Jīnguāngmíng zuìshèngwáng jīng zhùshì 金光明最勝王經註釋
Annotations to the Sūtra of the Golden Light, the Most Victorious King by 明一 (Míngyī / Myōichi, 集)
About the work
A ten-fascicle Japanese Hossō 法相 commentary on 義淨 Yìjìng’s (635–713) translation of the Suvarṇaprabhāsottama-sūtra — the Jīnguāngmíng zuìshèngwáng jīng 金光明最勝王經 (KR6i0303 = T665) — compiled by the Tōdai-ji 東大寺 monk 明一 Myōichi (728–798) in the late Nara period. The work bears the head-note 多用沼疏少取余説 (“primarily following Huìzhāo’s commentary, with little drawn from other interpretations”), declaring the shū (疏) of the Tang Hossō master 慧沼 Huìzhāo (651–714, also written 惠沼, of Xīmíng sì) as its principal source. Preserved at T56n2197 in ten juan.
Structural Division
- 金光明最勝王經註釋 Zhùshì — commentary on KR6i0303 金光明最勝王經 (Yìjìng translation of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-sūtra, T665).
Prefaces
The text opens with a brief verse-introduction by Myōichi (xī sānshì yīqiè fó / shén shēn fǎbǎo xiánshèng zhòng / wǒ jīn zhùshì jīnguāng diǎn — “Inclining to the buddhas of the three times, the profound dharma-treasure and the assembly of sages, I now annotate the Golden-Light canon”), followed by the methodological preface (xù). The preface names the three principal sources of the commentary:
- 勝莊 Shèngzhuāng of Dà Jiànfú sì 大薦福寺 (Cháng’ān), a Korean Hossō master active in the early 8th century;
- 慧沼 Huìzhāo (651–714, also written 惠沼) of Xīmíng sì 西明寺 (Cháng’ān), the great Tang Hossō shū of T665, on which Myōichi principally depends; and
- 憬興 Kyŏnghŭng (fl. late 7th – early 8th c.) of Silla, whose own commentarial tradition on the Suvarṇaprabhāsa was widely circulated in Nara Japan.
Myōichi describes himself as 小僧禀性愚鈍 (“a humble monk of dull native endowment”) who, unable to master the entire commentarial corpus of these masters, has extracted (cǎicuō 採撮) the essential passages from their shū and arranged them as annotations to the sūtra text. The compilation is divided into ten fascicles and prefaced with a four-section analytical framework: (1) the doctrinal zōngqù 宗趣 of the sūtra, (2) the comparative fānjīng 翻經 history of its translations, (3) the explication of the title, and (4) the verse-by-verse pànshì 判釋.
Abstract
The Zhùshì is the principal extant Nara-period Japanese commentary on the Yìjìng recension of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa. Its method is compilation rather than original exegesis: Myōichi collates the views of his three principal Tang and Silla sources — Shèngzhuāng, Huìzhāo, and Kyŏnghŭng — and arranges them under the sūtra’s lemmas, preserving multiple readings rather than adjudicating between them. The introductory section on the sūtra’s zōngqù records a remarkable range of competing classifications:
- The Báimǎ sì Sháo fǎshī 白馬寺韶法師 and 真諦 Paramārtha readings: the sūtra teaches the originality of the three bodies (sānshēn běnyǒu 三身本有) and the unborn-ness of the four virtues (sìdé wúshēng 四德無生).
- An anonymous reading: the sūtra’s zōng is the cause-and-fruit of bodhi and nirvāṇa.
- 元曉 Wŏnhyo (617–686, of Silla): the previous two readings each capture part of the truth and should be conjoined.
- 憬興 Kyŏnghŭng: the sūtra teaches the chángzhù 常住 (permanent abiding) cause-and-fruit.
- 勝莊 Shèngzhuāng: a fourth distinct zōng identification.
By preserving these competing readings side-by-side, the Zhùshì functions as an inadvertent witness to the Tang-Silla commentarial debate over the Suvarṇaprabhāsa — a debate not preserved in any other extant source. The composition window is constrained by Huìzhāo’s death (714) — providing the terminus post quem for the principal source — and Myōichi’s own death in 798. The work is therefore very likely a product of his late-Nara mature years, c. 750–798; a tighter bracket cannot be defended from internal evidence.
The commentary’s continued importance in the Heian and Kamakura Hossō tradition is attested by its inclusion in the Taishō canon’s Japanese-commentaries division (T56) and by its long manuscript transmission through Tōdai-ji and successor Hossō monastic libraries.
Translations and research
- Mizuno Kōgen 水野弘元 et al., eds. Konkōmyōkyō no kenkyū 金光明経の研究. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1955; reprint Kokusho Kankōkai 1980. — Treats the Zhùshì as a principal Japanese witness to the Tang-Silla Hossō commentarial tradition on T665.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Butten wa dō Kanyaku sareta no ka 仏典はどう漢訳されたのか. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2013. — Discusses the Yìjìng Suvarṇaprabhāsa translation context and its early-Heian Japanese reception, including the Myōichi commentary.
- No full Western-language translation has been published.
Other points of interest
The Zhùshì is one of the few surviving Nara-period direct witnesses to the commentarial work of Kyŏnghŭng 憬興, whose own Suvarṇaprabhāsa commentary does not survive complete in any other transmission. Myōichi’s citations therefore constitute important fragmentary evidence for the reconstruction of Silla Hossō exegesis on T665.