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大日經疏鈔

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Text ID
KR6j0668
Date
1380–1416
Dynasty
日本

Dàrì jīng shū chāo 大日經疏鈔

Notes on the MahāvairocanaSūtra Commentary (Jp. Dainichikyō sho shō) by 宥快 (Yūkai, 撰)

About the work

An 85-fascicle Nanbokuchō / early-Muromachi scholastic commentary on Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū (KR6j0662, T39n1796) by Yūkai 宥快 (宥快, 1345–1416) of Mt. Kōya’s Hōshō-in 寶性院. The work is the largest single Japanese commentary on Yīxíng’s foundational text — exceeding the 80-fascicle Onoryū Miàoyìn chāo of Yūhan (KR6j0663) and the 60-fascicle Tō-ji Yǎnào shāo of Gōhō et al. (KR6j0666) — and represents the final mature systematization of medieval Japanese Esoteric Dàrìjīng scholasticism.

Prefaces

The work has no separate authorial preface; the running header of fascicle 1 identifies the genre and provenance:

“Dà Pílúzhēnà chéngfó jīng shū, fascicle 1, base-volume. — Orally explained by Yūkai Hōin of Mt. Kōya’s Hōshō-in 高野山寶性院宥快法印口説.”

The text opens directly with a topical-division (科段) analysis of the commentary’s structure:

“Dà Pílúzhēnà chéngfó jīng shū, fascicle 1. — Regarding the topical divisions of the commentary: The commentary-text is divided in two. First, the title heading; second, from ‘Rù zhēnyán mén’ downwards, the main text. Within the first, the title heading: first the title-number, second from ‘Sàmen’ downwards, the composer-number. Within the latter main text, thirty-one chapters are distinguished. The first chapter, ‘Rù zhēnyán mén zhùxīnpǐn’ is divided in two…”

This systematic structural-division at the outset — kadan 科段 — is characteristic of mature medieval Japanese-Buddhist scholastic method and signals Yūkai’s encyclopedic ambition: every passage of Yīxíng’s text is to be located within a precise hierarchical division scheme.

The work’s surviving text (the Taishō transcript) lacks dated colophons, but is identified throughout as Yūkai’s oral-explanation work, presumably recorded by his disciples at Hōshō-in during his mature career.

Abstract

The Dàrì jīng shū chāo is Yūkai’s monumental contribution to the systematic Japanese exegesis of the Mahāvairocanasūtra commentary tradition, and the definitive Kōya-san-orthodox treatment of Yīxíng’s text. Its method is the full mature medieval-Japanese-Shingon scholastic apparatus:

  • systematic structural-division (科段) of every passage of Yīxíng’s commentary into nested topical-categories;
  • phrase-by-phrase exegesis drawing on the full Esoteric apparatus (the Six Great Elements, the Five Wisdoms, the Three Mysteries, the Four Bodies, the Ten Stages of Mind);
  • comprehensive citation of the prior commentarial tradition — including Saisen’s KR6j0665, Raiyu’s KR6j0667, Yūhan’s KR6j0663, and the Tō-ji Sanbō KR6j0666 — together with the foundational Kūkai works and the Heian Onoryū / Hirosawaryū transmissions;
  • doctrinal-orthodox commentary that systematically positions Yūkai’s Kogi-Shingon orthodoxy against the Shingi-Shingon innovations of 頼瑜 Raiyu (the kaji-shin vs honji-shin doctrinal commitment).

The work is complete in scope: it treats the entire 20-fascicle Dàrìjīng shū of Yīxíng, from the Stages-of-Mind chapter through the final ritual chapters — unlike the Tō-ji Yǎnào shāo, which broke off after fascicle 17.5 of the original.

The 85-fascicle expansion corresponds to Yūkai’s scholastic method: each fascicle of Yīxíng’s 20-fascicle original receives roughly 4-5 fascicles of Yūkai’s commentary, with the first fascicle of Yīxíng (the doctrinally most foundational portion, on the Stages of Mind) receiving disproportionate expansion. The commentary integrates kanbun and katakana-glossed Japanese in characteristic Muromachi scholastic mode: technical-term glosses are given in kanbun, while interpretive passages frequently break into Japanese reading.

The work’s composition dates are not precisely fixed but must be bracketed within Yūkai’s Hōshō-in tenure at Mt. Kōya (late 14th to early 15th c.). The conservative bracket adopted here is 1380–1416 (his death year); a more aggressive bracket would extend back to the 1370s. The work was preserved through the medieval-and-Edo Kōya-san scholastic establishment and entered the Taishō supplement (Vol. 60) as the canonical Kogi-Shingon engagement with the Dàrìjīng shū.

Translations and research

No substantial secondary literature located in Western languages. (The Dàrì jīng shū chāo is the principal reference for Kogi-Shingon doctrinal studies and is foundational for modern Japanese-language Kōya-san scholastic research.)

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