Shí’èrmén lùn zōngzhì yìjì 十二門論宗致義記
Notes on the Doctrinal Tenets of the Twelve-Gate Treatise by 法藏 (Fǎzàng, 述)
About the work
A two-fascicle Táng-period exegesis of the Shí’èrmén lùn 十二門論 (KR6m0008 T1568) by 法藏 法藏 (643–712), the third patriarch of the Huáyán 華嚴 school. T1826 is the principal Huáyán-school engagement with the foundational Sān-lùn-school treatise of Mādhyamaka and the principal Táng-period non-Sān-lùn commentary on T1568. The text was composed at the Dàyuánsì 大原寺 (the ordination-temple of the Táng imperial 武則天 Wǔzétiān-era Buddhist establishment in Cháng’ān, where Fǎzàng was then resident), as the colophon attests.
Structural Division
CANWWW gives this text without an internal subdivisions block. Related texts per CANWWW: KR6m0008 Shí’èrmén lùn 十二門論 (T30n1568), KR6m0009 Shí’èrmén lùn shū 十二門論疏 (T42n1825).
Abstract
The zōngzhì yìjì genre — “notes on doctrinal tenets” — is Fǎzàng’s preferred form of mid-length doctrinal commentary, distinct from the line-by-line shū 疏 of the Sānlùn lineage. T1826 accordingly does not work through the twelve mén of T1568 in order, but instead organises the work’s doctrinal content under Huáyán-style headings, presenting the Twelve-Gate Treatise as a partial witness to the comprehensive doctrine of xìngkōng 性空 (intrinsic-nature emptiness) within the Huáyán jiàopàn 教判 doctrinal-classification scheme.
The opening declaration is one of Fǎzàng’s clearest formulations of the dialectic of the two truths: “intrinsic emptiness is never not existent — through being it elucidates emptiness; illusory being is never not empty — through emptiness it elucidates being. Being is empty, therefore not being; emptiness is being, therefore not empty. Once the extreme grasp falls away, the heard and the seen vanish accordingly.” 性空未嘗不有，即有以辨於空；幻有未始不空，即空以明於有。有空有故不有，空有空故不空。邊執既亡，聞見隨喪。
T1826 is doctrinally significant because it represents the moment at which the Mādhyamaka tradition was assimilated into Huáyán metaphysics in its mature Táng-period form. The work was used as a curricular text in subsequent Huáyán scholarship in China, Korea, and Japan, and is one of the principal Táng-period sources for the doctrine of the mutual unobstructedness of being and emptiness.
Translations and research
- Liu, Ming-Wood. Madhyamaka Thought in China. Leiden: Brill, 1994. (Discussion of T1826’s place in the Tang Mādhyamaka reception.)
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Asiatische Forschungen 151. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007. (Multiple essays on Fǎ-zàng’s commentarial corpus.)
- Yoshizu Yoshihide 吉津宜英. Kegonzen no shisō-shiteki kenkyū 華厳禅の思想史的研究. Tōkyō: Daitō shuppansha, 1985.
- Liu, Ming-Wood. “The Madhyamaka and the Hua-yen: A Doctrinal Comparison.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 19 (1992): 91–113. (Includes substantive discussion of T1826.)
Other points of interest
T1826 is one of relatively few works in the Sānlùn / Mādhyamaka portion of the Chinese canon authored from outside the Sānlùn lineage proper. Its inclusion here reflects the canonical principle of grouping commentarial literature by commented text rather than by author’s school. The Huáyán reading of T1568 it supplies stands in interesting contrast to Jízàng’s strictly Sānlùn reading in KR6m0009 T1825, both texts being preserved in the same Taishō volume and continuously juxtaposed in East-Asian scholarly practice.