Deceptively confusing passage

[下座小師]

Hi all,

 

I am reading through a mediaeval Buddhist text by 湛然 called the "法華五百問論". Said text is a critique of an earlier Buddhist commentary by 窺基 known as the "法華玄贊". 窺基's text is a commentary on the 妙法蓮華經. 

 

We have worked our way through quite a lot of the text, but one particular passage from the opening section still causes some confusion. The section in question is the following:

 

"問：釋一經，文前幾門？ 答：開為六門：一、敘經緣起之意；二、明宗旨；三、明經品得 名；四、明品廢立；五、彰品次第；六、釋經本文。

今意：謂之不然。除釋本文，餘之五門，初文略明緣起可爾；餘三 明品在無，非經骨格；第二宗旨未曉如何。容子陳疑，方知遠旨；曾聞 有用名體、宗、用、教、相等五，稍似得於此經旨歸。"

 

As you can see, the section is fairly straightforward, and has not properly caused any great issue. The 'non-bolded' text is 窺基, and the bolded text is 湛然. 

 

However, the underlined piece from 湛然's remarks are rather confusing to my mind (that is: 容子陳疑，方知遠旨). It seems to my mind parsable in a number of rather different ways. The first four characters in particular. The entire section is fairly simple, and so I feel like I'm missing the obvious and simple meaning here. Nevertheless, I've looked at the passage far too many times now, and it looks stranger each time I do.

 

I'm sure the passage is not a difficult one, and I have no doubt it will expose my lack  of expertise. Nevertheless, I'd be very grateful if any had any comments or reading/translation suggestions. 

 

Thank you for your time,

 

合掌,

 

下座小師

[骏马的丕沿?]

I’m also relatively new to classical Chinese, but I might be able to answer your question.

 

Part of the original text is as follows:

 

“除釋本文，餘之五門，初文略明緣起可爾；餘三 明品在無，非經骨格；第二宗旨未曉如何。容子陳疑，方知遠旨；曾聞 有用名體、宗、用、教、相等五，稍似得於此經旨歸。”

 

In total, there are two sentences; let’s analyze the first sentence first. I believe the first sentence can be roughly translated as follows:

 

“Excluding this chapter, this entire book (or manuscript, etc.) contains five chapters. The first one is a kind of introduction. The last three delve into a discussion of the question of, “does moral ground really exist?”, and yet, these three chapters do not make up the backbone of this book. The core message of the second chapter is not clear as of yet.”

 

After looking at contextual clues, we can guess that the second sentence will have something to do with the fact that the core message of the second chapter is not immediately clear. I believe that the second sentence can be roughly translated as follows:

 

“Perhaps you didn’t at first understand (the core message of the second chapter), and, after quite a while, you still didn’t understand. But, in the end, you finally understood what the second chapter is really about. In the past, it was once often talked about, and known, five core concepts related to Buddhism: 名 體 宗 用 and 教. It seems like the messages within this book ultimately tie back to these five principles.”

 

容：to contain, to allow, to let happen, or “perhaps” (sorry if this explanation is vague)
子： “you”
陳：a while, some time (I’m not 100% sure on this. I suggest consulting a dictionary like 漢語大詞典。)
疑：confusion, doubt
方知：方 is 方才, which, in this context, is similar to 才 or 終於. 知 is 知道。Ultimately, 方知 is a lot like saying “才知道”, which is a modern phrase that you’ve probably heard before.
遠旨：main theme or core message of a written text

 

Also, the phrase “名 體 宗 用 教” is actually Buddhist-specific terminology - you might want to look it up on Baidu!

 

Sorry if my explanations are not very clear! Like I said, I’m also relatively new to classical Chinese. But I hope I was able to help you get closer to understanding the meaning of “容子陳疑，方知遠旨”！

 

————————————————————————————————————————

 

Alternative Chinese answer:

 

雖我文言文功底不厚，我來試一試。

 

原文的下半就如下：

 

“除釋本文，餘之五門，初文略明緣起可爾；餘三 明品在無，非經骨格；第二宗旨未曉如何。容子陳疑，方知遠旨；曾聞 有用名體、宗、用、教、相等五，稍似得於此經旨歸。”

 

一共有兩句；咱们先分析第一句。用白話文來重寫，我覺得第一句大概是這個意思：

 

“除了本文，本書共有五回。在那五回中，第一回是一種介紹，而最後面的三回則探討，所謂的品德是否真的存在這一問題。那麼，那最後面的三回就不是本書的骨骼。第二回的宗旨不明白。”

 

聯繫上下文以後，我們可以推測第二句到一定程度上與 “第二回宗旨不明白” 這件事情有關。我認為第二句的大致意思就如此：

 

“（對於第二回的意旨）也許你已經不明白一段時間了，但到最後，終於知道第二回的意旨是什麼。曾聽說過有 “名 體 宗 用 教” 這五種東西，好像本書的意旨就基於這些。”

 

容：意思是“能容纳”，“也许”，我也不太知道该怎么解释……

子：對對方的尊稱

陳：久（我也不確定）

疑：疑難

方知：方才知道

遠旨：意旨

 

另外，“名 體 宗 用 教” 是佛教術語，你可以上百度查一下！