Xīn yì huáyán jīng qī chù jiǔ huì sòng shì zhāng 新譯華嚴經七處九會頌釋章
Treatise Explicating the Verses on the Seven Places and Nine Assemblies of the Newly-Translated Huáyán Scripture by 澄觀 Chéngguān (述)
About the work
The Xīn yì huáyán jīng qī chù jiǔ huì sòng shì zhāng is a one-fascicle treatise by 澄觀 Chéngguān explicating the so-called qī chù jiǔ huì 七處九會 — the “seven places and nine assemblies” — at which the cosmic Buddhāvataṃsaka discourse is, on the schema of the [[KR6e0010|new (80-fascicle) Huáyán]], delivered. The schema is one of the structural innovations of the Tang version (the older 60-fascicle text organises the discourse into 七處八會 — seven places and eight assemblies — and in this respect the new version, with its added ninth assembly in the Tā-huà zì-zài tiān 他化自在天, is doctrinally distinctive).
The work treats each of the 9 assemblies in turn — (1) the bodhi-maṇḍa at Bodhgayā (寂滅道場); (2) the Pǔ-guāng-míng diàn 普光明殿 (“Hall of Universal Light”) at Bodhgayā; (3) the Trāyastriṃśa heaven (忉利天); (4) the Yāma heaven (夜摩天); (5) the Tuṣita heaven (兜率天); (6) the Tā-huà zì-zài heaven (他化自在天 — the new assembly); (7) the Pǔ-guāng-míng diàn again (a second assembly at the same place); (8) the Pǔ-guāng-míng diàn a third time; (9) the Jì-yuán 給孤獨園 / Jetavana in Śrāvastī. For each assembly Chéngguān explicates the cosmological setting, the principal interlocutors, the topics taught, and the place of the assembly in the doctrinal architecture of the sūtra.
Prefaces
The Taishō print is preceded by a Huāyán qī chù jiǔ huì sòng shì zhāng xù 華嚴七處九會頌釋章序 (“Preface to the Treatise on the Verses on Seven Places and Nine Assemblies of the Huáyán”), reporting that “anciently Guīfēng Chán Master 宗密 Zōngmì made his Huáyán lún guàn 華嚴綸貫, but that book is lost and not transmitted; Fùān 復菴’s Lún guàn was made for Chán practitioners, so although it is sharp and direct, it is not convenient for those who study the doctrinal teaching.” The preface-writer, having long wished to make a parallel work to the Lotus Lún guàn but having lacked the talent to do so, found in the previous winter at the Huádǐng rù xìn jīngshě 華頂入信精舍 a copy of the Qī chù jiǔ huì sòng shì that “is by Qīngliángguān Master Chéngguān” — the present text. — This is a publishers’ preface, post-dating Chéngguān; the work itself opens directly with doctrinal exposition.
Abstract
The work belongs to Chéngguān’s mature period; no internal date is given. Conventional dating (Hamar 2002, Kimura 1992) places it in the period after the completion of the Yǎn yì chāo (c. 791), as a popular-instructional supplement to the Shū and Chāo. The bracket adopted here (787 – 838) reflects the maximum window from the completion of the Shū to Chéngguān’s death.
The doctrinal innovation of the qī chù jiǔ huì schema — versus the qī chù bā huì schema of the older translation — is a key marker of the Tang Huáyán school’s authoritative reception of the new (80-fascicle) text. The schema places greater weight on the Tā-huà zì-zài tiān assembly (assembly 6 in the new schema), which contains the Bodhisattva Forest of Hairs (Pútísà-míng-nán pǐn 菩薩明難品 cluster), the Daśabhūmika, and the Sage Dispensations — i.e. the bulk of the bodhisattva path-doctrine. Within the Huáyán doctrinal tradition the topology of the cosmic preaching is thus held to map onto the topology of the bodhisattva career: the lower heavens correspond to the lower stages, the higher heavens to the higher stages, and the final assembly back at the Jetavana on earth represents the bodhisattva’s re-entry into the world for the salvation of beings — the moral-soteriological core of the Avataṃsaka’s mythopoesis.
The work is brief but doctrinally weighty; it was widely studied alongside the Lüè cè as a compact entry to Chéngguān’s mature thought.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Hamar, Imre. A Religious Leader in the Tang: Chengguan’s Biography. Tokyo: IIBS, 2002.
- Hamar, Imre. “The Place of the Avataṃsaka in Mahāyāna Buddhist Cosmology,” in Reflecting Mirrors (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 publishers’ preface preserved with the Taishō text mentions 宗密 Zōngmì’s lost Huáyán lún guàn 華嚴綸貫 and Fùān’s alternative Lún guàn (also lost) — the two works are otherwise known only from citations and form an important documentary record of Tang and post-Tang Huáyán literature now mostly lost.