Dà huáyán jīng lüè cè 大華嚴經略策
Brief Memorandum on the Great Huáyán Scripture by 澄觀 Chéngguān (述)
About the work
The Dà huáyán jīng lüè cè is a one-fascicle compendium of 澄觀 Chéngguān’s exegetical conclusions on the [[KR6e0010|Huáyán jīng (80-fasc.)]], cast in the literary form of a cè 策 — the question-and-answer (wèn-duì 問對) memoranda format developed in the Sòng shuō shū 說書 imperial-tutorial genre. The work synthesises the doctrinal substance of his much fuller [[KR6e0011|Shū]] (60 fasc.) and [[KR6e0012|Yǎn yì chāo]] (90 fasc.) into 42 tightly-formulated topics, each posed as a question and answered with the formula jǐn duì 謹對 (“[I] respectfully reply”). It is the most compact and accessible of Chéngguān’s mature writings on the Avataṃsaka and was used throughout the medieval period as an introductory aid to the much larger Shū-Chāo corpus.
Prefaces
The Taishō print is preceded by a Zài kān Huáyán lüè cè xù 再刊華嚴略策序 (“Preface to the Reprinted Huáyán Lüè cè”), a Sòng or post-Sòng publishers’ preface (date and author not specified in the Taishō apparatus) that praises Chéngguān’s earlier writings as “[so] deep [they are like the] river and ocean, [their] meaning towering as mountains” and explains the relation of the present work — “this Lüè cè abridges the great Shū into 42 topics by main outline; how could it [merely] go from a chàng to a chǐ [i.e. shorten without loss]?” The preface notes the 42-topic question-and-answer structure (“at the body’s structure first set out questions and answers, and at the end: ‘respectfully I reply’ — and so for each topic”), and observes that the format follows the same pattern as the Sòng official Sū Shì’s three shuō shū 說書 documents, each beginning with a question-and-answer and ending with jǐn duì — a formal genre evocative of imperial tutorial discourse.
Abstract
The work is from Chéngguān’s mature period; no internal date is given. Conventional dating (Hamar 2002) places it in the period between the completion of the Yǎn yì chāo (c. 791) and Chéngguān’s death (839) — most plausibly in the early ninth century, when Chéngguān, in his late old age, undertook a number of compact works distilling his teaching for the use of imperial students and lay scholars (in addition to the Lüè cè, the [[KR6e0016|Qī chù jiǔ huì sòng shì zhāng 七處九會頌釋章]] / T1738 belongs to the same generic family). The bracket adopted here (787 – 838) reflects the maximum defensible window after the Shū and before Chéngguān’s death.
The 42 topics treat (in summary): the title and meaning of the Avataṃsaka; the doctrine of the Dharma-realm; the Five Teachings (五教) doxography; the seven places and nine assemblies (七處九會); the Vairocana cosmology; the Daśabhūmika / Ten Stages; the Six Characteristics (六相); the Ten Mysterious Gates (十玄門); the doctrine of mutual interpenetration of phenomena (shìshì wú’ài 事事無礙); the relation of the Avataṃsaka to the Lotus, Niè-pán, Wéi-mó, and Yuán-jué sūtras; the doctrine of xìng qǐ 性起 (“nature-arising”); the relation of one and many; and so on. Each topic is presented as a question framed in classical Buddhist scholastic terms, followed by a tightly-argued reply citing scriptural authorities and concluding with jǐn duì.
The work was widely used as an entry-level Huáyán study text in medieval East Asian monastic education; it was adopted in Korean Hwaeom and Japanese Kegon curricula and was repeatedly reprinted in the Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and Edo periods. The Taishō text is established on the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana (高麗藏 / 麗) collated against the yuán 原 (original-block) and jiǎ 甲 (Japanese alternate) witnesses.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Hamar, Imre. A Religious Leader in the Tang: Chengguan’s Biography. Tokyo: IIBS, 2002. — Chéngguān’s literary corpus and the place of the Lüè cè within it.
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007.
- Kimura Kiyotaka 木村清孝. Chūgoku Kegon shisōshi 中国華厳思想史. Heirakuji shoten, 1992.
Other points of interest
- The 42-topic format of the Lüè cè — paralleling the 42 mahābodhisattva stages of the Avataṃsaka’s soteriological scheme — is itself a doctrinal mnemonic device, organising the work’s content along the same numerical schema as its source-text.