---
title: "The Bodhisattvabhūmi Chapter on Sīla"
subtitle: "The Nine-fold Taxonomy as the Master-Architecture of Bodhisattva Precepts"
title_zh: 九種戒相
subtitle_zh: 九種為主、三聚為內節——論菩薩戒的雙向巢套
volume: 戒門 SĪLA
paper_id: "SILA-P14"
paper_number: P14
language: en
date: 2026-05-28
author: "釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)"
license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
series: Six Practice Gates
series_zh: 六行門 · 卷四 戒
part: IV
part_title: The Mahāyāna Turn
part_title_zh: 大乘之轉向
order_in_part: 3
order_in_volume: 14
order_in_series: 74
---

# The Bodhisattvabhūmi Chapter on Sīla
**The Nine-fold Taxonomy as the Master-Architecture of Bodhisattva Precepts**
*中文主題：九種戒相——九種為主、三聚為內節：論菩薩戒的雙向巢套*

---

**Author:** 釋慧鏡 Shi Huijing
**Date:** May 2026
**License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
**Version:** 1.0

---

> 【論】「謂九種相戒，名為菩薩戒波羅蜜多。」
> *(Translator's rendering: "It is the nine-fold śīla, in its nine aspects, that is named the bodhisattva's perfection of morality, the* śīla-pāramitā.*")*
> — *Yogācārabhūmi*, *Bodhisattvabhūmi*, Chapter on Śīla, fascicle 40 (*Taishō* vol. 30, T1579, p. 0510c12)

---

## Abstract

What, finally, is the master-architecture of the bodhisattva precepts? The previous paper in this volume read Nāgārjuna's treatment of the *śīla-pāramitā* and found *prajñā* emptying the marks of moral conduct through *anupalabdhi* (unobtainability): a deconstructive path that "empties the marks." The present paper turns to the Chapter on Śīla (*Śīlapaṭala*) of the *Yogācārabhūmi*'s *Bodhisattvabhūmi* and finds the Yogācāra school arriving at the very same name, *śīla-pāramitā*, by the opposite method: it does not empty the marks but exhaustively enumerates every dimension of moral conduct, erecting a nine-fold taxonomy (*svabhāva*, *sarva*, *duṣkara*, *sarvato-mukha*, *satpuruṣa*, *sarvākāra*, *anukūla*, *ihāmutra-sukha*, and *pariśuddhi-śīla*) as the master-architecture of bodhisattva morality. Taking the chapter's own opening verdict — "it is the nine-fold śīla that is named the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*" — as its principal anchor, the paper argues three structural findings. First, the nine-fold is not a sub-list but the chapter's own architectural *definition* of the perfection of morality. Second, the three-cluster precepts treated in the previous paper appear *inside* the second member, *sarva-śīla*, while the chapter's closing "work of śīla" passage re-collapses all nine back into the three clusters — a two-way nesting. Third, the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla* (reception from another, pure intention, re-purification after breach, reverent unwavering mindfulness) form the definitional root of bodhisattva morality, treated here in a strictly descriptive register and not as an ontological precept-substance event. The nine-fold has no Pāli precedent; it is a post-Nāgārjuna Yogācāra systematic construction, the constructive face of a single Mahāyāna learning whose other face is the *prajñā* deconstruction of the previous paper.

**Keywords:** nine-fold śīla; *navavidha-śīla*; bodhisattva *śīla-pāramitā*; *Yogācārabhūmi*; *Bodhisattvabhūmi*; *Śīlapaṭala*; *svabhāva-śīla*; three-cluster precepts; two-way nesting; Yogācāra; constructive vs. deconstructive; *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla*

## 摘要

菩薩戒究竟以何為主架構？前篇處理龍樹《大智度論》之尸羅波羅蜜，見般若以「不可得」消解戒相，是「空其相」的一路；本篇轉向《瑜伽師地論》菩薩地〈戒品〉，見瑜伽行派以反向手法到達同一「戒波羅蜜」之名——不空其相，而窮列戒之一切向度，立「九種戒相」（自性、一切、難行、一切門、善士、一切種、遂求、此世他世樂、清淨）為菩薩戒之主架構。本文以〈戒品〉開篇框架句「謂九種相戒，名為菩薩戒波羅蜜多」為主錨，論證三項結構性發現：其一，九種非子表，而是〈戒品〉對「菩薩戒波羅蜜多」之架構性定義本身；其二，前篇所論之三聚淨戒實為九種第二員「一切戒」之內節，且章末「戒所作」段又把九種全部回收進三聚，成雙向巢套；其三，自性戒之四功德（從他正受、善淨意樂、犯已還淨、深敬專念無有違犯）為菩薩戒之定義性根，本文以描述性語域處理，不讀為戒體授受之本體事件。九種戒於巴利無前例，為龍樹之後瑜伽行派之系統建構，與般若之解構式恰成一空一列之對照。

**關鍵詞：** 九種戒相、菩薩戒波羅蜜多、瑜伽師地論、菩薩地、戒品、自性戒、三聚淨戒、雙向巢套、瑜伽行派、建構式、解構式、四遍淨戒

---

## I. The Question: What Is the Master-Architecture of Bodhisattva Precepts?

The previous paper in this volume closed on Nāgārjuna's *śīla-pāramitā* in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra* (T1509). There the *prajñā* lineage dissolved every grasping at the marks of moral conduct through the doctrine of *anupalabdhi* — "the unobtainable" — and concretized the mark-less precept in the *jātaka* of keeping the precept unto death. That was the deconstructive path: it *empties the marks*. The Yogācāra school's *Yogācārabhūmi*, in the Chapter on Śīla (*Śīlapaṭala*) of its *Bodhisattvabhūmi*, arrives at the very same name — *śīla-pāramitā*, the perfection of morality — by precisely the reverse procedure. It does not empty the marks; it exhaustively unfolds every dimension of moral conduct. The chapter opens with a condensing verse (*uddāna*) and then, in a single sentence, sets down its definition: "it is the nine-fold śīla, in its nine aspects, that is named the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*."[^1] The two paths form an exact contrast: where *prajñā* exhibits the *śīla-pāramitā* as the limit of conceptual apprehension, Yogācāra exhibits it as a completed map of bodhisattva practice.

