Açvaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahâyâna

Açvaghoshas Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahâyâna
tr. by Teitaro Suzuki

The original Sanskrit text is lost. The Awakening of Faith has been used as a textbook for Buddhist priests. This translation was the first into English; it is by Teitaro Suzuki, one of the principal writers on Buddhism of the 20th century. Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist scholar, manages to convey the difficult sense of this work, which sometimes requires inventive English neologisms.

The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana is a classic of East Asian Buddhism. Its concept of faith, however, is not the same as that of Western religions. The books title may also be translated as The Generating of Confidence in the Mahayana. Confidence or trust is generated as a result of examining the Mahayana Buddhist teachings, which are concisely summarized here. This book is said to have been written for those who find the wordiness of extensive discourse wearisome, and who prefer a brief treatise with a lot of meaning. Doctrinally, it presents the tathagata-garbha or Buddha-matrix teachings in their most developed form.
This abstruse text is translated here by the distinguished D. T. Suzuki. The translation by Yoshito Hakeda published elsewhere is made from the Chinese version of Paramartha, while this one is made from the Chinese version of Siksananda.