Huáyán lüè shū juàn dì sān 華嚴略疏卷第三
Concise Commentary on the Huáyán [Sūtra], Fascicle Three (anonymous Dūnhuáng fragment)
About the work
This Dūnhuáng manuscript preserves only the third fascicle of an otherwise lost multi-fascicle “concise commentary” (lüè shū 略疏) on the [[KR6e0001|Huáyán jīng]]. The surviving text covers part of the Shídì pǐn 十地品 (“Chapter on the Ten Stages”) — the central exposition of the Daśabhūmika doctrine that is the philosophical core of the Avataṃsaka. Preserved in Taishō volume 85 (the Dūnhuáng fascicle), the text exhibits the standard Tang-dynasty pañjikā technique of three “incoming significations” (來意) for each chapter, citation of supporting Mahāyāna scriptures (Niè-pán jīng, Fàn-wǎng jīng 梵網經, Yīng-luò jīng 瓔珞經), and detailed discussion of the cosmological setting — five heavens, four meditations — of each successive teaching of the sūtra.
Prefaces
No tiyao or preface in source: this is a single fascicle (juan 3) of a larger lost commentary, recovered from the Mogao caves.
Abstract
The work is anonymous; only juàn 3 survives. The opening of the surviving fascicle is the Shídì pǐn chū jì 十地品初記 (“Initial Notes on the Tenth-Stage Chapter”), which provides three reasons (來意) why the Daśabhūmika chapter follows where it does in the structure of the Huáyán: it gives the answers to the long opening list of questions about cause-and-effect; it presents the cause for the result; and it contains the most exalted of the bodhisattva practices. The author cites the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra juan 36 (“the answer is to be sought one by one”) and the Fàn-wǎng / Brahmajāla and Yīngluò (Pusa Yingluo benye jing 菩薩瓔珞本業經) for the schema of the seven places and eight assemblies (七處八會) of the cosmic Avataṃsaka preaching.
The text dates from the Tang or perhaps very late Suí; the conceptual apparatus (the seven-and-eight schema, the doctrine of the four-meditation heavens) is broadly Huáyán-school, but the exegesis does not precisely match either Zhìyǎn’s [[KR6e0003|Sōuxuán jì]] or Fǎzàng’s [[KR6e0004|Tànxuán jì]] in every detail, suggesting the work belongs to a parallel and now-lost lineage of Huáyán commentary. The bracket adopted here (600 – 800) reflects the maximum defensible window. Imre Hamar (in Reflecting Mirrors, 2007) and Yoshizu Yoshihide have observed that several lost Tang Huáyán commentaries are partially recoverable from such Dūnhuáng fragments and from the citations preserved in 元曉 Wǒnhyo’s and Ŭisang’s Korean Huáyán works.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Hamar, Imre. “The History of the Buddhāvataṃsaka-sūtra: Shorter and Larger Texts,” in Reflecting Mirrors, 139–168.
- Yoshizu Yoshihide 吉津宜英. Kegon zen no shisōshi-teki kenkyū 華厳禅の思想史的研究. Daitō shuppansha, 1985.
- Tanaka Ryōshō 田中良昭. Tonkō Bukkyō no kenkyū 敦煌仏教の研究 (general methodology for Dūnhuáng Buddhist materials).
Other points of interest
- The systematic deployment of the Shídì pǐn schema in this fragment is significant for the historical reconstruction of how the Daśabhūmika doctrine was integrated into Chinese Huáyán doctrinal teaching during the seventh century.