Yuánjué jīng dàshū 圓覺經大疏
Great Commentary on the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment by 宗密 (Guīfēng Zōngmì, 述)
About the work
The Yuánjué jīng dàshū 圓覺經大疏 is the principal exegetical opus of 宗密 Guīfēng Zōngmì 圭峰宗密 (780–841) on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551). Composed in the period after Zōngmì’s awakening on the Yuánjué jīng under his master Suízhōu 道圓 Dàoyuán (after 807), the Dàshū — together with its sub-commentary, the Dàshū chāo (圓覺經大疏鈔, KR6i0557, 13 fascicles), and its outline, the Dàshū kē (KR6i0556) — constitutes the most substantial single doctrinal apparatus on the sūtra. The standard Xùzàng layout gives 3 fascicles for the Dàshū itself (X09 no. 243), 2 for the Dàshū kē (X09 no. 244), and 13 for the Dàshū chāo (X09 no. 245), the Dàshū chāo being the line-by-line subcommentary on the Dàshū.
Abstract
The Dàshū deploys the full apparatus of late-Táng Buddhist scholasticism: an elaborate doctrinal classification system (the threefold jiào 教 — xiānjiào 顯教 / bù-liǎo-yì-jiào 不了義教 / liǎo-yì-jiào 了義教 — and the threefold jiào-fǎ parallel to the threefold xīn-fǎ); the doxographical placement of the Yuánjué jīng within Mahāyāna scripture as the supreme liǎo-yì 了義 (“definitive meaning”) teaching; the threefold guān 觀 (śamatha 奢摩他, samāpatti 三摩鉢提, chán 禪那) reading of the meditation chapters; and a meticulous parallel-passage apparatus drawing on the Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn 大乘起信論, the Lèngyán jīng 楞嚴經, the Huáyán jīng 華嚴經, the Lèngqié jīng 楞伽經, and Zōngmì’s own Yuánrén lùn 原人論. The Dàshū and the Dàshū chāo together establish the standard Sòng-and-later reading of the Yuánjué jīng, but were rapidly superseded for classroom use by the more compact KR6i0553 Lüèshū, which became the actual ground-text for the late-medieval and early-modern commentary tradition.
The Dàshū was lost in mainland China by the early Sòng (no Sòng-printed witness survives) and was preserved exclusively in the Kōrai Tripiṭaka and through Japanese transmission. Its present canonical form rests on the Wànzì xùzàngjīng 卍續藏經 reproduction of the Edo-period Ōbaku 黄檗 print derived from a Korean ancestor. The text’s standard preface is by Zōngmì’s lay disciple 裴休 Péi Xiū 裴休 (787–860); a second preface (the famous yuánqǐ 緣起 or “occasion-and-circumstance” preface) is by Zōngmì himself and is the principal source for his autobiography and his account of the Yuánjué jīng awakening experience.
Translations and research
- Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. — Foundational English-language study; chapters 4–5 treat the Dàshū and Dàshū chāo as primary sources.
- Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄. Shūmitsu kyōgaku no shisō shi-teki kenkyū 宗密教学の思想史的研究. Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1975. — Standard Japanese monograph; pp. 290–540 treat the Dàshū in detail.
- Yoshizu Yoshihide 吉津宜英. Kegonzen no shisōshi-teki kenkyū 華厳禅の思想史的研究. Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1985.
- Ishii Shūdō 石井修道. “Engakukyō to Shūmitsu” 円覚経と宗密. Komazawa daigaku Bukkyō gakubu kenkyū kiyō 35 (1977).
Other points of interest
Zōngmì’s autobiographical preface to the Dàshū — describing his break with Confucian studies, his ordination, his encounter with Dàoyuán, and his reading of the Yuánjué jīng as the turning text — is one of the most important first-person prose statements in late-Táng Chinese Buddhist literature and is the single most-cited primary source on Zōngmì’s biography.