Fóshuō Guān Pǔxián púsà xíngfǎ jīng jì 佛説觀普賢菩薩行法經記
Notes on the Sūtra of the Method for Contemplating Samantabhadra-bodhisattva, Spoken by the Buddha (J. Bussetsu kan-fugen-bosatsu gyōbōkyō ki; abbr. Kan-fugen-gyō ki 觀普賢經記) by 圓珍 (Yuánzhēn / Enchin, 撰)
About the work
A two-juan commentary on the Fóshuō guān pǔxián púsà xíngfǎ jīng 佛說觀普賢菩薩行法經 (KR6d0120, T277) — the closing sūtra of the canonical Lotus-triad (Wúliàngyì jīng + Lotus + Pǔxián guān jīng) — by the Heian Tendai-Jimon master 圓珍 Enchin (Yuánzhēn, 814–891). The work is preserved in the Taishō at T56n2194. Together with 最澄 Saichō’s Chū Muryōgikyō (KR6d0119, T2193) on the kāijīng opening sūtra, Enchin’s Kan-fugen-gyō ki is the principal early-Heian Japanese-Tendai exegesis of the non-Lotus scriptures of the Lotus-triad.
Prefaces
The Taishō recension carries Enchin’s brief opening framing-statement identifying the work and locating it within the Tendai-Jimon doctrinal-meditative program. The work proceeds through the Pǔxián guān jīng in textual order, with kēpàn analysis and phrase-by-phrase glossing.
Abstract
The Pǔxián guān jīng (T277), the closing sūtra of the Lotus-triad, is the canonical scriptural source for the Samantabhadra contemplation (pǔxián guān 普賢觀) — the meditative-visualisation practice in which the practitioner, having received the Lotus’s ekayāna revelation in the central sūtra, takes Samantabhadra (the bodhisattva of practice and devotion) as the object of contemplation in order to internalise and embody the Lotus teaching. The sūtra prescribes a six-day repentance ritual (liùshí chàn 六時懺) in which the practitioner contemplates Samantabhadra mounted on his six-tusked white elephant and, through the contemplation, purifies the six sense-faculties (liùgēn qīngjìng 六根清淨) and attains the Lotus’s ekayāna realisation directly.
Enchin’s commentary develops the Tendai-Esoteric (taimitsu 台密) reading of the Pǔxián guān jīng. The principal doctrinal-ritual move is the integration of the sūtra’s prescribed six-day Samantabhadra-contemplation ritual with the Esoteric Samantabhadra practice imported from Tang-China. In the Esoteric Vajradhātu cosmology, Samantabhadra is identified with the Vajrasattva 金剛薩埵 of the Vajradhātu mandala; the Pǔxián guān is therefore re-read as a doctrinal-ritual prefiguration of the Esoteric Vajrasattva-contemplation.
The work also presents the Tendai-Jimon position on the doctrinal-ritual status of the Lotus-triad: that the three sūtras together constitute a single integrated scriptural-ritual unit, with the Wúliàngyì jīng as doctrinal preface, the Lotus as central revelation, and the Pǔxián guān jīng as ritual-meditative culmination. The Kan-fugen-gyō ki presents the Tendai-Jimon’s distinctive taimitsu synthesis of this Lotus-triad reading.
The dating is placed in Enchin’s mature post-Tang Onjō-ji period (broadly 858–891). Together with his Hokke ryakugi (KR6d0044, T2192), the Kan-fugen-gyō ki constitutes Enchin’s principal preserved Lotus-related doctrinal corpus.
Translations and research
- Chishō Daishi zenshū 智證大師全集.
- Saeki Arikiyo 佐伯有清. Enchin 圓珍. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1989.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early Tʻien-tʻai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory, 45–97. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1986. — Treats the Tiāntái-tradition Samantabhadra-contemplation tradition that Enchin’s commentary develops.
- Stone, Jacqueline I. Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016. — Treats medieval Japanese Lotus and Samantabhadra contemplation traditions.
- Kuo Li-ying. Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Ve au Xe siècle. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1994. — Includes detailed treatment of the Pǔxián guān jīng and its repentance-ritual tradition.
Other points of interest
The Kan-fugen-gyō ki is the principal preserved Heian-Japanese commentary on the Pǔxián guān jīng, a sūtra that — despite its canonical status as the closing sūtra of the Lotus-triad — received less commentarial attention in the Tang-Chinese Tiāntái tradition than the central Lotus itself. The work is therefore a particularly important witness to the medieval Japanese Tendai integration of the non-Lotus members of the Lotus-triad into the canonical Tendai doctrinal-meditative program. The Samantabhadra-contemplation ritual that Enchin develops became foundational for the medieval Japanese Tendai-Jimon meditative-ritual practice and remained a key element of the medieval Japanese Lotus devotional tradition.