Pǔxián guān jīng yìshū 普賢觀經義疏
Doctrinal Subcommentary on the Pǔxián Contemplation Sūtra by 本如 (Běnrú / Shénzhào, 述); continued by 處咸 (Chǔxián, 續解); divided-and-collated by 亮潤 (Liàngrùn of Japan, 分會)
About the work
A two-juan (上 / 下) Sòng Tiāntái subcommentary on the Pǔxián guān jīng (KR6d0120, T277) — the standard Tiāntái epilogue text to the Lotus Sūtra — by 本如 Shénzhào Běnrú (982–1051), the principal disciple of Sìmíng 知禮 Zhīlǐ. The work was supplemented (xùjiě 續解, “continuing-interpretation”) by 處咸 Chǔxián in the late Northern or early Southern Sòng, and divided-and-collated (fēnhuì 分會, “division-and-combination”) by the Japanese Tendai monk 亮潤 Liàngrùn in the medieval Japanese transmission.
Prefaces
The text opens with Chǔxián’s Guān Pǔxián púsà xíngfǎ jīng xùshū xù 觀普賢菩薩行法經續疏序 (“Preface to the Continuing-Subcommentary”), one of the most important documentary sources for the Sòng Tiāntái scholarship on the Lotus Sūtra epilogue. Chǔxián narrates the textual history: “This sūtra: formerly our patriarch Zhìzhě Chánshī (智顗 Zhìyǐ) summarised the round-purport of Nāgārjuna [the Madhyamaka], wonderfully accordant with Dàsū (his teacher 慧思 Huìsī’s) insight, and following the analytical-expounding method composed sectional commentaries — broadly clarifying the One Vehicle’s profound depths and penetrating the myriad practices’ purposive return.
“Without [further development], in the late Tang [the work] was repeatedly burnt and destroyed; those carrying the satchel rushed [to take it] overseas, so that it could no longer be seen. In the late period, Master Gūshān [Gūshān Zhìyuán 孤山智圓] continued and made a work, but the textual principles were too brief, and students were troubled by it. Therefore our Shénzhào teacher [Běnrú] further composed the Yìshū, just reaching the initial-realm-of-the-first [section] when, pressed by conditions, he stopped his brush — the latter meaning was little heard. Chǔxián, although having ascended to the Eastern Wing under the wheel [the lecture-platform], also …”
Abstract
The Pǔxián guān jīng yìshū is the principal Sòng Tiāntái subcommentary on the Pǔxián guān jīng. The work has a complex authorial-textual history: the substantive base is Shénzhào Běnrú’s incomplete Sòng commentary (begun before 1051, when Běnrú died, and stopping at the initial-realm passage of the sūtra); supplemented by Chǔxián’s xùjiě continuation; and finally divided-and-collated by the Japanese Tendai monk Liàngrùn for the medieval Japanese Tendai transmission.
The composition history is bracketed within the broader Sòng productive period c. 1010–1100, with Liàngrùn’s Japanese editorial work probably extending into the medieval Kamakura or Muromachi period. The work was preserved through Japanese Tendai library transmission and was eventually reprinted in the Manji-zoku canonical apparatus.
The work is consequently of substantial historiographical interest as evidence for the multi-generational and trans-national editorial production characteristic of medieval East-Asian Mahāyāna scholastic culture, in which Sòng Chinese commentaries were extended by later Chinese editors and finalised by Japanese Tendai redactors before reaching their canonical recension.
Translations and research
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Tiāntái Four Forms of Samādhi and Late North–South Dynasties, Sui, and Early T’ang Buddhist Devotionalism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1987.
- Getz, Daniel A. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung, eds. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, 477–523. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku — kompon shisō to sono tenkai 天台学：根本思想とその展開. Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1968.
Other points of interest
The textual history of the Yìshū — Sòng Chinese composition by Běnrú, supplementation by Chǔxián, finalisation by the Japanese Liàngrùn — is one of the more thoroughly documented examples of medieval East-Asian Buddhist editorial trans-national collaboration. The pattern is paralleled in several other Sòng-Yuán Tiāntái commentarial works whose canonical recension reflects substantial Japanese Tendai editorial intervention.