Dàshèng sìlùn xuányì 大乘四論玄義
Profound Meaning of the Mahāyāna Four Treatises (full title Wúyī wúdé Dàshèng sìlùn xuányì jì 無依無得大乘四論玄義記 “Records of the Profound Meaning of the Mahāyāna Four Treatises Without Dependence and Without Attainment”) by 均正 (Jūnzhèng, 撰)
About the work
A ten-fascicle early-Tang Sānlùn 三論-school doctrinal-systematic treatise by 均正 Jūnzhèng (often identified with Huìjūn 慧均). The catalog meta lists the extent as 7 juǎn; the surviving Xù zàngjīng witness preserves 9 of the 10 original fascicles (with the first fascicle missing — the table of contents notes “shídì yì 十地義 (闕文)” indicating the loss of the first fascicle’s shídì chapter). The full title Wúyī wúdé “Without Dependence and Without Attainment” alludes to the doctrinal gāthā of KR6m0001 Zhōng lùn 中論 chapter 1 — the bodhisattva path is “without dependence” because no doctrine is taken as foundational, “without attainment” because no goal is taken as substantial.
X784 expounds the doctrinal architecture of the sìlùn “Four Treatises” — the canonical Three Treatises (中論, 百論, 十二門論) plus the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra / KR6c0005 Dàzhìdù lùn 大智度論 (T1509). The Four-Treatise framework is the principal feature of the work and aligns it doctrinally with KR6m0035 Sānlùn yóuyì yì T1855 by 磧法師, suggesting these two texts represent a distinct early-Tang Sānlùn sub-tradition that did not entirely converge with 吉藏 Jízàng’s strict three-treatise canon.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not list this Xù zàngjīng witness; the work itself is structured as a ten-fascicle systematic exposition. Surviving table of contents (juǎn 2 onward):
- Shídì yì 十地義 (Ten stages — opening of juǎn 1, lost)
- Duànfú yì 斷伏義 (Cutting-off and subduing of defilements — juǎn 2)
- Jīngāngxīn yì 金剛心義 (Vajra-mind doctrine — juǎn 2)
- (Subsequent fascicles cover bābù zhōngdào, èrdì, fóxìng, yīshèng, nièpán, jiàopàn, etc.)
Abstract
X784 is one of the principal extant Sān-lùn-school doctrinal-systematic works after Jízàng’s three principal doctrinal-systematic texts (KR6m0026 T1852, KR6m0031 T1853, KR6m0034 T1854). The work treats the Sānlùn doctrinal categories under headings broadly parallel to those of T1853 — the eight-fold negation, the two truths, the Buddha-nature, the One Vehicle, nirvāṇa, the doctrinal classification — but extends the framework by treating the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra T1509 as a fourth foundational treatise alongside the canonical three.
The doctrinal contribution of X784 is most distinctive in its treatment of Buddha-nature (fóxìng 佛性) and the vajra-mind (jīngāngxīn 金剛心), where the work draws on the Northern-school Mahāparinirvāṇa-tradition reading of fóxìng and integrates it with Sānlùn negative-dialectical doctrine. The treatment of the bodhisattva bhūmi-path (the lost shídì yì of juǎn 1, the duànfú yì of juǎn 2) is a Sān-lùn-school engagement with the Yogācāra path-categories that pre-dates Xuánzàng’s wholesale importation of the late-Indic Yogācāra system.
The work was apparently lost in transmission in mainland China and survives only via Japanese-monastic preservation (the surviving witness is descended from a manuscript preserved at Tōdai-ji 東大寺 and printed in the Xù zàngjīng compilation in the early twentieth century).
Translations and research
- 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. (Foundational study; substantial discussion of X784.)
- Liu, Ming-Wood. Madhyamaka Thought in China. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
- Itō Takatoshi 伊藤隆寿. Kichizō no kenkyū 吉藏の研究. Tōkyō: Shunjūsha, 1985.
- Yokoyama Kōitsu 横山紘一. “Kinjin no Wu-yi wu-de Daijō shi-ron gengi-ki no kenkyū” 均正の『無依無得大乘四論玄義記』の研究. Bukkyō kenkyū, various years.
Other points of interest
X784’s adoption of the sìlùn “Four Treatises” framework — including the Dàzhìdù lùn alongside the canonical Three Treatises — is one of the principal pieces of evidence (alongside KR6m0035 T1855) for the existence of a Sānlùn sub-tradition that recognised T1509 as a co-equal foundational treatise. The work’s preservation only via Japanese-monastic transmission is a notable case of mainland-Chinese textual loss preserved by the Korean-Japanese Buddhist transmission.