Fǎhuá tǒnglüè 法華統略
Comprehensive Outline of the Lotus Sūtra by 吉藏 (Jízàng / Jiāxiáng dàshī, 撰)
About the work
A three-juan (上本 / 上末 / 中本 etc.) topic-organised exposition of the Lotus Sūtra by 吉藏 Jízàng (549–623). The work is the fourth of Jízàng’s surviving Lotus Sūtra works, alongside the Fǎhuá xuánlùn (KR6d0023, T1720), the Fǎhuá yìshū (KR6d0024, T1721), and the Fǎhuá yóuyì (KR6d0025, T1722). It is preserved as X27n0582 in the Xùzàngjīng.
Catalog correction: the data/catalogs/meta/KR6d.yaml entry gives dynasty: 胡 (“Hú”, a variant referring to Jízàng’s Sogdian / Western Region descent rather than to a Chinese dynasty); the substantive dynasty designation should be 隋 (Suí), Jízàng’s productive period.
Prefaces
The text in the X27n0582 recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work is structured around chapter-by-chapter exposition with division into 上本 (upper-original) / 上末 (upper-secondary) / 中本 (middle-original) / etc. — a complex bibliographic subdivision characteristic of late-Suí scholastic production. The opening section, Shì xùpǐn dìyī 釋序品第一 (“Explaining the Introductory Chapter, the First”), establishes the structural framework for the rest of the work.
Abstract
The Fǎhuá tǒnglüè — its title literally “comprehensive outline” — is the most synoptic of Jízàng’s four Lotus Sūtra works, providing a unified topic-organised overview of the Lotus that consolidates the doctrinal positions developed in detail in the Xuánlùn and the Yìshū. The work’s relation to the other three Lotus Sūtra works in Jízàng’s corpus is uncertain: it may represent either an earlier preparatory study that informed the larger works, or a later synthetic consolidation drawing on them. The textual evidence does not securely establish the priority.
The work’s three-juan extent and its topic-organised structure make it intermediate in scale between the brief Yóuyì (one juan, primarily introductory) and the more extensive Xuánlùn (ten juan) and Yìshū (twelve juan). It functions effectively as a Sānlùn 三論-school study guide to the Lotus Sūtra, providing the intellectual framework needed for productive engagement with the more detailed works.
The dating, like that of Jízàng’s other Lotus Sūtra works, is bracketed in his mature productive period c. 597–623, with no precise date recoverable from the text itself. The work was lost in late-Tang China but preserved in the Korean and Japanese Sānlùn / Sanron 三論 library traditions, from which it was eventually reprinted in the Manji-zoku canonical apparatus.
Translations and research
See KR6d0023, KR6d0024, and KR6d0025 for the full bibliography on Jízàng and his Lotus Sūtra commentaries.
- 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.
- Kanno Hiroshi 菅野博史. Kichizō no Hokekyō kaishaku no kenkyū 吉蔵の法華経解釈の研究. Tokyo: Sankibō, 2003.
Other points of interest
The four-text structure of Jízàng’s surviving Lotus Sūtra corpus — Xuánlùn (systematic), Yìshū (running commentary), Yóuyì (introductory survey), Tǒnglüè (topic-organised outline) — represents the most extensive Suí-period treatment of any single Mahāyāna sūtra by a single author. The combination demonstrates Jízàng’s distinctive Sānlùn-school commitment to multi-genre comprehensive exegetical engagement with major sūtras and is matched in scale only by 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s contemporary Tiāntái Lotus apparatus (the Xuányì + Wénjù + Pǔmén xuányì / yìshū corpus).