眞如の諸解釋 --梵語tathatāと漢語「本無」「如」「如如」「眞如」--

Abstract

With special attention to the term "thusness (zhenru), " the present article attempts to explore the Chinese way of thinking which is firmly based on Classical Chinese and Chinese culture. Tracing the transition of Chinese Buddhist translations of Sanskrit tathatā (suchness), namely "benwu (the original nothingness), " "ru-ru (the true state of reality)" and "zhenru (thusness or suchness), " the author emphasizes the significance of the two-Sinograph fundamental terms of Chinese Buddhism such as zhenru (lit. "true and certain"), ru-shi ("thus"/"in this way" ; Skt. evam), shisu ("worldly"/"conventional" ; Skt. samvrti), rulai ("Thus Come [One]" ; Skt. tathāgata). All these two-character words can be divided into each Sinograph as possessing the synonymous, yet notably differentiated connotation ; as a result, when bound into one term, they broaden the original meanings as applicable to wide contexts. The Tang Buddhist commentators Kuiji (632-82), Fazang (643-712), Chengguan (738-839) and Zongmi (780-841) and so forth explained zhenru in several ways, by dividing the single term zhenru into zhen and ru and reuniting them. This type of Chinese Buddhist interpretation was obtained by newly accepting the Indian Buddhist exegetics called nirukti or nirvacana (folk etymology in Sanskrit), on the one hand, and adopting the preceding Chinese orthodox scholarship as found in Ruist commentaries and historiographies as well as exegetical dictionaries such as the Shiming "Explaining Terms" composed by Liu Xi in the Later Han. The linguistic and philosophical interpretations of zhenru is a Chinese Buddhist equivalent to the problems of universals and particulars in western philosophy.