熏習

Readings

Pinyin: xūnxí

Wade-Giles: hsün-hsi

Hangul: 훈습

Korean MC: hunseup

Korean MR: hunsŭp

Katakana: クンジュウ

Hepburn: kunjū

huân tập

to perfume

• To permeate; impregnate—also written with the first character alone. The literal meaning is that of being permeated with an odor, and this metaphor is used to describe the how karma works in the form of various undefiled and defiled phenomena, whereby activities, without fail, leave impressions on our consciousness, thus altering it. Included here is the meaning of receiving an impression, or for one thing to have an effect on another thing, especially by habituation, or the function of one thing gradually being conditioned by another. As clothes which have been exposed to perfume gradually come to take on that same smell, our own activities of word, thought and deed leave an influence on our mind. It is a distinctive Buddhist explanation for how karmic influence is transmitted through the consciousnesses of living beings. In Yogâcāra theory, unmanifest karma is sown as a "seed" 種子 in the ālaya-vijñāna. The results of this perfuming are called "karmic impressions" 習氣 (Skt. vāsanā), which again produce new karmas.

  In the Awakening of Faith 起信論, purity and impurity permeate each other. The permeation of true thusness by nescience produces saṃsāra, while the permeation of nescience by true thusness produces nirvāṇa. See 四種法熏習. The AMF says: "The meaning of "permeation" is like clothes in the world, which have no odor of their own. If one permeates them with fragrance, then they will have that fragrance. The permeation of dharma is also like this." 熏習義者如世間衣服實無於香. 若人以香而熏習故則有香氣. 此亦如是 〔起信論 T 1666.32.578a18-20〕 (Skt. vāsita, paribhāvita; adhivāsita, abhyasana, āvāsita, paribhāvanā, bhāvanā, bhāvita, vāsana, vāsanatā)

  [resp. Charles Muller; source(s): Nakamura, JEBD, Hirakawa, Iwanami]

Dictionary References:

Bukkyō jiten (Ui), 220

Bulgyo sajeon, 974a

Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.), 255c

Iwanami bukkyō jiten, 216

Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha), 186b/208

Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura), 288c

Ding Fubao

Buddhist Chinese-Sanskrit Dictionary (Hirakawa), 0796

Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki), (v.1-6)721a

Sanskrit-Tibetan Index for the Yogâcārabhūmi-śāstra (Yokoyama and Hirosawa)

Copyright © 2010 -- Charles Muller

generated: 2014-02-10