From this contrast a structural question follows — one familiar to anyone who has read a Mahāyāna precept text. What, finally, is the master-architecture of the bodhisattva precepts? The answer most readers know best is the three-cluster pure precepts (三聚淨戒): the precepts of restraint (*saṃvara-śīla*), of gathering wholesome states (*kuśaladharma-saṃgrāhaka-śīla*), and of acting for the welfare of beings (*sattvārtha-kriyā-śīla*). The previous paper (P12) devoted a full study to this three-fold and identified it as a structural invention of Mahāyāna *śīla*. Is the three-cluster, then, the whole of the bodhisattva precepts?

The *Śīlapaṭala*'s answer is unexpected: the three-cluster is *not* the largest frame. The chapter places the three-cluster inside a larger nine-fold architecture — the three-cluster appears only as one section beneath the second member, *sarva-śīla* ("all-encompassing śīla"). It is the nine-fold, not the three-fold, that the chapter uses to define "the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*." The thesis of the present paper concerns precisely this architectural relation: the nine-fold is the master, the three-cluster is a nested module, and — crucially — the chapter's closing passage re-collapses the nine back into the three, so that the two ends contain each other in a *two-way nesting*. Once this relation is seen clearly, the position of the three-cluster within Mahāyāna *śīla*-learning can finally be settled: it is not a rival classification standing alongside the nine, but a module *within* the nine that simultaneously serves as a container *of* the nine.

One distinction of levels must be drawn at the outset, because the *Śīlapaṭala* in fact contains two strata folded into a single chapter. The upper stratum is the nine-fold classificatory architecture; the lower stratum is the enumeration of individual precepts (the four *pārājika*-equivalents, the forty-three minor precepts, and so on). The precept-enumeration nests *three levels down*, beneath the second member's first cluster (the precepts of restraint), and is therefore not co-ordinate with the nine. The subject of the present paper is the *upper* stratum — the nine-fold classificatory architecture. The four-grave-and-forty-three-light precept code belongs to a different register and is located here only, not expounded. In other words, the question asked here is not "which precepts should a bodhisattva keep?" but "by what structure does the *Śīlapaṭala* understand *what it is for conduct to count as a precept at all*?"

## II. The Textual Basis: The Nine Members of the *Śīlapaṭala*

### 2.1 The Uddāna Verse and the Prose Roster

The chapter establishes the nine members at the very head, verse first, prose after. The verse condenses the names; the prose gives them in full:

> 云何菩薩戒波羅蜜多？嗢拕南曰：自性、一切、難、一切門、善士、一切種、遂求、二世樂、清淨，如是九種相，是名略說戒。謂九種相戒，名為菩薩戒波羅蜜多。一、自性戒，二、一切戒，三、難行戒，四、一切門戒，五、善士戒，六、一切種戒，七、遂求戒，八、此世他世樂戒，九、清淨戒。
> *(Translator's rendering: "What is the bodhisattva's perfection of morality? The* uddāna *says: intrinsic-nature, all, difficult, all-gateway, good-person, all-mode, granting-of-wishes, welfare-in-both-worlds, purity — these nine aspects are śīla stated in brief. It is the nine-fold śīla, in its nine aspects, that is named the bodhisattva's* śīla-pāramitā: *(1) the śīla of intrinsic nature [svabhāva-śīla], (2) all-encompassing śīla [sarva-śīla], (3) difficult-to-practice śīla [duṣkara-śīla], (4) the śīla of all gateways [sarvato-mukha-śīla], (5) the śīla of good persons [satpuruṣa-śīla], (6) śīla in all modes [sarvākāra-śīla], (7) the śīla of granting [beings'] wishes [anukūla-śīla], (8) the śīla of welfare in this world and the other [ihāmutra-sukha-śīla], (9) pure śīla [pariśuddhi-śīla].")*[^1]

A philological note is in order. In the verse, "difficult" (難) is the contracted form of "difficult-to-practice śīla" (難行戒), and "welfare-in-both-worlds" (二世樂) the contraction of "the śīla of welfare in this world and the other" (此世他世樂戒); these are metrical abbreviations of the verse. When the nine are cited in full they follow the prose, not the verse-form. The *order* of these nine is not the choice of Xuanzang alone but a settled architecture already fixed before him — as the cross-recension comparison in §III below will show, all three Chinese recensions present the nine members in the same sequence.

### 2.2 *Svabhāva-śīla* and Its Four Qualities

The first of the nine is *svabhāva-śīla*, the śīla of intrinsic nature, and it defines the fundamental character of "what it is for conduct to count as a precept":

> 云何菩薩自性戒？謂若略說具四功德，當知是名菩薩自性戒，何等為四？一、從他正受，二、善淨意樂，三、犯已還淨，四、深敬專念無有違犯。
> *(Translator's rendering: "What is the bodhisattva's śīla of intrinsic nature? Stated in brief, the conduct possessing four qualities is to be known as the bodhisattva's intrinsic-nature śīla. Which four? (1) reception from another [from a properly qualified preceptor]; (2) pure and wholesome intention; (3) re-purification after a breach; (4) reverent, focused mindfulness without transgression.")*[^2]

The four qualities are not a flat list. The chapter immediately draws a three-plus-one functional division: the first three keep the received precept *intact*, while the fourth — re-purification after breach — enables one who has breached to *recover*:

> 又於是中，從他正受、善淨意樂、深敬專念無有違犯，由此三法，應知能令不毀菩薩所受淨戒；犯已還淨，由此一法，應知能令犯已還出。如是菩薩具四功德自性尸羅，應知即是妙善淨戒。
> *(Translator's rendering: "Among these, reception from another, pure wholesome intention, and reverent focused mindfulness without transgression — by these three the bodhisattva's received pure precept is kept from ruin; while re-purification after breach — by this one — enables recovery once a breach has occurred. The bodhisattva's intrinsic-nature śīla, possessing these four qualities, is to be known as the excellent and wholesome pure precept.")*[^3]

### 2.3 *Sarva-śīla* Holds the Three Clusters

The second member is *sarva-śīla*, "all-encompassing śīla." It is worth special attention that the three-cluster pure precepts — the focus of the previous paper — appear *within* this member. They are not a separate scheme set beside the nine, but the three-fold that "all-encompassing śīla" yields after it has first been divided into the lay and renunciant portions:

> 云何菩薩一切戒？謂菩薩戒略有二種。一、在家分戒，二、出家分戒。是名一切戒。又即依此在家、出家二分淨戒，略說三種。一、律儀戒，二、攝善法戒，三、饒益有情戒。
> *(Translator's rendering: "What is the bodhisattva's all-encompassing śīla? The bodhisattva's śīla is, in brief, of two kinds: (1) the lay portion of śīla, (2) the renunciant portion of śīla — this is all-encompassing śīla. And, in dependence on these two portions of pure precept, lay and renunciant, three kinds are stated in brief: (1) the śīla of restraint, (2) the śīla of gathering wholesome states, (3) the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings.")*[^4]

The content of the three-cluster has been treated in detail in the previous paper and is not restated here; the single point to retain is structural — the three-cluster is a *section internal to* the second member, *sarva-śīla*.

