Zhàolùn shū 肇論疏
Sub-commentary on the Treatises of [Sēng-]Zhào by 元康 (Yuánkāng, 撰)
About the work
The principal Tang-period sub-commentary on Sēngzhào’s Zhào lùn (KR6m0038 T1858), in three fascicles, by the Sānlùn 三論 master 元康 Yuánkāng. T1859 is the foundational Chinese commentary on the Zhàolùn tradition, written from a strict Sān-lùn-school perspective and supplying lengthy doctrinal exegesis on each of the four constituent treatises of T1858. The colophon attributes the work to “the śramaṇa Shì Yuánkāng” 釋元康撰, without further biographical detail, but Yuánkāng’s identity as a Tang Sānlùn lecturer at the Cháng’ān imperial establishment is preserved in the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 notice.
Structural Division
CANWWW gives this text without an internal subdivisions block. Related text per CANWWW: KR6m0038 Zhào lùn 肇論 (T45n1858).
Abstract
T1859 opens with a learned commentary on Huìdá’s preface to T1858, demonstrating Yuánkāng’s characteristic philological care: he traces the title 序 xù “preface” to its definition in the Ěryǎ 爾雅 (“the east-and-west walls of a hall are called xù”) and then to Guō Xiàng’s gloss (“that by which inner and outer are distinguished and ordered”), arguing that Huìdá’s preface is to the Zhàolùn what the east-and-west walls of a hall are to the inner room — the necessary frame that makes the inner content accessible. The exegetical method is paradigmatically Sānlùn: a fusion of Indic Mādhyamaka doctrine with Chinese classical philological scholarship of the xúngǔ 訓詁 type.
The body of T1859 works through each of the four treatises of T1858 in order, supplying detailed doctrinal exegesis. The commentary on the Wù bù qiān lùn 物不遷論 (“Things Do Not Shift”) preserves crucial doctrinal-historical information about the Sān-lùn-school reading of the work; the commentary on the Bù zhēn kōng lùn 不真空論 supplies one of the principal early-Chinese-Buddhist articulations of the doctrine of conventional designation (jiǎmíng 假名).
T1859 was the foundational reference for all subsequent Chinese commentary on the Zhàolùn tradition (cf. KR6m0040 T1860, KR6m0041 X866, KR6m0044 X870, etc.) and is one of the most-cited Tang-period Sān-lùn-school texts in the East-Asian Buddhist canon-tradition.
Translations and research
- Liebenthal, Walter. Chao-lun: The Treatises of Sēng-chao. 2nd revised ed. Hong Kong University Press, 1968. (Standard English study; uses T1859 as the principal commentarial reference.)
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, ed. Jōron kenkyū 肇論研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1955. (Foundational Japanese collaborative volume on T1858 + T1859.)
- Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Chūgoku hannya shisōshi kenkyū: Kichizō to Sanronkyō no kenkyū 中国般若思想史研究―吉藏と三論教の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1976.
- Itō Takatoshi 伊藤隆寿. Chūgoku Bukkyō no hihanteki kenkyū 中国仏教の批判的研究. Tōkyō: Daizō shuppan, 1992.
- Saitō Tomohiro 齋藤智寛. “Genkō Jōron sho no kenkyū” 元康『肇論疏』の研究. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū, various years.
Other points of interest
T1859 is one of the principal Tang-period Sān-lùn-school texts and the most extensive single Chinese-language commentary on the Zhàolùn tradition. Yuánkāng’s exegetical method — fusing Indic Mādhyamaka doctrine with Chinese classical philological scholarship — is paradigmatic for the mature Sānlùn approach and should be compared with 吉藏’s exegetical practice in the Zhōngguān lùn shū (KR6m0006 T1824) and the Bǎilùn shū (KR6m0013 T1827).