Fǎhuá wèndá 法華問答
Questions and Answers on the Lotus Sūtra Anonymous Dunhuang manuscript fragment.
About the work
A single-juan anonymous Dunhuang fragment in the wèndá 問答 (“question-and-answer”) genre on the Lotus Sūtra, preserved in the Taishō at T85n2752 from the Dunhuang manuscript collection. The genre — Q&A scholastic exposition — is parallel to the Indic Buddhist paripṛcchā (questions-asked) literature and to the Sinitic Zǐyuē 子曰 / Confucian disciple-questioning tradition.
Prefaces
The text opens in medias res: “Lotus flower manifests the teaching; on hearing the registration, then it differs; therefore [it] expounds the Wúliàngyì jīng [Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings]. Afterwards … [text damaged] … not the same; therefore among the seventeen names there is no Wúliàngyì jīng — moreover the Lotus.
“Question: Relying on three-dharmas to expound the Lotus — what is meant by ‘three-dharmas’? Answer: The treatise expounds ‘relying on three-dharmas’ as: 1, relying on samādhi, that is, Wúliàngyì samādhi…”
Abstract
The Q&A wèndá genre is a distinctive Sinitic Buddhist scholastic productive form, in which the master responds to specific questions raised by disciples or anticipated objections. Its application to the Lotus Sūtra at Dunhuang in the pre-Tang or early-Tang period demonstrates the institutional vitality of pedagogical Lotus exegesis at the Western Region Buddhist establishment.
The opening Q&A on “the three dharmas” — referencing the Wúliàngyì jīng 無量義經 (T276, the Sūtra of Innumerable Meanings) and the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka — engages the standard pre-Tiāntái Lotus exegetical question of the relation between the Lotus and its prefatory companion Wúliàngyì jīng. The textual analysis suggests substantial scholastic depth of this Dunhuang fragment, despite its brevity.
Translations and research
See KR6d0100 for the bibliography on the Dunhuang Lotus exegetical fragments.
Other points of interest
The wèndá genre at Dunhuang is documented also in non-Lotus Buddhist materials (commentaries on the Vimalakīrti, the Mahāparinirvāṇa, and the Avataṃsaka) and in non-Buddhist materials (Confucian-classics question-and-answer compilations). The genre’s broad cross-textual circulation at Dunhuang demonstrates the standard pedagogical method of the pre-Sòng Western Region scholastic establishment, in which Q&A scholastic exposition was the normal productive form.