Zhù Zhàolùn shū 注肇論疏
Annotated Sub-commentary on the Treatises of [Sēng-]Zhào by 遵式 (Zūnshì, 述)
About the work
A six-fascicle Northern-Song annotated sub-commentary on Sēngzhào’s Zhào lùn (KR6m0038 T1858) by the Tiāntái master 遵式 Zūnshì 遵式 (964–1032). X870 is the most extensive of the Xù zàngjīng witnesses to the Zhàolùn commentarial tradition and is the principal Tiāntái-school engagement with the Zhàolùn. The work integrates Huìdá’s preface (with 曉月 Xiǎoyuè’s annotation, parallel to KR6m0043 X869) into its overall commentarial frame, then proceeds through the four constituent treatises in order.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not list this Xù zàngjīng witness; no structural-division block is given. The work itself is structured by juǎn:
- Juǎn 1: Treatment of Huìdá’s preface and the Zōngběn yì
- Juǎn 2: Wù bù qiān lùn and Bù zhēn kōng lùn
- Juǎn 3: Bōrě wúzhī lùn (first portion)
- Juǎn 4–6: continuation of Bōrě wúzhī lùn and supplementary doctrinal essays
Abstract
X870 is the principal Tiāntái-school commentary on the Zhàolùn tradition and reflects the Northern-Song Tiāntái revival under Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 (960–1028) and Zūnshì himself. Zūnshì’s exegesis is doctrinally rigorous and integrates the Zhàolùn’s Mādhyamaka doctrine with the mature Tiāntái doctrine of the yīniàn sānqiān 一念三千 (three-thousand-realms-in-a-single-thought) and the sāndì 三諦 (three truths) of Tiāntái. The work is doctrinally important as the Tiāntái-school appropriation of the pre-Sān-lùn Mādhyamaka tradition, paralleling the Chán appropriation visible in KR6m0042 X868 and KR6m0043 X869.
The integration of Xiǎoyuè’s annotation on Huìdá’s preface into the opening of X870 is a notable editorial move: Zūnshì appears to have collated the existing Chán-school annotation with his own Tiāntái-school commentary to produce a synthetic pan-school treatment of the Zhàolùn preface. The resulting text is one of the most-cited Sòng-period commentarial references on the Zhàolùn tradition.
The composition date is conventionally placed in the second decade of the eleventh century, within Zūnshì’s main doctrinal-exegetical phase at the Tiāntái-school monasteries of the lower Yangtze.
Translations and research
- Stevenson, Daniel B., and Hiroshi Kanno. The Meaning of the Lotus Sutra’s Course of Ease and Bliss: An Annotated Translation and Study of Nanyue Huisi’s Fahua jing anlexing yi. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica IX. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2006. (Notes on Zūn-shì’s commentarial output.)
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The T’ien-T’ai Four Forms of Samādhi and Late North-Sung Reformists.” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1987. (Substantial discussion of Zūn-shì’s career and his Zhào-lùn engagement.)
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, ed. Jōron kenkyū 肇論研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1955.
Other points of interest
X870 is one of relatively few Northern-Song Tiāntái-school texts that engages substantially with pre-Sān-lùn Mādhyamaka literature. Zūnshì’s reading of the Zhàolùn through Tiāntái doctrinal categories is one of the principal pieces of evidence for the Northern-Song Tiāntái revival’s interest in re-appropriating early Chinese-Buddhist doctrinal sources outside the strict Tiāntái lineage.