### 2.4 *Pariśuddhi-śīla* and Its Ten Modes

From the third member (*duṣkara-śīla*, the difficult-to-practice) through the eighth (*ihāmutra-sukha-śīla*, welfare in both worlds), the nine unfold one by one; the present paper need not expound them evenly. The ninth member, *pariśuddhi-śīla*, "pure śīla," is the apex of the nine and defines what makes śīla *pure* by way of ten modes:

> 云何菩薩清淨戒？當知此戒略有十種。一者、初善受戒……二者、不太沈戒……及不太舉戒……三者、離懈怠戒……四者、離諸放逸所攝受戒……五者、正願戒……六者、軌則具足所攝受戒……七者、淨命具足所攝受戒……八者、離二邊戒……九者、永出離戒……十者、於先所受無損失戒……如是十種，是名菩薩清淨戒。
> *(Translator's rendering: "What is the bodhisattva's pure śīla? It is, in brief, of ten kinds: (1) the precept well-received from the first … (2) the precept neither too slack … nor too taut … (3) the precept free of indolence … (4) the precept free of negligence … (5) the precept of right aspiration … (6) the precept complete in deportment … (7) the precept complete in pure livelihood … (8) the precept free of the two extremes … (9) the precept of final emergence … (10) the precept of no loss of what was first received … these ten are the bodhisattva's pure śīla.")*[^5]

The tenth mode of pure śīla — "no loss of what was first received" — points back to the fourth quality of *svabhāva-śīla*, "reverent focused mindfulness without transgression." The beginning and the end of the nine are thereby joined, and this joining is decisive for the conclusion of the paper, as §VI will show. (A brief disambiguation: immediately before this tenth mode the chapter inserts a passage on "five advantages" — being held in mind by the buddhas of the ten directions, and so on. Those are *benefits* of precept-keeping, not the tenth of the nine, and the two must not be conflated.)

## III. The Argument: Nine as Master, Three-Cluster as Nested Module

### 3.1 The Framing Line: The Nine-fold Śīla *Is* the *Śīla-Pāramitā*

The load-bearing sentence is the one at the chapter's head: "it is the nine-fold śīla, in its nine aspects, that is named the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*."[^1] The weight of this sentence lies here: the nine are not a sub-list ranged *beneath* "the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*"; the nine *are* the chapter's architectural *definition* of that perfection. To ask "what is the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*?" is to receive from the *Śīlapaṭala* not an essence-definition but a nine-column map unfolded before the reader: for conduct to be seen *as* a precept in full, it must be seen along these nine dimensions. The framing line makes the nine-fold itself the *śīla-pāramitā*. This is the chapter's own explicit statement and requires no interpretive supplement.

A terminological note may be set down here. The previous paper, treating the Nāgārjuna lineage, used Kumārajīva's rendering 「尸羅波羅蜜」 (the abbreviated form) and drew a redline against confusing it with Xuanzang's 「淨戒波羅蜜多」 in the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra*. That redline applied to that sūtra alone and does not carry into the present paper: the *Śīlapaṭala* itself uses the full form 「(菩薩)戒波羅蜜多」, which is this paper's home register and is entirely proper. In English both reduce to *śīla-pāramitā*; the difference is a translator-register variation that is itself a trace of distinct textual transmissions, and the reader need not force the two papers into terminological uniformity.

### 3.2 The Four Qualities of *Svabhāva-śīla* as the Definitional Root

Among the nine, *svabhāva-śīla* stands first and alone bears the office of *defining*. The remaining eight are each some "unfolding of śīla" (difficult, all-gateway, granting-of-wishes, and so on); *svabhāva-śīla* alone answers the most fundamental question: by virtue of what does an act count as a bodhisattva's precept? The answer is the four qualities — reception from another, pure intention, re-purification after breach, reverent focused mindfulness.[^2]

The present paper proposes that these four qualities are the *root* of the nine-fold architecture, and that the other members may be read as a radiation outward from this root: a precept must have a source of reception (reception from another), must issue from a pure motivation (pure intention), must possess the resilience of recovery-after-breach (re-purification), and must be held without lapse in moment-to-moment mindfulness (reverent focused mindfulness). Once these four are fixed, one may go on to ask after the precept's difficulty (*duṣkara-śīla*), its breadth (*sarvato-mukha-śīla*), the persons it accompanies (*satpuruṣa-śīla*), the modes it gathers (*sarvākāra-śīla*), the wishes it grants (*anukūla-śīla*), and so forth — so that the nine become a single tree growing from root to branch, rather than nine unrelated stacks of precept-categories. Reading the nine as a single character-architecture seeded by the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla* is the present paper's interpretive proposal; the *Śīlapaṭala* does not state this in so many words, and the move is flagged accordingly as an interpretive advance.

Here a line must be guarded with the greatest care. The first quality of *svabhāva-śīla*, "reception from another" (從他正受), is exceedingly easy to read as an *ontological event of precept-substance transmission* — as though, at the moment of receiving the precept, some "precept-substance" (戒體) were conferred from preceptor to ordinand and *taken into* the recipient. What the precept-substance *is*, and whether it belongs to form, mind, or seed, is one of the great problems of the East Asian *vinaya* tradition; it belongs to the dedicated papers that follow (the precept-substance studies, P16–P18), and the present paper strictly does not open it. The present paper takes the four qualities in a *descriptive* register: what they define is "the qualities that make an act count as a bodhisattva's precept," not an ontological claim about some entity. "Reception from another" here means only that the bodhisattva's precept must have a source of reception and is not self-instituted; it carries no inference that, at the moment of reception, a nameable precept-substance arises. Holding this line is what keeps the present paper from prejudging the precept-substance question reserved for the later papers.

