聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

大日經疏指心鈔

5 min read

Text ID
KR6j0667
Date
1261–1278
Dynasty
日本

Dàrì jīng shū zhǐxīn chāo 大日經疏指心鈔

Pointing-to-the-Mind Notes on the MahāvairocanaSūtra Commentary (Jp. Dainichikyō sho shishinshō) by 頼瑜 (Raiyu, 撰)

About the work

A 16-fascicle Kamakura-period scholastic commentary on Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū (KR6j0662, T39n1796) by Raiyu 頼瑜 (頼瑜, 1226–1304) — the great Kamakura Shingon scholar who founded the Shingi-Shingon 新義真言 reformist movement and established the doctrinal foundations of the later Buzan and Chizan schools. The Zhǐxīn chāo — “pointing to the mind” — is a phrase-by-phrase exegetical engagement with Yīxíng’s text, marked by Raiyu’s distinctive scholarly method of comparative-recension philology.

Prefaces

The work opens directly (fascicle 1, line 5 of the source) with a learned discussion of the textual transmission of Yīxíng’s commentary:

“Dà Pílúzhēnà chéngfó jīng shū — the first eight characters are the title of the original scripture; the one character 疏 is now the work-title. Hence the Dàrìjīngshū is a primary-subject-based title-formation. Now, regarding the present text of the scripture’s exegesis, there are three recensions:

  1. The 20-fascicle commentary (shū 疏) brought back by the Great Master [Kūkai].
  2. The 14-fascicle Yìshì 義釋 brought back by Jikaku [Ennin], titled Pílúzhēnà chéngfó shénbiàn jiāchí jīng yìshì.
  3. The 10-fascicle Yìshì 義釋 brought back by Chishō [Enchin], titled Pílúzhēnà jiāchí jīng yìshì.

“Of these, our present base-text is the first 20-fascicle shū. So the 御請來録 Returning-from-Tang catalog says: ‘One copy of the Dà Pílúzhēnà jīng shū, 20 fascicles, composed by Yīxíng Chánshī’. Annen’s catalog also lists eight recensions, and the Hen-Myō-toku and Genbō catalogs likewise have it. Chishō’s Yìshì catalog says: ‘Takao-ji Kūkai’s Hōshōji bon in 20 fascicles’ — but, since these are widely current, they are not entered into the canon. Now I record several recensions’ titles, that the later generations may sort out the matter without confusion or doubt regarding the names: the ‘wrong’ is this shū, the ‘right’ is the yìshì…”

This is a key philological passage in medieval Japanese-Shingon studies: it establishes Raiyu’s awareness of and critical engagement with all three recensions of the Dàrìjīng commentary (the Kūkai 20-fascicle shū, the Ennin 14-fascicle yìshì, and the Enchin 10-fascicle yìshì) and his philological judgment in selecting Kūkai’s recension as the authoritative base-text.

The colophons distributed across the fascicles preserve a remarkable record of the work’s composition over many years:

  • Fascicle 1: “Bun’ei 11 [文永十一年, = 1274 CE], drafted at the Jōrokudō Hashibō of Mt. Kōya 高野山丈六堂𮒥坊. — Vajra-pupil Raiyu, in his 49th year of life.” 金剛資頼瑜生年四十九歳
  • Fascicle 6 (line 3515): “Raiyu, in his 36th year of life.” (i.e., 1261 CE, the terminus a quo of the composition).
  • Fascicle 8 (line 2426): “Kenji 4 [建治四年, = 1278 CE], 2nd month, 7th day. At the Daigo-ji Nakashō-in 醍醐寺中正院, the punctuation was completed. — Vajra-Buddha-son Raiyu.”
  • Fascicle 11 (line 5107): “Kenji 2 [建治二年, = 1276 CE], 12th month, 14th day. At the Daigo-ji Nakashō-in 醍醐寺中性院, the re-revision was completed. — Vajra-Buddha-son Raiyu.”
  • Fascicle 12 (line 6298): “About the 5th month of Kenji 1 [建治元年, = 1275 CE]. At the Denpō-in of Mt. Kōya 高野山傳法院, [from] the transmitted [original]… — Vajra-Buddha-son Raiyu, in his 50th year of life.” 金剛佛子頼瑜生年五十歳

Abstract

The Zhǐxīn chāo is Raiyu’s mature scholastic engagement with the foundational Tang commentary on the Mahāvairocanasūtra, composed over a span of nearly two decades (1261–1278+) at both Daigo-ji and Mt. Kōya. It represents the late-Kamakura Shingon scholastic apex: methodical, philologically attentive, and doctrinally innovative.

Raiyu’s method is dense and distinctive:

  • He quotes Yīxíng’s commentary segment by segment;
  • He explicitly compares the readings of Kūkai’s 20-fascicle shū with those of Ennin’s 14-fascicle yìshì and Enchin’s 10-fascicle yìshì, often noting where they differ;
  • He provides further exegesis drawing on the full medieval Shingon scholastic apparatus (the Six Great Elements, the Five Wisdoms, the Three Mysteries, the Four Bodies);
  • He cites the standard Mahāyāna exoteric corpus (the Awakening of Faith, the Yogācārabhūmi, the Mādhyamika literature, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra);
  • He invokes the Heian Shingon scholastic apparatus — including Saisen’s Sījì (KR6j0665) and other Onoryū and Hirosawaryū transmissions;
  • He sets up the groundwork for his later Shingi-Shingon doctrinal innovations — the distinction between kaji-shin 加持身 (the empowered preaching-body) and honji-shin 本地身 (the original-ground principle-body) that would become the defining commitment of the Negoro-ji school.

The work is the principal medieval engagement with the Dàrìjīng shū outside of the two major Tō-ji and Onoryū systematic treatments (the Yǎnào shāo of Gōhō et al., KR6j0666; and the Miàoyìn chāo of Yūhan, KR6j0663). Where those are exhaustive but later, Raiyu’s Zhǐxīn chāo is earlier, more individually-authored, and more philologically engaged with the underlying manuscript-recension question.

Translations and research

No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages. (The Zhǐxīn chāo is foundational for modern Japanese-language Shingi-Shingon doctrinal studies and is heavily cited in the Buzan-ha and Chizan-ha scholarly literature, but has not been the subject of dedicated Western-language treatment.)

Graph View

Backlinks