Dà huìdù jīng zōngyào 大慧度經宗要
Doctrinal Essence of the Great Wisdom-Crossing Sūtra (Mahāprajñāpāramitā) by 元曉 (Wǒnhyo, 撰)
About the work
A short single-fascicle Silla-period programmatic commentary by the Korean master Wǒnhyo 元曉 (617–686) on the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. The work follows Wǒnhyo’s signature zōngyào 宗要 (“doctrinal-essence”) commentarial form: a concise systematic exposition of a sūtra’s doctrinal core in six divisions. Signature: 「釋元曉撰」.
Prefaces
The text opens with Wǒnhyo’s own programmatic statement of the six-fold structure: “In expounding this jīng I distinguish six topics: first, the recounting of the great purport (述大意); second, the displaying of the sūtra’s doctrinal core (顯經宗); third, the explanation of the title (釋題名); fourth, the clarification of the originating conditions (明緣起); fifth, the doctrinal classification (判教); sixth, the digesting of the text (消文).”
Abstract
T1697 is one of Wǒnhyo’s many zōngyào-form commentaries — programmatic doctrinal-summary expositions of major Mahāyāna sūtras — and an important Silla-period East-Asian prajñā commentary. The work’s six-fold structure (recounting, displaying, explaining, clarifying, classifying, digesting) is the canonical Wǒnhyo commentarial method, applied here to the Prajñāpāramitā corpus. Doctrinally Wǒnhyo reads the Prajñāpāramitā through his characteristic synthesis of Tathāgatagarbha and Mādhyamaka — distinct from 吉藏 Jízàng’s pure-Mādhyamika reading in T1696 — placing the prajñā at the foundational role in his integrated doctrinal system. The work is dateable to Wǒnhyo’s documented commentarial period (c. 650–686).
Translations and research
- Buswell, Robert E. (ed.). Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wŏnhyo’s Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. (Methodological background to Wǒnhyo’s commentarial method.)
- Park, Sung-bae. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. Albany: SUNY Press, 1983. (Discussion of Wǒnhyo’s doctrinal positions.)
- Cho, Sungtaek 趙性澤. “Wǒnhyo and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Tradition.” Various Korean-language articles.