Dàshèng dàogǎn jīng suítīng shū jué 大乘稻芉經隨聽疏決
Resolution / Sub-commentary on the Lecture-Record Commentary on the Mahāyāna Śālistamba-sūtra author unknown
About the work
T2783 in one fascicle is an anonymous sub-commentary or jué 決 (“resolution”) on 法成’s Dàshèng dàogǎn jīng suítīng shū (KR6i0405 / T2782). It survives, like its parent text, only in the Dūnhuáng manuscripts and is preserved in Taishō volume 85 (Gǔyìbù). The author is not identified in the manuscript. The dating bracket is uncertain: the jué genre indicates a clarification of doctrinal points raised in the lecture-record, suggesting composition by a follower of 法成 at Dūnhuáng during the late Tang or early Five Dynasties period.
Abstract
The jué 決 genre — “resolution” or “decision” — is a sub-commentarial form addressing specific doctrinal cruces in the parent lecture-record. The Suítīng shū jué poses and resolves questions about 法成’s exposition of the twelve nidānas in KR6i0405. Where Chos-grub’s commentary follows the sequence of the base sūtra (KR6i0404) line-by-line, the jué is selective, treating only the points where the master’s exposition required further elaboration.
The text is a witness to the active commentarial tradition that developed around 法成’s lectures at Dūnhuáng in the ninth and tenth centuries. The pairing of base text + lecture-record + jué (sūtra → shū → jué) is a three-tier structure characteristic of the systematic Buddhist scholarship Chos-grub introduced. Like its parent, the text never entered the printed canon and was recovered only with the opening of Dūnhuáng cave 17.
Related texts: parent commentary KR6i0405 / T2782; base sūtra KR6i0404 / T712; alternative Śālistamba recensions KR6i0400, KR6i0401, KR6i0402, KR6i0403.
Translations and research
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻, Tonkō bukkyō no kenkyū 敦煌仏教の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1990. The principal modern treatment of the Dūnhuáng Śālistamba commentarial cluster, including this jué.