Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng qiǎnzhù 大乘本生心地觀經淺註
Shallow Notes on the Mahāyāna Mind-Ground Sūtra by 來舟 (Lái Zhōu, 集)
About the work
The principal commentary on 般若 Prajña’s Tang-period [[KR6b0008|Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng (T159)]], compiled by 來舟 Lái Zhōu of the Zhāntánsì 栴檀寺 in the imperial capital under the Qing — the eleven-fascicle running gloss whose original-recension fascicle-count was reorganised in the Wàn xùzàng 卍續藏 collation as eight fascicles. The commentary reads the sūtra through the Huáyán doctrinal classification of 賢首 Xiánshǒu Fǎzàng (pànjiào 判教 with its Five Teachings) and the Awakening of Faith framework, and is methodologically modelled on 子璿 Chángshuǐ Zǐxuán’s Sòng-period commentary on the Śūraṅgama-sūtra. The signature reads 「清神京栴檀寺沙門來舟淺註」.
Prefaces
The fascicle bears the author’s own preface (recapitulated in the [[KR6b0009|Xuánshì]]), explaining the genesis of the project: Lái Zhōu undertook to comment on T159 because no full commentary on this sūtra had been produced from the Tang to his own time, despite the sūtra’s manifest doctrinal centrality. Out of humility he named the work 淺註 (“shallow notes”), but the commentary is in fact the standard pre-modern exegesis on T159.
Abstract
The Qiǎnzhù is read alongside its companion outline [[KR6b0009|Xuánshì 懸示]] (prefatory exposition) and [[KR6b0010|Kēwén 科文]] (topical-outline diagram), the three works together constituting the canonical Lái Zhōu commentarial set. Doctrinally the work places T159’s mind-ground (心地, citta-bhūmi) doctrine within the Huáyán pànjiào hierarchy, classifying the sūtra as belonging to the Yuánjiào 圓教 (the Perfect Teaching) along with the Avataṃsaka and the Lotus, and reading its four-kindnesses (sìēn 四恩) doctrine through the Awakening of Faith’s analysis of the relationship between the One Mind and the bodhicitta-vow.
The commentary’s lasting value is twofold: (i) as the first major exegesis of T159 since its Tang translation, it preserves what would otherwise be a lacuna in the Chinese commentarial reception of an important late-Tang Mahāyāna sūtra; and (ii) as a Qing-period Huáyán reading of a MahāyānaYogācāra sūtra, it is a documentary witness for the late-imperial integration of Huáyán doctrinal classification and Awakening of Faith metaphysics into the exegesis of bodhisattva-path texts.
Translations and research
- Tang Dazhao 唐大潮. Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng yánjiū 大乘本生心地觀經研究. Beijing: Zhōngguó Shèhuì Kēxué Chūbǎnshè, 2007. (Treats Lái Zhōu’s commentary as the standard pre-modern access.)