Zhù Wéimójié jīng 注維摩詰經
Annotated Vimalakīrti Sūtra by 僧肇 Sēngzhào (撰)
About the work
The Zhù Wéimójié jīng (T1775) is the earliest extant commentary on Kumārajīva’s translation of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra (KR6i0076 = T475), compiled in ten fascicles by 僧肇 Sēngzhào (384–414 CE), Kumārajīva’s most brilliant Chinese disciple. The text is best understood as an interlinear-gloss commentary in which Sēngzhào incorporates the comments of Kumārajīva himself (“什曰” — “Kumārajīva says”), 道生 Dàoshēng (“生曰”), 道融 Dàoróng (“融曰”), and Sēngzhào’s own remarks (“肇曰”). It is the single most important document for reconstructing the philosophical milieu of Kumārajīva’s Cháng’ān workshop and the early Chinese Madhyamaka.
Prefaces
The text opens with Sēngzhào’s elegant bìngxù 并序 (introductory preface), one of the most famous prose passages in Chinese Buddhist literature: “維摩詰不思議經者。蓋是窮微盡化。絕妙之稱也。其旨淵玄。非言象所測。道越三空。非二乘所議” (“The Inconceivable Vimalakīrti Sūtra — it is a designation that exhausts the subtlest and most ineffable transformations. Its meaning is profound and mysterious, beyond what words and images can measure. Its way transcends the three emptinesses; it is beyond the discourse of the two vehicles”). The preface continues with a doxographical history of the Vimalakīrti and its translation, naming the principals of the Cháng’ān workshop. Sēngzhào’s preface set the rhetorical standard for medieval Chinese Buddhist commentarial prefaces.
Abstract
Sēngzhào (384–414 CE) was Kumārajīva’s most precocious and philosophically gifted Chinese disciple. He compiled this commentary by incorporating Kumārajīva’s oral exegesis (delivered in lectures at Cháng’ān 406–409 CE), the comments of fellow disciples 道生 Dàoshēng and 道融 Dàoróng, and his own observations into a coherent running gloss. The interlinear format makes it the de facto record of Kumārajīva’s lecture course on the Vimalakīrti.
The catalog meta gives the dynasty as 後秦 (Yáo Qín), which is correct for Sēngzhào’s lifetime. The compilation is dated between 406 (Kumārajīva’s translation of T475) and Sēngzhào’s death in 414 CE.
The commentary’s philosophical importance lies in its synthesis of Madhyamaka prajñā doctrine with the Chinese Daoist-rooted vocabulary that Sēngzhào also developed in his independent treatises (the Bùzhēn kōng lùn 不真空論, Wù bùqiān lùn 物不遷論, and Bōrě wúzhī lùn 般若無知論 — collected in the Zhàolùn 肇論, T1858). The Zhù Wéimójié is essential for reconstructing how the Cháng’ān workshop translated Indian Buddhist concepts into the Chinese intellectual idiom.
Translations and research
- Liebenthal, Walter. Chao Lun: The Treatises of Seng-chao. 2nd ed. Hong Kong University Press, 1968 — sets context for Sēngzhào’s Vimalakīrti commentary.
- Robinson, Richard H. Early Mādhyamika in India and China. Wisconsin, 1967 — extensive treatment of Sēngzhào’s Vimalakīrti gloss.
- Yao Zhihua. The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition. London: Routledge, 2005 — uses Sēngzhào’s Vimalakīrti commentary.
- Hurvitz, Leon. Chih-i: An Introduction to the Life and Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk. Bruxelles, 1962 — frames Sēngzhào’s commentary as a precursor to Tiantai exegesis.
Other points of interest
The Zhù Wéimójié jīng preserves the only direct record of Kumārajīva’s oral exegesis in Cháng’ān. Without it, our understanding of the philosophical character of Kumārajīva’s translation workshop would be drastically impoverished.