Jīngāng jīng zhù 金剛經註
Annotated Diamond Sūtra attributed to 僧肇 (Sēngzhào, 注)
About the work
A single-juan brief Diamond Sūtra commentary attributed to Sēngzhào 僧肇 (384–414?), the principal disciple of 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (344–413) and one of the founding figures of Chinese Mahāyāna scholarship. The Sēngzhào attribution is disputed by modern scholars — many regard the work as pseudepigraphic, attached to Sēngzhào’s name to lend authority — but the work has been transmitted under his name in the Buddhist canon. Preserved in the Wànzì xùzàngjīng at X24 no. 454. notBefore = 384 (Sēngzhào’s lifetime, accepting the conventional attribution); notAfter = 414 (Sēngzhào’s death).
Abstract
Sēngzhào 僧肇 (384–414?) was the principal Yáo-Qín-period exegetical genius of Kumārajīva’s translation team — author of the Zhào lùn 肇論 (T1858), the foundational philosophical synthesis of early Chinese Mahāyāna prajñā doctrine. The present Diamond Sūtra annotation, if authentic, would be one of the earliest substantial Chinese commentaries on the Vajracchedikā; if pseudepigraphic (the more likely modern scholarly view), it preserves an early Chinese commentarial tradition under the standard Sēngzhào honorific.