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般若波羅蜜多心經略疏

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Text ID
KR6c0139
Date
670–712
Dynasty
唐

Bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng lüèshū 般若波羅蜜多心經略疏

Brief Subcommentary on the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra by 法藏 (述)

About the work

A one-fascicle Huáyán 華嚴-school commentary on the Heart Sūtra (Xuánzàng’s short-recension version, T251 = KR6c0128), composed by Fǎzàng 法藏 (643–712), the third patriarch and principal doctrinal systematiser of the Huáyán school. The Taishō head-note 「[cf. No. 251]」 explicitly cross-references the parent sūtra. Signature: 「唐翻經沙門法藏述」 — “expounded by the śramaṇa and translation-bureau monk Fǎzàng of the Tang”. The title carries the parenthetical “(并序)” — “with preface” — referring to Fǎzàng’s own discursive preface that opens the work. One fascicle.

The commentary employs the classic Huáyán wǔ mén 五門 (five-gate) exegetical scheme: (1) jiào xīng 教興 — the rising of the teaching; (2) zàng shè 藏攝 — the canonical-classification placement; (3) zōng qù 宗趣 — the essential thesis and its directional aim; (4) shì tí 釋題 — the title gloss; (5) jiě wén 解文 — the line-by-line explication. This is Fǎzàng’s standard scholastic apparatus, paralleled in his Huáyán Wǔjiào zhāng 五教章 and his other commentaries.

Prefaces

The opening preface (“夫以…”) is a virtuoso piece of parallel-prose Buddhist literary exposition. It develops a chiastic figure on the relations of the True (真) and the Conventional (俗), of Emptiness (空) and Existence (有): “the True Source’s plain pattern is silent and remote, isolated from the rope-and-trap of words; the Mysterious Course of Wondrous Awakening is profound and abstruse, beyond image and sign. Yet the True and the Conventional are doubly extinguished, while the Two Truths constantly persist; Emptiness and Existence are both lost, while the One Taste constantly manifests. This is because the True Emptiness was never not Existence — it is precisely through Existence that Emptiness is discerned; and Phantom Existence was never not Empty — it is precisely through Emptiness that Existence is illuminated. Existence is Existent because it is Empty, and so is not Existent; Emptiness is Empty because it is Existent, and so is not Empty…“. This four-fold elaboration of the Madhyamaka tetralemma serves Fǎzàng’s announcement that all four extreme positions and the hundred negations are removed, leaving only the xuányí 玄旨 (profound purport) of Prajñā itself.

He then uses the famous metaphor: were the Prajñāpāramitā literature to be set out exhaustively, it would exceed two hundred thousand stanzas; condensed to its essence, it fits in fourteen lines (= the Heart Sūtra). The Heart Sūtra is therefore “the high torch that illuminates the murky path, the swift vessel that ferries across the bitter sea”.

Abstract

Fǎzàng’s Lüèshū is the foundational Huáyán reading of the Heart Sūtra and one of the three great Tang scholastic commentaries on the text (alongside Kuíjī’s T1710 and Wǒnch’ǔk’s T1711, KR6c0137 and KR6c0138). Doctrinally it integrates the Hṛdaya into the Huáyán synthesis of kōng yǒu wú ài 空有無礙 (the unobstructed interpenetration of emptiness and existence): the Heart Sūtra’s negations are not understood as Madhyamaka denials but as expressions of the zhēnkōng miàoyǒu 真空妙有 (true-emptiness-wondrous-existence) doctrine that became the signature Huáyán formula. The five-gate frame and the placement of the sūtra in the quánshí 權實 (provisional-real) schema as shíjiào 實教 (real teaching) reflect the Huáyán wǔjiào 五教 (five-teachings) doxography Fǎzàng systematised in his other works.

The zōng qù analysis is exegetically interesting: Fǎzàng identifies three modes of Prajñā — shíxiàng 實相 (the contemplated true nature), guānzhào 觀照 (the contemplating wondrous wisdom), and wénzì 文字 (the textual teaching itself) — and uses these as the basis for three “stem-and-direction” pairings: teaching-and-meaning, object-and-wisdom, cause-and-fruit. This three-way Prajñā analysis becomes a standard frame for subsequent East Asian Heart Sūtra commentary.

Composition date: no internal dating. Fǎzàng was active from his ordination in the late 660s until his death in 712; the Lüèshū belongs to his mature commentarial period, almost certainly the 690s–700s, when he was producing his major Huáyán scholastic works under Empress Wǔ’s patronage. The bracket notBefore 670 / notAfter 712 is conservative.

The text was widely transmitted in East Asia and is preserved in both Chinese and Japanese print traditions; the Taishō witness uses the 大 base edition and the 甲 (Japanese MS) collation siglum, suggesting Japanese Hossō or Kegon manuscript tradition is also represented in the apparatus.

Translations and research

  • Robert M. Gimello, “Chih-yen and the Foundations of Huayen Buddhism” (Columbia dissertation, 1976) and subsequent essays — fundamental on Fǎzàng’s intellectual context.
  • Frédéric Girard, Un moine de la secte Kegon à l’époque de Kamakura, Myōe (1173–1232) et le Journal de ses rêves — peripheral reference for the Japanese Kegon transmission of Fǎzàng’s works.
  • Imre Hamar, ed., Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007) — collected essays on Huáyán doctrinal history; multiple chapters address Fǎzàng’s commentaries.
  • Wing-cheuk Chan, “Fazang on the Heart Sūtra,” various journal articles — focused doctrinal analysis.
  • Chen Jinhua 陳金華, Philosopher, Practitioner, Politician: The Many Lives of Fazang (643–712) (Leiden: Brill, 2007) — the most thorough modern monograph on Fǎzàng; provides full intellectual and political context for the Heart Sūtra commentary.
  • Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China — peripheral reference for the later Chan-style readings of the Huáyán Heart Sūtra.

Other points of interest

The opening parallel-prose preface is one of the most polished pieces of Tang Buddhist literary writing in this genre. The zhēnkōng miàoyǒu 真空妙有 reading articulated here was extraordinarily influential: it underlies most subsequent East Asian Buddhist readings of the Heart Sūtra outside the strict Yogācāra (Cí’ēn / Xīmíng) lineages, and is the doctrinal frame within which the Heart Sūtra was incorporated into Chan, Tiāntái, and Pure Land devotional traditions through the late Tang and Sòng. The Lüèshū is the most quoted Heart Sūtra commentary in subsequent East Asian Buddhist exegetical literature.

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