Texts/Yuanren lun

原人論

Yuanren lun

T1886

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Yuanren lun. (J. Genninron; K. Wǒnin non 原人論). In Chinese, "Treatise on the Origin of Humanity"; by the eminent Huayan and Chan scholiast Guifeng Zongmi. A preface to this relatively short treatise was prepared by Zongmi, as was another by his lay disciple Pei Xiu (787?-860). The treatise largely consists of four chapters: exposing deluded attachments, exposing the partial and superficial, directly revealing the true source, and reconciling root and branches. In his critique of deluded attachments, Zongmi offers a response to the different Confucian and Daoist theories of the way (dao), spontaneity (ziran), primal pneuma (yuanqi), and the mandate of heaven (tianming). Zongmi then briefly summarizes the teachings of the different vehicles of Buddhism, such as hīnayāna and Mahāyāna, and expounds their different approaches to reality. Relying on the teachings of the Avataṃsakasūtra, Zongmi finally offers a Buddhist alternative to the theories of the Confucian and Daoist critics: the tathāgatagarbha as the origin of humanity. (Source: "Yuanren lun." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 1041. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

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