Treatise on the Ten Stages Sutra school
Treatise on the Ten Stages Sutra school
地論宗 (Chin Ti-lun-tsung; Jpn Jiron-shu)
Also known as the Ti-lun school or the Treatise on the Stages school. A school based on Vasubandhu's Treatise on the Ten Stages Sutra. One of the thirteen major Buddhist schools said to have flourished in China from the fifth through the ninth century. In the early sixth century Bodhiruchi and Ratnamati translated the Sanskrit text of The Treatise on the Ten Stages Sutra into Chinese. Hui-kuang (468-537) studied this treatise and disseminated its teaching and is therefore regarded as a founder of the Treatise on the Ten Stages Sutra school, or the Ti-lun school. The school's masters also studied the Flower Garland Sutra, for the Ten Stages Sutra is identical with the "Ten Stages" chapter of the Flower Garland Sutra. This school divided into the Southern Way (Chin Nan-tao) branch, in the lineage of Ratnamati's disciple Hui-kuang, and the Northern Way (Pei-tao) branch, in the lineage of Bodhiruchi's disciple Tao-ch'ung. The Northern Way school did not develop, while the Southern Way school prospered for a time. Both schools disappeared in the seventh century.
