Sìfēnlǜ shí píní yìchāo 四分律拾毗尼義鈔
A Compendium of Vinaya Meanings Picked Up from the Sìfēnlǜ by 道宣 (Dàoxuān, 撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle Tang Vinaya digest by Dàoxuān 道宣 (道宣, 596–667) preserving extracts and discussions of Sìfēnlǜ 四分律 material that did not find a home in his three principal Vinaya commentaries (Xíngshì chāo 行事鈔, Jièběn shū 戒本疏, Suíjī jiémó shū 隨機羯磨疏). Shí 拾 (“picking up”) signals the Yìchāo’s status as a supplement to the main Sìfēnlǜ corpus.
Prefaces
The Manji edition opens with Yuánzhào’s (元照) editorial preface, Jiàokān yìchāo xù 校勘義鈔序 (“Preface to the Collated Yìchāo”), signed 餘杭郡沙門釋 元照 述 — recording Yuánzhào’s eleventh-century recovery and collation of the work, which had become rare and corrupt in transmission (“chéngzhōng zhī rǔ rì jiàn guāi zhēn 城中之乳日漸乖真” — “the milk in the city deviates daily from its true taste”). Yuánzhào lists three goals of his recension: (1) clarifying the zhuànlái yì 撰來意 (authorial intent), (2) refuting variant readings, (3) collating the textual witnesses.
Abstract
The Shí píní yìchāo is a less-studied but important Vinaya digest by Dàoxuān, supplying material that fell outside his three principal Sìfēn commentaries. Yuánzhào’s preface confirms that the work had been transmitted continuously since Dàoxuān’s time but had become textually corrupt and scarce by the eleventh century; Yuánzhào’s jiàokān recension is the form preserved in the canon. The companion sub-commentary KR6k0177 Sìfēnlǜ shí píní yìchāo fǔyào jì by Yǔn Kān 允堪 (允堪) further attests to the work’s standing in the Sòng Lǜzōng curriculum. Composition belongs to Dàoxuān’s mature Vinaya period at Zhōngnán.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.