### 3.3 The Three Clusters Nested in the Second Member

As the text cited above shows, the three-cluster appears *within* the second member, *sarva-śīla* — the three-fold that "all-encompassing śīla" yields after first dividing into lay and renunciant portions.[^4] This textual fact has a direct consequence: the three-cluster pure precepts are not a co-ordinate architecture able to rival the nine, but a nested section, a *module*, internal to the nine. That the previous paper could devote a whole study to the three-cluster is owed to the three-cluster's own internal richness, which is sufficient to stand as an independent subject; but in the architectural sequence of the *Śīlapaṭala*, the position of the three-cluster is *a section beneath the second member*. Once this is seen, the relation between three-cluster and nine ceases to be a competition over "which doctrine is the larger" and becomes the inner and outer layers of one architecture.

### 3.4 The Chapter's Closing Re-collapse: Two-Way Nesting and the Shared Hinge Line

Were the matter to stop here, the three-cluster would be merely a section *within* the nine, and the relation would run one way. But the *Śīlapaṭala*, in the "work of śīla" (戒所作) passage near its close, re-collapses the *entire* nine back into the three-cluster — and this is the strongest structural finding shared by P12 and the present paper:

> 如是如上所說一切自性戒等九種尸羅，當知三種淨戒所攝。謂律儀戒、攝善法戒、饒益有情戒。如是三種菩薩淨戒，以要言之，能為菩薩三所作事。謂律儀戒能安住其心，攝善法戒能成熟自佛法，饒益有情戒能成熟有情。
> *(Translator's rendering: "All nine kinds of śīla stated above, beginning with intrinsic-nature śīla, are to be known as gathered within the three pure precepts — namely the śīla of restraint, the śīla of gathering wholesome states, the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings. These three pure precepts of the bodhisattva, stated essentially, accomplish the bodhisattva's three tasks: the śīla of restraint settles the mind; the śīla of gathering wholesome states matures one's own buddha-dharma; the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings matures sentient beings.")*[^6]

The three-cluster thereby acquires a *double identity*: it is at once the *content of* the second member, *sarva-śīla* (contained *inward* by the nine), and the *container* that gathers all nine at the chapter's close (containing the nine *outward*). The nine and the three are not a single line of subordination but a mutually-containing *two-way nesting* — three within the nine, and the nine again gathered within the three. The present paper names this the two-way nesting (雙向巢套).

It bears emphasizing that the hinge sentence the previous paper used to close its account of the three-cluster is *the same sentence* the present paper relies on. The Dharmakṣema recension, the *Pusa dichi jing*, reads at the corresponding place:

> 如前所說，自性等九種戒，當知三戒所攝，所謂律儀戒、攝善法戒、攝眾生戒。又復三種，略說能為菩薩三事：一者律儀戒，能令心住；二者攝善法戒，自成佛法；三者攝眾生戒，成就眾生。是名菩薩一切事。
> *(Translator's rendering: "As stated above, the nine kinds of śīla beginning with intrinsic-nature śīla are to be known as gathered within the three precepts — the śīla of restraint, the śīla of gathering wholesome states, the śīla of gathering [i.e., benefiting] beings. And again these three, stated in brief, accomplish the bodhisattva's three tasks: the śīla of restraint causes the mind to settle; the śīla of gathering wholesome states accomplishes the buddha-dharma in oneself; the śīla of gathering beings brings beings to maturity. This is called the bodhisattva's every task.")*[^10]

The previous paper used this sentence to seal the three-cluster; the present paper uses it to demonstrate that the nine are re-gathered into the three. The two papers are thus seen not to be treating two independent doctrines but two views of a single architecture: one looking *inward* from the three-cluster at its structural design, the other looking *outward* from the nine at its gathering map. That the same hinge sentence spans both papers is the textual signature of this isomorphism.

### 3.5 Yogācāra Systematic Construction vs. *Prajñā* Deconstruction

A decisive fact about the nine-fold is that it has *no precedent in the Pāli tradition*. The standard Pāli rubric of *śīla*-learning is the fourfold purity of śīla, *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla* — restraint by the *pātimokkha*, restraint of the sense-faculties, purity of livelihood, and śīla concerning the requisites — set out in the *Visuddhimagga*.[^14] The two organizing principles are fundamentally different. The Pāli four are divided by *modes of guarding* (which gate one guards, which leak one prevents); the Yogācāra nine are divided by the *developmental dimensions confronting the bodhisattva* (how śīla matures along difficulty, breadth, the persons it accompanies, the modes it gathers, and so on). The principles being distinct, the two cannot be mapped onto each other, still less can the nine be read as an expanded edition of the *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla*. The nine-fold is a Yogācāra systematic innovation, not an inheritance from any pre-existing canonical list.

This "no Pāli precedent" finding runs exactly parallel to the previous paper's. There it was observed that the *prajñā* lineage's *pāramitā*-framing and its doctrine of "the unobtainable" were post-canonical developments, later than the early canonical strata; here it is seen that the nine-fold architecture of the bodhisattva precepts is likewise a Northern Yogācāra systematic refinement, not carried over from some prior orthodox list. In other words, the *architecturalization* of the bodhisattva precepts is itself the constructive work of post-Nāgārjuna Mahāyāna masters.

