聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

法華義疏

5 min read

Text ID
KR6d0024
Date
597–623
Dynasty
隋

Fǎhuá yìshū 法華義疏

Doctrinal Subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra by 吉藏 (Jízàng / Jiāxiáng dàshī, 撰)

About the work

A twelve-juan line-by-line commentary on Kumārajīva’s translation of the Lotus Sūtra (KR6d0001, T262), composed by Jízàng 吉藏 (549–623), the principal Suí Sānlùn 三論 master. Together with his Fǎhuá xuánlùn (KR6d0023, T1720) and the Fǎhuá yóuyì (KR6d0025, T1722), the Yìshū completes Jízàng’s three-part Lotus Sūtra apparatus. Among the three, the Yìshū is the longest and most detailed; it provides the running phrase-by-phrase exposition that the Xuánlùn (which is structured around topical doctrinal points rather than text-following commentary) does not.

Prefaces

The text in the Taishō recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work opens with Jízàng’s structural framing of the work: “Before entering the text, I will first elucidate three matters: 1, the differences in the bù 部 (part) and lèi 類 (class); 2, the differences in chapter sequence; 3, the divisions in scriptural section-analysis.” Jízàng then proceeds to lay out a sevenfold typology of sūtra-text formats (single-assembly works, multi-assembly works, opening-section works, complete-two-section works, abridged works, expanded works, and single-chapter works), placing the Lotus in the “complete” (具足) class while noting that “if we follow the Sanskrit, it should belong to the abridged-class, having six thousand gāthā.”

Abstract

The Yìshū is the most detailed and most influential of Jízàng’s three Lotus Sūtra works and constitutes the principal pre-modern non-Tiāntái continuous commentary on the Lotus in the Chinese Buddhist canon. Its method combines (1) systematic Sānlùn doctrinal exposition of each significant pericope through the èrdì 二諦 and bābù zhōngdào 八不中道 framework; (2) careful attention to textual issues — including the bùlèi 部類 (part-and-class) differences, the chapter-sequence differences, and the kēpàn 科判 sectional analysis; and (3) sustained polemical engagement with rival exegetical traditions, particularly the southern Liáng-period Lotus tradition of Fǎyún (KR6d0005), Sēngmín, and Zhìzàng, and (in a more guarded register) with Zhìyǐ’s Tiāntái synthesis at Tiāntáishān.

The work is of substantial historiographical interest because it documents the late-Suí intellectual position of the Sānlùn school at a moment of direct competition with Tiāntái. Jízàng’s treatment of the Lotus Sūtra’s doctrines of kāiquán xiǎnshí 開權顯實 and fājì xiǎnběn 發跡顯本 differs from Zhìyǐ’s in important ways: where Zhìyǐ reads the Lotus as the yuánjiào 圓教 (perfect teaching) that supersedes the prior Mahāyāna sūtras, Jízàng reads it through the Madhyamaka framework as the zhōngdào 中道 (middle-way) that exposes the limitation of all prior teaching including the Mahāyāna. The two interpretations lead to substantially different doctrinal architectures and informed the subsequent divergence of the Tiāntái and Sānlùn schools through the Sui and early Tang.

The Yìshū was carried to Korea (where it became a foundational text of the Sānlùn / Samnon 三論 tradition) and to Japan (where it became one of the principal scriptures of the Nara-period Sanron 三論 school of Buddhism); the Japanese tradition preserved a substantial subcommentarial apparatus that informed the medieval Tendai synthesis.

Translations and research

  • Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Chūgoku Hannya shisōshi kenkyū: Kichizō to Sanron gakuha 中国般若思想史研究：吉藏と三論学派. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1976.
  • 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.
  • Kanno Hiroshi 菅野博史. Hokke gisho no kenkyū 法華義疏の研究. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1996.
  • Kanno Hiroshi. “Sūtra Commentaries in Chinese Until the Táng Period.” In Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 1, ed. Jonathan Silk et al., 450–466. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
  • Robinson, Richard H. Early Mādhyamika in India and China. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.
  • Cheng, Hsueh-li. Empty Logic: Mādhyamika Buddhism from Chinese Sources. New York: Philosophical Library, 1984.
  • Liu, Ming-Wood. Madhyamaka Thought in China. Leiden: Brill, 1994.

Other points of interest

Jízàng’s Yìshū is one of the few pre-Tang Chinese Buddhist commentaries to survive both in the Chinese canon and in substantial Japanese subcommentarial apparatus; the medieval Japanese Tendai exegete 最澄 Saichō (767–822) and his successors engaged extensively with Jízàng’s Lotus interpretation, and the Japanese Nara-period Sanron school provided an institutional vehicle for the work’s survival even after Jízàng’s school had declined in Tang China. The Korean Samnon tradition under 元曉 Wǒnhyo (617–686) likewise drew on the Yìshū as a foundational text.

Graph View

Backlinks