Púsàjiè yìshū 菩薩戒義疏
Commentary on the Bodhisattva Precepts by 智顗 (Zhìyǐ, 說) and 灌頂 (Guàndǐng, 記)
About the work
A two-fascicle commentary on the bodhisattva-precept chapter of the Fànwǎng jīng (KR6k0076), spoken (說 shuō) by the founder of Tiāntái 天台 Buddhism Zhìyǐ 智顗 (智顗) and recorded (記 jì) by his disciple Guàndǐng 灌頂 (灌頂). This is the earliest extant major commentary on the Fànwǎng jīng and a foundational document of the East Asian bodhisattva-precept tradition.
Prefaces
Editor’s colophon: 隋天台智者大師說，門人灌頂記.
Abstract
Zhìyǐ’s Púsàjiè yìshū established the Tiāntái doctrinal interpretation of the Fànwǎng jīng — reading the ten heavy and forty-eight light precepts within the doctrinal framework of the yīniàn sānqiān 一念三千 (“the three-thousand worlds in a single moment of thought”) and the perfect-and-sudden (圓頓) interpretation of the bodhisattva-path. The commentary became the foundational interpretation for the Japanese Tendai 天台 tradition and through it for the entire Japanese bodhisattva-precept lineage as transmitted by 最澄 Saichō (767–822). Through Saichō’s Endon-kai 圓頓戒 reform — which elevated the Fànwǎng bodhisattva-precepts as the sole basis for Japanese Tendai monastic ordination, in place of the Sìfēn lǜ prātimokṣa — the present commentary became the doctrinal basis of distinctly Japanese Buddhist monasticism.
Translations and research
- Groner, Paul. Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School. Berkeley, 1984; rev. Honolulu, 2000.
- Groner, Paul. Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. & Hiroshi Kanno. The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss: An Annotated Translation and Study. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, 2006.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Bommōkyō. Kyoto, 1996.