Jīngāng bānruò bōluómì jīng (yùzhù bìng xù) 金剛般若波羅蜜經（御注並序）
The Diamond Sūtra: Imperial Annotation and Preface by 李隆基 Lǐ Lóngjī (注)
About the work
A one-juan mid-Táng (Kāiyuán / Tiānbǎo-era) imperially-authored Vajracchedikā annotation by Emperor Xuánzōng of Táng (Lǐ Lóngjī 李隆基, r. 712–756). The third member of the emperor’s famous Three-Teachings imperial-annotation series — the Yùzhù Xiàojīng 御注孝經 (Confucian, original 730 / revised 745), the Yùzhù Dàodéjīng 御注道德經 (Daoist, c. 735), and the present Yùzhù Jīngāngjīng (Buddhist) — through which the emperor positioned himself as the personal canonical commentator of the three jiāo. Preserved uniquely in the Fángshān stone-scriptures 房山石經 (F03 no. 100) — i.e., the famous Liáo-Jīn / Sòng-period Yōuzhōu (Beijing area) stone-engraved canon — rather than the standard Tripiṭaka editions, suggesting limited transmission of the imperial commentary in mainstream monastic circulation. notBefore set to 735 (after the Xiàojīng yùzhù and presumably after the Dàodéjīng yùzhù, both of which the preface mentions); notAfter = 755 (the An Lùshān rebellion and effective end of Xuánzōng’s productive reign). Catalog dynasty 唐.
Abstract
The imperial preface (御注序) is one of the most important Táng documents on imperial Buddhist patronage and the sānjiào program. Xuánzōng opens with the modest formula zhèn chéng guǎbáo, qǐ yí kōng wéi hàogǔ 朕誠寡薄豈冝空為好古 (“I am truly meager and shallow — how should I idly indulge in archaism?”); then announces the program: he had previously composed the Xiàojīng annotation (xī suì shù Xiàojīng 昔歲述孝經) “as the head of the hundred conducts,” and the Dàodéjīng annotation (“recently again I have praised Dàodé”); these are the two scriptures by which the cosmos is governed and which therefore cannot be lacking (理天下之二經故不可闕也). Now he adds the Vajracchedikā annotation in response to lái qǐng (a request from below). The doctrinal frame is consistent sānjiào harmonism: tóng hū dàtōng zhě, suī fēnmén ér yīzhì; gōng hū yìduān zhě, jiāng yìxìng yú duōfāng 同乎大通者，雖分門而一致；攻乎異端者，將易性於多方 (“those at home in the great communicating principle, though divided into separate gates, are at one; those who attack as heterodox will alter their nature toward many directions”). The Vajracchedikā is read as the canonical Buddhist articulation of fā pútí qù yú zhōngdào, xí wúlòu míng wéi rùliú 發菩提者趣於中道，習無漏者名為入流 (“those who give rise to bodhi tend toward the middle path, those who practice the outflow-less are named stream-enterers”). The body interleaves the 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva Vajracchedikā with brief annotation lines, often as little as one phrase per sūtra-passage — showing the emperor’s annotation as a programmatic-symbolic act rather than a substantive scholastic exposition. The opening title-line gloss is striking: kě yǐ chēng cháng 可以稱常 (“[the Vajracchedikā] can be called the constant”).
Translations and research
- For Xuánzōng’s sānjiào imperial-annotation program in its Kāiyuán / Tiānbǎo political context see modern surveys of Táng imperial Buddhism, esp. Antonino Forte’s studies and the comprehensive treatment in Jinhua Chen’s writings on Táng court Buddhism.
- For the Fángshān stone-scriptures preservation context see Lewis Lancaster and the modern scholarship on the Yōuzhōu / Liáo-Jīn stone-canon project.
Other points of interest
The preservation in the Fángshān stone-canon rather than in the standard Tripiṭaka editions is a unique transmission profile: the imperial annotation may have been deemed politically too sensitive for ordinary canonical circulation after the Táng dynasty fell, but was preserved as imperial-precedent in the Liáo-Jīn northern stone-canon project. The other two members of Xuánzōng’s sānjiào trilogy — the Xiàojīng yùzhù and the Dàodéjīng yùzhù — fared differently: the first became canonical for the Confucian classic, the second survives in fragments. The Jīngāngjīng annotation occupies the most marginal transmission of the three but is doctrinally and politically of comparable significance.