Jīn gāng dǐng pú tí xīn lùn lüè jì 金剛頂菩提心論略記
Brief Notes on the Vajraśekhara-Bodhicitta Treatise by 遍滿 (Biànmǎn, 撰)
About the work
A one-juǎn prose commentary on Amoghavajra’s Pútíxīn lùn 菩提心論 (KR6o0070; T32n1665) by the otherwise poorly-attested Táng monk 遍滿 (Biànmǎn). The colophon “唐沙門遍滿撰” places the author in the Táng dynasty but provides no further dating; internal evidence (the use of certain Esoteric technical terms and the assumed familiarity with Amoghavajra’s corpus) suggests a late-Tang date, perhaps in the late eighth or ninth century. The work is preserved only in the Manji-zokuzōkyō 卍續藏經 (X46) and is not in the Taishō.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not provide an internal sub-division.
Abstract
The Taishō / Manji-zokuzōkyō text opens “No. 777 / 金剛頂菩提心論略記 / 唐沙門遍滿撰” and proceeds through a phrase-by-phrase exposition of the title of Amoghavajra’s treatise: “Vajra” 金剛 means “indestructible” (不壞), referring to the practitioner’s unshakeable resolve in the bodhi-mind; “Crown” 頂 means “summit” (極), the highest of all things, with the bodhi-mind as the summit of all dharmas; “Yoga” 瑜伽 means “correspondence” (相應), specifically the triguhya (三密) correspondence of body, speech, and mind; “Within” 中 means “the middle way” 中道 transcending dualism. The exposition then proceeds verse by verse through the parent treatise.
The author 遍滿 is otherwise unattested in standard biographical sources (Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳, Jǐngdé chuándēng lù 景德傳燈錄), and the work survived only through later Japanese manuscript transmission of the Manji-zokuzōkyō. It is one of the few early Chinese sub-commentaries on the Pútíxīn lùn preserved in any form (most other early Chinese commentaries on the same parent text appear to have been lost in the late Tang and Five Dynasties period). Its survival in the Manji-zokuzōkyō reflects the assiduous collection efforts of late Edo and Meiji Japanese Buddhist scholars who recovered Chinese Esoteric materials from temple libraries in Japan.
Translations and research
- Bukkyō Daijiten 仏教大辞典 s.v. Kongōchō bodaishin-ron ryakki. — Standard reference summary.
Other points of interest
The work is one of relatively few Chinese commentaries on the Pútíxīn lùn (T1665) preserved in the East Asian Buddhist canon — most of the parent treatise’s substantive sub-commentarial tradition is in Japanese (see KR6o0072–0077). The author Biànmǎn is otherwise unattested; the brevity of the commentary and its concentration on the title of the parent treatise suggest a pedagogical introductory work for novices in the Esoteric school.