Shì Móhēyǎn lùn sījì 釋摩訶衍論私記
Private Notes on the Mahāyāna Commentary by 信堅 (Xìnjiān / Shinken, 記)
About the work
A one-fascicle private gloss-collection on KR6o0084 Shì móhēyǎn lùn 釋摩訶衍論 (T1668) by 信堅 (Shinken), a medieval Mount Kōya Shingon scholar identified in the colophon as 高野山金剛佛子信堅 (“Vajra-disciple Shinken of Mount Kōya”), composed fèngchì 奉敕 (“by imperial command”). Preserved in Taishō vol. 69 (no. 2289). The Japanese title is Shaku Makaen-ron shiki.
Prefaces
The work opens with a strikingly elaborate authorial preface invoking the “non-dual nature-virtue’s perfect ocean” and the “two-fold golden waves of front and back”:
夫不二性徳之圓海有前後兩重之金波。三十三科之寶玉有顯露祕密之法雨。依之一乘三乘之車別遲疾之轍。四曼六大之花異淺深之色。機雖三聚隨教有不同。法三十三隨機有勝劣。約此機教料簡今論三門分別。一總演大意。二別釋題目。三判文料簡。於此三門各有淺略深祕二義矣
“Now: the non-dual nature-virtue’s perfect ocean has the golden waves of two-fold front and back; the precious gems of the thirty-three categories have the dharma-rain of exoteric-revealed and esoteric-secret. Following these distinctions, the carriage of the one-vehicle and three-vehicles separates into the wheel-tracks of slow and fast; the flowers of the four maṇḍala and the six elements differ in the colours of shallow and deep. Although capacities are three groups, according to the teaching there is difference; the dharmas of the thirty-three [categories], according to capacity, have superior and inferior. In summary by these capacity-teachings, the present treatise is differentiated into three gates: (1) the general exposition of the basic meaning; (2) the particular interpretation of the title; (3) the discrimination of textual passages. Of these three gates, each has the two meanings of shallow-public (淺略) and profoundly-secret (深祕).”
The authorial signature reads “高野山金剛佛子信堅奉勅記” — “Recorded by Vajra-disciple Shinken of Mount Kōya, by imperial command.”
The opening proceeds: “Initial-Secret Greater Meaning (深祕大意) — the speech of the inner-realised marvelous-intent of Mahāvairocana the King-of-Awakening…”
Abstract
Shinken’s Shiki is a compact but strikingly synthetic engagement with the Shakuron’s doctrinal architecture, organised around the two-fold jin-ryaku (淺略) / jin-pi (深祕) hermeneutic that became standard in the post-Kakuban Shingi-Shingon tradition. The preface’s elaborate parallel-prose structure (the “perfect ocean’s two-fold golden waves”, the “thirty-three categories’ precious gems”) is itself a stylistic gesture of high Esoteric literary register, declaring the work’s claim to authoritative scholastic status.
The 奉敕 (fèngchì, “by imperial command”) attribution in the colophon places the work within the kankaku 勅勘 (“imperially-commissioned”) scholarship tradition of medieval Japanese Buddhism — a parallel to Dōhan’s Ōkyō shō KR6o0095 of 1226, which was composed under similar circumstances. The specific patron is not named in the surviving colophon.
The precise lifedates of Shinken and the precise date of the work are not preserved. On internal grounds (the work shows full appropriation of the Kakuban-Shingi jin-ryaku / jin-pi framework but no obvious dependence on late-Kamakura material) composition is conventionally placed in the late Heian to early Kamakura period, c. 1150–1300.
Translations and research
- Inaya Yūsen 稲谷裕宣. Shingi shingon-shū kyōgaku no kenkyū 新義真言宗教學の研究. Kōyasan: Kōyasan Daigaku, 1978.
Other points of interest
The combination of an Esoteric-themed preface in high parallel-prose and the fèngchì (imperial-command) attribution makes the Shiki one of the most stylistically and institutionally distinctive Shakuron commentaries of the medieval period. The work attests to the persistence of imperial patronage for Shingon Esoteric scholarship through the Kamakura period and the continued centrality of the Shakuron tradition to Shingon doctrinal-institutional identity.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Person Authority (Shinken): A000806