Jīngāng bānruò jīng shū 金剛般若經疏 (T85 no. 2741)
Diamond Prajñā Sūtra Commentary [anonymous]
About the work
An anonymous one-juan Vajracchedikā commentary recovered from the Dūnhuáng cache and preserved as T85 no. 2741. Authorship not preserved. The surviving fragment shows a doctrinally sophisticated commentary in the YogācāraMādhyamika synthesis mode characteristic of late-Táng Chángān monastic scholasticism. notBefore / notAfter = 600–900. Catalog dynasty 唐.
Abstract
The surviving fragment opens mid-sentence in a discussion of the three categorical distinctions of the school’s tendency (三種究竟) and the ultimate-one-real-middle-path (究竟一實中道). The commentator engages closely with the Sandhinirmocana-sūtra tradition (依深密 — Saṃdhinirmocana) on the resolution of empty-teaching (空教): the Buddha himself “in the Sandhinirmocana clarifies the empty-teachings as relying only on the imagined (biànjì 遍計) to teach the emptiness of all dharmas, [thus] avoiding the criticism of the marks-breaking school (破相宗).” This is a sophisticated late-Táng xìngxiàng zhēng (nature-versus-mark school polemic) intervention, situating the Vajracchedikā’s negations within the Saṃdhinirmocana-style three-natures schema. The work testifies to the high level of Yogācāra-Mādhyamika doctrinal integration in late-Táng Dūnhuáng monastic exegesis.
Translations and research
- See KR6c0107 for general references on Dūnhuáng Vajracchedikā commentary scholarship.
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: anonymous
- Genre: Dūnhuáng-recovered fragment, late-Táng YogācāraMādhyamika synthesis
- Companion anonymous Dūnhuáng commentaries: KR6c0109–KR6c0112, KR6c0114
- Commented text: KR6c0023
- Kanseki DB