Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise

3 The Treasure Store Treatise Chapter One: The Broad Illumination of Emptiness and Being

Introduction to Translation 143 3 The Treasure Store Treatise Chapter One: The Broad Illumination of Emptiness and Being The “treasure store” (pao-tsang) of the title exemplifies the hyperglossia —the complex interplay of often countervailing voices—that dominate the Treasure Store Treatise. The term “pao” (treasure) was used in antiquity to denote treasure objects held in the possession of a clan or royal household, particularly the royal house of Chou. The earliest such treasures were thought to have been bestowed by mythical animals and consisted of markings on stones, dragon scales, tortoise shells, and pieces of jade.1 These treasures, which included bronze tripods, a wide miscellany of heavenly talismans, tablets with sacred ciphers, mysterious diagrams (t’u
), and other ritual objects, were the material receptacles for the spiritual numen (ling
). According to the Tso-chuan, “the treasures are for the protection of the people”
 !" (Legge 1961:5.671), a definition that plays on the Chinese homophones pao
meaning “treasure” and pao
meaning “to protect.”2 The discovery of such a treasure was trumpeted as a token of heaven’s favor; it was tangible evidence of the emperor’s virtue and his possession of the mandate of heaven. Seidel notes that the treasures were not necessarily unique or precious. They were not used in any kind of commercial exchange, and only exceptionally as gifts, but they were kept hidden and their possession had the mystical value of symbolizing a clan’s good fortune. In the case of the royal family, they constituted the sacra or regalia of the dynasty.... During the Warring States period, ambitious princes became more and more interested in such signs of divine protection, and there developed a science of prognostication and of interpretation of these miraculous objects. (Seidel 1983:299–300) Kaltenmark and Seidel have traced the historical origins of the Taoist “revelation texts” to the Han apocrypha (ch’an-wei
), which 143 144 Treasure Store Treatise were themselves imperial treasures, or pao. Such texts were treasures not only because they contained a message of spiritual potency but because they were themselves objects of mystical power—sacred talismans to be cherished and venerated.3 The fascination with heavenly pao continued well into the T’ang period, particularly during the reigns of emperors partial to Taoism. Hsüan-tsung’s reign was punctuated by the appearance of a number of such treasures, beginning in the year 713, when a “jade treasure” (yü-pao
) was discovered after a heavy rain opened up a fissure in the palace grounds. In 741 an epiphany of Lao-tzu led to the discovery of a jade tablet with red characters, prompting Hsüan-tsung to change the name of his reign to T’ien-pao
 (Heavenly Treasure). His son, Su-tsung (r. 756–762), was similarly blessed: in 762 the district governor of Ch’u-chou discovered thirteen “state treasures” (kuopao
) comprising a jade fowl, a jade disk, jade rings, a stone axe, and various beads, gems, and seals, whereupon the emperor adopted the new reign title Pao-ying
 (Treasure Response).4 Morohashi cites a number of derived meanings for pao, including shen
(divine), and tao
(Way), and notes the use of the term as a prefix in Taoist and Buddhist compounds (MH 1.1114). The term “pao” was thus a natural choice to render the Sanskrit ratna, which generally means “gem” or “jewel” but can also mean (as an appositional modifier or in nominal compounds) “jeweled” or “precious.” Accordingly, pao appears in numerous Buddhist compounds, including san-pao
 (Sk. triratna, “three jewels,” i.e., buddha, dharma, and samgha) and pao-yin
 (precious seal, a term appearing in the Treasure Store Treatise).5 The original meaning of tsang
(pronounced “ts’ang” when used verbally) was “to store away,” “to secret away,” “storehouse,” “granary,” and so on. It is etymologically related to its homophone tsang
, used for the inner body in general and the internal organs in particular— the microcosmic home of the Taoist divinities. In Chinese translations of Indic materials, tsang appears in the compounds ju-lai tsang
 (Sk. tath#gatagarbha, matrix of buddhahood) and san-tsang
 (Sk. tripitaka, three baskets, i.e., the scriptural canon), both of which are repositories or embodiments of truth. This sense of tsang as the fount of bodhi is further developed in medieval Chinese Buddhist writings. In his Yüan-chüeh-ching ta-shu
 !" (Great Commentary to the Perfect Enlightenment S^tra), for example, Tsung-mi writes: “The ‘storehouse’ is what...