From this a contrastive axis between the present paper and its predecessor can be drawn. The Nāgārjuna lineage of the previous paper is the *prajñā* deconstruction: through "the unobtainable" it dissolves all grasping at the marks of moral conduct, and the *śīla-pāramitā* there appears as the *limit of conceptual apprehension* — the nearer one presses, the more clearly its ungraspability shows. The *Śīlapaṭala* of the present paper is the Yogācāra systematic construction: through the nine it exhaustively enumerates every dimension of moral conduct, and the *śīla-pāramitā* there appears as the *completed map of bodhisattva practice* — the more it is laid out, the more clearly its completeness shows. One empties the marks; one enumerates them. The two paths bear the one name *śīla-pāramitā* yet run in opposite directions; and they are not mutually exclusive but the two faces of one Mahāyāna learning. There is an internal witness to this division of labor in the Abhidharma corpus itself. In treating the śīla of gathering wholesome states, the *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā* explicitly defers its authority to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi*:

> 若已串習六種頓修皆互相攝，如〈菩薩地〉說。攝善法戒者，謂六波羅蜜多若依純雜相資助說，應作四句。
> *(Translator's rendering: "When one has practiced the six [perfections] such that the sudden cultivation of each mutually pervades the rest, as is stated in the* Bodhisattvabhūmi. *As for the śīla of gathering wholesome states: with respect to the six perfections, taken either as pure or as mixed in their mutual support, a fourfold formulation should be made.")*[^11]

That the Abhidharma corpus itself points the authority for the *systematic construction* of śīla back to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* is a note, internal to the literature, marking this very division between *prajñā* deconstruction and Yogācāra construction. The present paper proposes a further reading: the layered containment of the nine within the *Śīlapaṭala* — three-cluster inside *sarva-śīla*, the nine re-gathered into the three — is in fact a *miniature* of the *Yogācārabhūmi*'s whole method of nested enumeration, list folded within list, section gathered within section: a self-similar local instance of that method. This "self-similar" reading is the present paper's proposal, not the text's self-statement, and is developed in dialogue with Kragh's Yogācāra study in the next chapter.

## IV. Three Interlocutors and One Thin Spot

The present paper engages three modern scholars across three methodological slots: textual-and-translation studies, Yogācāra textual history, and ethics-and-moral-psychology. All three are engaged through paraphrase, with no verbatim citation.

In the textual-and-translation slot stands **Mark Tatz**. Tatz is the only scholar in the English-language field to have produced a direct translation of the *Śīlapaṭala* as a discrete chapter, with Tsongkhapa's commentary appended; his volume established the canonical English renderings of all nine members, the nesting of the three-cluster within the second member, and the four-quality root of *svabhāva-śīla* — foundations the present paper cannot bypass. *Concession.* Tatz's work makes these textual landmarks available in English at all. *Push-back.* Tatz reads the nine through the Tibetan dge-lugs lens of vow and root-downfall, so that the nine tend to be positioned as a frame for the casuistry of precept-violation. The present paper advances differently: it reads the nine as a *single coherent architectural taxonomy* (rooted in the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla* and radiating outward) and recovers the three-cluster as a nested module — against the commentarial tendency to make vows the organizing principle.

In the Yogācāra-textual-history slot stands **Ulrich Timme Kragh** and the large collaborative study of the *Yogācārabhūmi* he edited.[^15] That volume is the authoritative contemporary account of the compositional architecture of the *Yogācārabhūmi* and of its transmission across India, East Asia, and Tibet, and it locates the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* as one *bhūmi* within the larger nested edifice. *Concession.* Its account operates at the level of the whole text. *Push-back.* The present paper zooms to the *chapter-internal* nine-fold as a self-similar miniature of the very nested-list method that study describes for the *Yogācārabhūmi* as a whole: three-cluster within *sarva-śīla*, *sarva-śīla* within the nine, is the same nesting technique re-performed locally — a local fractal instance. (The relevant contribution within that edited volume is engaged here; the chapter within it that treats the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* Śīlapaṭala directly was the previous paper's interlocutor and is not re-cited.) The "self-similar / fractal" reading is the present paper's interpretive proposal.

In the ethics-and-moral-psychology slot stands **Maria Heim**. Heim places intention and disposition (*cetanā*) at the center of moral life, against the reduction of morality to a flat list of rules — a lens that illuminates the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla* (reception from another, pure intention, re-purification after breach, reverent focused mindfulness) as in fact a structure of *intention and disposition*, not a table of behavioral prohibitions. *Concession.* The intentionalist reading rightly locates the moral center in disposition. *Push-back.* Heim works from the Pāli and from Buddhaghosa; the present paper transposes the intentionalist lens onto the Yogācāra *navavidha-śīla* and proposes that the nine constitute a *developmental character taxonomy* — the disposition seeded by the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla* maturing outward into the difficult, the all-gateway, the accompanying-of-persons, and the rest, as the sequential unfolding of one character rather than the stacking of mutually independent rule-classes. This transposition is the present paper's interpretive proposal.

A frank disclosure must close this chapter. The structural question the present paper addresses has been *thinly* attended in the existing English-language scholarship. The *Śīlapaṭala* has translations — Tatz's chapter-specific rendering, and more recently Engle's complete translation of the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* — and the *Yogācārabhūmi* has the compendium noted above; but no sustained English-language study treats the *navavidha-śīla* *as a structure* — that is, the whole structural inquiry into *why nine, why this order, why the three-cluster nests in the second member, how the four qualities of svabhāva-śīla function as a root* has gone essentially unaddressed. This thinness matches what the previous paper met (no structural monograph on the three-cluster) and what the paper before it met (no monograph on Nāgārjuna's *śīla-pāramitā* since Lamotte). The present paper offers, at this specific gap, a structural-analytic supplement. (One supporting datum: Janice Willis's 1979 study gave the *Tattvārtha* chapter of the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* a dedicated treatment; the *Śīlapaṭala* has translations but no comparable structural monograph.)

## V. Corrections: Five Misreadings to Avoid

The argument of this paper must steer clear of five common misreadings.

First, **reading the nine-fold as a list of precept-rules.** The nine are a classificatory architecture, not an enumeration of items. Within the single chapter, the classificatory architecture (the nine) and the precept-enumeration (the four grave, the forty-three light, and so on) are two strata: the precept-code nests three levels down, beneath the second member, *sarva-śīla*, and is not co-ordinate with the nine.[^7] To flatten the nine into "nine categories of precept-rules to keep" is to demote the upper-stratum architecture into a lower-stratum list, and the whole thesis collapses with it. The nine answer "how is *what it is for conduct to be a precept* to be seen structurally," not "which rules to keep."

Second, **reading the "reception from another" of *svabhāva-śīla* as an ontological precept-substance event.** "Reception from another" is taken here only in its descriptive sense — that the bodhisattva's precept must have a source of reception and is not self-instituted — as one of the four qualities defining "what counts as a bodhisattva's precept." To press it into the ontological claim that "a precept-substance arises and is received at the moment of ordination" is to cross over into the precept-substance studies (the proper subject of the later papers). The present paper takes no position on the precept-substance question and does not pre-empt the later papers' verdict.

