Conceptual discourse of retribution in early Chinese Buddhism (based on Huiyuan's work "The treatise on the three rewards")

The article presents the results of the conceptual discourse analysis of the little-studied polemical work of early Chinese Buddhism “San bao lun” (三 报 论, "The Treatise on the Three Rewards"), which played an important role in the process of Buddhism enculturation into the Chinese socio-cultural environment of Eastern Jin. A brief description of the origin of this work is given. We have revealed the features of religious discourse and conceptual apparatus of the ideologist of Buddhism, founder of the South Chinese Donglin Temple and the White Lotus Society Huiyuan (334-416 AD), and the retired official, sculptor, former Confucian, who converted into the Buddhist faith, Dai Angun (Dai Kui, 326-396 AD). The place and role of the Taoist discourse in the polemic space of "The Treatise on the Three Rewards" are determined. It is established that the synthesis of the Chinese and IndoBuddhist elements of the doctrine of retribution and the theory of causality became the conceptual basis of the new for pre-Buddhist China discourse of retribution.