Bōrědēng lùn shì 般若燈論釋
Commentary on the Lamp of Wisdom (Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa) by 龍樹菩薩 (Lóngshù púsà / Nāgārjuna, 偈本), 分別明菩薩 (Fēnbiémíng púsà / Bhāviveka, 釋論), and 波羅頗蜜多羅 (Bōluópǒmìduōluó / Prabhākaramitra, 譯)
About the work
A fifteen-fascicle Táng-period translation of Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa-mūlamadhyamakavṛtti (Bōrědēng zhōngguān shìlùn “Lamp of Wisdom: Commentary on the Mūla-Madhyamaka”), one of the three great Indic commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā alongside Buddhapālita’s Vṛtti (preserved in Tibetan only) and Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā (preserved in Sanskrit and Tibetan only). T1566 is the only Indic Mādhyamaka commentary on the MMK preserved in Chinese alongside the early Piṅgala layer of KR6m0001 T1564. Translated at the Shèngguāngsì 勝光寺 in Cháng’ān between Zhēnguàn 貞觀 4 and 6 (630–632) by 波羅頗蜜多羅 Prabhākaramitra, the Indian vinaya and Mādhyamaka master who had reached Cháng’ān in 627. 慧賾 Huìzé supplied the Chinese preface (Bōrědēng lùn shì xù 般若燈論釋序) preserved at the head of the text.
Structural Division
CANWWW gives this text without internal subdivisions. Related texts per CANWWW: KR6m0001 Zhōng lùn 中論 (T30n1564), KR6m0003 Shùnzhōng lùn 順中論 (T30n1565), KR6m0005 Dàshèng zhōngguān shìlùn 大乘中觀釋論 (T30n1567).
Abstract
The Prajñāpradīpa of Bhāviveka (Bhavya / Bhāvaviveka, c. 500–570 CE) is the principal SvātantrikaMādhyamaka commentary on Nāgārjuna’s kārikās and the locus classicus for the Svātantrika method of prasaṅga refutation supplemented by independent (svatantra) inferences. The Chinese title 般若燈論 (“Lamp of Wisdom Treatise”) is a precise calque of the Sanskrit Prajñā-pradīpa, and Hui-zé’s preface explicates the metaphor: “the lamp” stands for avikalpa-jñāna “non-discriminating cognition” with its functions of stillness and illumination; “the middle” stands for the cognition that has lost (wáng 亡) its conditioned object, equally departing from both extremes (等離二邊).
The Chinese rendering attributes the commentary to Fēnbiémíng púsà 分別明菩薩 (“Discriminating-Brilliance Bodhisattva”) — a calque of Bhāviveka taking bhā- as 明 “brilliance” and -viveka as 分別 “discrimination” — confirming that the translator’s source named the commentator as Bhāviveka and not by the alternate Sanskrit form Bhavya. Modern Tibetan-Sanskrit comparative work (Ames, Eckel, Saito, Ejima) has established that T1566 corresponds to the same Indic recension preserved in the Tibetan translation (Tōh. 3853), but with significant variation in the prose; both versions appear to be revisions of an earlier commentarial nucleus, not strict mirrors of a single Indic Vorlage.
T1566 is doctrinally distinguished by its sustained polemic against Buddhapālita’s earlier prasaṅga-only commentary (which Bhāviveka regarded as logically defective for failing to advance positive theses) and by its detailed engagement with Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika, and Yogācāra opponents. The translation is paired in the Chinese canon with KR6m0014 T1570 Guǎngbǎi lùn běn 廣百論本 and KR6m0015 T1571 Dàshèng guǎngbǎi lùn shìlùn 大乘廣百論釋論 — 玄奘 Xuánzàng’s translations of Āryadeva’s Catuḥśataka with Dharmapāla’s commentary — which together represent the principal extant body of Indic Mādhyamaka commentarial literature in Chinese.
Translations and research
- Ames, William L. “Bhāvaviveka’s Prajñāpradīpa: A Translation of Chapter One: ‘Examination of Causal Conditions’ (Pratyaya).” Journal of Indian Philosophy 21 (1993): 209–259, and successive chapter translations in JIP through 2003. (Standard chapter-by-chapter English translation, with notes on T1566 and the Tibetan parallel.)
- Eckel, Malcolm David. Bhāviveka and His Buddhist Opponents. Harvard Oriental Series 70. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. (Includes annotated translation of Prajñāpradīpa chapter 25.)
- Ejima Yasunori 江島惠教. Chūgan-shisō no tenkai: Bhavaviveka kenkyū 中観思想の展開: Bhāvaviveka 研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1980. (Foundational Japanese monograph on T1566 and the Tibetan parallel.)
- Kajiyama Yūichi 梶山雄一. Hannya tōron 般若燈論. Daijō butten 14. Tōkyō: Chūōkōronsha, 1976. (Annotated Japanese translation of selections from T1566.)
- Hattori Masaaki 服部正明. “Hannya tōron no kenkyū” 般若燈論の研究. Bukkyō kenkyū, various years.
Other points of interest
T1566 was once mistakenly attributed (in some Edo-period Japanese catalogs) to Sthiramati under the influence of the parallel Yogācāra commentaries by 安慧菩薩 in the same volume; the correct attribution to Bhāviveka has been firmly established since the comparative Tibetan-Chinese-Sanskrit studies of the 1970s. The Hui-zé preface preserves the only contemporary Chinese-language witness to Prabhākaramitra’s translation method.