Third, **reading the translator-register differences among the three recensions as marks of superiority or inferiority.** The divergences of nomenclature seen in the cross-recension comparison below — Dharmakṣema, Guṇavarman, and Xuanzang (e.g. "difficult śīla" / "difficult-to-practice śīla," "good-person śīla" / "good-persons' śīla") — are legitimate handlings of one Sanskrit base-text by translators of different eras, variants at the level of *register*, not questions of right and wrong. The present paper compares them descriptively and ranks none. Three recensions present the nine members in the same order: T1579 (Xuanzang), T1581 (Dharmakṣema), and T1582 (Guṇavarman).[^8][^9] In the third cluster, "the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings" (Xuanzang) / "the śīla of gathering beings" (Dharmakṣema) / "the śīla practiced for beings' benefit" (Guṇavarman) all render the one Sanskrit *sattvārtha-kriyā-śīla* and are not to be interchanged within a single citation.[^12]

Fourth, **the standard rendering of the seventh member must be corrected.** The Sanskrit of the seventh member is *anukūla-śīla*, "complying with / granting [beings'] wishes," whose standard Chinese rendering is "granting-of-wishes śīla" (遂求戒); Dharmakṣema's "distress-removing śīla" (除惱戒) is a *functional* gloss (removing beings' distress, their *vighāta*), which Guṇavarman further abbreviates to "removing śīla" (除戒). The three recensions diverge most widely at this member (granting-wishes / distress-removing / removing). The correction is this: take *anukūla-śīla* (granting-of-wishes) as the proper name and "distress-removing" as a functional gloss, and do not invert the two so that the functional gloss usurps the proper name.[^13] On no account should the head term be written as *vighātārthika-śīla*; the head term is *anukūla-śīla*.

Fifth, **reading the three-cluster and the nine as co-ordinate.** The three-cluster does not stand parallel to the nine; it nests within the second member of the nine, *sarva-śīla*, and is at the chapter's close re-gathered as the container of all nine (the two-way nesting).[^6] To mistake them for co-ordinate schemes is to make the previous paper and the present one appear to be saying two separate things, when in fact they are the inner and outer views of one architecture — and the link between them is severed.

A supplementary caution: the same set of nine member-names appears in the Guṇavarman recension, where it is borrowed again in the *Chapter on Patience* (*Kṣānti*) to name "nine kinds of patience." The nine members cited in the present paper are drawn uniformly from the *Chapter on Śīla*, not from the *Chapter on Patience*, to avoid the confusion of attributing one to the other.

## VI. Conclusion

**The essential.** The *Śīlapaṭala* of the *Yogācārabhūmi*'s *Bodhisattvabhūmi* makes the nine-fold śīla the master-architecture of the bodhisattva precepts, and the opening framing line — "it is the nine-fold śīla that is named the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*" — makes the nine themselves *be* the *śīla-pāramitā*. The three-cluster pure precepts treated in the previous paper are in fact a section internal to the second member, *sarva-śīla*, and the chapter's closing "work of śīla" passage re-gathers the whole nine back into the three, in a mutually-containing two-way nesting. The first of the nine, *svabhāva-śīla*, is rooted in its four qualities and is the definitional core of the bodhisattva precepts (taken here in a descriptive register, not entering the precept-substance question). The nine have no Pāli precedent; they are a post-Nāgārjuna Yogācāra systematic construction — the constructive enumeration of the marks that stands in exact contrast to the previous paper's *prajñā* deconstruction (the emptying of the marks), the two being two faces of a single Mahāyāna *śīla*-learning.

**The contemplative bearing.** What this architecture offers most directly to the practitioner is a *way of seeing* śīla, not another list of rules to keep (this volume is descriptive throughout, and is not a precept manual): the precept is not merely "not transgressing" but a whole map to be seen along nine dimensions — its difficulty, its breadth, the persons it accompanies, the wishes it grants. To take precept-keeping as merely guarding a list of prohibitions is to shrink a nine-column map to a single column; what the *Śīlapaṭala* recalls is that the perfection of śīla lies in the simultaneous maturation of all nine dimensions, whose root is, at the very first moment of reception, that single thought of pure intention and the moment-to-moment guarding that does not lapse.

**An open question.** The landing of the nine-fold architecture in China did not end with the translation of the *Yogācārabhūmi*. How the three-cluster pure precepts came to be fixed in Chinese soil as the prototype of an ordination liturgy — turning this Indian classificatory architecture into an operable receiving-procedure — is the question the next paper takes up.

A closing image. The tenth mode of *pariśuddhi-śīla*, "no loss of what was first received," points back to the fourth quality of *svabhāva-śīla*, "reverent focused mindfulness without transgression." The nine begin with the first "reception" and close on "not losing what was first received": beginning and end joined, the architecture closes into a ring upon itself. The perfection of the bodhisattva precepts, it turns out, lies nowhere else — only in guarding that first thought of what was received, and not letting it scatter.

---

## Footnotes

[^1]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 40, "Chapter on Śīla, the First Yoga-Basis of the Bodhisattva Ground within the Basic Section": "What is the bodhisattva's perfection of morality? The *uddāna* says … it is the nine-fold śīla that is named the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0510c08–c15. The full prose names of the nine appear at the same locus, p0510c12–c15.

[^2]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 40, "What is the bodhisattva's intrinsic-nature śīla? … (1) reception from another, (2) pure wholesome intention, (3) re-purification after breach, (4) reverent focused mindfulness without transgression." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0510c16–c19.

[^3]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 40, the three-plus-one functional division of the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla*: "by these three the received pure precept is kept from ruin … by this one, recovery is enabled once a breach has occurred." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0510c29–p0511a04.

[^4]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 40, "What is the bodhisattva's all-encompassing śīla? … stated in brief, three kinds: (1) the śīla of restraint, (2) the śīla of gathering wholesome states, (3) the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0511a12–a15. The content of the three-cluster is treated in detail in the previous paper (SILA-P12) and is not restated here.

[^5]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 42, the ten modes of *pariśuddhi-śīla*: "What is the bodhisattva's pure śīla? It is, in brief, of ten kinds … (10) the precept of no loss of what was first received." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0522c01–c17. The tenth mode, "no loss of what was first received," points back to the fourth quality of *svabhāva-śīla*, "reverent focused mindfulness without transgression."

