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大乘義章

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Text ID
KR6n0122
Date
580–592
Dynasty
隋

Dàshèng yìzhāng 大乘義章

Compendium of Mahāyāna Doctrines by 慧遠 (Jìngyǐng Huìyuǎn, 撰)

About the work

The largest doctrinal compendium of the early Suí period: a 20-fascicle (originally probably 26-fascicle, with the Taishō text being incomplete) systematic encyclopaedia of Mahāyāna doctrine by Jìngyǐngsì Huìyuǎn 慧遠 (523–592), the great Northern Buddhist abhidharma and nirvāṇa-sūtra scholar. Preserved in the Taishō at T44n1851 (some Japanese sub-commentaries on parts of the work are catalogued separately, e.g. T70N2305 on fascicle 3 — see the CANWWW related-text relation). The standard reference work for Mahāyāna doctrinal terminology in early-medieval Chinese Buddhism, and one of the most-cited yìzhāng (doctrinal-essay-collection) compendia in the entire Chinese Buddhist canon.

Structural Division

The text is organised under five thematic groupings (wǔ jù 五聚):

  1. Jiào jù 教聚 — the teaching-collection (catalogues of scriptural teaching schemata).
  2. Yì jù 義聚 — the doctrinal-essence collection (key Mahāyāna doctrines).
  3. Rǎn jù 染聚 — the defilement-collection (analysis of kleśa, anuśaya, etc.).
  4. Jìng jù 淨聚 — the purification-collection (the path and its results).
  5. Zá jù 雜聚 — the miscellaneous-collection (residual topics).

The jiào jù further branches into three gates: (a) zhòngjīng jiàojì yì 眾經教迹義 (the categorisation-schemata of all sūtras), (b) sānzàng yì 三藏義 (the three baskets), (c) shíèr bù jīng yì 十二部經義 (the twelve genres of sūtra). The other four jù are similarly subdivided. The total number of independent doctrinal essays (yìzhāng) is several hundred.

CANWWW preserves a related-text relation indicating that fascicle 3 corresponds to T70N2305 (a separately-catalogued Japanese sub-commentary on the chapter).

Prefaces

The text opens directly with the systematic exposition; the colophonic note “草書惑人傷失之甚，傳者必真，慎勿草書” (“cursive writing has confused readers and caused great loss; transmitters must be faithful — do not write [this work] in cursive”) in the title-line of fascicle 1 is a transmission warning. The opening jiàojì essay surveys the various existing systems for classifying the Buddha’s teaching: it begins with the Jìn Wǔdūshān 隱士 Liú Qiú 劉虬 system of dùnjiào 頓教 / jiànjiào 漸教 (sudden / gradual) — with the Huáyán sūtra as dùn and all other sūtras as jiàn, the jiàn being further subdivided into wǔshí qījiē 五時七階 (five periods and seven stages) — and then surveys the alternative classification systems of Bodhiruci, Tánwújìn, Huìyuán of Lúshān, and others.

Abstract

The Dàshèng yìzhāng is the foundational monograph of the Northern Nièpán / Dìlùn synthesis: a comprehensive abhidharma-style codification of Mahāyāna doctrine drawing on the entire range of early Chinese Mahāyāna literature available in the late sixth century. Huìyuǎn was the chief disciple of Fǎshàng 法上 in the Northern Dìlùn 地論 lineage; he survived the Northern Zhōu Buddhist persecution of 574 by going into hiding, and after the Suí restoration he was installed at Jìngyǐngsì 淨影寺 in Chángān, where he produced the Yìzhāng in the 580s and early 590s. (The traditional dating window of c. 580–592 covers his most productive Chángān decade up to his death.) The work shows the doctrinal world immediately before the great translations of 玄奘 reshaped Chinese Buddhism: it works with the older Paramārtha-and-Bodhiruci translations of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, the Daśabhūmika-sūtravyākhyāna (= Dìlùn 地論), the Saṃdhinirmocana, and the early Yogācāra-via-Paramārtha materials, and sets out the synthesis of these in a quasi-abhidharma analytic that became the canonical reference work for sixth-/seventh-century Chinese Buddhists.

For Wilkinson see Chinese History: A New Manual §§ 33 ff. on the early-medieval Chinese Buddhist intellectual world; for the standard Japanese scholarly account see Yūki Reimon 結城令聞, Yuishikigaku tenseki shi 唯識学典籍志 (1962). The work is the principal Suí-period source for Chinese terminological standardisation in the xìngzōng (Nature-school) lineage that fed forward into the Tiāntái and Huáyán syntheses of the early Táng. Note that the catalog meta records 26卷 in the canonical CANWWW listing but the modern Taishō text is preserved in 20卷; the discrepancy reflects partial loss in transmission.

Translations and research

  • Liu Ming-Wood 廖明活, Madhyamaka Thought in China. Leiden: Brill, 1994 — extensive treatment of Huìyuǎn within the early-medieval Chinese doctrinal world.
  • Yūki Reimon 結城令聞, Yuishikigaku tenseki shi 唯識学典籍志 (1962) — the standard Japanese guide to the doctrinal-text history of which the Yì-zhāng is the principal Suí monument.
  • Robert M. Gimello, “Random Reflections on the ‘Sinicization’ of Buddhism,” Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 5 (1978), 52–89 — discusses the Yì-zhāng as a key staging text.
  • Yu, C. T. Hui-Yuan: An Early Yogācāra Master and the Founder of Pure Land Buddhism. PhD diss., Princeton, 1980 — note the title’s confusion with the Lúshān Huìyuǎn (also 慧遠 but 334–416, a different person).
  • Funayama Tōru 船山徹, “Higashi Ajia Bukkyō ni okeru Daijō gishō no isō” 東アジア仏教における『大乗義章』の位相. Various studies on the Yì-zhāng’s reception in East Asia.

Other points of interest

The text is a primary source for the doctrinal vocabulary used by Chinese scholars before the Xuánzàng translation revolution. Many Cí’ēn-school technical terms have their proximate Chinese ancestors in the Yìzhāng’s formulations, even where Xuánzàng later replaced the Paramārtha-era equivalents. The work is therefore a key witness to the pre-Xuánzàng Chinese Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha synthesis as it stood at the turn of the seventh century.

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