From the “Distinction of Substance and Function” to “Perceiving Substance Through Function”: Reconstructing Buddhist Ganying (感應) Thought in the Jin-Song (晉宋) Transitional Period

The ti-yong (體用, substance-and-function) dyad is one of the most fundamental theoretical patterns in Chinese philosophy. As the primary framework for articulating the relationship between noumenal ground and phenomenal manifestation, it runs continuously through the Xuanxue (玄學), Buddhist, and Neo-Confucian traditions, with the core presupposition that ti (substance) independently precedes and governs yong (function). When this presupposition entered the Buddhist context and encountered the Mahāyāna logic of dependent origination and emptiness (yuanqi xingkong 緣起性空), a deep structural tension was generated. Taking this tension as its point of departure, this article examines changes in Buddhist accounts of ganying (感應, stimulus-and-response) during the Jin-Song (晉宋) transitional period through the writings of Huiyuan (慧遠), Kumārajīva (鳩摩羅什), and Daosheng (道生). Huiyuan’s questions concerning the dharmakāya (法身) expose a persistent difficulty: How can that which is unchanging and beyond determinate form become perceptible and effective in responsive activity? Kumārajīva’s discussions of “not-form” (fei se 非色), the pool-water analogy, and “responding without fixed mode” (wu fang zhi ying 無方之應) shift attention from identifying a fixed body of the dharmakāya to explaining the varied conditions of its manifestation. Daosheng’s accounts of inherent Buddha-nature (foxing benju 佛性本具) and ji (機, capacity) further bring the recipient’s capacity into the explanation of effective response. Read together, these positions show a shift in explanatory focus: from distinguishing an enduring source from responsive activity to asking how that source becomes accessible through activity. The expression ji-yong-jian-ti (即用見體, perceiving substance through function) names this disclosure of ti through yong: the ground is not produced by responsive activity but becomes perceptible and soteriologically effective through it. This development illuminates an important change in early Chinese Buddhist reflections on dharmakāya, manifestation, and the capacities of sentient beings.