聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

妙法蓮華經文句

6 min read

Text ID
KR6d0014
Date
587–587
Dynasty
隋

Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng wénjù 妙法蓮華經文句

Phrase-by-Phrase Commentary on the Lotus Sūtra spoken by 智顗 (Zhìyǐ / Tiāntái dàshī, 說); recorded by 灌頂 (Guàndǐng).

About the work

The principal Tiāntái 天台 phrase-by-phrase commentary on the Lotus Sūtra, in ten juan (subdivided in the Taishō into twenty fascicles, each juan in 上 / 下 halves), based on lectures delivered by Zhìyǐ 智顗 (538–597) at Jīnlíng 金陵 (Jiànkāng) in Kāihuáng 開皇 7 (= 587 CE) and recorded by his disciple Guàndǐng 灌頂 (561–632). With its companion the Fǎhuá xuányì (KR6d0006, T1716) and the Móhē zhǐguān (T1911), this work constitutes one of the Tiāntái sāndàbù 天台三大部, the three foundational treatises of the Tiāntái school. Where the Xuányì provides the systematic doctrinal exposition of the Lotus, the Wénjù provides the running commentary on the sūtra-text itself.

Prefaces

The text opens with the Preface to the Tiāntái Lotus Subcommentary (《天台法華疏序》) by 神逈 Shénjiǒng of Jìngzhōng (鏡中沙門), an important narrative document of the Wénjù’s textual history. Shénjiǒng writes: “[Zhìyǐ] in former times in the presence of the Tathāgata personally heard this scripture, his stage placed at the wǔpǐn [the fifth of the six identities of Tiāntái doctrine]. His voice resounded across two dynasties; not having frequented lecture-halls, he hung-suspended-and-understood the Buddha-vehicle. By dhāraṇī-power his joy in expounding was inexhaustible. He once expounded the Renwang prajñā in the Great Ultimate Hall before Chén the Sovereign; the carriages-of-the-myriad bent the knee, the hundred officials snapped their fingers.”

Shénjiǒng then narrates the textual recovery a century after Zhìyǐ’s death: “After his extinction, more than one hundred years later, in the Tiānbǎo era of the Táng, the wùzǐ year [= 748], there was the 朗 Lǎng master of the Qīngtàisì 清泰寺 in Dōngyángjùn 東陽郡 — long-life-eyebrow of the Dharma-gate, foot-and-eye of the cool pool, urgent in both vehicle and precepts, encompassing inner and outer — who took the Pūrṇa treasure-vessel and sat in the empty-birth stone-chamber. In the course of his lectures he silently sighed: ‘Examining its meaning and intent, it is profoundly congruent with the Buddha-vehicle; tracing its textual movement, there are sometimes places where it is not in order. Sometimes the prose continues but the meaning is broken; sometimes the prose is later but the meaning earlier; sometimes the prose-passage opens its chapter in front, sometimes it states its meaning straight from behind; sometimes the verses cite the number first, sometimes afterwards do not place its name in order. Yet the holy intent is hard to fathom; we can only look up and trust.‘”

Abstract

The Wénjù is a continuous, line-by-line exegesis of Kumārajīva’s translation of the Lotus Sūtra (KR6d0001, T262), proceeding pericope by pericope through all twenty-eight chapters. Its distinctive contribution is the deployment of the Tiāntái sìzhǒng shì 四種釋 (“four kinds of explanation”) for each significant passage: (1) yīnyuán shì 因緣釋 (causes-and-conditions explanation: the historical/narrative occasion); (2) yuējiào shì 約教釋 (with-respect-to-doctrinal-classification explanation: the relation to the four huàfǎ doctrinal categories zàng 藏 / tōng 通 / bié 別 / yuán 圓); (3) běnjì shì 本跡釋 (origin-and-trace explanation: the relation to the bipartite division of the Lotus Sūtra); and (4) guānxīn shì 觀心釋 (contemplating-the-mind explanation: the meditative-existential application).

This four-fold exegetical framework became the standard Tiāntái hermeneutic apparatus and is the model for all subsequent Tiāntái commentary on Mahāyāna sūtras. Zhìyǐ’s Wénjù applies this four-fold method to virtually every doctrinally significant phrase in the Lotus, producing the most extensive and detailed phrase-by-phrase commentary in the pre-modern Chinese Buddhist tradition.

The Wénjù was preserved in a relatively poor textual condition for the century after Zhìyǐ’s death — Shénjiǒng’s preface complains of textual disorder and missing material — and was systematically restored by Lǎng of Qīngtàisì in 748 and subsequently by Zhànrán 湛然 (711–782) in his Fǎhuá wénjù jì 法華文句記 (T1719), which became the standard subcommentary. The Sòng Tiāntái revival under Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 produced further textual emendations, but the present Taishō recension preserves substantially the eighth-century Tiāntái text-form.

The Wénjù’s authorial complexity — the layered contribution of Zhìyǐ’s original lectures, Guàndǐng’s transcription, Lǎng’s restoration, and Zhànrán’s redaction — has been one of the major topics of modern critical Tiāntái scholarship; see Hirai (1985) for the standard monographic treatment.

Translations and research

  • Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Hokke monku no seiritsu ni kansuru kenkyū 法華文句の成立に関する研究. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1985. (The standard monographic study of the Wén-jù’s textual history.)
  • Hurvitz, Leon. Chih-i (538–597): An Introduction to the Life and Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk. Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 12. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1962. (Background on Zhìyǐ’s biography and lectures.)
  • Penkower, Linda L. “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1993.
  • Penkower, Linda L. “In the Beginning … Guàndǐng 灌頂 (561–632) and the Creation of Early Tiāntái.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.2 (2000): 245–296.
  • Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku — kompon shisō to sono tenkai 天台学：根本思想とその展開. Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1968.
  • Tamura Yoshirō 田村芳朗 and Umehara Takeshi 梅原猛. Hokke shisō 法華思想. Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1969.
  • Sekiguchi Shindai 関口真大. Tendai shōshikan no kenkyū 天台小止観の研究. Tokyo: Sankibō Busshorin, 1954.
  • Stevenson, Daniel B., and Kanno Hiroshi. The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss: An Annotated Translation and Study of Nanyue Huisi’s (515–577) Fahua jing anlexing yi. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2006. (Background on the pre-Tiāntái Lotus tradition.)
  • Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory, 45–97. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986.

Other points of interest

The Wénjù is, with the Xuányì and the Móhē zhǐguān, the textual foundation of all subsequent East-Asian Tiāntái / Tendai 天台 / Cheontae 천태 doctrine; it was carried to Japan by Saichō 最澄 (767–822) at the founding of the Hieizan 比叡山 establishment in 805 and remained the central text of Tendai monastic education throughout the medieval period. The four-fold guānxīn shì hermeneutic was particularly important in Japanese Tendai hongaku 本覺 (“original-enlightenment”) thought and indirectly shaped the doctrinal framework of subsequent Japanese Mahāyāna schools, including Pure Land and Nichiren.

Graph View

Backlinks