[^6]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 42, the "work of śīla" passage: "All nine kinds of śīla stated above, beginning with intrinsic-nature śīla, are to be known as gathered within the three pure precepts … the śīla of restraint settles the mind; the śīla of gathering wholesome states matures one's own buddha-dharma; the śīla of acting for the welfare of beings matures sentient beings." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0522c27–p0523a03. This passage is the textual basis for the re-gathering of the nine into the three, and together with the second member's containing of the three-cluster (n. 4) constitutes the two-way nesting.

[^7]: *Yogācārabhūmi*, fascicle 40, "thus are named the bodhisattva's four *pārājika*-equivalents," *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, p0515c06. Cited here only to locate the stratum of the precept-enumeration (nesting beneath the second member, *sarva-śīla*), demonstrating that the classificatory architecture and the item-enumeration are not co-ordinate. The enumeration of the four grave and forty-three light precepts belongs to a different register and is not expounded here.

[^8]: Dharmakṣema, trans., *Pusa dichi jing* (*Bodhisattvabhūmi*), fascicle 4, the nine-list: "What is the bodhisattva's *śīla-pāramitā*? In brief there are nine kinds: (1) intrinsic-nature śīla … (9) pure śīla." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1581, p0910a13–16.

[^9]: Guṇavarman, trans., *Pusa shanjie jing*, fascicle 4, the nine-list (Chapter on Śīla): "What is called the great bodhisattva's śīla? Śīla has nine kinds: (1) intrinsic-nature śīla … (9) tranquil śīla." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1582, p0982b06–09. The same set of nine member-names is borrowed in that text's Chapter on Patience to name "nine kinds of patience" (p0986b and following); the nine cited in the present paper are drawn uniformly from the Chapter on Śīla, not the Chapter on Patience.

[^10]: Dharmakṣema, trans., *Pusa dichi jing*, fascicle 5, the nine↔three hinge sentence: "As stated above, the nine kinds of śīla beginning with intrinsic-nature śīla are to be known as gathered within the three precepts … the śīla of restraint causes the mind to settle; the śīla of gathering wholesome states accomplishes the buddha-dharma in oneself; the śīla of gathering beings brings beings to maturity." *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1581, p0918b01–06. This is the same sentence the previous paper (SILA-P12) used to seal its account of the three-cluster, establishing that the previous paper and the present one are two views of one architecture.

[^11]: Sthiramati, composed; Xuanzang, trans., *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā*, fascicle 12: "When one has practiced the six [perfections] such that the sudden cultivation of each mutually pervades the rest, as is stated in the *Bodhisattvabhūmi*. As for the śīla of gathering wholesome states: with respect to the six perfections, taken as pure or as mixed in their mutual support, a fourfold formulation should be made." *Taishō* vol. 31, No. 1606, p0750c08–10. The Abhidharma corpus here explicitly defers the authority for the śīla of gathering wholesome states to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi*. Further: Asaṅga, composed; Xuanzang, trans., *Abhidharmasamuccaya* (No. 1605), contains no rubric of "*śīla-pāramitā*" anywhere, retaining only a gloss on the *prātimokṣa*-restraint (p0680c26) — a register witness.

[^12]: The third-cluster renderings of the three recensions: Xuanzang's "śīla of acting for the welfare of beings," Dharmakṣema's "śīla of gathering beings," and Guṇavarman's "śīla practiced for beings' benefit (śīla of benefiting others)" all render the one Sanskrit *sattvārtha-kriyā-śīla*; they may be set side by side at a first cross-recension comparison but are not interchanged within a single citation.

[^13]: The Sanskrit of the seventh member is *anukūla-śīla* ("granting [beings'] wishes"), standardly rendered "granting-of-wishes śīla"; Dharmakṣema's "distress-removing śīla" is a functional gloss (removing beings' distress), which Guṇavarman abbreviates to "removing śīla." This member shows the widest semantic divergence among the three recensions (granting-wishes / distress-removing / removing); the correction is to take "granting-of-wishes śīla" as the proper name and not to let the functional gloss serve as the head term. The head term is never *vighātārthika-śīla*.

[^14]: The standard Pāli rubric of *śīla*-learning is the fourfold purity of śīla, *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla*: restraint by the *pātimokkha*, restraint of the sense-faculties, purity of livelihood, and śīla concerning the requisites, set out in the *Visuddhimagga*, chapter I. Its organizing principle is *modes of guarding*, distinct from the *developmental-dimension* principle of the Yogācāra nine; the two cannot be mapped onto each other. The Pāli material is engaged here only as a paraphrased comparison; no original is quoted.

[^15]: See the Kragh-edited Yogācāra study and Heim's monograph in the modern-scholarship section below; the previous paper's (SILA-P13) treatment of the *prajñā* deconstruction of Nāgārjuna's *śīla-pāramitā* stands in contrast to the present paper's constructive nine-fold and is engaged only as a cross-reference, without re-citing the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra* text.

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## References

### Primary Buddhist Sources

- *Yogācārabhūmi* (瑜伽師地論), *Bodhisattvabhūmi*, Chapter on Śīla; spoken by Maitreya, compiled by Asaṅga, translated by Xuanzang of the Tang; *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1579, fascicles 40–42.
- *Pusa dichi jing* (菩薩地持經, *Bodhisattvabhūmi*); translated by Dharmakṣema of the Northern Liang; *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1581, fascicles 4–5.
- *Pusa shanjie jing* (菩薩善戒經); translated by Guṇavarman of the Liu-Song; *Taishō* vol. 30, No. 1582, fascicle 4.
- *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā* (大乘阿毘達磨雜集論); composed by Sthiramati, translated by Xuanzang of the Tang; *Taishō* vol. 31, No. 1606, fascicle 12.
- *Abhidharmasamuccaya* (大乘阿毘達磨集論); composed by Asaṅga, translated by Xuanzang of the Tang; *Taishō* vol. 31, No. 1605 (register witness).
- *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra* (大智度論); composed by Nāgārjuna, translated by Kumārajīva of the Later Qin; *Taishō* vol. 25, No. 1509 (principal anchor of the previous paper, SILA-P13; engaged here as cross-reference only).

