Concept
Huayan
Overview
The Huayan school of Buddhism (traditional Chinese: 華嚴; simplified Chinese: 华严; pinyin: Huáyán, Wade–Giles: Hua-Yen, "Flower Garland," from the Sanskrit "Avataṃsaka") is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The Huayan worldview is based primarily on the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra (Chinese: 華嚴經; pinyin: Huáyán jīng, Flower Garland Sūtra) as well as on the works of Huayan patriarchs, like Zhiyan (602–668), Fazang (643–712), Chengguan (738–839), Zongmi (780–841) and Li Tongxuan (635–730).
Another name for this tradition is the Xianshou school (賢首, Xianshou being another name for patriarch Fazang). The Huayan School is known as Hwaeom in Korea, Kegon in Japan and Hoa Nghiêm in Vietnam.
The Huayan tradition considers the Flower Garland Sūtra to be the ultimate teaching of the Buddha. It also draws on other sources, like the Mahayana Awakening of Faith, and the Madhyamaka and Yogacara philosophies. Huayan teachings, especially its doctrines of universal interpenetration, nature origination (which sees all phenomena as arising from a single ontological source), and the omnipresence of Buddhahood, were very influential on Chinese Buddhism and also on the rest of East Asian Buddhism. Huayan thought was especially influential on Chan (Zen) Buddhism, and some scholars even see Huayan as the main Buddhist philosophy behind Chan/Zen.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The places of the four great topes have been fixed, and handed down without break, since Buddha attained to nirvâna. Those four great topes are those at the places where Buddha was born; where he attained to Wisdom; where he began to move the wheel of his Law; and where he attained to pari-nirvâna.
Confucius, Chinese literature
The author is tied to Huayan in the knowledge graph.
For this reason, too, it is a legend universally believed, that Pythagoras, for instance, received his Philosophy from India and Egypt; the fame of the wisdom of these people, which wisdom is understood also to contain Philosophy, is an old one. The Oriental ideas and religious worship which prevailed throughout the West up to the time of the Roman Empire, likewise bear the name of Oriental Philosophy.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Huayan is.
25. Ch'en Tzu-ch'in[183] said to Tzu-kung, Ye humble yourself, Sir. In what is Chung-ni your better? Tzu-kung said, By one word a gentleman shows wisdom, by one word want of wisdom. Words must not be lightly spoken.
Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius
The author is tied to Huayan in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Huayan
Related ideas
- Dahui Zonggao
- Fractal
- Emperor Wuzong of Tang
- Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
- Sudden awakening
- Ratnagotravibhāga
- Dignāga
- Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra
- Two truths doctrine
- Hinayana
- Ad infinitum
- Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
- Prajnaparamita
- Samadhi
- Heian period
- Japan
- Repentance
- Linji school
- Linji Yixuan
- Edo period
- Korea
- Buddhist meditation
- Buddhahood
- Contingency (philosophy)
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.