Bōrě xīnjīng yōuzàn tiāngǎi kē 般若心經幽贊添改科
Revised Structural Outline of the Profound Eulogy on the Heart Sūtra revised by 守千 (添改)
About the work
A one-fascicle scholastic kēwén 科文 — a tabular hierarchical structural outline — of Kuíjī’s Bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng yōuzàn 般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊 (T1710 = KR6c0137), revised and supplemented by the Northern Sòng / Jīn-transition Yogācāra master Shǒuqiān 守千 (1064–1127). Preserved in the Wàn xùzàng / Manji zoku-zō as X524.
The signature is collaborative: 「京齊等諸大法師先製 滹陽比丘守千 添改」 — “Originally compiled by the eminent dharma-masters of the [Tang] capital, of Qí, and others; revised and added to by the bhikṣu Shǒuqiān of Húyáng”. This indicates that Shǒuqiān is editing a pre-existing Tang or Liáo kēwén of Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn, “adding” (添 tiān) new structural distinctions and “revising” (改 gǎi) the layout — rather than producing an outline de novo.
The text is laid out as a tree of hierarchical bullet points. Each level of the tree presents a section of Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn and identifies the opening characters of that section in parenthesis (e.g. (般), (京), (贊), (信), (於), (設), (懼), (雖), etc.). The opening characters function as “tags” to anchor the outline against the running text of T1710. Reading the kēwén in parallel with Kuíjī’s commentary allows the student to see the doctrinal structure of the Yōuzàn at a glance.
Prefaces
The work has no preface — it is a pure structural-outline document. The opening node “釋此疏文分(二)” — “the explication of this commentary’s text divides into two” — sets the binary first-level division: (i) explanation of title (解釋題名) and (ii) explanation of body text (解釋疏文). Each subsequent level uses the standard scholastic marker fēnèr / fēnsān / fēnsì to indicate sub-bifurcations or sub-trifurcations.
Abstract
X524 is a primary witness to the Sòng-Jīn-period scholastic apparatus that surrounded the Tang-period Yogācāra commentaries. Kēwén genre — exegetical structural outlines — was systematically developed under the Tiāntái school and reached scholastic maturity in the Northern Sòng, when virtually every major sūtra commentary acquired one or more parallel kēwén documents. Shǒuqiān’s text shows this apparatus extended to the Tang Yogācāra tradition: Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn (composed c. 670s in Cháng’ān) was being studied in early-twelfth-century north China through tabular structural outlines that allowed the doctrinal architecture of the Yōuzàn to be quickly grasped and committed to memory.
The reference to “the eminent masters of Cháng’ān, Qí, and others” preceding Shǒuqiān is a key piece of evidence for the continuous transmission of Kuíjī’s tradition through the Tang–Liáo–Sòng transitions in north China. While the specific original kēwén on which Shǒuqiān worked is unknown, his use of standard Yogācāra-school structural categories (the jiàoyìngjiè 教應界 frame, the zhèngzōng / xù / liútōng analysis, etc.) confirms the integrity of the transmission.
Composition date: no internal dating. Shǒuqiān’s working career is bounded by his Yuányòu (1086–1094) honorific and his death in 1127. The bracket notBefore 1085 / notAfter 1127 is conservative; the work is likely from his mature scholastic period in the early twelfth century.
The text was unknown to the printed SòngYuán canons proper and survives only through the Japanese Wàn xùzàng tradition.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located — the genre of kēwén outlines does not lend itself to translation as such.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisō no kenkyū 中国唯識思想の研究 (Tōkyō: Daizō shuppan, 2012) — modern study of Chinese Yogācāra including the Sòng-Jīn-period scholastic continuation.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨, Bukkyō kyōten seiritsu shi-ron 仏教経典成立史論 — Japanese-language fundamental study of the canonical history.
- Modern Chinese scholarship on Sòng Yogācāra: studies on the 真定 Lóngxīngsì 龍興寺 lineage and the survival of Tang scholastic traditions in Hébei through the Northern Sòng.
- Tetsugen Dōkō 鉄眼道光, modern editions of the kēwén genre in Japanese Buddhist scholarship.
Other points of interest
The kēwén genre is one of the most distinctive features of East Asian Buddhist scholarly culture, with no precise parallel in Indian or Tibetan exegetical traditions. Shǒuqiān’s outline of Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn is a representative late-stage example: by the early twelfth century, the structural analysis of canonical commentaries had become a separate sub-genre with its own conventions, and major Tang commentaries circulated in the company of multiple kēwén outlines, each potentially highlighting different structural readings.
The opening-character tagging system (parenthesised single characters indicating where each section of the parent text begins) is a standard kēwén convention, and effectively indexes the outline against the running text of the Yōuzàn. This makes X524 not just a structural diagram but a usable navigational aid for reading T1710.