Fǎhuá jīng shū 法華經疏 (Dunhuang fragment, T2751)
Subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra Anonymous Dunhuang manuscript fragment.
About the work
A single-juan anonymous fragmentary subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra, preserved in the Taishō at T85n2751 from the Dunhuang manuscript collection. The third of three distinct Dunhuang Fǎhuá jīng shū fragments (T2749 = KR6d0101, T2750 = KR6d0102, T2751 = KR6d0103).
Prefaces
The text in the T85n2751 recension carries no separate translator’s preface and opens in medias res: “Final teaching also fully prepares the principle, and discussing it does not exceed the body as true-and-response, the teaching as provisional-and-real. This sūtra prepares this clarification. Therefore [we] know the principle is deep, the speech inexhaustible. This long-one [section] in clarifies the sūtra’s merit, expounding-and-showing in completion. The lower verse-section announces the liútōng (transmission) person’s merit inexhaustible-fancifully matters discussed.”
Abstract
This Dunhuang fragment shows substantial doctrinal engagement with the Tiāntái-style apparatus of zhēnyìng 真應 (true-and-response bodies) and quánshí 權實 (provisional-and-real teaching) — categories that become standard in the post-Tiāntái Lotus exegetical tradition. The presence of these categories in a Dunhuang fragment suggests either (1) early circulation of Tiāntái-style apparatus at Dunhuang in the post-Zhìyǐ period, or (2) parallel development of similar categories in the broader Sinitic Lotus tradition independent of the Tiāntáishān productive context.
Translations and research
See KR6d0100 for the bibliography on the Dunhuang Lotus exegetical fragments.