Jùshě Lùn Sòngshū Chāo 倶舍論頌疏抄
Sub-commentary on the Versified Commentary on the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya by 英憲 (撰)
About the work
The Jùshě Lùn Sòngshū Chāo 倶舍論頌疏抄 (Jp. Kusharon jushō-shō; CBETA T64n2254) is a twenty-nine-fascicle Japanese Sengoku/Muromachi-period sub-commentary on the Tang commentator Yuanhui 圓暉’s (圓暉) Jùshě Lùn Sòngshū 倶舍論頌疏 (KR6l0036, T1823), composed and successively recopied between 1507 and 1531 by the Sanron-school 三論宗 lecturer Eiken 英憲 (英憲, b. ca. 1463), based at the Kangaku-in 勸學院 of the Onjō-ji (Mii-dera) 三井寺・園城寺 in Ōtsu. The work is the principal Japanese medieval (pre-Edo) running sub-commentary on the Sòngshū; together with Genshin’s textual-critical Zhèngwén (KR6l0043) from c. 1013, it bookends five hundred years of pre-modern Japanese Kuṣa scholarship.
Prefaces
The work has no formal preface but opens (T64 p. 477a) with a programmatic note headed “倶舍頌疏之興起” (“The Coming-Forth of the Sòngshū”), attributed to “Onjō-ji Kangaku-in shū” 三井寺勸學院集. The note argues, on Fabao 法寶’s (法寶) authority, the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra’s “half-letter / whole-letter” simile, and the Yogācārabhūmi’s four reasons that the Lesser Vehicle must precede the Great, that the Kuśa is “the root of the Buddha-Dharma” (倶舍佛法根本). It then surveys the lineage of the Sarvāstivāda transmission (Mahākāśyapa → Ānanda → Madhyāntika → Śāṇavāsa → Upagupta), the founding of the Kashmir Vibhāṣā by Madhyāntika’s draining of the dragon-king’s pool, and Mahādeva’s five-point dispute, before turning to Vasubandhu, Xuanzang’s translation in Yǒnghuī 3–5 (652–654), and Yuanhui’s Sòngshū itself, transmitted to Japan in six juan by Enchin 圓珍 (圓珍, Chishō 智證) and reorganized at Onjō-ji to match the thirty-juan parent text.
The composition is dated by a string of internal colophons:
- Eiei 4 (永正四年, 1507) — Eiken signs as 三論宗大法師英憲;
- Eishō 9 (永正九年, 1512) — signs as 大法師英憲;
- Eishō 17 (永正十七年, 1520) — signs as 擬講英憲 (i.e. gikō = deputy lecturer);
- Daiei 2 (大永二年, 1522) — “Eiken, the gikō, age sixty” (滿六十);
- Daiei 6 (大永六年, 1526) — signs as 擬講英憲;
- Kyōroku 4 (享祿四年, 1531), 7th month, 21st day — “Hōin Gondaisōzu Eiken, age 69” (法印權大僧都英憲六十九).
The two precise age-anchors (60 in 1522 and 69 in 1531) converge on a birth-year of c. 1463. The colophons further trace Eiken’s career-progression from junior 大法師 (1507) through 擬講 (deputy lecturer, 1520) to 法印權大僧都 (1531), the Sōgō 僧綱 rank just below 大僧正.
Abstract
The work is structured as a running gloss on Yuanhui’s Sòngshū: each verse and each line of Yuanhui’s prose is quoted in full and immediately followed by Eiken’s exposition. The exposition is in a transitional Japanese mixed style — predominantly kanbun (classical Chinese) but with kana particles and verb endings interspersed (e.g. 「ヲ」「ナトニハ」「ヲハ」「ト云也」), exhibiting the typical Sengoku-period scholarly hand. Eiken’s principal authorities are: (i) Yuanhui’s Sòngshū itself; (ii) the Yúmá jì 瑜伽記 of Dunlin 遁麟; (iii) Huihui 惠暉’s Yìchāo 義鈔; and (iv) the Jì and Shū of Puguang (普光) and Fabao (法寶). He frequently cites Genshin 源信 (源信)‘s Zhèngwén (KR6l0043) under the sigil 堯抄 — possibly referring to Yōchin 堯珍 or another later Onjō-ji editor.
Eiken (b. c. 1463) was a Sanron-school 三論宗 scholar based at the Kangaku-in of Onjō-ji. The Onjō-ji Sanron tradition descends from the Heian-period transmission of the Three-Treatises curriculum to Mii-dera and was, like all Sanron lineages in medieval Japan, joined to a Mahāyāna-Hossō-Madhyamaka curriculum that included Abhidharma as a propaedeutic. Eiken’s progression through the Sōgō ranks (大法師 → 擬講 → 法印權大僧都) is documentary evidence of his standing within the Onjō-ji establishment. His death-date is unknown beyond the terminus post quem of 1531.
The catalog entry’s notBefore (1507) and notAfter (1531) match the earliest and latest preserved colophons. The compositional history is not that of a single redaction but of an extended cycle of lectures and re-copyings over a quarter-century — a pattern characteristic of the Onjō-ji Kangaku-in’s teaching scheme.
Translations and research
- Mochizuki Shinjō 望月信成 (and successors). Bukkyō daijiten 佛教大辭典, s.v. 倶舍論頌疏抄, 英憲. Standard reference for both work and author.
- Ishida Mizumaro 石田瑞麿. Nihon Bukkyō ni okeru Kuśa-shū no kenkyū 日本仏教における倶舎宗の研究 (Tokyo: 1970s). The work’s role within the Onjō-ji Sanron-Kuṣa scholastic tradition.
- The work has not been translated into a Western language and has received minimal modern scholarly attention.
Other points of interest
The closing colophon notes that the final fascicle was compiled “while lecturing in conversation with Hidezōsu of Kennin-ji 對洛陽建仁寺秀藏主,講談之次, 披具書抄之” — i.e. composed in dialogue with a visiting Rinzai-shū Kennin-ji 五山 monk in Kyoto. This is a rare documentary trace of cross-sectarian Buddhist-scholastic exchange in late-Muromachi Japan, between the Onjō-ji Sanron and the Gozan Rinzai establishments.