Shì mó hē yǎn lùn 釋摩訶衍論
Commentary on the Mahāyāna [Awakening of Faith] (Mahāyāna-vyākhyā-śāstra) by 龍樹菩薩 (Lóngshù púsà / Nāgārjuna, 造 — but see Abstract) and 筏提摩多 (Fátímóduō / Vrddhimati, 譯)
About the work
A ten-juǎn doctrinal commentary on the [[KR6o0078|Dà chéng qǐxìn lùn 大乘起信論]] (the Liáng Awakening of Faith), traditionally attributed to 龍樹菩薩 (Nāgārjuna) and translated into Chinese by the otherwise unknown Indian master 筏提摩多 (Vrddhimati or similar; the Sanskritisation is conjectural) under Yáo Qín 姚秦 patronage at the court of Yáo Xìng 姚興 (r. 394–416). The Taishō places it in T32 alongside the Awakening of Faith itself, and the Korean and Khitan (Liáo) traditions canonised it as a major Mahāyāna treatise.
The work’s authenticity is, however, even more deeply contested than that of the parent Awakening of Faith. Modern scholarship (Mochizuki Shinkō, Hu Shih, Murakami Sensei) has overwhelmingly concluded that the Shì Móhēyǎn lùn is a Korean (or Korean-affiliated) apocryphon of the seventh or eighth century, composed in Korean Hwaeom-school circles and presented as a translation. The Yáo-Qín-period attribution and the Indian translator are fictitious. Nāgārjuna had been dead for half a millennium by the time the underlying Qǐxìn lùn was composed (in itself a sixth-century text); a Nāgārjuna commentary on a sixth-century work is doubly anachronistic. Despite this, the work was canonised as a foundational doctrinal text in Korean Hwaeom and was carried to Japan by Kūkai 空海, where it became the principal philosophical foundation of the Shingon school’s trikāya doctrine. The text generated an extensive Khitan/Liáo and Japanese sub-commentarial literature (KR6o0085–0097).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1668) does not record an internal sub-division; the text is divided only by juǎn (1–10).
Abstract
The Taishō text opens “釋摩訶衍論序 / 天冊鳳威姚興皇帝製” — a fictitious “imperial preface” attributed to Yáo Xìng of Later Qín, anachronistically using Tang-period reign-titles (“天冊” being a Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 reign-name 695). This anachronism is one of the principal pieces of evidence against the work’s claimed YáoQín date. The opening of the text proper develops the schema of the one mind and two gates from the Qǐxìn lùn, but expands it with elaborate cosmological and trikāya analyses unknown to the parent text. The doctrinal vocabulary shows clear influence from late seventh- or early eighth-century Korean Hwaeom 華嚴 exegesis (especially that of 元曉) — the text appears in fact to depend on existing commentarial traditions rather than to predate them.
The work was canonised in the Khitan/Liáo Liáozàng 遼藏 (the Khitan Buddhist Canon) and from there transmitted to the Korean and Japanese traditions. In Korea, its doctrinal influence was significant in the late-Goryeo Cheontae and Hwaeom traditions; in Japan, 空海’s recognition of the Shì Móhēyǎn lùn as a foundational Shingon text gave it a permanent home in the Esoteric school’s “five great treatises” alongside the Pútíxīn lùn (KR6o0070). Despite the strong modern consensus on Korean authorship, the text continues to be treated as canonical in Japanese Shingon scholastic education to the present day.
Translations and research
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Daijō kishin-ron no kenkyū 大乘起信論之研究. Tokyo, 1922. — Foundational challenge to the Yáo-Qín / Nāgārjuna attribution.
- Hu Shih 胡適. “Lún Shì Móhē-yǎn lùn de zhēn-wěi” 論《釋摩訶衍論》的真偽. Selected Works of Hu Shih on Buddhism, various editions. — Treats the apocryphon question.
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea: The Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra, a Buddhist Apocryphon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. — Treats the broader question of Korean Buddhist apocrypha including the Shì Móhē-yǎn lùn.
- Plassen, Jörg. “Shi mohe-yan lun: Some Observations on its Authorship and Date.” Hanguk pulgyo hak (various). — Recent comparative analysis.
- Yamasaki, Taikō. Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism. Boston: Shambhala, 1988. — Treats the work’s role in Shingon doctrine.
Other points of interest
The Shì Móhēyǎn lùn generated a remarkable seven-text Chinese / Liao / Korean commentarial tradition preserved in the canon (KR6o0085–0090) plus seven Japanese commentaries (KR6o0091–0097). Its scholarly importance — independent of its dubious historical claims — lies in its being one of the most elaborate doctrinal-cosmological constructions in the East Asian Buddhist tradition, integrating Awakening of Faith metaphysics with trikāya doctrine and elaborate upāya schemas.
Links
- CBETA
- Dazangthings date evidence (401, 405, 850): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/