Huayan Numismatics as Metaphysics: Explicating Fazang's Coin-Counting Metaphor

This essay explicates the metaphor of counting ten coins as it appears in Fazang's Treatise on the Five Teachings of Huayan. The goal is to transform Fazang's inexact and obscure mentions of the metaphor into something that is clearer and more precise. The method for achieving this goal is threefold: first, by presenting Fazang's version of the metaphor as improving upon prior efforts by Zhiyan and Ŭisang to interpret a brief stanza in the Avataṁsaka Sūtra; second, by providing textual evidence to support this interpretation; and third, by contrasting this interpretation with alternatives from Francis Cook as well as Yasuo Deguchi and Katsuhiko Sano.