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仁王般若經疏

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Text ID
KR6c0206
Date
590–623
Dynasty
隋

Rénwáng bōrě jīng shū 仁王般若經疏

Subcommentary on the Sūtra of the Humane King’s Perfection of Wisdom by 吉藏 Jízàng (撰, sobriquet Jiāxiáng dàshī 嘉祥大師)

About the work

A three-fascicle late-Suí Madhyamaka-school subcommentary on the Rénwáng jīng (KR6c0202 = T245), composed by Jiāxiáng 吉藏 Jízàng (549–623), the founding systematiser of the Chinese Sānlùn 三論 (Three Treatises) school of Madhyamaka. Preserved in the Taishō as T1707. Three fascicles.

The work is one of Jízàng’s substantial doctrinal commentaries on the canonical Mahāyāna sūtras, paralleling his major works on the Lotus, the Mahāparinirvāṇa, the Vimalakīrti, the Mahā-prajñāpāramitā, and the three foundational Madhyamaka treatises (Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā, Catuḥśataka-śāstra, Dvādaśadvāra-śāstra).

Prefaces

The Taishō witness opens with the standard Sānlùn doctrinal apparatus: the èrdì (two-truths) frame, the sìjù bǎifēi (four-statement-hundred-negation) tetralemma analytics, and the sìfù sānzhōng (four-pairs-three-middle) Madhyamaka-school doctrinal categories. The body of the commentary then proceeds line-by-line through the Rénwáng jīng in this Madhyamaka-Sānlùn doctrinal register.

Abstract

T1707 is the principal Sānlùn-school commentary on the Rénwáng-jīng and one of the primary doctrinal alternatives to the contemporary Tiāntái-school reading by Zhìyǐ-and-Guàndǐng (T1705 = KR6c0204). Doctrinally Jízàng reads the sūtra through the Sānlùn Madhyamaka frame, with characteristic emphasis on: (i) the èrdì (two-truths) hermeneutic; (ii) the bā bù (eight non-) Nāgārjuna-style negation analytic; and (iii) the xuánzhǐ (mystical-purport) doctrine that Prajñā is precisely the non-graspable essence.

The doctrinal contrast with the Tiāntái reading (T1705) is significant: where Zhìyǐ integrates the Rénwáng jīng into the yuánróng sāndì (interfusing three truths) Tiāntái synthesis, Jízàng preserves the èrdì (two-truths) Madhyamaka analytics with characteristic Sānlùn-school sharpness. The two commentaries together (T1705 + T1707) provide the canonical Suí-period doctrinal range for Rénwáng-jīng exegesis.

For the wider history of East Asian Buddhism, T1707 is significant as: (i) one of Jízàng’s substantial Mahāyāna-sūtra commentaries; (ii) a primary witness to the Sānlùn-school’s engagement with state-Buddhist scriptures; and (iii) a doctrinal alternative to the Tiāntái-school Rénwáng-jīng reading.

Composition date: no internal dating. Jízàng’s mature commentarial career runs from the late 580s through to his death in 623. The bracket notBefore 590 / notAfter 623 is conservative.

Translations and research

  • No substantial Western-language translation located of T1707 specifically.
  • For Jízàng and the Sānlùn school, see Aaron K. Koseki, “Chi-tsang’s Ta-ch’eng-hsüan-lun: The Two Truths and the Buddha-Nature” (PhD diss., U Wisconsin, 1977); Hsueh-li Cheng, Empty Logic: Mādhyamika Buddhism from Chinese Sources (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991).
  • For the Rénwáng-jīng tradition, Charles D. Orzech, Politics and Transcendent Wisdom (1998).
  • Modern Chinese-language scholarship: 印順《中觀今論》 and other works on the Sānlùn tradition.

Other points of interest

The Sānlùn-school’s distinctive èrdì analytics, articulated in T1707 and other Jízàng commentaries, became the basis for the Korean and Japanese reception of Madhyamaka thought and subsequently shaped the Korean Jung-gwan-jong (中觀宗) and the Japanese Sanron-shū (三論宗). T1707 is one of the documents through which the Sānlùn-Madhyamaka tradition entered the broader East Asian Mahāyāna doctrinal landscape.

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