Sānlùn xuányì yòuméng 三論玄義誘蒙
A Guide for the Untutored to the Three-Treatise Profundity-Treatise by 聞證 (Monshō, 撰)
About the work
A three-fascicle Edo-period Japanese introductory commentary on 吉藏 Jízàng’s 吉藏 Sānlùn xuányì 三論玄義 (T45n1852 = KR6m0026), prefaced and published in Jōkyō 3 / 1686 by the monk Monshō 聞證, a Pure-Land-trained Buddhist lecturer who additionally specialized in Sanron 三論 doctrine. The title’s yòuméng 誘蒙 (“guiding the untutored / leading children”) signals the genre as a primer-style introduction: each phrase of Jízàng’s notoriously dense prose is parsed, glossed with classical-Chinese lexicographic apparatus, and contextualized in the Sanron-school’s historical setting. The work was simultaneously a Sanron classroom textbook and a public-facing exposition for a wider Edo Buddhist audience.
Structural Division
CANWWW lists this text without an internal sub-toc block. Related texts per CANWWW: KR6m0026 Sānlùn xuányì 三論玄義 (T45n1852); KR6m0029 Sānlùn xuányì chāo 三論玄義鈔 (T70n2301).
Abstract
The author Monshō 聞證 is identified by DILA A001636 as a Japanese Edo-period monk; he also composed a second extant work, the Lüèshù fǎxiāng yì 略述法相義 (T2315), confirming his cross-sectarian Sanron-Hossō scholarly reach. According to the front-preface (T70, 0532a–b), Monshō was associated with Pure Land devotion (“to An-yǎng wèi zhǐguī, jiān hán Wéishí yú xiōng, cì zhuǎn Sānlùn yú shéduān 以安養爲指歸，兼涵唯識于胸，次轉三論于舌端” — “taking Sukhāvatī as his ultimate destination, with Yogācāra contained in his breast and the Three Treatises rolling on his tongue”), an unusually ecumenical late-Edo theological profile.
The work bears a substantial signed preface (T70, 0532a–b) by Nyojitsu 如實 of the Kyō-shi Zen-dō Kyō-ji 京師善導教寺 (“Master Nyojitsu, monk of Zendō Kyō-ji of Kyoto”), dated Jōkyō bǐngyín / 仲秋 / gǔrì (= Jōkyō 3 / 1686 / mid-autumn / a propitious day = autumn 1686). The preface frames the work as a corrective and supplementary effort following earlier Edo Sanron primer attempts: “Mr. Monshō, in his leisure from Sanskrit recitation, perused earlier chāo-style notes and examined what they had not examined; weeds he uprooted, doubts he settled; gathered all the essence and compiled the great compendium, titling it Sānlùn xuányì yòuméng” (兹聞證上人…因閲舊鈔而考其之所未考。蕪者剔之疑者正之。悉摭精華集而大成。題曰三論玄義誘蒙).
The body of the commentary proceeds phrase-by-phrase through Jízàng’s Sānlùn xuányì, supplying:
- a brief bibliographical headnote for Jízàng (T70, 0532b: native of Anxi-descended Parthian stock, ordained as a child by Paramārtha 真諦, abbot of the Jiāxiángsì, dàochǎng zhǔ 道場主 under Suí Yángdì, died 武德六年五月 = late spring 623 at age 75, remains interred at Zhìxiāngsì 至相寺);
- topical glosses on the Sanron technical vocabulary (shì shàng 適化 = matching the situation, táo yòu 陶誘 = forming and luring, etc.) drawing on classical sources (the Yìjīng 易經 Xì cí 繫辭, Nièpán wúmíng lùn 涅槃無名論, Liáng gāosēng zhuàn 梁高僧傳, Dōngzhēng fù 東征賦 of Cao Da-gu 曹大家);
- doctrinal expositions of the bābù 八不, èrdì 二諦, etc. drawing on Jízàng’s Zhōngguān lùn shū and Dàchéng xuánlùn.
The composition is securely dated by the front-preface to 1686, making it one of the latest pre-modern Sanron school works to enter the Taishō canon. The Sanron school had by this point lost any institutional independence; the work functions as a learned monograph by a polymath Pure Land scholar, not as a sectarian Sanron textbook.
Translations and research
- Tamura Yoshirō 田村芳朗 and Kashiwagi Hiro’o 柏木弘雄. Edo-jidai Bukkyō shisō kenkyū 江戸時代仏教思想研究. Tōkyō, various editions. (Late-Edo Sanron revival, including discussion of Monshō.)
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Bukkyō daijiten 佛教大辭典. (Entries on Monshō and his works.)
- Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Sanron-kyōgaku no kenkyū 三論教學の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1990. (Sanron continuity in early-modern Japan.)
Other points of interest
The work is unusually accessible by Edo-Sanron standards, providing extensive classical-Chinese and historical-Buddhist context for the technical vocabulary of Jízàng’s Sānlùn xuányì. The author’s tri-sectarian profile (Pure Land devotion + Hossō Yogācāra contemplation + Sanron textual labour) testifies to the post-sectarian Tokugawa Buddhist intellectual climate in which doctrinal specialization was increasingly an individual scholarly choice rather than a function of monastic affiliation.