Jiūmóluóshí fǎshī dàyì 鳩摩羅什法師大義
Major Doctrinal Discussions of the Dharma Master Kumārajīva (alt. title Dàshèng dàyì zhāng 大乘大義章) by 慧遠 (Huìyuǎn, 問) and 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 答)
About the work
A three-fascicle epistolary doctrinal exchange between 慧遠 慧遠 (334–416), abbot of the Lúshān 廬山 Dōnglínsì 東林寺 in southern Eastern-Jìn China, and 鳩摩羅什 鳩摩羅什 (344–413), the foreign-born translation-master of Cháng’ān at the Hòu-Qín court. The work consists of eighteen doctrinal questions posed by Huìyuǎn together with Kumārajīva’s responses, transmitted by long-distance correspondence between Lúshān (in modern Jiāngxī) and Cháng’ān (in modern Shǎnxī) c. 405–413 CE — covering the last decade of Kumārajīva’s life. Alternative title Dàshèng dàyì zhāng 大乘大義章 “Chapter of the Great Meaning of the Mahāyāna” appears in some witnesses.
Structural Division
CANWWW gives this text without an internal subdivisions block. The work itself is structured as eighteen zhāng 章 (chapters) — one per doctrinal exchange — covering core Mahāyāna doctrinal topics: the dharmakāya of the Buddha, the fēnshēn 分身 (multiple body) doctrine, the function of dharma-eye and Buddha-eye, the relation between prajñā and upāya, the doctrine of bodhicitta, etc.
Abstract
The opening of T1856 frames the whole as the doctrinal correspondence of two of the principal Buddhist masters of the early-fifth-century Chinese Buddhist establishment: “Of the Sòng kingdom, the Lúshān Dharma-master Huìyuǎn — in his youth he embraced Confucianism and Daoism, was renowned in jiānbái 堅白 [the school of Gōngsūn Lóng]; on transcending the worldly he became Mt. Sumeru of Jiāngzuǒ” 宋國廬山慧遠法師。公少瞻儒道。擅堅白之名。及脫俗高尚。亦江左須彌. (The text confusingly refers to Huìyuǎn’s territory as “Sòng” — a slip for “Jìn” 晉, the dynasty actually contemporary with the correspondence — apparently introduced during the Liú-Sòng-period transmission of the text.)
The body of the work is the principal extant primary source for the doctrinal debates of the early Chinese Buddhist establishment. Each of the eighteen exchanges treats a central doctrinal question on which Huìyuǎn (working from the older translations of Lokakṣema, Dharmarakṣa, and the Eastern-Jìn translators) was uncertain, with Kumārajīva’s reply drawing on his fresh Indic Mādhyamaka and Yogācāra learning. The exchanges are doctrinally substantial: the question on the dharmakāya (法身) and the doctrine of multiple Buddha-bodies, the question on the relation between prajñā and upāya, the question on the four-fold constitution of the prajñā-eye, etc., are among the central doctrinal pieces of the early Chinese Mahāyāna establishment.
T1856 is foundational for the prosopographical reconstruction of the early Chinese Mahāyāna doctrinal community and for the philological reconstruction of pre-Kumārajīva Mahāyāna doctrinal vocabulary. The work has been the subject of substantial modern scholarship; the standard critical edition is Kimura Eiichi’s Eon Kenkyū.
Translations and research
- Kimura Eiichi 木村英一, ed. Eon kenkyū 慧遠研究. 2 vols. Kyoto: Sōbunsha, 1960–1962. (Foundational critical edition and study; principal modern reference for T1856.)
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆. Chūgoku Bukkyō tsūshi 中国仏教通史. 3 vols. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1979. (Substantial discussion of T1856 in volume 1.)
- Robinson, Richard H. Early Mādhyamika in India and China. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967. (Discusses T1856 in context of Kumārajīva’s translation programme.)
- Liebenthal, Walter. “Shih Hui-yuan’s Buddhism As Set Forth in His Writings.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 (1950): 243–259.
- Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China. Leiden: Brill, 1959. (Foundational discussion of Huì-yuǎn and Kumārajīva.)
Other points of interest
T1856 is one of the principal pre-Kumārajīva-translation primary sources for the state of Chinese Buddhist doctrinal understanding in the early fifth century — what Huìyuǎn knew, what he was uncertain about, and what he asked the principal foreign-born translator-master of his generation to clarify. The eighteen questions and their replies are therefore an inestimable source for the philological reconstruction of pre-Kumārajīva Chinese Mahāyāna terminology.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (395, 405): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/