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妙法蓮華經釋文

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Text ID
KR6d0035
Date
950–976
Dynasty
日本

Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng shìwén 妙法蓮華經釋文

Lexical Glossary on the Wonderful-Dharma Lotus Sūtra (J. Myōhōrengekyō shakumon; also Hokke shakumon / Hokekyō shakumon) by 中算 (Zhōngsuàn / Chūzan, 撰)

About the work

A three-juan lexicographical commentary on Kumārajīva’s Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng 妙法蓮華經 (KR6d0001, T262), composed by the mid-Heian Tendai monk 中算 Chūzan (935–976) of Mount Hiei. The work is preserved in the Taishō at T56n2189 and is the principal pre-modern Japanese Buddhist lexicographical reference work on the Lotus. Unlike a kēpàn 科判 doctrinal commentary, it is organized as a chapter-by-chapter gloss list: the difficult terms, transliterated Sanskrit names, archaic graphs, and rare expressions of each Lotus chapter are extracted and given philological-doctrinal explanations.

Prefaces

The Taishō recension carries a brief autograph preface by Chūzan setting out the work’s purpose: to provide the Lotus-reciting monk with a quick reference for the technical vocabulary, transliterated Sanskrit, and obscure characters that the Lotus requires its reader to navigate. The preface explicitly identifies the work’s lexicographical model as the Tang-Chinese tradition of 玄應 Xuányìng (active 7th century) and 慧琳 Huìlín (737–820), whose Yīqièjīng yīnyì 一切經音義 sets of yīnyì (“sound and meaning”) had become the standard Buddhist philological tools across East Asia.

Abstract

The Shakumon presents itself as a Lotus-specific extension of the yīnyì tradition. For each chapter, Chūzan extracts the chapter’s noteworthy terms in textual order and provides for each:

  • the fǎnqiē 反切 phonological gloss (giving the pronunciation in Chinese-character notation);
  • the lexical definition with citation of standard sources (notably the Yùpiān 玉篇, Shuōwén 說文, and Huìlín’s Yīnyì);
  • where applicable, the Sanskrit reconstruction (transliterated names of bodhisattvas, place-names, technical terms);
  • the doctrinal significance of the term in its Lotus context, with citations from the Tiāntái commentarial tradition (especially Zhìyǐ’s Fǎhuá xuányì 法華玄義 KR6d0023 and Fǎhuá wénjù 法華文句 KR6d0024).

The work is doctrinally Tendai in orientation but lexicographical rather than expository in form. It is a particularly important witness to Heian-Japanese Buddhist sound-glossing practice: the fǎnqiē notations represent the mid-Heian Japanese-Buddhist reading-pronunciation of Lotus vocabulary and are a primary source for the historical phonology of the Japanese kanbun 漢文 reading-tradition.

The dating of the work is conventionally placed in the third quarter of the 10th century — within the lifetime of 良源 Ryōgen (912–985), the eighteenth zasu of Mount Hiei (966–985), under whose institutional reform the mid-Heian Tendai scholarly establishment reached its mature form. Chūzan’s Shakumon is one of the principal scholarly products of this Ryōgen-era Tendai consolidation. The work was widely copied in the medieval Japanese Tendai tradition and remains the standard Japanese-context lexical reference for Lotus vocabulary into the early modern period.

Translations and research

  • Bussho kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解説大辭典, ed. Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1933–1936. — Standard Japanese-language scholarly entry on the Shakumon.
  • Numoto Katsuaki 沼本克明. Nihon kanji-on no kenkyū 日本漢字音の研究. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1986. — Includes treatment of the Shakumon as a witness to Heian-Japanese Buddhist phonology.
  • Groner, Paul. Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. — Standard English-language study of mid-Heian Tendai institutional and scholarly context.

Other points of interest

The Shakumon’s status as a Heian-Japanese-context lexicographical work makes it a distinctive contribution within the East Asian Lotus commentarial tradition: most Lotus commentaries are doctrinal-expository, while only a handful (Chūzan, Huìlín’s separate Lotus glosses, and a few others) are primarily lexicographical. The work was reprinted in the late-Tokugawa Tendai academic editions and was incorporated into the Taishō from a Mount Hiei manuscript line.

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