Fǎhuá jīng kēzhù 法華經科註
Sectional-Analysis-and-Annotation Subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra by 一如 (Yīrú / Yīān / Tuìwēng, 集註)
About the work
A seven-juan early-Míng compiled-annotation (jízhù 集註) commentary on the Lotus Sūtra (法華經科註) by 一如 Yīrú (1352–1425), the early-Míng Tiāntái master and senior monastic administrator under the Yongle 永樂 emperor. The work is the third of the surviving Lotus Sūtra kēzhù productions in the canonical apparatus, after Shǒulún’s Sòng original (KR6d0071) and Xú Xíngshàn’s Yuán revision (KR6d0072); it represents the early-Míng consolidation of the Sòng-Yuán Tiāntái-derived kēzhù tradition.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Preface to the New Annotated Lotus Sūtra (《妙法蓮華經新註敘》): “Of the Lotus’s kingship over all sūtras, even infants and children can speak [it]. As to expounding what makes it the king, even great talents and broad wisdom cannot. Why is this? Because the Lotus is the Buddha-vehicle. The Buddha-vehicle is the Buddha’s knowledge-and-vision. The Buddha’s knowledge-and-vision is the Buddha-realm. To use ordinary wisdom to expound the Buddha-realm — fittingly, [it] is not possible.
“In the Eastern Land, those who explained it [were] of several tens of schools. Only the Tiāntái Great Master (智顗) attained its expounding. The Great Master was one of the Língshān [Spirit Mountain] common-listeners’ assembly, and what is called he-whose-virtue-descended-as-the-Tathāgata’s-deputy. His attainment of its expounding — [is this] not also fitting?
“After the Great Master, those who plucked-and-extracted his subcommentaries are also many. Only the Yīrú xīnzhù [the present new annotation] has briefly extracted, drawn out and extended; in its decisions [it has] much attained fittingness. Yīrú is sobriquetted Yīān 一菴; in the Míng Yongle era he was the Sēnglùsī [Buddhist Affairs Office director], resident at Shàngtiānzhú. He once received the imperial command to investigate the Great Canon and composed the Sānzàng fǎshù 三藏法數 (KR6s0007). In our Ōei era [the Japanese embassy era under Ashikaga], [he was] sent to come to our court [Japan]; at that time [he and the embassy monk 絕海中津 Zekkai Chūshin] played and harmonised.”
This preface — written from a Japanese perspective — confirms Yīrú’s institutional role as Yongle-era Sēnglùsī director and as compiler of the standard imperial Buddhist reference work Sānzàng fǎshù (T2131, KR6s0007). The preface’s reference to Yīrú’s diplomatic role in the Japan embassies during the Ōei era (1394–1428) places his productive period in the early Míng under the Yongle (1402–1424) emperor.
Abstract
Yīrú’s Fǎhuá jīng kēzhù is the principal early-Míng synthesis of the Sòng-Yuán Tiāntái kēzhù tradition. Where the earlier productions of Shǒulún (KR6d0071) and Xú Xíngshàn (KR6d0072) preserved the comprehensive scholastic apparatus of their respective periods, Yīrú’s work adopts a more selective and synthetic method: it extracts the most essential elements of the Tiāntái commentarial tradition, draws on additional Mahāyāna canonical material, and produces a more accessible early-Míng synthesis suitable for the broader monastic and lay readership.
The work is consequently of substantial historical importance both as a witness to the early-Míng Tiāntái scholastic tradition under Yongle imperial patronage and as the principal Lotus Sūtra commentary used in the Yongle-era Sēnglùsī monastic education system. Through Yīrú’s diplomatic role in the East-Asian Buddhist embassy system, the work was also transmitted to Japan, where it was studied in the Muromachi-period Tendai 天台 tradition.
The dating is bracketed in Yīrú’s productive period at the Shàngtiānzhúsì 上天竺寺 in Hángzhōu under the Yongle emperor, c. 1403–1424.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
Yīrú’s principal contribution to the Yongle-era imperial Buddhist publishing project was the Sānzàng fǎshù 三藏法數 (KR6s0007, T2131) — a comprehensive numerical-list reference work on Buddhist doctrine that became the standard imperial reference for Buddhist terminology in the Míng. The combination of the Sānzàng fǎshù and the present Fǎhuá jīng kēzhù establishes Yīrú as one of the principal early-Míng monastic editor-administrators and demonstrates the high level of state engagement with Buddhist textual production under the Yongle court.