Wéimó jīng yìshū 維摩經義疏
Commentary on the Meaning of the Vimalakīrti Sūtra (J. Yuima-gyō gisho) attributed to 聖德太子 Shèngdé Tàizǐ (Shōtoku Taishi)
About the work
A five-juan commentary on Kumārajīva’s Wéimójié suǒ shuō jīng 維摩詰所說經 (KR6i0076 = T475), traditionally attributed to the Asuka-period regent Shōtoku Taishi 聖德太子 (574–622). Together with the Hokke gisho 法華義疏 (KR6d0033 / T2187, on the Lotus) and the Shōman gisho 勝鬘經義疏 (KR6f0053 / T2185, on the Śrīmālā-sūtra), it forms the Sangyō gisho 三經義疏 (“Commentaries on the Three Sūtras”) — the corpus traditionally regarded as the inaugural Japanese contribution to Mahāyāna exegesis and the foundational scholarly literature of pre-Nara Buddhism in Japan. The Taishō recension is preserved at T56n2186 in five fascicles, following the seven-section xièyì 解義 division of the Kumārajīva text.
Structural Division
- 維摩經義疏 Wéimó jīng yìshū — commentary on KR6i0076 維摩詰所說經 (Kumārajīva translation of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa, T475).
Prefaces
The text opens with the head-note Shōtoku-ō goseiso 上宮皇御製 (“Composed by Prince [Shōtoku of] Jōgū”), followed immediately by the doctrinal preamble on the name Vimalakīrti (淨名 Jìngmíng, “Pure Name”) and the meaning of acintya-vimokṣa (不思議解脱). The author identifies the sūtra’s two-fold nomenclature — by the protagonist’s name (人名) on the one hand, and by the doctrine of inconceivable liberation (法名) on the other — as the structural key to the work, and explains his exegetical method as kāi-sān xiǎn-yī 開三顯一 in line with the Sānlùn 三論 / Madhyamaka tradition. The preface frames the commentary as a bodhisattva-yāna reading of the sūtra against the dichotomy of quán 權 (expedient) and shí 實 (real) wisdom.
Abstract
The Yuima gisho (J. Yuima-gyō gisho) is the second of the three Sangyō gisho and the shortest of the three. Like its companion volumes, it follows the standard 6th-century Chinese commentarial method — title-explication (shì míng 釋名), doctrinal classification (pàn jiào 判教), and verse-by-verse exposition — and shows the same close dependence on Liáng-dynasty Sānlùn 三論 / Madhyamaka sources, most notably 僧肇 Sēngzhào (374–414) and his Zhù Wéimójié jīng 注維摩詰經 (KR6i0078 = T1775). The commentary advances a thoroughgoing èdì 二諦 (two-truths) reading of Vimalakīrti’s silence in chapter 9 (the Bùèr fǎmén pǐn 不二法門品), identifying it as the consummate expression of bùkě sī yì 不思議 (the inconceivable) and the highest term of the Mādhyamika dialectic.
The dating to the Suiko era 推古 (traditionally 609–615) places composition during the period of Shōtoku’s regency under Empress Suiko 推古 (r. 593–628). The Hōryū-ji 法隆寺 tradition holds that all three gisho were composed in that decade, with the Hokke gisho in 615, the Yuima gisho shortly before, and the Shōman gisho in 611 — but no datable manuscript or independent contemporary record supports a precise chronology.
The Shōtoku attribution has been intensely contested in modern scholarship. Fujieda Akira 藤枝晃 (1971, 1975) argued on palaeographical grounds that the Hōryū-ji Hokke gisho autograph manuscript is a late-Suí or early-Táng Chinese hand, and that the Sangyō gisho corpus as a whole is of Chinese origin and only secondarily ascribed to Shōtoku. Koizumi Michi 小泉道, Hanayama Shinshō 花山信勝, and Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士 have engaged the dispute from various sides. The catalog meta carries no author field — consistent with this scholarly uncertainty — and the present note follows the traditional Shōtoku ascription while noting the dispute. The CANWWW entry retains the conventional ascription (Shōtoku Taishi, AUT00985).
Translations and research
- Hanayama Shinshō 花山信勝. Sangyō gisho no kenkyū 三経義疏の研究. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1933. — The classic critical study; treats textual transmission, doctrinal sources, and the Shōtoku-ascription question for the entire Sangyō gisho corpus.
- Fujieda Akira 藤枝晃. “Hokke gisho no seiritsu ni tsuite” 法華義疏の成立について. Tōhōgaku 東方學 41 (1971); also “Hokke gisho saikō” 法華義疏再考, Bukkyōgaku seminā 1975. — The principal modern critique of the Shōtoku ascription; conclusions extend by implication to the Yuima gisho and Shōman gisho.
- Iida Mizuho 飯田瑞穂. Shōtoku Taishi den no kenkyū 聖徳太子伝の研究. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2000. — Biographical-source study of the Shōtoku tradition.
- Como, Michael. Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. — Standard English-language study of the cult of Shōtoku and the formation of the gisho attribution tradition.
- Dennis, Mark. Prince Shōtoku’s Commentary on the Śrīmālā Sūtra. Berkeley: BDK America, 2011. — While focused on the Shōman gisho, the introduction situates the Yuima gisho and the Sangyō gisho corpus as a whole in their doctrinal and historiographical context.
Other points of interest
The Yuima gisho has not been the subject of an autograph-manuscript controversy comparable to that surrounding the Hokke gisho — no claimed Shōtoku autograph of the Yuima gisho survives. Its transmission is exclusively through the Taishō / Dai-Nihon Bukkyō zensho line and the standard Heian-period monastic copies, which complicates the philological case for or against Shōtoku authorship; the question must be argued indirectly via parallels with the Hokke gisho.