Shè dàshèng jiǎngshū juǎn dìwǔ, dìqī 攝大乘講疏卷第五．第七
Lecture-Commentary on the Compendium of the Mahāyāna, Fascicles 5 and 7 (anonymous Dūnhuáng manuscript)
About the work
A two-fascicle anonymous Dūnhuáng-manuscript fragment of a jiǎngshū 講疏 (“lecture-commentary”) on the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha; only fascicles 5 and 7 of the original survive. The Taishō header notes “[cf. No. 1595]” indicating that the underlying root + commentary is Paramārtha’s translation KR6n0061 Shè dàshèng lùn shì (T31n1595). Edited by the Taishō editors into the Gǔyìbù 古逸部 / “ancient lost works” division (T85), volume 85, no. 2805.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T85N2805) does not assign internal structure for a TOC; the surviving fragments correspond to fascicles 5 and 7 of the original, identified by source colophons (“攝大乘論疏卷第五”). The entry shows that the jiǎngshū tradition was active in the Héxī corridor across the seventh–ninth centuries.
Abstract
The Shèlùn jiǎngshū tradition — lecture-commentaries on Paramārtha’s Mahāyāna-saṅgraha — constituted the principal exegetical literature of the early Chinese Yogācāra Shèlùn 攝論 school, prior to its supersession by the Cí’ēn school. The surviving Dūnhuáng manuscripts in T85 (specifically nos. 2805–2809) are the most important extant witnesses to that lost commentarial tradition. The fragmentary state of the text — only fascicles 5 and 7 survive — is typical of Dūnhuáng manuscripts.
Authorship is unknown; the work is generally attributed to a Suí- or Táng-period Shèlùn school monk operating in northwest China. The dating window adopted (600–900) reflects the post-Paramārtha terminus post quem (the work cannot pre-date the KR6n0061 translation completed in 564) and the typical date range for Dūnhuáng manuscript production. The cataloguing of the work in the Cí’ēn-school anti-Shèlùn polemical literature (KR6n0026) suggests it remained current into the eighth century.
This text and its companions KR6n0067, KR6n0068, KR6n0069, and KR6n0070 together form the surviving Dūnhuáng Shèlùn school commentarial corpus and have been the subject of significant modern scholarly attention as the principal documentary basis for the Shèlùn school’s distinctive doctrinal positions.
Translations and research
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻. Tonkō Bukkyō no kenkyū 敦煌仏教の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1990.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Shintai sanzō kenkyū ronshū 真諦三藏研究論集. Kyoto, 2012.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
Links
- CBETA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (590): [ Keng 2023 ] Keng, Ching. Toward a New Image of Paramārtha: Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha Buddhism Revisited. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Chapter 3, 51-105; 141-143 https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/641/