Sìfēnlǜ shū 四分律疏
Commentary on the Sìfēnlǜ by 法礪 (Fǎlì, 撰述)
About the work
A ten-fascicle Suí–early-Táng commentary on the Sìfēnlǜ 四分律 (KR6k0001) by Fǎlì 法礪 (法礪, 569–635), the founding patriarch of the Xiāngbù 相部 school of Tang Vinaya exegesis. The work is the foundational treatise of one of the three competing Tang Vinaya schools (Xiāngbù / Nánshān / Dōngtǎ).
Prefaces
The Manji edition opens with a mùcì 目次 listing the contents of each juan (本/末 sub-divisions, “from the opening of the title to the explanation of the fājiè cause”, etc.).
Abstract
Fǎlì’s Shū is the senior of the three principal Tang Sìfēnlǜ commentaries, predating Dàoxuān’s (道宣) Xíngshì chāo and Suíjī jiémó shū by a generation. Where Dàoxuān’s works are practical-pedagogical and oriented to monastic conduct, Fǎlì’s Shū is a doctrinal-philosophical exposition keyed to the conceptual structure of the Sìfēn in the manner inherited from his teachers in the late-Suí Vinaya tradition. The Xiāngbù school’s distinctive doctrinal positions — including its analysis of the jiètǐ 戒體 (“substance of the precepts”) in non-Mahāyāna terms, in contrast to Dàoxuān’s yuánjiào 圓教 reading — are systematically argued here. Fǎlì’s chief disciple Dìng Bīn 定賓 (定賓) produced the principal sub-commentary, KR6k0163 Sìfēnlǜ shū shìzōng yìjì. The Xiāngbù school flourished into the early Tang but was gradually displaced by the Nánshān tradition; Fǎlì’s Shū survives as our principal direct witness to the Xiāngbù doctrinal position.
Translations and research
- Funayama Toru 船山徹. Studies on early-Tang Sìfēnlǜ exegesis.
- Wáng Jiànguāng 王建光. Zhōngguó lǜzōng tōngshǐ 中國律宗通史 (Comprehensive history of the Chinese Vinaya school).