A study of the Vinaya masters in the Minglü pian of the Biographies of eminent monks with a focus on the Liang, Tang, and Song biographies

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the Vinaya masters in the Minglü 明律sections in three books of Biographies of Eminent Monks, compiled by Huijiao (497–554), Daoxuan (702–760), and Zanning (919–1001), and their contributions to Chinese Buddhism, particularly in Vinaya studies and the transmission of Vinaya through critical textual analysis and historical investigation. It examines how these masters preserved Buddhism and helped it spread in the empire and beyond into East Asia by adapting Indic Vinaya to the Chinese environment. Four main aspects have been studied: the translation and transmission of Vinaya; the exegesis of Vinaya concepts and ideas; monastic officials; and practical contributions in Chinese Buddhism. This study focuses on how these eminent Vinaya masters established the Vinaya traditions in China by spreading, illuminating, and practicing the major Vinayas transmitted from India from the second half of the fourth century to the late tenth century.

This study analyses the adaptation and transmission of the Indic Vinaya framework to the Chinese Confucian cultural and subtropical environment. This achievement depended on the ways in which the great Chinese Vinaya masters interpreted the concepts behind monastic rules and regulations and how they wrote commentaries and exegetical works to facilitate transmission. Many Vinaya masters served as government officials in charge of Buddhist affairs in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (386–589); they not only ensured the development of Buddhism, but also nurtured Vinaya preceptors for the correct transmission of Vinayas in China.

The current study has also revealed that there are many ideal types of Vinaya master, with different qualities and skills. There were eminent masters who specialized in rituals or meritorious works or simply practiced the Vinaya assiduously and were highly evolved spiritually. Some even became eminent through their ability to nurture heirs and disciples who transmitted the Vinaya to the furthest corners of the empire and throughout the ages. Finally, this research has shown that the eminent Vinaya masters have practiced hufa (protection of Buddhism) and especially pragmatism with a Mahāyāna spirit through a continuous institutional development of monasticism and its transmission, despite political pressures, setbacks, or changing environments.