Sìfēnlǜ sōuxuán lù 四分律搜玄錄
Records Searching the Mysteries of the Sìfēnlǜ by 志鴻 (Zhìhóng, 撰述)
About the work
A surviving three-fascicle fragment (originally twenty juan) of a mid-Táng jì 記 sub-commentary on Dàoxuān’s (道宣) Sìfēnlǜ shānfán bǔquē xíngshì chāo 四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔 (KR6k0017) by the Sūzhōu Vinaya master Zhìhóng 志鴻 (志鴻) of Shuānglínsì 雙林寺. The work programmatically collects and digests the jì and chāo of more than forty earlier exegetes — including Dàcí 大慈, Língè 靈崿, and others of the post-Dàoxuān generation — and is invaluable for the reconstruction of pre-Sòng Nánshān Vinaya scholarship.
Prefaces
The Manji edition opens with a preface by Chéngguān 澄觀 (738–839), the Fourth Patriarch of Huāyán, here signed 京師大興唐寺沙門釋 澄觀 (Chéngguān, monk of Dàxìngtángsì in the imperial capital). The preface dates the work to the Dàlì 大曆 era (766–779) by reference to “five hundred years after Buddha-day” reckoning and identifies Zhìhóng as the fǔsì 輔嗣 (“auxiliary successor”) of Dàoxuān’s school.
Abstract
The Sōuxuán lù is the principal mid-Táng Nánshān sub-commentary surviving in fragmentary form and is the chief witness to the diversity of post-Dàoxuān Vinaya exegesis between the second-half of the seventh century and the late eighth. Chéngguān’s preface confirms not only the date but the breadth of Zhìhóng’s reading; the preserved fragments are a critical resource for identifying lost Tang jì writers. Zhìhóng died at the age of one hundred and eight (per the DILA biographical authority); his composition window must precede that and is fixed here by Chéngguān’s Dàlì preface.
Translations and research
- Funayama Toru 船山徹. Studies on Tang Vinaya commentary.