Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn shū 大乘起信論疏
Commentary on the Mahāyāna Awakening of Faith by 法藏 (Fǎzàng / Xiánshǒu, 述)
About the work
A four-juǎn commentary on the Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn 大乘起信論 (KR6o0078, T32n1666) by the Tang Huáyán patriarch 法藏 Fǎzàng (643–712), preserved in the Qiánlóng Dàzàngjīng 乾隆大藏經 (the Lóngzàng 龍藏) as L141n1600. This is the Qiánlóng recension of the same commentary that the Taishō prints in five juǎn under No. 1846 (KR6o0105, the Yìjì); the Qiánlóng editors recompiled the text in four juǎn with the inserted kēwén of 宗密 Zōngmì (“草堂沙門宗密錄之，隨科注於論文之下” — “the monk Zōngmì of the Cǎotáng [hermitage] recorded it, inserting the divisions in notes beneath the text of the treatise”). Because of this recension difference the Lóngzàng version preserves the work as a free-standing transmission separate from the Yìjì line.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not separately register the Qiánlóng-canon recension; it corresponds substantively to T44N1846 (the Yìjì), which is paired with the parent text KR6o0078 (T32n1666) and with 法藏’s own Yìjì biéjì KR6o0106 (T44n1847).
Abstract
The text opens with the same eulogistic preface as the Taishō Yìjì — “the true mind, vast and still, severs language and image at the verbal trap (筌蹄)” — and is signed “京兆府魏國西寺沙門釋法藏撰” / “the monk Shì Fǎzàng of the West Wèiguósì in the Jīngzhào prefecture composed [this]“. The Wèiguó xīsì 魏國西寺 is the Cháng’ān monastery to which Fǎzàng was attached at the height of his career under Empress Wǔ Zétiān. The composition window 670–712 covers Fǎzàng’s mature years through to his death.
The present Lóngzàng version inserts Zōngmì’s kēwén under each section of the original treatise, producing a hybrid format that became the principal vehicle for the text in late-imperial China; the same hybrid lies behind 子璿 Zǐxuán’s full sub-commentary KR6o0107 Bǐxuē jì (T44n1848). The Qiánlóng editors’ recompilation of the shū into four juǎn (against the Taishō’s five) reflects the Qing project of standardizing canonical extents.
The Awakening of Faith itself is now widely accepted as a Chinese composition of the mid-sixth century rather than a translation from Sanskrit; Fǎzàng’s commentary, written 200+ years after the Qǐ-xìn lùn’s composition, takes the text at face value as Aśvaghoṣa’s work translated by Paramārtha and reads it as the consummate statement of Mahāyāna doctrine. His “one-mind two-gates” framework, taken up directly from Wǒnhyo’s KR6o0101 shū, became the canonical reading.
Translations and research
- Hakeda, Yoshito S. The Awakening of Faith. New York: Columbia UP, 1967. — English translation of the parent text with copious citation of Fǎzàng.
- Vorenkamp, Dirck. An English Translation of Fa-tsang’s Commentary on the Awakening of Faith. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2004. — Full English translation of the Yì-jì / shū.
- Liebenthal, Walter. “New Light on the Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra.” T’oung Pao 46 (1958): 155–216.
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Wiesbaden, 2007.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Daijō kishin-ron no kenkyū 大乘起信論之研究. Tokyo, 1922. — The classic Japanese study of authorship and recension.
- Forte, Antonino. A Jewel in Indra’s Net. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies, 2000. — On Fǎzàng’s biography.
Other points of interest
The Qiánlóng-canon recension is the principal route by which Fǎzàng’s commentary circulated in late-Ming and Qīng China; the Taishō version (T1846, KR6o0105) was reconstructed from Korean and Japanese manuscript witnesses in the early twentieth century and is closer to the original Tang form.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority (Fǎzàng): A001435