Jīngāng jīng jiēshì 金剛經偈釋
Verse-Explanation of the Diamond Sūtra by 曾鳳儀 Zēng Fèngyí (釋)
About the work
A two-juan verse-explanation supplement to Zēng Fèngyí’s main Jīngāng zōngtōng commentary (KR6c0059). The opening attribution-line declares this text to be “Zōngtōng juan 8” (宗通卷八), confirming that the present 2 juan are not a separate work but the eighth and ninth fascicles of an originally nine-juan integrated commentary that the Xùzàngjīng editors split into two volume-numbers (X25 nos. 471 + 472). The matter of these juan is the systematic exposition of the eighty gāthā of Maitreya (彌勒菩薩八十行偈) — the Indian metrical Vajracchedikā vyākhyā preserved in two Chinese translations: Vasubandhu’s verses in 菩提流支 Bodhiruci’s translation (KR6c0032) and Asaṅga’s verses in 義淨 Yìjìng’s translation (KR6c0035). Zēng prints the parallel verses in tandem and supplies a shì 釋 (explanation) of each. Same dating window (1600 / 1620) as the parent commentary. Catalog dynasty 明.
Abstract
The work is a precious witness to the late-Míng systematic comparison of the two Indian metrical Vajracchedikā commentaries. Zēng prints, for each of the eighty Maitreya verses: (a) the Bodhiruci-Vasubandhu Chinese rendering as primary; (b) the Yìjìng-Asaṅga rendering as parallel; (c) his own jiēshì explication, drawing on the eighteen abodes (十八住) and twenty-seven doubts (二十七斷疑) frameworks already operative in the parent commentary. The opening verse-pair illustrates the format: Vasubandhu cǐ jīng wén jù yì cìdì, shì wú mínghuì bù néng jiě 此經文句義次第，世無明慧不能解 — “the textual phrases, meaning, and order of this sūtra, those without illuminated wisdom in the world cannot understand”; matched against Asaṅga fǎmén jù yì jí cìdì, shìjiān bù jiě lí mínghuì 法門句義及次第，世間不解離明慧 — “the dharma-gate phrases, meaning, and order — the world fails to understand them through lacking illuminated wisdom.” The minor lexical differences between the two translations (and the question of whether they are renderings of the same Sanskrit verse from different lineages, or of two distinct verse-cycles) is one of the live problems of Vajracchedikā commentarial philology, and Zēng’s parallel-printing may be the first systematic Chinese editorial attempt at it.
Translations and research
- For modern Sanskrit-side scholarship on the Vasubandhu / Asaṅga Vajracchedikā commentaries see Giuseppe Tucci, Minor Buddhist Texts I (Rome, IsMEO, 1956); Edward Conze, Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā (SOR, 1957); Paul Harrison’s collected Vajracchedikā studies; Gregory Schopen’s papers.
- The Chinese double-translation tradition is treated in Stefano Zacchetti’s Vajracchedikā essays.
Other points of interest
That this volume is internally numbered as juan 8 of the Zōngtōng — and the colophon of the second of these two juan should accordingly read Zōngtōng juan 9 — indicates the Xùzàngjīng editorial decision to give the verse-explanation block a separate Taishō-style number was not based on the work’s own organization. Cataloging conventions ought ideally to treat KR6c0059 + KR6c0060 as a single nine-juan work.