Yúlánpén jīng zànshù 盂蘭盆經讚述
Eulogistic Exposition of the Yúlánpén Sūtra commentary by 慧淨 (Huìjìng, 撰)
About the work
T2781 in one fascicle is a Dunhuang-recovered early-Tang commentary on [[KR6i0364|the Yúlánpén jīng 盂蘭盆經]] (T685), preserved in the Dunhuang manuscript-cache and incorporated into the Taishō Tripiṭaka in vol. 85 (the gǔyì 古逸 / miscellanea volume). The commentary is attributed by Taishō to the early-Tang scholar-monk 慧淨 (b. 578, fl. 605–650). It is the earliest known commentary on the Yúlánpén jīng — preceding [[KR6i0365|宗密’s Shū 疏]] (T1792) by more than a century.
Abstract
The Taishō witness shows substantial textual damage at the head — a sequence of kējì 缺字 (missing-graph squares) — but the surviving body is sufficient to characterize the work. 慧淨 reads the Yúlánpén in a primarily exegetical-rhetorical register: the genre of zànshù 讚述 (“eulogistic exposition”) combines doctrinal commentary with rhythmic praise-prose, and the commentary works section-by-section through the sūtra. Notable points include 慧淨’s gloss on the etymology of yúlánpén (“即成食之器…奉佛施僧” — “a vessel for prepared food … offered to the Buddha and to the Saṅgha”) and his treatment of Maudgalyāyana’s vision of his hungry-ghost mother as a paradigmatic case of the doctrine of inherited karma. The text was lost from the mainstream canon in the Sòng and recovered only through the Dunhuang documents at the start of the twentieth century.
Composition window: 慧淨’s active scholarly period at the early-Tang capital, 627 (Zhēnguān 1, his entry into court patronage) – 650 (his last attested activity). No internal date is preserved.
Parent sūtra: KR6i0364 (T685). Other commentaries on the same parent: KR6i0365 (Zōngmì T1792), KR6i0367–KR6i0373 (Sòng / Míng / Qīng commentary cluster).
Translations and research
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton, 1988. Discusses the Dunhuang commentary tradition on the Yúlánpén jīng.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Bukkyō kyōten seiritsu shi-ron 仏教経典成立史論. Kyoto, 1946. (Background on Tang scriptural exegesis.)
- Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐. Dōkyō to bukkyō 道教と仏教. Tokyo: Nihon gakujutsu shinkōkai, 1959–1976. (For the festival’s syncretic dimension.)
No standalone Western-language translation located.
Other points of interest
The work is one of a small group of pre-宗密 Yúlánpén commentaries — others (now lost) are mentioned in early-Tang sūtra-catalogues — and is a key witness for the seventh-century reception of the sūtra at the imperial capital, before 宗密’s ninth-century commentary became normative.