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阿毘達磨倶舍論指要鈔

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Text ID
KR6l0025
Date
1700–1747
Dynasty
日本

Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn Zhǐyào Chāo 阿毘達磨倶舍論指要鈔

Notes Pointing to the Essentials of the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya by 湛慧 (撰)

About the work

The Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn Zhǐyào Chāo 阿毘達磨倶舍論指要鈔 (Jp. Abidatsuma Kusharon shiyō-shō; CBETA T63n2250) is a thirty-fascicle Japanese Edo-period (江戶時代) running commentary by the Pure Land 浄土宗 scholar-monk Tan’e 湛慧 (湛慧, 1676–1747; alternate name Shinbai 信培) on Xuánzàng’s Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn 阿毘達磨俱舍論 (KR6l0023, T1558 — Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya). It is one of the two great Edo-period Japanese Abhidharma commentaries — the other being Kaidō 快道’s Fǎyì 法義 (KR6l0026) — and is generally cited as the more philologically careful of the pair. Where Sōshō’s earlier Běnyì Chāo (KR6l0024) had proceeded by the medieval mondō-format, Tan’e’s Zhǐyào gives a verse-by-verse, line-by-line running gloss in the Chinese commentarial mode, anchored throughout in the three Tang sub-commentaries.

Prefaces

The text opens with a substantial doxographical preamble (T63 p. 807a–809a) that doubles as a preface: it gives Vasubandhu’s biography (“nine hundred years after the Buddha’s nirvāṇa”), the Kashmir Sarvāstivāda Mahāvibhāṣā compilation under King Kaniṣka, and a detailed bibliographie raisonnée of the three Tang commentators — Shentai 神泰 (神泰), Puguang 普光 (普光), Fabao 法寶 (法寶) — together with Yuanhui 圓暉’s (圓暉) verse-only Sòng-shū 頌疏 (KR6l0036). Tan’e himself proposes a six-fold framework derived from the Sòng-shū of Yuanhui as his organizational scheme. No dated colophon is preserved in the CBETA edition.

Abstract

Tan’e (b. Enpō 3 / 12 / 10 = 1676, d. Enkyō 4 / 2 / 19 = 1747) was a Kyoto-born Jōdo-shū monk, ordained at age 14 under Sokuan 息菴 (息菴) at the Kakai-in 華開院 in Kyoto, who received dharma transmission at 17 from Kakuei 廓瑩 (廓瑩) at Ryōzen-ji 霊山寺 in Edo, and from age 25 served as abbot of the Kakai-in. He was a polymath who studied Yogācāra and Huayan in addition to his sectarian Pure Land curriculum and is recorded as having studied secular learning under the Sorai-school Confucian Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (荻生徂徠). He is one of the central figures of the Tokugawa-period Abhidharma revival (Kusha-gaku 倶舎學) which produced the only sustained modern Japanese scholastic engagement with the Kośa prior to the introduction of European Sanskrit studies. (Note: the DILA Authority A001308 conflates the present Edo Tan’e with a separate Kamakura-period Rinzai figure, Zuijōbō Tan’e 随乘房湛慧 of Hakata Sōfuku-ji 崇福寺 (active 1240s), disciple of Enni Ben’en 圓爾 (圓爾); the alternate names 崇福湛慧 / 横岳湛慧 belong to the earlier figure. The author of this Shiyō-shō is unambiguously the Edo Pure Land scholar.)

The work proceeds in thirty fascicles matching the thirty fascicles of the parent Kośa. Each verse is given followed by Vasubandhu’s prose auto-commentary, then Tan’e’s own gloss in five characters per column, citing Puguang, Fabao and Yuanhui by abbreviated sigla, and adjudicating between their conflicting readings. Tan’e shows particular care in identifying typographical and translation errors (he repeatedly notes “this character should be X, not Y”) and in collating quotations against their source Mahāvibhāṣā and Nyāyānusāra loci. His polemical opponent through much of the work is the slightly earlier Edo Kushagaku scholar Fujaku 普寂 (普寂, 1707–1781). The work was bound in ten Edo-printed kan (fascicle-bundles).

The composition date is bracketed by Tan’e’s productive years: notBefore 1700 (the year of his Kakai-in abbacy) and notAfter 1747 (his death).

Translations and research

  • Ichishiki Daigo 一色大悟. “Higashi-Ajia no shochūshaku ga ronjiru Kusharon no zentai kōsei” 東アジアの諸註釈が論じる『倶舎論』の全体構成. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度學佛敎學研究 70.2 (2022): 668–673. Includes treatment of Tokugawa Kushagaku and the position of Tan’e relative to Fujaku and Kaidō.
  • Kimura Senshō 木村宣彰. Edo-jidai Kushagaku no kenkyū 江戸時代倶舎学の研究. Kyōto: Hōzōkan, 1992. Standard treatment of the Edo-period Abhidharma school in which Tan’e is a leading figure.
  • The work has not been translated into a Western language.

Other points of interest

The Edo Kusha-gaku tradition is one of the very few sustained moments of independent Japanese Abhidharma scholarship and is increasingly recognized as a significant precursor to the modern philological study of the Kośa. The standard line of Edo Kusha-gaku commentaries — Fujaku 普寂, Tan’e 湛慧, Kaidō 快道 — is preserved in the Taishō continuation in Zoku-ronso-bu 續論疏部 (vol. 63–64).

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