twenty seven-days, the nine apertures form” and “at twenty-seven seven-days, it has strength” are verbally different and should not be merged. Four witnesses read 腠 for the base 湊; the base is retained.

The whole list has clear content item by item and also discontinuities that cannot be erased: nine and ten seven-days share one item; after nineteen come twenty and then twenty-five. What can be established is the content assigned by the received text to each item; what cannot be established is how the broken points should originally have been ordered. “Established in sequence through initial action” and the phrase “wind produced by action pervades every place” both contain “action” in the same paragraph, but the passage does not state their relation or use one to explain the other.

“It is further said: at seven seven-days the body exists, leaning against the mother’s back with its head downward, crouching and sitting. At forty-two seven-days, wind produced by action turns the feet upward and the head downward toward the birth passage. At this time it is born into the world and is called a person by designation” 〔T32 433b17–19〕. “It is further said” begins another list, naming only seven and forty-two seven-days. At seven seven-days the body already exists, leaning against the mother’s back with its head downward, crouching and sitting. At forty-two seven-days, “wind produced by action” turns the feet upward and the head downward toward the birth passage. Birth into the world and “called a person by designation” follow. The first sequence ended at twenty-nine seven-days, while this account moves directly to forty-two. The two sequences are not reconciled in this passage. Each occurrence of “wind produced by action” is understood only within its own sentence, without using one as a definition of the other.

One Question Left Open: What Does “Person by Designation” Mean?

The last sentence reads, “At this time it is born into the world and is called a person by designation” 〔T32 433b19〕. “Person by designation” appears immediately after the moment of birth; before it stand the twenty-four items of sequential formation and the separate account introduced by “it is further said.” The passage gives no definition of “designation.” What can be preserved is the phrase’s position and wording here.

The passage moves from seed, place, conditions, and flow into sequential formation, with a separate question and answer for each. The leather-bag comparison can be read point by point as filled against filled, many openings against nine apertures, and flow out against overflow. Sequential formation requires preserving both the content of all twenty-four items and the two discontinuities. “Established in sequence through initial action,” “wind produced by action,” and “person by designation” are each retained only in the sentence where this passage gives it; no definition of one is derived from another.

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Shi Huijing · Waken · The Path of Freedom · The Body’s Arising and Sequence · Exposition · Summer 2026