Dàshèng xuán wèndá 大乘玄問答
Questions and Answers on the Great Vehicle Profundity by 珍海 (Chinkai, 抄)
About the work
A twelve-fascicle Japanese sub-commentary, in question-and-answer (wèndá 問答) format, on 吉藏 Jízàng’s 吉藏 Dàchéng xuánlùn 大乘玄論 (T45n1853 = KR6m0031). Composed by the late-Insei-period Tōdaiji 東大寺 Sanron 三論 master Chinkai 珍海 (1091/1092–1152), this is the longest of Chinkai’s three major Sanron works and his principal sustained engagement with Jízàng’s encyclopaedic doctrinal masterpiece. The format reflects classroom kuden 口傳 oral instruction: a topic is raised as a wèn 問 from a hypothetical student, and the master’s response (dá 答) cites Jízàng directly (“xuán yún 玄云”) followed by Chinkai’s own resolution.
Structural Division
CANWWW lists this text without an internal sub-toc block. Related texts per CANWWW: KR6m0031 Dàchéng xuánlùn 大乘玄論 (T45n1853); KR6m0033 Yīchéng yì sījì 一乘義私記 (T70n2304).
T70n2303 fascicle 1 opens with the èrdì yì 二諦義 (“doctrine of the two truths”) of T1853, the foundational topic of the Sanron school; subsequent fascicles work through the bābù yì 八不義 (eight negations), fóxìng yì 佛性義 (Buddha-nature), yīshèng yì 一乘義 (one vehicle), nièpán yì 涅槃義 (nirvāṇa), èrzhì yì 二智義 (two wisdoms), jiàojì yì 教迹義 (doctrinal-history), and lùnjì yì 論迹義 (treatise-history) chapters of Jízàng — paralleling the chapter organisation of T1853 itself.
Abstract
Chinkai 珍海 (1092–1152, DILA A000858) signed the work as “Chánnàyuàn Yuèqián yǐjiǎng 禪那院越前已講 珍海” — “Chinkai, yi-kō of Echizen-bō, Zen’na-in” — confirming the same Tōdaiji Zen’na-in 禪那院 (within the Tō-nan-in 東南院 sub-temple complex) attribution as his other two surviving Sanron works (KR6m0027, KR6m0033). See 珍海 for biographical detail.
The work’s distinctive doctrinal contribution lies in its sustained engagement with the èrdì (two truths) chapter (fasc. 1, T70 0569a–0570c+), the foundational topic of Jízàng’s Dàchéng xuánlùn. Chinkai’s reading is conservative — closely following Jízàng’s own systematization — but his question-and-answer apparatus preserves a unique record of the Insei-period Tōdaiji Sanron oral classroom. Key Jízàng disagreements with the Liáng 梁 commentator Guāngzhāi Fǎyún 光宅法雲 (a Liáng commentator who defended a 境理為諦 “object-as-truth” reading of the two truths) are carefully separated from the Sanron-school’s 言敎為諦 “doctrinal-language-as-truth” position — Chinkai notes that the Sanron master Xìnghuáng Fǎlǎng 興皇法朗 (507–581), Jízàng’s grand-master, taught at his deathbed sermon to the Xingguang assembly: “shī lín qù shì zhī shí, dēng gāo zuò fù zhǔ ménrén: wǒ chūshān yǐ lái, yǐ èrdì wéi zhèngdào 師臨去世之時，登高座付屬門人。我出山以來。以二諦爲正道” — “When the master was about to die, he ascended the high seat and entrusted his disciples: ‘Since I came down from the mountain, I have taken the two truths to be the correct way.‘” This citation, found at T70 0569b22, is one of the more important surviving Chinkai-mediated witnesses to the Xìnghuángsì Sanron pedagogy.
The work additionally engages with the Buddha-nature doctrine, with sustained reference to the Nièpán jīng 涅槃經 and the Chinese MādhyamikaTathāgatagarbha synthesis, and with the One-Vehicle doctrine (yīshèng), preserved in further detail in Chinkai’s KR6m0033 Yīchéng yì sījì.
The composition date is not internally specified; the work is conventionally placed within Chinkai’s mature scholarly phase, c. 1110–1152, in chronological relation to his other two Sanron compositions (KR6m0027, KR6m0033) which it presupposes.
Translations and research
- Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Sanron-kyōgaku no kenkyū 三論教學の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1990. (Principal modern survey of the Sanron commentarial tradition; Chinkai-specific discussion.)
- Itō Takatoshi 伊藤隆寿. Kichizō no kenkyū 吉藏の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1985. (Discusses T2303 as a Heian reading of Jí-zàng.)
- Itō Kōan 伊藤宏顯. “Chinkai no Sanron-gaku” 珍海の三論學. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū. (Chinkai-specific study.)
- Sueki Fumihiko 末木文美士. Heian shoki Bukkyō shisō no kenkyū 平安初期仏教思想の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1995. (Insei-period Sanron context.)
Other points of interest
The wèndá format makes T2303 unusually accessible by Sanron standards; the work is among the more readable Heian-period Buddhist doctrinal compositions and is the principal vehicle through which Jízàng’s Dàchéng xuánlùn was studied at Tōdaiji from the twelfth century onward. The work’s preservation of the Xìnghuáng Fǎlǎng death-bed citation is a unique witness to early Sanron pedagogy.