Xiézhù bōluómìduō xīn jīng 挾註波羅蜜多心經
Inserted-Annotation Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra (anonymous; Dūnhuáng manuscript)
About the work
A one-fascicle anonymous Tang-era Heart Sūtra commentary preserved among the Dūnhuáng manuscripts and admitted into the Taishō canon as T2747 (Vol. 85). Companion in genre to T2746 (KR6c0197) — both are Dūnhuáng-only commentaries on the Xuánzàng short-recension Heart Sūtra. The Taishō head-note “[cf. No. 251]” confirms the parent text. One fascicle, anonymous.
The genre marker — xiézhù “inserted annotation” — is a distinctive presentation format in which the sūtra text is preserved intact with the commentary inserted in small parenthetical glosses between the words of the lemma. This is the same format used by the late-Wànlì jūshì commentator 謝觀光 Xiè Guānguāng (KR6c0159, X540), but here in a Tang manuscript form predating Xiè by nearly 800 years.
Prefaces
The witness has substantial damage (extensive □ markers in the digital text indicating Dūnhuáng-manuscript lacunae) but the xiézhù format is clearly preserved. The first lines exemplify the method:
- 「般若波羅蜜多心經(般若波羅□□□□□□□□□之一字此經□□□□□□□□佛同斯)」 — sūtra title followed by interlinear commentary in parentheses.
- 「觀自在菩薩(觀自□□□□□□□□□□□□縱者□□□□□□□□□□□□眾生所謂持誦講終行之人也)」 — Avalokiteśvara phrase with interlinear commentary noting “the persons who recite, lecture, and complete-perform the practice”.
- 「行深般若波羅蜜多時(□□□□□□□□□□者佛惠也波羅蜜多者到彼岸□□□□□□□□□自凡夫終於聖果以正惠力破邪□□□□□□□□)」 — practising deeply the Prajñāpāramitā phrase with interlinear definitions.
The commentary continues phrase-by-phrase through the entire Heart Sūtra in this xiézhù format, giving brief lexical-doctrinal glosses at each lemma.
Abstract
T2747 is a Dūnhuáng-only Heart Sūtra commentary in the xiézhù (inserted-annotation) format — an unusual presentation that preserves the entire sūtra text within the commentarial structure. The format is pedagogically attractive: the reader has the canonical sūtra text continuously visible, with the commentary integrated as parenthetical insertions.
Doctrinally the commentary appears moderate — broadly in line with the Tang YogācāraCí’ēn-school readings (the zhènghuì / zhèngbùxié polarity) but without the elaborate scholastic apparatus of 窺基 Kuíjī’s T1710 or 圓測 Wǒnch’ǔk’s T1711. The work is short and accessible, plausibly intended for popular Buddhist study at Dūnhuáng or in the broader northwestern frontier region.
The substantial textual damage (many lacunae in the surviving manuscript) limits detailed doctrinal reconstruction. What survives shows: (i) careful Sanskrit-Chinese terminology glossing; (ii) brief Cí’ēn-school doctrinal frame; (iii) the néngsuǒ (subject-object) and zhēnsú (true-conventional) standard analytics; and (iv) accessible Chinese Buddhist exegetical style.
For the wider history of Heart Sūtra commentary, T2747 is significant as: (i) one of the earliest extant examples of the xiézhù (inserted-annotation) format applied to the Heart Sūtra; (ii) a documentation of the popular Tang Heart Sūtra reception at Dūnhuáng; and (iii) part of the small but historically valuable cluster of Dūnhuáng-only Heart Sūtra commentary witnesses (T2746 + T2747).
Composition date: no internal dating; provenance is the Dūnhuáng caves. The bracket notBefore 700 / notAfter 900 is conservative; the work most likely belongs to the 8th or 9th century.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located of T2747 specifically.
- See the references for KR6c0197 (the companion T2746).
- For Dūnhuáng Heart Sūtra commentary materials, Ueyama Daishun, Tonkō Bukkyō no kenkyū (1990).
- For the xié-zhù presentation format, see modern textual studies of Tang interlinear commentary genres.
Other points of interest
The xiézhù presentation format — sūtra text with parenthetical commentary insertions — anticipates by many centuries the much later use of the same format by the late-Wànlì jūshì commentator 謝觀光 Xiè Guānguāng (KR6c0159 / X540, 1587). The Tang format and the Míng format are functionally similar even if no direct lineage is documented; both prioritise the preservation of the canonical text within the commentarial structure.
The format would have been particularly useful in the Dūnhuáng monastic study context, where the limited availability of separate canonical texts and commentary copies meant that integrated witnesses could be doubly useful as both Hṛdaya devotional text and study aid. T2747 is a primary documentation of how Tang Buddhist study materials were practically used at the frontier monastic centre.
Links
- CBETA online
- IDP: search for parallel Heart Sūtra xiézhù manuscripts in the Stein/Pelliot Dūnhuáng collections.
- Kanseki DB