### Modern Scholarship

- Tatz, Mark. *Asanga's Chapter on Ethics with the Commentary of Tsong-Kha-pa, The Basic Path to Awakening, The Complete Bodhisattva.* Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. (Paywalled; engaged through paraphrase. The only English translation of the *Śīlapaṭala* as a discrete chapter, with Tsongkhapa's commentary.)
- Kragh, Ulrich Timme, ed. *The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogācārabhūmi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet.* Harvard Oriental Series 75. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. (Paywalled; engaged through paraphrase. The authoritative modern account of the *Yogācārabhūmi*'s compositional architecture and transmission.)
- Heim, Maria. *The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency.* Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. (Paywalled; engaged through paraphrase. Intention-and-disposition reading of Buddhist moral psychology.)
- Engle, Artemus B. *The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhūmi.* Boulder: Snow Lion, 2016. (Complete *Bodhisattvabhūmi* translation; referenced in §IV's disclosure of the thinness of structural coverage.)

### Sūtra & Śāstra Index

| Short title | Full title | Author / Translator | *Taishō* No. | Use in this paper |
|------|------|---------|-----------|---------|
| *Yogācārabhūmi* | *Yogācārabhūmi*, *Bodhisattvabhūmi*, Chapter on Śīla | trans. Xuanzang | T30, No. 1579 | Principal anchor: nine-fold framing line, four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla*, three-cluster nesting, work of śīla, ten modes of pure śīla |
| *Dichi jing* | *Pusa dichi jing* | trans. Dharmakṣema | T30, No. 1581 | Early recension comparison: nine-list, nine↔three hinge sentence |
| *Shanjie jing* | *Pusa shanjie jing* | trans. Guṇavarman | T30, No. 1582 | Third recension comparison: nine-list (Chapter on Śīla) |
| *Vyākhyā* | *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā* | comp. Sthiramati, trans. Xuanzang | T31, No. 1606 | Abhidharma endorsement: authority deferred to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* |
| *Samuccaya* | *Abhidharmasamuccaya* | comp. Asaṅga, trans. Xuanzang | T31, No. 1605 | Register witness |
| *Śāstra* | *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra* | trans. Kumārajīva | T25, No. 1509 | Previous paper's anchor; cross-reference |

---

## Series Cross-References

### Within Volume IV SĪLA, preceding

- **SILA-P12** *The Three-Body Architecture of Bodhisattva Sīla* — the three-cluster is P12's home subject; the present paper shows it as the nested module of the nine's second member, *sarva-śīla*, and shares the very same hinge sentence (T1581 p0918b01–06). The three-cluster's content and its mapping onto Zhiyi's three bodies are treated there and not restated here.
- **SILA-P13** *Nāgārjuna on Śīla-Pāramitā* — direct predecessor; P13's *prajñā* deconstruction (the emptying of the marks through *anupalabdhi*) and the present paper's Yogācāra construction (the enumeration of the marks through the nine-fold) form a contrastive axis. P13 uses Kumārajīva's abbreviated 「尸羅波羅蜜」; the present paper uses Xuanzang's full 「戒波羅蜜多」.

### Within Volume IV SĪLA, forthcoming

- **SILA-P15** *The Yingluo Sūtra and the East Asian Receiving-Architecture* — direct successor; how the nine-fold / three-cluster lands in China as the prototype of an ordination liturgy (the open question on which the present paper closes).
- **SILA-P16–P18** *The Precept-Substance Studies* — the precept-substance (戒體) dimension of *svabhāva-śīla*'s "reception from another" is deliberately *not* opened in the present paper; it is reserved for these dedicated papers.
- **SILA-P23** *Three-Circle Emptiness Applied to Sīla* — the *trimaṇḍala-pariśuddhi* analysis of śīla lies outside the present paper's scope.

### Cross-paper recurring anchors

- The *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā*'s deferral to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* (T1606 p0750c09) — the same line used in SILA-P12.
- The *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla* (Visuddhimagga I) — the Pāli baseline recurring across Volume IV's Part I.

### Cross-volume polyphonic anchors

- **DĀNA Part IV** — structurally isomorphic to the present paper's "giving → perfection" turn, with the verb exchanged for "śīla"; the same *pāramitā*-ization architecture treated across the giving gate.

---

*CBETA collation:* The primary Chinese textual anchors of the present paper — the *Yogācārabhūmi* (T1579, "spoken by Maitreya, compiled by Asaṅga," trans. Xuanzang, Tang Zhenguan 20–22, 646–648; *Bodhisattvabhūmi*, *First Yoga Basis*, Chapter on Śīla, vols. 40–42: vol. 40 the nine-fold framing line, the four qualities of *svabhāva-śīla*, the three-cluster nested within *sarva-śīla*, the four *pārājika*-equivalents; vol. 42 the ten modes of pure śīla and the "work of śīla" passage re-collapsing the nine into the three); the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* recension *Pusa dichi jing* (T1581, Dharmakṣema, Northern Liang 414–426, vols. 4–5, the nine-list and the nine↔three hinge line); the *Pusa shanjie jing* (T1582, Guṇavarman, Liu-Song 5th c., vol. 4 Chapter on Śīla, the nine-list); the *Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyākhyā* (T1606, Sthiramati / Xuanzang, vol. 11, the passage deferring to the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* for the wholesome-dharma-gathering precept); the *Abhidharmasamuccaya* (T1605, Asaṅga / Xuanzang, register witness) — have all been collated against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka (2024 edition). The Sanskrit *navavidha-śīla* terms of the *Bodhisattvabhūmi Śīlapaṭala* (Wogihara / Dutt / GRETIL editions) and the Pāli *catu-pārisuddhi-sīla* (Visuddhimagga ch. I) are copyright / CC-BY-SA materials, engaged here only as a terminological gloss-layer comparison, never quoted. Modern scholarship — Mark Tatz (*Asanga's Chapter on Ethics with the Commentary of Tsong-Kha-pa*, Edwin Mellen 1986), Ulrich Timme Kragh, ed. (*The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners*, Harvard Oriental Series 75, 2013), Maria Heim (*The Forerunner of All Things*, Oxford 2014) — is paywalled and engaged through paraphrase with page-range references; no verbatim citation.

**Author:** 釋慧鏡 Shi Huijing
**Project:** Pointing at the Moon · Six Practice Gates
**License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
**Repository:** github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates

*Pointing at the Moon · The Six Practice Gates · Volume IV SĪLA · Paper 14 · May 2026*