A Mysterious Text from Tāmraparṇīya (赤銅鍱):Hermeneutical Strategy on Some Chinese Terms in Vimuttimagga (1)

Abstract

Many scholars have usually attributed the *Vimuttimagga to the Abhayagiri school of medieval Sri Lanka. The salient feature of the text is, however, still ambiguous since the original text is lost. Although the Chinese translation of it, Jié tuō dào lùn, is extant, it has many typographic errors and utilises unskilful terminology. It makes the text more mysterious in its origin, school affiliation and its doctrinal perspectives. Nevertheless, we have actual evidence for the text, namely, the fact that the text discusses the concept of bhavaṅga. As is well known, this concept is a distinctive doctrine of Tāmraparṇīya, which implies that the text is obviously from somewhere close to the isle of Laṅkā. Therefore, at least, the section for the concept of bhavaṅga in the text is undoubtedly comparable to that in Pāli texts. As a foundation for the future study of the text, this article tries to scrutinise the problematic terms found in the cognitive process section, which describes the active mind-moments based on the state of bhavaṅga, by comparing Pāli abhidhamma. I hope it reveals the problems of the extant text, and the hermeneutical strategy for them.