Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn Fǎyì 阿毘達磨倶舍論法義
The Doctrine of the Dharma in the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya by 快道 (撰)
About the work
The Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn Fǎyì 阿毘達磨倶舍論法義 (Jp. Abidatsuma Kusharon hōgi; CBETA T64n2251) is a thirty-fascicle Japanese Edo-period (江戶時代) running commentary by the Shingon Buzan-school 真言宗豊山派 scholar-monk Kaidō Rinjō 快道林常 (快道, 1751–1810) on Xuánzàng’s translation of the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (KR6l0023, T1558). Composed at Hase-dera 長谷寺 in Yamato, the Buzan-school’s head monastery, it is the second of the two great Edo-period (Kusha-gaku 倶舎學) Japanese commentaries on the Kośa, alongside the slightly earlier Zhǐyào Chāo (KR6l0025) of the Pure Land scholar Tan’e 湛慧 (湛慧). Kaidō is generally regarded as having superseded Tan’e in textual coverage and as having defined the canonical Japanese Edo reading of the Kośa.
Prefaces
The work opens with a substantial author’s preface (T64 p. 1a–b), signed “Buzan ujin Jōyō shōmon Kaidō Rinjō, zhuàn” 豐山寓學上陽沙門快道林常撰 — “Kaidō Rinjō, the śramaṇa of Jōyō [= upper Yang = Hase] sojourning at Buzan, composed [this].” The preface explains the title 法義 as derived from the catur-pratisaraṇa (the four reliances) and from the Karmavibhaṅgopadeśa 業成就論, which closes “the Tathāgata teaches the three vehicles, completed in dharma and meaning”; it also cites the Mahāprajñāpāramitā (j. 559) chapter “Without-mixing-Dharma-and-meaning” 不雜法義品 as canonical authority. Kaidō proposes an eight-fold doxographical framework — (1) the origin of the Kośa, (2) its doctrinal aim, (3) the title, (4) the authorial designation, (5) the translation, (6) the three-part division, (7) the chapter order, and (8) the running gloss — under which the entire commentary is organized.
Abstract
Kaidō Rinjō 快道林常 (1751–1810, kaji 鏡乗 or kuji 林常) was the foremost Shingon Buzan-school Abhidharma scholar of the late Edo period. He was a contemporary of Fujaku 普寂 (普寂, 1707–1781) and of Tan’e’s slightly later successors; the Hōgi was composed in his maturity, after he had thoroughly absorbed both Fujaku’s and Tan’e’s commentaries. The work’s structure follows Yuanhui 圓暉’s (圓暉) Tang Sòng-shū 頌疏 (KR6l0036) in giving a running verse-and-prose gloss but adds substantially more philological discussion than either of his Edo predecessors. Kaidō makes systematic comparisons between Xuanzang’s new translation (KR6l0023) and the earlier Paramārtha translation (KR6l0028) — what he calls the jiù lùn 舊論 — and pushes his criticism of the Tang commentators (Puguang 普光 普光 and Fabao 法寶 法寶 in particular) considerably further than Tan’e. He repeatedly emends words on the basis of the Paramārtha version and the Mahāvibhāṣā, and is also willing to expel verses he considers later interpolations: the closing of the 破我品 in his text, for example, restores the proper four-verse form by deleting two verses he judges to be a later “导註濫入” (commentator-glossatorial intrusion).
The Buzan-ha 豐山派 of Shingon, headquartered at Hase-dera 長谷寺 in Yamato, was a major center of doctrinal scholarship in the Edo period, and Kaidō’s Hōgi together with his other Abhidharma writings makes it the principal Shingon contribution to the Tokugawa Kushagaku revival. The work has been the standard Japanese reference commentary on the Kośa from its composition through the modern period, and is the basis of much of the work of twentieth-century Japanese Abhidharma scholars including Sakurabe Hajime 桜部建 and Funahashi Issai 舟橋一哉.
The composition date is bracketed by Kaidō’s productive period (notBefore 1780, when he was teaching at Buzan/Hase) and the year of his death (notAfter 1810).
Translations and research
- Kimura Senshō 木村宣彰. Edo-jidai Kushagaku no kenkyū 江戸時代倶舎学の研究. Kyōto: Hōzōkan, 1992. The standard study of Edo Abhidharma scholarship; Kaidō is treated at length.
- 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.
- Hayashima Osamu 早島理 and Mukai Akira 向井亮 (eds). Kusharon kenkyū 倶舎論研究 series. Tokyo: 1980s–2000s. Variously cites Kaidō as principal Japanese reference.
- The work has not been translated into a Western language.
Other points of interest
Kaidō’s Hōgi, with Tan’e’s Shiyō and Fujaku’s Kōsō 講宗, defines the classical Edo Kushagaku triad and remains the most often-cited Japanese commentary on the Kośa among modern researchers.