The Flowering of the Two Truths Theory In Chinese Buddhism
From the Forward by David W. Chappell
This volume represents the first comprehensive study in English of the teaching of the Threefold Truth, perhaps the single most important doctrine in T’ien-t’ai Buddhism. Its author, Paul Swanson, stands as the first of a new generation of Buddhist scholars attempting to provide a comprehensive analysis of T’ien-t’ai for the West and thus to open new vistas for understanding East Asian Buddhism as a whole.
As the first major school of Buddhism in East Asia, T’ien-t’ai marked a watershed in Chinese philosophy. Subsequent developments in Buddhist thought defined themselves in terms of the position they took in its regard, and this is what makes its understanding so critical for the study of Buddhist intellectual history.
To take but one example, it has always been something of a minor mystery why the Three-Teatise (Sanlun) theories of the Chinese Mādhyamika School vanished after having played a decisive role in fifth and sixth century China. The present study provides part of the answer in arguing that Mādhyamika did not in fact die in China but only ceased to exist as a distinct, sociologically discernible entity because it had become absorbed into the foundations for a new breed of indigenous Buddhist schools. First among these new schools, as the author shows, was Tien-t’ai.
The key figure in this first of the major Chinese Buddhist schools was Chih-i (538-597), who is rightly considered the greatest of all Chinese Buddhist philosophers and has been ranked with Thomas Aquinas and al-Ghazali as one of the great systematizers of religious thought and practice in world history. In contrast to Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism, however, T’ien-t’ai Buddhism is so multidimensional and comprehensive that it is often not easy to understand. This fact, together with its failure to attract a strong following in the West, has led to its neglect by serious scholars.