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金剛般若波羅蜜經破取著不壞假名論

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Text ID
KR6c0036
Date
676–688
Dynasty
唐

Jīngāng bōrě bōluómì jīng pò qǔzhuó bùhuài jiǎmíng lùn 金剛般若波羅蜜經破取著不壞假名論

The Treatise on the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra Concerning Breaking Grasping-Attachment without Destroying Conventional Names composed by 功德施菩薩 (造) (= Guṇadāsa); translated by 地婆訶羅 (等譯) (= Divākara)

About the work

A two-juan commentary on the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (“Diamond Sūtra”), composed by the Indian Mahāyāna scholar Guṇadāsa 功德施菩薩 (lifedates not preserved; per the commentary’s framing he is a bodhisattva — a Mahāyāna doctrinal-tradition author of the prajñāpāramitā commentarial corpus). Translated into Chinese by Divākara 地婆訶羅 (= Rìzhào 日照, 614 – 7 February 688 CE) and his translation team during his Cháng’ān imperial-translation-bureau activity. The commentary’s distinctive position — encapsulated in the title — is the Mādhyamika-Yogācāra synthesis: “breaking grasping-attachment without destroying conventional names” (pò qǔzhuó bùhuài jiǎmíng 破取著不壞假名), i.e., realizing that all phenomena are empty of essential nature (the Mādhyamika side) without therefore denying the conventional usefulness of names and concepts (the Yogācāra side). Preserved at T25 no. 1515.

Prefaces

The text opens with a verse-invocation:

稽首能悟真實法，離諸分別及戲論， 欲令世間出淤泥，無言說中言說者。 一切異道之所作，不能壞於諸想見， 彼難壞見金剛斷，故我歸心此法門。 諸句義中祕密義，世間智慧莫能測， 開喻我等及群生，彼菩薩眾今敬禮。

(Bowing-down to the awakener of the real Dharma / Apart from all discrimination and mental elaboration / Wishing to cause the world to emerge from the mud / The speaker among the speech-less. / What all the heretical paths have made / Cannot destroy the various views; / Those hard-to-destroy views — the Vajra cuts them — / Therefore I return my heart to this Dharma-gate. / Among the phrase-meanings, the secret meaning — / Worldly wisdom cannot fathom — / Opening the simile for us and the multitude beings — / To those bodhisattvas I now reverently salute.)

Then the prose-commentary opens:

The Buddha-spoken Dharma all returns to the two truths: first the conventional truth (sú-dì 俗諦); second the real truth (zhēn-dì 真諦). Of the conventional truth: it is said of the various ordinary persons, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and Tathāgatas — and even of name-meaning, knowing-realm, and the karmic-fruit relations. Of the real truth: it is said that even in this, there is altogether no obtaining. As is spoken of the first meaning: it is not what is traversed by knowing — how much less by writing? — and even up to “no karma, no karma-fruit”, these are the various sage-natures. Therefore in this Prajñāpāramitā it speaks of “non-residing giving”, “all dharmas are markless”, “cannot be grasped, cannot be spoken”, “the birth-dharma without self”, “no obtainment, no able-verifier, no completion, no coming, no going” — these explain the real truth. Again it speaks of “inner-and-outer, world-and-supramundane, all dharma-marks and the various merits” — these establish the conventional truth.

[The prose-commentary continues with sustained explication of the Vajracchedikā, applying the pò qǔzhuó bùhuài jiǎmíng doctrinal principle systematically.]

Abstract

Authorship and date: composed by the Indian bodhisattva-author Guṇadāsa 功德施菩薩 (date unknown but plausibly 5th–7th c. India); translated by Divākara 地婆訶羅 (DILA A001249; zì Rìzhào 日照; native of Central India 中天竺; 614 – 7 February 688 CE), one of the principal late-7th-century Indian translators in Tang China. Divākara arrived in Cháng’ān during the Yífèng 儀鳳 era (676–679) and translated 18 works in 34 juan during his Cháng’ān stay through his death in 688 CE.

The commentary’s substantive Mādhyamika–Yogācāra synthesis — articulated through the two truths (súdì / zhēndì) framework — is characteristic of the late-7th-century Indian Mahāyāna doctrinal-synthetic tradition, paralleling the work of figures like 安慧 Sthiramati (475–555), 護法 Dharmapāla (530–561), and 戒賢 Śīlabhadra (529–645). The commentary’s preservation in Chinese translation makes it a primary witness to this Indian doctrinal-synthetic tradition that was substantially lost from the Indian Sanskrit transmission.

The text is a commentary on KR6c0023 = Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra (the standard Chinese Diamond Sūtra).

Translations and research

  • Edward Conze, The Prajñāpāramitā Literature (Mouton, 1960; reprinted Mui Kowon, 1978) — comprehensive treatment of the Prajñāpāramitā commentarial tradition.
  • Yuichi Kajiyama 梶山雄一, scholarship on Indian Mādhyamika-Yogācāra commentarial tradition.
  • Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (Routledge, 1989; 2nd ed. 2009) — context for the Mādhyamika-Yogācāra synthesis.
  • Funayama Tōru 船山徹 on Tang-period Indian translator-monks.

Other points of interest

The “breaking grasping-attachment without destroying conventional names” doctrinal stance is one of the distinctive late-classical Indian Mahāyāna formulations and represents an important pre-Tantric Indian synthesis-Mahāyāna position. Its preservation in Chinese-canonical form — through Divākara’s late-7th-century translation — makes the work an irreplaceable Chinese-canonical witness to the late-classical Indian commentarial tradition.

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