Fǎhuá jīng wéiwèi zhāng 法華經為為章
The Two-Wéi-Tone Chapter on the Lotus Sūtra by 窺基 Kuījī (Cí’ēn dàshī, 撰)
About the work
A short, technically focused single-juan phonological-grammatical study by 窺基 Kuījī 窺基 (632–682) on the dual tonal pronunciation of the character 為 (wéi / wèi) in the Lotus Sūtra. Body attribution: Dà Cí’ēnsì Jī zhuàn 大慈恩寺 基 撰 (“composed by Jī of the Great Cí’ēn Monastery”). The work belongs to the broader Táng-period Buddhist phonological tradition concerned with the precise Sinitic-language pronunciation of the canonical scriptures.
Prefaces
The text in the X33n0633 recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work opens with Kuījī’s structural framing: “About to discuss the two-wéi chapter, I will briefly use five gates of distinction: 1, displaying the count and determining the tone; 2, determining the gloss following the tone; 3, the sequence of tone-glosses; 4, division by sūtra-text-count, with the seven-juan division yielding seven distinct usages; 5, declaring the author’s intent.”
Abstract
The Wéiwèi zhāng is a technical phonological study addressing a specific philological problem in the Sinitic recitation of the Lotus Sūtra: the character 為 has two distinct tonal pronunciations (wéi, level tone, with nine grammatical functions; wèi, departing tone, with three grammatical functions), and accurate recitation requires distinguishing these in context.
Kuījī’s exposition: (1) Total count: the entire Lotus Sūtra contains 618 instances of the character 為; 291 are wéi (level tone), 327 are wèi (departing tone). (2) Tonal glosses: wéi (榮危反, “róngwēi reverse-cut”) has nine functions: 由 (cause), 求 (seek), 當 (ought), 得 (obtain), 定 (decide), 被 (passive), 作 (do), 是 (be), 名 (named); wèi (榮偽反, “róngwěi reverse-cut”) has three functions: 以 (instrumental), 與 (give), 助 (assist).
The work is consequently of substantial value as a Táng-period phonological study and as evidence for the close attention to Sinitic recitation practice in the Cí’ēn tradition. Kuījī’s character-by-character count of 618 instances of 為 in 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva’s translation of the Lotus is one of the more precise philological measurements in the Táng Buddhist scholastic record and demonstrates the Cí’ēn tradition’s commitment to detailed textual-philological work alongside its better-known doctrinal contributions.
The composition is bracketed within Kuījī’s mature productive period c. 660–682, with the work most plausibly placed in the period of his major Lotus Sūtra commentarial production (the Xuánzàn of KR6d0026). The Wéiwèi zhāng should be understood as a supplementary technical study to the Xuánzàn rather than as an independent work.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Wéiwèi zhāng is one of the earliest documented systematic studies of contextual tonal variation in Buddhist canonical recitation. Its precise character-count (618 instances of 為 in Kumārajīva’s Lotus Sūtra) provides modern philologists with a useful textual-statistical benchmark and demonstrates the Táng Cí’ēn-school commitment to philological precision in scriptural recitation. The genre of grammatical-phonological monographs on individual characters in major sūtras did not become widespread, making Kuījī’s Wéiwèi zhāng a relatively rare survival in the canonical apparatus.