Dàshèng xiūxíng púsà xíngmén zhūjīng yàojí 大乘修行菩薩行門諸經要集
Anthology of Essentials Drawn from the Various Sūtras on the Mahāyāna Bodhisattva Practice-Gates by 智嚴 (Zhìyán, 譯)
About the work
A 3-fascicle Mahāyāna anthology-sūtra (T17 no. 847, alt. title Zhūjīng yàojí 諸經要集) “translated” — but in fact compiled-and-translated — by the Táng monk 智嚴 Zhìyán 智嚴 of the Zhìxiāngsì 至相寺 at Zhōngnánshān 終南山, the same monk who translated KR6i0547 Shuō miàofǎ juédìng yèzhàng jīng (T17 no. 841). The work is in the yàojí 要集 (“anthology of essentials”) genre: 42 source-sūtras are excerpted, with each excerpt classified by the bodhisattva practice-gate 菩薩行門 it illustrates, the whole organised around 66 numbered practice-categories (púsà xíngmén zǒng liùshíliù tiáo 菩薩行門總六十六條). The signature line — Dà Táng Zhìxiāngsì shāmén shì Zhìyán yì 大唐至相寺沙門釋智嚴譯 — confirms the Táng date and the Zhìxiāngsì attribution.
Abstract
The work is at once an Indic textual product translated into Chinese — its 42-source structure is presented as itself a continuous Indic compilation — and a deliberate Chinese editorial-and-translation project, the standard pattern for a substantial subset of mid-Táng “translation” works that are best understood as bilingual editorial compilations. Among the source-texts excerpted: the Xiàng-yì jīng 象腋經 (KR6i0520 T17 n0814), the Shuō miào-fǎ jué-dìng yè-zhàng jīng 說妙法決定業障經 (KR6i0547 T17 n0841, also Zhìyán’s own translation), the Wéimójié suǒ-wèn jīng 維摩詰所問經 (the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa), the Fāng-guǎng rúlái-zhì jīng 方廣如來智經, the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra 摩訶般若波羅蜜經, the Huáyán jīng rù-fǎjiè pǐn 華嚴經入法界品, the Bǎo-jì suǒ-wèn jīng 寶髻所問經 (the Ratnacūḍa-paripṛcchā, found in the Mahāratnakūṭa corpus), the Shèng-jì-dì pǐn jīng 勝義諦品經, and the Yǎn fǎshī pǐn jīng 演法師品經, among others. For each source-sūtra, the editor extracts paradigm passages illustrating specific xíngmén — the six pāramitās, the bodhisattva praṇidhāna, the kāya-prākrami of voluntary rebirth into the six destinies for the salvation of beings, the comparison between the bodhisattva path and the śrāvakayāna, and so on — and arranges them in a methodical doctrinal-pedagogical sequence.
The composition window is bracketed at circa 645–712: the terminus a quo is set by the post-Xuánzàng era (Zhìxiāng-sì being a major post-Xuánzàng Zhōngnán-shān centre with a Huáyán-school orientation around the time of the second patriarch 智儼 Zhìyǎn (602–668), with whom this Zhìyán is not to be confused), and the terminus ad quem is set by the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 (730), which records the work. Bibliographic data: K0989 (Korean Tripiṭaka); H051 (Zhōnghuá); Nanjio 1380.
Structural Division
The CANWWW dataset gives the Yào-jí’s 42-part Structural Division (lèi 出 X 經), in which each source-sūtra contributes one or more passages classified under one or more bodhisattva practice-gates (xíngmén). The principal source-sūtras and their KR identifiers (where confidently known) include: 出象腋經 — Xiàng-yì jīng (KR6i0520); 出說妙法決定業障經 — Shuō miào-fǎ jué-dìng yè-zhàng jīng (KR6i0547); 出維摩詰所問經 — Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa; 出方廣如來智經 — Fāng-guǎng rúlái-zhì jīng; 出勝義諦品經 — Shèng-jì-dì pǐn jīng; 出摩訶般若波羅蜜經 — Mahāprajñāpāramitā; 出花嚴經入法界品 — Huáyán jīng rù-fǎjiè pǐn (cf. KR6e0044); 出寶髻所問經 — Ratnacūḍa-paripṛcchā; 出演法師品經 — Yǎn fǎshī pǐn jīng; and others. The full enumeration runs to 42 source-sūtras and 66 practice-gates.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The closing dialogue between the Buddha and Mañjuśrī on the comparison between the śrāvaka-path (likened to a cattle-hoof puddle, 牛跡渦水) and the bodhisattva-path (likened to the great ocean) is a striking late-Mahāyāna polemical passage and the rhetorical climax of the anthology.