Huáyán jīng shū juàn dì sān 華嚴經疏卷第三
Commentary on the Huáyán Scripture, Fascicle Three by 元曉 Wǒnhyo (撰)
About the work
This is the third (and only surviving) fascicle of the Silla monk 元曉 Wǒnhyo’s (617–686) commentary on the [[KR6e0001|Huáyán jīng]] in the 60-fascicle (Buddhabhadra) recension. The original work is referred to in Korean and Chinese sources as the Huāyán jīng shū 華嚴經疏 in either eight or ten fascicles (sources vary; see Wonhyo’s biography in T2061), of which only this single fascicle survives, recovered from the Mogao caves at Dūnhuáng. The fragment treats the Rúlái guāngmíng jué pǐn 如來光明覺品 (the Tathāgata’s Awakening through Light, chapter 5 of T0278) — as does the [[KR6e0008|Huáyán jīng yì jì]] of Huìguāng — and the chapters following it: the Pútísà míng nán pǐn 菩薩明難品 (Chapter on the Difficulties Resolved by the Bodhisattvas) and adjoining matter. Wǒnhyo characteristically reads the chapter through his “doctrine of two questions” (二問) and “two divisions” (二分) — the questions being the foundational Mahāyāna problematic of the Tathāgata’s bhakti and the bodhisattva’s prajñā, the divisions corresponding to the resolution of doubt and the inception of practice.
Prefaces
No tiyao or preface in source: the surviving fragment is the third fascicle alone, opening directly with doctrinal exposition.
Abstract
元曉 Wǒnhyo / Yuánxiǎo (617–686), the great Silla philosopher-monk and one of the towering figures of seventh-century East Asian Buddhism, was the principal Korean exegete of his generation; his immense corpus of commentaries on every major Mahāyāna scripture is one of the foundations of all subsequent Korean Buddhism. According to the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (T2061, juan 4) and the Sānguó yíshì 三國遺事 (T2039), Wǒnhyo had set out for Tang China with 義湘 Ŭisang in 660 (or 661) intending to study under 智儼 Zhìyǎn at the Zhìxiāngsì, but turned back after his celebrated mid-journey awakening — that “all dharmas are made by mind alone” — and remained in Silla, where he taught and wrote until his death in 686. The dating bracket 660 – 686 reflects the maximum window for the composition of this commentary; Korean tradition does not preserve a closer date.
The commentary is doctrinally distinct from the contemporary Tang Huáyán mainstream of Zhìyǎn and Fǎzàng: Wǒnhyo’s reading of the Avataṃsaka draws together the Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra perspectives in a manner characteristic of his broader project (the Hé-zhèng lùn 和諍論 / “Treatise on the Reconciliation of Disputes,” now lost in full but referenced here and there). His treatment of the Light chapter is read by Plassen (2010) and others as evidence of the formative influence of the Awakening of Faith on Wǒnhyo’s Huáyán thought.
The fragment was widely used as a model for the Hwaeom 華嚴宗 doctrinal tradition through the Goryeo period, and was cited by 均如 Kyunyŏ (923–973) and other Korean Hwaeom masters in their reconstruction of Wǒnhyo’s exegetical project. The Taishō text is based on the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana version, edited from the Dūnhuáng manuscript.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation of this fragment specifically. For the broader Wǒnhyo corpus see:
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wonhyo’s Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra (Kǔmgang Sammaegyŏng Non). Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007. — Standard Western-language entry-point to Wǒnhyo’s exegetical method.
- Park, Sung Bae. Wonhyo’s Commentaries on the Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009.
- Plassen, Jörg. “The Reception of the Huayan Tradition in Wonhyo,” in Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism, ed. Imre Hamar (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 235–258.
- Muller, A. Charles, ed. Wonhyo: Selected Works. Collected Works of Korean Buddhism vol. 1. Seoul: Jogye Order, 2012. — Includes a biographical essay and reference apparatus.
- Lee, Peter H., ed. Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993 — translations of Wǒnhyo’s most influential biographical and doctrinal documents.
- Yi Pyŏng-do 李丙燾 et al. Wŏnhyo chŏnsŏ 元曉全書 (collected works of Wǒnhyo) — the standard Korean reference edition.
Other points of interest
- The survival of only juan 3 of this commentary makes the fragment a key piece of evidence for the early reception of Huáyán doctrine in Korea: even in this fragmentary state, it shows that Wǒnhyo was working through the entire 60-fascicle text systematically.
- The work contains some of the earliest Korean witnesses to the technical vocabulary of the Avataṃsaka in Sino-Korean exegesis, including the doctrine of yī jiào 一教 (the One Teaching) which Wǒnhyo distinguished from Fǎzàng’s yī chéng 一乘 (One Vehicle) as a more inclusive doctrinal category.
- Wǒnhyo’s never having actually studied with Zhìyǎn — his famous mid-journey awakening having short-circuited the planned pilgrimage — gave his Huáyán commentary an independence from the Chinese Huáyán-school orthodoxy that distinguishes it sharply from the parallel work of his fellow-traveller 義湘 Ŭisang.