Xīn huáyán jīng lùn 新華嚴經論
A Treatise on the New Huáyán Scripture by 李通玄 Lǐ Tōngxuán (撰)
About the work
The Xīn huáyán jīng lùn in 40 fascicles is the great work of the lay Tang Buddhist scholar 李通玄 Lǐ Tōngxuán (645–740) on the [[KR6e0010|new (80-fascicle) Huáyán jīng]]. Composed independently of the institutional Huáyán school of 法藏 Fǎzàng and 澄觀 Chéngguān, the work represents the most distinctive alternative reading of the Avataṃsaka in the Tang tradition — a reading that integrates the sūtra into a synthetic metaphysical-cosmological system drawing on Confucian ethics, Yìjīng-style numerology, geomantic correspondences (the cardinal directions, the heavenly stems and earthly branches), and Buddhist contemplative practice.
The opening — one of the most distinctively philosophical openings in Tang Buddhist literature — sets out the fundamental thesis: “All beings have their root in [the universal] wisdom-ocean as their source; all sentient flow has the dharma-kāya as its body. It is only because emotion arises and wisdom is barred, fancies change and substance is differentiated [that diversity appears]. Penetrate to the root and emotion vanishes; understand the mind and substance is unified. The Dà fāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng clarifies the original boundary of all beings and reveals the source-result of all Buddhas. As the root, it cannot be reached by [meritorious] works; as the source, it cannot be obtained by [practical] cultivation. When works are forgotten the root is consummated; when practice is exhausted the source is fulfilled. The source-and-root, free of [labour-]merit, naturally manifesting in response to conditions — this is just Vairocana. Taking original-nature for its light, wisdom responding to faculties, great compassion saving beings — this is its name. Founded on the Source-Suchness, it sets up the teaching’s bounty, which streams through the Dharma-realm and moistens [all].” (夫以有情之本。依智海以為源。含識之流。總法身而為體。只為情生智隔。想變體殊。達本情亡知心體合。今此大方廣佛華嚴經者。明眾生之本際。示諸佛之果源。其為本也。不可以功成。其為源也。不可以行得。功亡本就行盡源成。源本無功能隨緣自在者即此毘盧遮那也。以本性為光。智隨根應。大悲濟物以此為名。依本如是設其教澤。滂流法界以潤……)
Prefaces
The work has no formal preface; it opens directly with the doctrinal xuán tán quoted above, attributed simply to “長者李通玄撰” (“composed by the Old Master Lǐ Tōngxuán”). The Sòng gāosēng zhuàn biography supplies the contextual narrative.
Abstract
The work was composed during Lǐ Tōngxuán’s later years on Mt. Tài-háng 太行山, c. 720 – 730 CE. It treats the entire 80-fascicle Avataṃsaka in 40 fascicles, and is a freely-flowing doctrinal-contemplative treatise rather than a chapter-by-chapter pañjikā commentary. The structure is determined less by the sūtra’s chapter-divisions than by Lǐ-zhǎngzhě’s own thematic interests: the doctrine of Vairocana and the dharma-kāya; the bodhisattva path-stages (Shízhù, Shíxíng, Shíhuíxiàng, and especially the Daśabhūmika) read as a progression of contemplative virtues; the cosmology of the seven places and nine assemblies as a topology of the bodhisattva’s interior contemplative landscape; the doctrine of xìng 性 (nature) as ontologically prior to xiū 修 (practice).
The Lùn circulated widely in the eighth and ninth centuries among lay Tang Buddhist intellectuals and was rediscovered in the Sòng — particularly by the Chán schools — for the contemplative reading of the Avataṃsaka it provided. 宗杲 Dàhuì Zōnggǎo and 克勤 Yuánwù Kèqín cite it; the lay Sòng Buddhist scholar 蘇軾 Sū Dōngpō (1037–1101) was an admirer; 楊億 Yáng Yì (974–1020) wrote a preface for the work in its eleventh-century reissue. In the Korean Hwaeom tradition, 均如 Kyunyŏ (923–973) drew on it in his synthesis of Korean Hwaeom doctrine.
The Taishō text (T1739) is established on the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana collated against the standard apparatus.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located. For partial translations and analyses see:
- Hammer, Imre. “Li Tongxuan’s New Treatise on the Huáyán and its Reception in East Asia,” in Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
- Gimello, Robert M. “Li T’ung-hsüan and the Practical Dimensions of Hua-yen,” in Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen, ed. R. M. Gimello and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1983), 321–389. — The standard Western-language study.
- Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton University Press, 1991 — context for Lǐ Tōngxuán’s reception.
- Wang, Yumin. Li Tongxuan’s New Hua-yen Treatise: Theory and Practice. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1999.
- Cleary, Thomas, tr. Entry into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1983 — includes substantial extracts.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Bukkyō daijiten 仏教大辞典 — entry on Lǐ Tōngxuán.
- Kojima Taizan 小島岱山. Kegon shisō no kenkyū 華厳思想の研究 — substantial chapter on Lǐ Tōngxuán.
Other points of interest
- Lǐ Tōngxuán’s hagiographic image — the lay sage in the cave on the zǎo bǎi diet, working by the light of a self-illumining lamp — became a standard topos of East Asian Buddhist literature; Chán painters of the Sòng and Yuán made it the subject of devotional portraiture.
- The work is the most distinctive Tang Buddhist alternative to the institutional Huáyán school doctrine; its reading of the Avataṃsaka through the lens of contemplative practice rather than scholastic doxography proved especially congenial to the Sòng Chán schools.