Wéimó jīng chāo 維摩經抄
Excerpts from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra Commentary (anonymous Dunhuang manuscript)
About the work
The Wéimó jīng chāo (T2773) is a one-fascicle anonymous Dunhuang manuscript in the chāo 抄 (excerpt / digest) genre. The chāo genre title indicates a digest of an existing commentary or a topical excerpt-collection rather than a continuous shū commentary.
Prefaces
The text opens directly with excerpted glosses; the fragmentary state and digest-format make it impossible to identify a preface.
Abstract
The chāo genre — extract or digest — was a common Tang teaching genre, producing usable summaries of longer commentaries for monastic study or for circulation among lay practitioners. T2773 is one of two such texts in the Dunhuang Vimalakīrti cluster (the other being T2774 = KR6i0093). The text likely digests one or more of the canonical commentaries (僧肇, 淨影慧遠, 吉藏) but the source is not explicitly identified.
Translations and research
- Pelliot, Paul. Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits chinois. Paris, 1908.