In the Shanjia/Shanwai 山家山外 debates that arose in the South-era Song period, Hushan Zhiyuan 孤山智円 (976–1022) is known as a monk representative of the early Shanwai group. In his works, he often emphasized that each of the Three Dharmas 三法—namely, mind 心/Buddha 仏/Beings 衆生—, include Three Thousand aspects 三千差別法, and the idea of the Perfect Three Dharmas 円融三法 is based on each including Three Thousand aspects equally. However, even if Zhiyuan adopts the theory of each Dharma including Three Thousand aspects, as did the Zhili 知礼, the theoretical ground is quite different from him.
This study focuses on the Zhiyuan’s interpretations about the idea that Each of the Three Dharmas includes Three Thousand aspects and how different this idea is from the position of Shanjia and Post Shanwai. Through this, I consider Zhiyuan’s understanding of the Perfect Three Dharmas.
