Huángdì jiàngdàn rì yú Líndédiàn jiǎng Dà fāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng xuán yì yī bù 皇帝降誕日於麟德殿講大方廣佛華嚴經玄義一部
A Lecture on the Profound Meaning of the Great, Vast Buddha-Flower-Garland Scripture, Delivered at the Lín-dé Hall on the Day of the Emperor’s Birth by 靜居 Jìngjū (撰)
About the work
This one-fascicle text is a court Buddhist lecture (jiǎng 講) delivered by the otherwise obscure Tang monk 靜居 Jìngjū of the Dà-ān-guó-sì 大安國寺 at the Lín-dé Hall of the Dà-míng-gōng 大明宮 (the imperial palace complex of the late Tang) on the occasion of an unspecified Tang emperor’s birthday. The work is set out as a structured doctrinal sermon on the Huáyán jīng’s overall structure: the seven places, nine assemblies, 39 chapters across 80 fascicles. Each chapter is briefly summarised, with the cosmic setting, principal interlocutors, and main doctrinal theme. The whole functions as a compact lay-introduction to the Avataṃsaka, but addressed to the imperial audience.
Prefaces
The work has no separate preface; it opens with the title-line and Jìngjū’s signature: “皇帝降誕日於麟德殿講大方廣佛華嚴經玄義一部 / 大安國寺沙門靜居謹上” (“Lecture on the Profound Meaning of the Dà fāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng, delivered at the Lín-dé Hall on the day of the emperor’s birth, in one fascicle. Respectfully presented by the śramaṇa Jìngjū of the Dà-ān-guó Monastery”). The text begins immediately: “This sūtra has 7 places, 9 assemblies, 39 chapters, [in] 80 fascicles. The first assembly at the bodhi-maṇḍa contains 6 chapters: (1) the Shìzhǔ miào yán pǐn in 5 fascicles; (2) the Rúláixiàn xiàng pǐn in 1 fascicle; (3) the Pǔ-xián sānmèi pǐn; (4) the Shìjiè chéngjiù pǐn, two chapters together in 1 fascicle; (5) the Huā-zàng shìjiè pǐn in 3 fascicles; (6) the Pílúzhēnà pǐn in 1 fascicle. The second assembly at the Pǔ-guāng-míng diàn contains 6 chapters [namely] the Rúlái…” — and so on through the entire sūtra.
Abstract
The dating bracket adopted here (859 – 888) is based on the style of the work, the reference to the Líndédiàn 麟德殿 (which functioned as a court lecture-hall in the late Tang, particularly under Yìzōng and Xīzōng), and the institutional setting of the Dàānguósì 大安國寺 — an imperial-foundation monastery active throughout the late Tang and a frequent venue for court Buddhist lectures. No closer dating is internally attested. The text is one of a small number of court-Buddhist jiǎng lectures preserved as independent works (most others are referenced only in the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn and the Tang huì yào 唐會要 without surviving in primary form).
The work’s significance is twofold. First, it documents the Tang imperial practice of huáng-dì jiàng-dàn 皇帝降誕 (“Emperor’s Birth Day”) court Buddhist services — a ritual genre attested also in some of 澄觀 Chéngguān’s writings — in which Buddhist masters delivered lectures to the assembled court on auspicious imperial occasions. Second, it preserves a compact summary of the doctrinal structure of the [[KR6e0010|new (80-fascicle) Huáyán]] from a perspective intermediate between the elaborate Huáyán-school scholasticism (Fǎzàng / Chéngguān) and the lay-philosophical reading of 李通玄 Lǐ Tōngxuán: a court-pedagogical reading that integrated the basic structural-doctrinal apparatus of the school’s mature commentary tradition into an accessible sermon-format. The Taishō text is established on the Korean Tripiṭaka Koreana (麗) collated against the yuán 原 (original-block) witness.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Forte, Antonino. Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock. Rome / Paris: IsMEO / EFEO, 1988 — useful background on Tang imperial-court Buddhist ritual practice.
- Weinstein, Stanley. Buddhism under the T’ang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 — chapter 7 on late-Tang imperial-court Buddhism.
Other points of interest
- The Líndédiàn 麟德殿 was one of the principal halls of the Dàmínggōng palace complex, used for major court ceremonies and audiences; its use as a venue for Buddhist lectures attests to the continuing — if increasingly contested — imperial sponsorship of Buddhism in the late Tang, despite the great Huìchāng 會昌 persecution of 845.
- The work’s yī bù 一部 (“in one bù”, i.e. comprising one assembly / unit) in the title is a standard formula of Tang imperial-record bibliographic notation.