Fǎhuá jīng xuánzàn yàojí 法華經玄贊要集
Compiled Essentials on the Profound Encomium on the Lotus Sūtra by 栖復 (Qīfù, 集)
About the work
A thirty-one-juan mid- to late-Táng compendium and subcommentary on Kuījī’s Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng xuánzàn (KR6d0026, T1723), compiled by Qīfù 栖復 — a Cí’ēn 慈恩 / Yogācāra exegete whose lifedates and biographical details are unrecorded. The work is by far the most extensive surviving subcommentary on Kuījī’s Xuánzàn, exceeding in combined length all three of the principal Cí’ēn-school subcommentaries (KR6d0027, KR6d0028, KR6d0029) taken together. The thirty-one-juan extent and the methodical chapter-by-chapter division make it a foundational reference work rather than a focused doctrinal study.
Prefaces
The text in the X34n0638 recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work opens with a detailed Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng xuánzàn yàojí mùcì 妙法蓮華經玄贊要集目次 (table of contents) listing the thirty-one juan’s coverage of Kuījī’s Xuánzàn — the structural layout demonstrates that Qīfù worked through the entire Xuánzàn in roughly equal proportions, with each juan of the Yàojí covering approximately one-third of a juan of the Xuánzàn. Juan 1 covers Kuījī’s “personal exposition / preface to the sūtra-origin” (shūzhǔ xù 疏主敘) through the “introducing the sūtra-rising-meaning”; juan 2 continues through the “explaining the breaking of doubts”; and so on through the entire Lotus Sūtra.
Abstract
Qīfù’s Yàojí is the principal mid-to-late Táng Cí’ēn-school encyclopedic compendium on the Lotus Sūtra. Its method combines (1) systematic glossarial annotation of every significant passage in Kuī-jī’s Xuánzàn, drawing on the prior subcommentaries of Huìzhāo, Zhìzhōu, and Chóngjùn; (2) extensive citations from the broader Yogācāra canonical corpus, particularly the Yogācārabhūmi (T1579), the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (T1592–T1594), and Xuánzàng’s translation of the Cheng-wéishí lùn (T1585); (3) doctrinal harmonisation of contested passages with the standard Cí’ēn scholastic positions; and (4) supplementary historical and philological notes on the Lotus Sūtra’s Indic textual history, the lineage of the Cí’ēn doctrinal transmission, and the relations between rival Sinitic Buddhist schools.
The work is consequently of substantial value as a witness to the late-Táng Cí’ēn scholastic tradition in its most developed form, shortly before the Huichang persecution (845) and subsequent decline of the Cí’ēn-school institutional infrastructure. Qīfù’s apparatus preserves a wealth of Cí’ēn doctrinal interpretation that would otherwise be lost to the textual record, and his citations from the broader Yogācāra canonical corpus document the extent of the late-Táng Cí’ēn-school exegetical literature.
The dating is uncertain. Qīfù’s lifedates are not recorded in the DILA authority, and no precise dating is recoverable from the text itself. The work must postdate Chóngjùn’s Juézé jì (KR6d0029, 768) — which it cites — but the terminus ante quem is less clear; a defensible bracket of c. 770 – c. 850 places the work in the late-Táng productive period between Chóngjùn and the Huichang persecution. The work was carried into the Japanese Hossō 法相 library tradition, from which it was eventually reprinted in the Manji-zoku 卍續 supplementary canon.
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.
- Lusthaus, Dan. Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih Lun. London: Routledge, 2002.
- Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士. Heian shoki Bukkyō shisō no kenkyū 平安初期仏教思想の研究. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1995. (For the Japanese Hossō reception of Cí’ēn texts.)
Other points of interest
The thirty-one-juan extent of the Yàojí makes it the longest single subcommentary on any text in the Lotus Sūtra commentarial tradition, exceeding even Zhànrán’s combined Shìqiān and Wénjù jì (which together total thirty juan). Its scale demonstrates the institutional vitality of the late-Táng Cí’ēn scholastic tradition and the depth of its engagement with the Lotus Sūtra interpretive question.