Bōrě xīnjīng yōuzàn Kōngtóng jì 般若心經幽贊崆峒記
Kōngtóng Record on the Profound Eulogy on the Heart Sūtra compiled by 守千 (集)
About the work
A three-fascicle line-by-line subcommentary on Kuíjī’s Bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng yōuzàn 般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊 (T1710 = KR6c0137), composed in the early twelfth century by Shǒuqiān 守千 (1064–1127), the Northern Sòng / Jīn-transition Yogācāra master. Preserved in the Wàn xùzàng / Manji zoku-zō as X525.
The signature reads 「大宋真定府龍興寺比丘 守千 集」 — “Compiled by the bhikkhu Shǒuqiān of Lóngxīngsì in Zhēndìng prefecture of the Great Sòng” — placing the work at his original ordination monastery in Hébei (rather than the later residences of Xíngzhōu and Běnfǔ Kāiyuánsì). This may be the earlier of his two extant Kuíjī-related works, with the kēwén outline (X524 = KR6c0144) following from his developed mature scholarship.
The title — Kōngtóng jì “Kōngtóng Record” — is named after Mount Kōngtóng 崆峒, a famous range in Gānsù associated in literary tradition with the immortal residence of the Yellow Emperor’s teacher Guǎngchéngzǐ 廣成子 (per the Zhuāngzǐ “Zài yóu” chapter). The literary allusion frames the commentary as a “remote and lofty” recording of high doctrine, in the manner of Daoist mountain-records but applied to a Buddhist scholastic context. Three fascicles.
Prefaces
The text has no formal authorial preface; it opens directly with the line-by-line commentary on the Yōuzàn. The format is a strict zànzhù alternation: each phrase of Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn (introduced by 「贊曰…」 or 「疏…」 markers) is followed by Shǒuqiān’s gloss (introduced by 「注…」). The opening discussion expounds the Yōuzàn’s very first phrase 「為有情結習所蔽」 (“[ordinary beings] are obscured by accumulated habits”) and unpacks each technical term — yǒuqíng 有情 (sentient beings = sattva), jiéxí 結習 (“knot-habits”, glossed as both bandhana karmic bonds and bījavāsanā seeds), and bì 蔽 (obscuration). The “nine knot-habits” enumerated draw on the Cheng wei-shi lun 成唯識論 doctrine of the six basic kleśa-mūla plus the three additional knots (upādāna, jealousy īrṣyā, and avarice mātsarya) singled out in canonical Yogācāra literature for special treatment.
Abstract
X525 is the most substantial Sòng-period sub-commentary on Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn and a primary witness to the survival and elaboration of Tang Yogācāra-school exegesis in north China through the Northern Sòng / Jīn transition. Its scholarly importance lies in:
(i) Doctrinal continuity: Shǒuqiān’s commentary draws extensively on Kuíjī’s Cheng wei-shi lun commentaries, on Wǒnch’ǔk’s Saṃdhinirmocana commentary, and on the broader Wèishí school doctrinal apparatus. The jiéxí 結習 analysis cited above demonstrates direct dependence on T1830 (Kuíjī’s Cheng wei-shi lun shùjì).
(ii) Apparatus citations: Shǒuqiān often cites earlier kē 科 (structural outlines) under the formula 「舊科云…」 (“the old outline says…”), preserving fragments of pre-Sòng kēwén on Kuíjī now otherwise lost. These citations are valuable for reconstructing the lineage of Yogācāra-school scholarly apparatus.
(iii) Doctrinal elaboration: Where Kuíjī’s Yōuzàn is elliptical, Shǒuqiān supplies the doctrinal context — for example, on the dual reading of yǒu 有 / kōng 空 in the Heart Sūtra, he draws out the Yogācāra distinction between the yīyuán 依圓 (dependent and perfected) natures, both of which “have being” (有), and the biànjì 遍計 (imputed) nature, which is empty (空) — a fully Yogācāra-style reading that sharpens Kuíjī’s already-Yogācāra framing.
(iv) Northern Sòng Hébei Yogācāra: the work is one of the few witnesses to the Yogācāra-school institutional life that continued at Lóngxīngsì in Zhēndìng under the Sòng, in continuity with the Tang Cháng’ān Cí’ēn-school tradition. After the Jīn conquest of north China in 1127 (the year of Shǒuqiān’s death), this institutional life was disrupted; X525 is therefore one of the last products of the unbroken Tang–Sòng Cí’ēn lineage in north China.
Composition date: no internal dating. The bracket notBefore 1085 / notAfter 1127 is conservative; the work is likely from his middle scholarly period at Zhēndìng (before his moves to Xíngzhōu and Běnfǔ).
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- 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; treats the Sòng-Jīn-period continuation.
- Yu Chün-fang and Charles Muller (eds.), Hyon-Gak Sunim Jeon and related East Asian Yogācāra modern editions.
- Hè Bīng 賀冰 and other modern Chinese scholarship on the Hébei Buddhist institutions of the Sòng-Jīn transition.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨, Bukkyō kyōten seiritsu shi-ron 仏教経典成立史論 — fundamental for the canonical history.
- Tetsugen-school Japanese editions of the Wàn xùzàng materials.
Other points of interest
The pairing of X524 (the kēwén structural outline) and X525 (the line-by-line Kōngtóng jì) by the same hand demonstrates the Sòng scholastic apparatus in mature form: the structural diagram and the line commentary work together as paired study tools for the Tang doctrinal text. Such pairings are characteristic of Sòng Buddhist scholasticism and were emulated in Korean and Japanese traditions.
The Daoist literary allusion in the title (Kōngtóng jì) is unusual for a Buddhist scholastic work; it reflects the Northern Sòng cultural milieu in which Buddhist and Daoist literary registers freely intermingled, and signals that Shǒuqiān saw himself as preserving an authoritative high tradition in a “remote mountain” mode of textual conservation — a metaphor for the survival of Tang scholarship through troubled times.