Dàshèng sìfǎ jīng shì 大乘四法經釋
Explication of the Sūtra of the Four Mahāyāna Dharmas anonymous Táng-period author
About the work
A short single-fascicle Táng-period commentary (T26 no. 1535) on the Dàshèng sìfǎ jīng 大乘四法經 — a brief Mahāyāna scripture that survives in the canon in two distinct Chinese translations: KR6i0469 (T17 n0772, by Dìpóhēluó 地婆訶羅 / Divākara, late seventh c.) and KR6i0471 (T17 n0774, by Shíchā nántuó 實叉難陀 / Śikṣānanda, late seventh c.). The “four dharmas” (sì fǎ 四法) of the sūtra-title are the four Mahāyāna doctrinal-and-practical commitments — bù shě pútí xīn 不捨菩提心 (not to abandon the bodhicitta), bù shě yú kōng 不捨於空 (not to abandon emptiness), and the parallel pair on compassion and skillful means — that constitute, on the sūtra’s account, the comprehensive bodhisattva discipline.
Abstract
The commentary opens with a doxographical excursus that places the sìfǎ jīng within the Mahāyāna doctrinal taxonomy: the wàizōng 外宗 (heterodox views) reduce to duàn 斷 (annihilationism) and cháng 常 (eternalism); the nèizōng 內宗 (Buddhist views) divide, after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, into the twenty-two Sthavirian-Mahāsaṅghika schools (per the Yìbù zōnglún lùn 異部宗輪論) and three Mahāyāna schools — shèngyì jiē kōng zōng 勝義皆空宗 (Madhyamaka), wéishí zhōngguān 唯識中觀 (Yogācāra-with-Madhyamaka), and fǎxìng yuánróng 法性圓融 (the tathāgatagarbha / Huáyán synthesis). The commentary places the sìfǎ jīng within this third Mahāyāna doxographical class. The exegetical method is line-by-line shì 釋 (“explication”) of the sūtra-text in the conventional Tang-period manner.
The commentary has no surviving authorial attribution; the catalog meta is silent on author and dynasty. The composition window is bracketed at circa 700–900 on the basis of (a) post-Xuánzàng Yìbù zōnglún 異部宗輪論 reference (placing the work after 662 CE, the Xuánzàng translation), (b) Huáyán-doxographical apparatus (placing the work probably in the post-Fǎzàng late-Tang period), and (c) the Dūnhuáng manuscript transmission of the closely related KR6i0595 Dàshèng sìfǎ jīng shì chāo (T85 n2784) and KR6i0596 Dàshèng sìfǎ jīnglùn guǎngshì kāijué jì (T85 n2785), which establishes the wider commentary tradition as part of the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties Dunhuang-region Buddhist textual culture.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The doxographical scheme of three Mahāyāna schools (Madhyamaka / Yogācāra / tathāgatagarbha-Huáyán) articulated in the opening of the commentary is one of the relatively few extended Tang-period statements of the threefold Mahāyāna classification system, and is a useful witness to the broader Tang-and-Five-Dynasties effort to systematise the relations among the three principal Mahāyāna schools.