Jīnguāngmíng jīng shū 金光明經疏
Commentary on the Sūtra of Golden Light composed by 吉藏 (Jízàng, 撰)
About the work
T1787 is 吉藏’s single-fascicle commentary on [[KR6i0301|Jīnguāngmíng jīng 金光明經]] (T663) — a relatively short text by the standards of the Sānlùn master’s prolific commentarial corpus, but historically important as the only major non-Tiāntái Suí commentary on the Suvarṇaprabhāsa and as evidence of how Madhyamaka 三論 doctrinal categories were applied to a sūtra normally read through Tiāntái lenses.
Abstract
The work bears the clean attribution 沙門吉藏撰 in the Taishō witness. Date bracket follows 吉藏’s mature productive period at Jiāxiángsì 嘉祥寺 in Kuàijī and subsequently at the Suí imperial chapels (590–623); the commentary is generally placed in the late Suí or very early Táng on the basis of doctrinal vocabulary. The opening lays out the Suvarṇaprabhāsa programme in characteristically Sānlùn terms: the Buddha’s fǎshēn 法身 (Dharma-body) is “obscure and quiet, with no long or short lifespan” (法身幽寂壽無長短); compassion responds to the conditions of beings (至人絕慮有感必通); skilful means (大權方便) takes shape in accordance with the capacities of the audience. This framing positions T1787 as a Madhyamaka rebuttal of any reified reading of the Buddha’s Shòuliàng (lifespan) doctrine — exactly the doctrinal point on which the Tiāntái commentaries (T1783, T1785) build their distinctive position.
The text is presumably an abridgement of a longer earlier work; cross-references in 吉藏’s other commentaries indicate that he had also composed a more extensive Sānlùn xuányì on the Suvarṇaprabhāsa that is now lost. T1787 is therefore best treated as a digest, but a doctrinally coherent one. It was little used in subsequent Chinese commentarial transmission, but is a key witness to early Suí Suvarṇaprabhāsa exegesis outside the Tiāntái lineage.
Related canonical texts: parent sūtra KR6i0301 (金光明經 / T663).
Translations and research
- Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Chūgoku hannya shisōshi kenkyū: Kichizō to Sanron gakuha 中國般若思想史研究: 吉藏と三論學派. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1976. The standard study of 吉藏’s commentarial corpus.
- Itō Takatoshi 伊藤隆寿. “Kichizō no Konkōmyōkyōso ni tsuite.” Komazawa Daigaku Bukkyō Gakubu kenkyū kiyō 38 (1980).
No book-length English translation located.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (600): CBETA, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, ed. Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo, 1924–1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. dazangthings