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觀音玄義

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Text ID
KR6d0046
Date
587–597
Dynasty
隋

Guānyīn xuányì 觀音玄義

The Profound Meaning of the Avalokiteśvara [Chapter] spoken by 智顗 (Zhìyǐ / Tiāntái dàshī, 說); recorded by 灌頂 (Guàndǐng, 記)

About the work

A two-juan (printed: 上 / 下) systematic doctrinal exposition of the Pǔmén pǐn 普門品 — chapter 25 of Kumārajīva’s translation of the Lotus Sūtra (KR6d0001, T262), the Avalokiteśvara chapter — by Zhìyǐ 智顗 (538–597), recorded by Guàndǐng 灌頂 (561–632). The Guānyīn xuányì and its companion Guānyīn yìshū (KR6d0048, T1728) — a phrase-by-phrase running commentary on the same chapter — together constitute Zhìyǐ’s separate Tiāntái treatment of the Pǔmén pǐn outside the Wénjù’s 文句 sequential exposition. The two texts share the same lecture-occasion and are conventionally treated as a paired unit. The body attribution: Suí Tiāntái Zhìzhě dàshī shuō / ménrén Guàndǐng jì 隋天台智者大師說　門人灌頂記.

Prefaces

The text opens directly with Zhìyǐ’s exposition: “Now the dharma-realm is perfectly fused — the image is without anything imaged. Tathatā is purely clear — the transformation is without anything transformed. Although the image is without anything imaged, there is no place where it does not image; although the transformation is without anything transformed, there is no place where it does not transform. Thus, neither dwelling nor not-dwelling, the [bodhisattva’s] transformation responds with bodies in the nine paths; placed in being, [yet] without permanent stillness, [he] enters the purport of non-duality. Therefore by the three karmic [acts of body, speech, and mind] he is supplicated, and beings are released from the brink of suffering.”

Abstract

The Guānyīn xuányì applies Zhìyǐ’s standard wǔzhòng xuányì 五重玄義 framework (name / essence / purport / function / teaching-classification) to the Pǔmén chapter, providing systematic Tiāntái exposition of its doctrinal content. The work’s distinctive contributions include: (1) the analysis of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (觀世音, “Observer of the World’s Sounds”) as the salvific personification of the bāshí qiān 八十千 (eighty-thousand) modes of dharma-instruction, each adapted to the particular needs of beings; (2) the Tiāntái guān-xīn shì 觀心釋 (contemplation-of-the-mind explanation) of the chapter’s salvific narrative as a meditation on the perfectly-fused yīniàn sān-qiān 一念三千 cosmology; and (3) the integration of the chapter’s praṇidhāna (vow) doctrine with the broader Tiāntái fābùtí xīn 發菩提心 (arousing-bodhi-mind) framework.

The Guānyīn xuányì is also doctrinally significant as one of the principal Tiāntái sources for the controversial doctrine of xìngè 性惡 (“buddha-nature inherently includes evil”), articulated here in the discussion of how the bodhisattva can take on the appearance of demonic forms (the guǐshén shēn 鬼神身) for the sake of converting beings whose karman is conditioned by such appearances. This doctrine became the principal theoretical commitment of the Sòng shānjiā tradition under Sìmíng Zhīlǐ and the principal point of divergence from the shānwài 山外 tradition that rejected it.

The composition is generally dated to the late lecture-period of Zhìyǐ at Jīnlíng 金陵 c. 587 or to the Yùquánsì 玉泉寺 period c. 593, with redaction by Guàndǐng after Zhìyǐ’s death in 597. The work generated a substantial Sòng subcommentary tradition, principally through Sìmíng Zhīlǐ’s Guānyīn xuányì jì (KR6d0047, T1727).

Translations and research

  • Stevenson, Daniel B. “Buddhist Practice and the Lotus Sūtra in China.” In Readings of the Lotus Sūtra, eds. Stephen F. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone, 132–150. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
  • Yü, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. (Standard English-language study of Guānyīn devotion in China; treats the Pǔ-mén chapter and its commentarial tradition extensively.)
  • Sǎ-bā-líng 撒巴領. Guānyīn xuán-yì jí qí Tiāntái jiāo-yì 觀音玄義及其天台教義. Taipei: Fǎgǔ wénhuà, 2002.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Donner, Neal, and Stevenson, Daniel B. The Great Calming and Contemplation: A Study and Annotated Translation of the First Chapter of Chih-i’s Mo-ho chih-kuan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1993.
  • Penkower, Linda L. “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1993.

Other points of interest

The Pǔmén pǐn — chapter 25 of the received Lotus Sūtra — was the most widely circulated chapter of the Lotus in pre-modern East-Asian Buddhism, frequently extracted and printed as a separate work (the Guānyīn jīng 觀音經) for use in devotional practice and Avalokiteśvara liturgies. The chapter’s separate circulation explains the existence of separate Tiāntái commentaries (the Xuányì and Yìshū) outside the Wénjù’s sequential exposition, a treatment afforded to no other chapter of the Lotus.

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