Yuánjué jīng dàshū shìyì chāo 圓覺經大疏釋義鈔
Subcommentary on the Great Commentary to the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment, “Explication of Meaning” by 宗密 (Guīfēng Zōngmì, 撰)
About the work
The Yuánjué jīng dàshū shìyì chāo — usually called simply the Dàshū chāo 大疏鈔 — is the 13-fascicle line-by-line subcommentary by 宗密 Guīfēng Zōngmì (780–841) on his own Yuánjué jīng dàshū 圓覺經大疏 (KR6i0555). It is the largest single piece of Chinese Buddhist exegetical writing on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551) and stands as one of the most ambitious individual scholastic projects of late-Táng Chinese Buddhism — together with Zōngmì’s Chányuán zhūquánjí dūxù 禪源諸詮集都序 and his lost 100-juan Chányuán zhūquánjí — establishing him as the great encyclopedist of his generation.
Abstract
The Dàshū chāo serves three distinct functions: (a) as the line-by-line jīn shū 今疏 explication of the Dàshū, supplying the doctrinal cross-references, parallel-passage citations, and exegetical justifications that the Dàshū had merely indicated; (b) as a doxographical compendium, embedding into the gloss of any given chapter the relevant comparative material from the Lèngyán jīng, Lèngqié jīng, Huáyán jīng, Wéishí lùn, Qǐxìn lùn, the Liùzǔ tánjīng 六祖壇經, and a wide range of Chán literature including substantial citations from Hézé 神會 Shénhuì (684–758) (Zōngmì’s lineage ancestor); and (c) as Zōngmì’s principal sustained statement of the jiàochán yīzhì 教禪一致 (“teaching and Chán are of one purport”) program. The Dàshū chāo is the principal source for late-Táng Chán doctrinal classification, and its citations from Hézé Shénhuì and from Zōngmì’s contemporaries are independent witnesses for several Chán texts now lost or fragmentary.
The Dàshū chāo is preserved only through Korean and Japanese transmission. Its text in the Wànzì xùzàngjīng is based on the Edo Ōbaku-print derived from a Korean ancestor; the Dàshū chāo fascicle 4-A (containing Zōngmì’s account of the seven Chán schools) has been particularly important for modern reconstructions of late-Táng Chán doxography.
Translations and research
- Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. — Treats the Dàshū chāo extensively as primary source.
- 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.
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻. “Engakukyō dai-sho shōkō no chosaku ni tsuite” 円覚経大疏鈔考の著作について. Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 32 (1976).
- Hu Shih 胡適. “Hézé Shénhuì héshàng yíjí” 荷澤神會和尚遺集. — Hu’s reconstruction of Shénhuì’s writings draws extensively on the Dàshū chāo.
Other points of interest
The Dàshū chāo preserves the only extant version of Zōngmì’s full sevenfold classification of contemporary Chán schools (qījiā 七家), which is otherwise known only in summary form through the Chányuán zhūquánjí dūxù and through the Zhōnghuá chuánxīndì chánmén shīzī chéngxí tú 中華傳心地禪門師資承襲圖. As a consequence the Dàshū chāo is the most important single primary source for the social and doctrinal history of late-Táng Chán.