Dà shèng qǐ xìn lùn yì shū 大乘起信論義疏
Commentary on the Meaning of the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith by 慧遠 (Huìyuǎn, 撰)
About the work
A two-juǎn commentary on the [[KR6o0078|Dà chéng qǐxìn lùn 大乘起信論]] by the Sui-period Jìngyǐngsì 淨影寺 master 慧遠 (Huìyuǎn, 523–592, also known as Jìngyǐng Huìyuǎn 淨影慧遠 to distinguish him from his contemporary [[KR6o0500|Lúshān Huìyuǎn 廬山慧遠]] (334–416)). The work is one of the very earliest substantial commentaries on the Awakening of Faith — composed within a generation of the parent text’s emergence, and represents the first major Chinese exegetical engagement with the work that would dominate East Asian Buddhist doctrine for the next thirteen centuries. The Taishō places it in T44 (the Lùnshū (“treatise-commentaries”) division) but the catalog meta correctly classes it under KR6o.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T44N1843) does not record a chapter sub-division. The text is divided only by juǎn (上 and 下).
Abstract
The Taishō text opens “大乘起信論義疏上之上 / 淨影寺沙門慧遠撰”. The opening sentence frames the Qǐ-xìn lùn as “manifesting the supreme profound principle, a wonderful treatise” — “the keen blade that cuts away false views, the deep abyss that drains the shallow, the victorious banner that establishes the true.” Huì-yuǎn’s commentary is a section-by-section explication of the parent text within the doctrinal framework of his own school — the so-called Dìlùn 地論 school descended from Bodhiruci’s 菩提流支 translation of Vasubandhu’s Daśabhūmika-vyākhyāna (T1522). His treatment of the one mind and two gates schema in the parent text is read through Vasubandhu’s Daśabhūmika analysis of the ālaya-vijñāna, providing the first systematic Yogācāra-influenced reading of the Qǐ-xìn lùn.
Huìyuǎn was one of the most important Sui-period Buddhist scholastics and a principal figure of the Dìlùn school’s southern branch. He served at the imperial Jìngyǐngsì 淨影寺 and was the author of the encyclopaedic Dà chéng yì zhāng 大乘義章 (T1851), one of the foundational doctrinal compendia of pre-Tang Chinese Buddhism. His commentary on the Qǐxìn lùn — pre-dating both [[KR6o0101|Wonhyo’s Shū (T1844)]] and [[KR6o0105|Fǎzàng’s Yìjì (T1846)]] — is the earliest substantial witness to the text’s reception.
Translations and research
- Liebenthal, Walter. “The Oldest Commentary of the Mahāyānaśraddhotpāda Śāstra.” Monumenta Nipponica 11 (1955–56). — Treats Huì-yuǎn’s commentary specifically.
- Tanaka, Kenneth K. The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine: Ching-ying Hui-yuan’s Commentary on the Visualization Sūtra. Albany: SUNY Press, 1990. — Treats Jìng-yǐng Huì-yuǎn’s life and works.
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean Way of Zen. Honolulu, 1991. — Treats the broader pre-Tang commentary tradition on the Awakening of Faith.
- Wagner, Robin Beth. “Buddhism, Biography, and Power: A Study of Daoxuan’s Continued Lives of Eminent Monks.” Yale dissertation, 1995. — Treats Huì-yuǎn’s biography.
Other points of interest
This commentary is one of the principal doctrinal monuments of pre-Tang Chinese Buddhism and is foundational for understanding the early Chinese reception of the Qǐxìn lùn before the Tang Huáyán (Fǎzàng) and Korean (Wonhyo) readings became dominant. Huìyuǎn’s Dìlùn-school reading is markedly different from these later interpretations, and modern scholars (Liebenthal in particular) have used the commentary as a key text for reconstructing the early reception history.
Links
- CBETA
- Dazangthings date evidence (585, 700): [ 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/