From Technique to Wisdom: Translation-Induced Polysemy of Zhiguan 止觀 Across Chinese Breath-Meditation Texts, the Chengshi lun, and the Dunhuang Commentary Haneda 182 (羽182)

Abstract

The Chinese binome zhiguan 止觀 is conventionally associated with śamatha-vipaśyanā. In Chinese breath-meditation texts, however, it also refers to fixing the mind and observing the breath. Related Indic materials use sthāna/sthāpanā and upalakṣaṇā for comparable functions, although precise source terms cannot always be established. Here “translation-induced polysemy” denotes the accumulation of related translation-based associations in one Chinese expression. The native range of zhi—“to cease” and “to abide”—facilitated their overlap; the Chengshi lun’s equation of zhiguan with dinghui was a later exegetical reclassification. This article traces these developments through early Chinese meditation texts, the Chengshi lun, and the Chengshi lun yiji preserved in Haneda 182. Comparison with the Kongō-ji Anban shouyi jing and an Aṅguttara Nikāya parallel shows how “zhi means concentration, guan means wisdom” recast a procedural pair as a hierarchy of temporary suppression and definitive eradication. Haneda 182 foregrounds the treatise’s emptiness discourse in practical glosses and correlates zhiguan with scholastic path categories. This manuscript-level operation is consistent with, but does not independently establish, broader reconstructions of Mahāyāna reframing. The commentary’s uncertain date precludes a demonstrated genealogy with Zhiyi. Comparison with the Xiao zhiguan makes a Chengshi precedent plausible but nonexclusive, indicating selective convergence rather than Chengshi affiliation or direct transmission. These materials show how translation-induced polysemy supported divergent medieval accounts of meditation and liberation.