Dàshèng fǎyuàn yìlín zhāng juézé jì 大乘法苑義林章決擇記
Decisional Notes on the Compendium of Doctrinal-Forest Essays by 智周 (Zhìzhōu, 撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle Táng Cí’ēn-school sub-commentary by 智周 Zhìzhōu (668–723), the third patriarch of the Cí’ēn-school, on Kuījī’s KR6n0124 Dàshèng fǎyuàn yìlín zhāng 大乘法苑義林章. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0883. The function-marker juézé jì 決擇記 (“decisional notes”) indicates a commentary that resolves disputed readings and clarifies obscure passages of the parent text — a sub-commentary in the question-and-answer (wèndá 問答) format characteristic of the Cí’ēn-school’s juézé genre.
Prefaces
The text opens with a substantial preface (No. 883-A, Fǎyuàn yìlín zhāng juézé jì xùyǐn 法苑義林章決擇記序引) — the manuscript-discovery preface of the Sòng / late-imperial editor who restored the text from a manuscript found in Luòyáng. The preface narrates: “Originally, the doctrinal gates of xìng and xiàng came to full maturity in the Táng. When Master [Xuán]-zàng’s gate produced [Cí’ēn] Dàshèng [Kuī]-jī, he enriched the jewelled forest of the Yújiā and opened the deep storehouse of wéishí — there was no sūtra he did not lecture on, no commentary he did not bring to completion. He held the title ‘hundred-treatise master’ (bǎiběn lùnshī 百本論師), and the present zhāng is one of [those hundred]: directly comprehending the obscure barriers of the three natures and wonderfully unfolding the recesses of the eight consciousnesses, with the hundred-dharma scheme manifestly displayed. Yet its prose is concise and its meaning profound — not easily made clear. Therefore the Púyáng [Master = Zhìzhōu, who was from Púyáng] composed this jì, broadly providing the analytic backbone and pulling forth the essentials, setting up host-and-guest [dialogues] in question-and-answer to penetrate what was difficult to penetrate — for which reason it is called this jì. I obtained it this summer in a Luòyáng book-shop, beside myself with delight, and copied it hastily without proper collation. I lament that this book has many yúlǔ [scribal] errors — getting one passage I miss the next — and hope that some future day I may find a good edition for collation.”
Abstract
The Juézé jì is one of the three principal Cí’ēn-school sub-commentaries on Kuījī’s Yìlín zhāng (alongside 慧沼’s KR6n0125 Bǔquè and parallel Japanese Hossō works in T71). 智周 Zhìzhōu (668–723), Huìzhǎo’s disciple and the third patriarch of the Cí’ēn-school, completed the structural consolidation of the Yìlínzhāng tradition by providing the working analytical backbone in juézé (decisional question-and-answer) form. The text is therefore both a continuation of the Yìlín zhāng itself (clarifying its difficult passages) and a key vehicle for the Cí’ēn-school’s settled exegetical positions in the third generation after Xuánzàng.
The dating window 700–733 brackets Zhìzhōu’s productive period, with a slight extension on the late side because the catalog meta records “唐” but the work continued to be edited after his death. The Manji recension is the late-imperial Luòyáng manuscript discovery noted in the preface; the original Táng text is otherwise lost.
Translations and research
- Alan Sponberg, The Vijñaptimātratā Buddhism of the Chinese Monk K’uei-Chi. PhD diss., UBC, 1979.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.