Shì Guānwúliángshòu fó jīng jì 釋觀無量壽佛經記
Notes Explaining the Sūtra on the Contemplation of Amitāyus by 法聰 (Fǎcōng, 撰)
About the work
A brief one-juǎn Tang-dynasty commentary on the Guānwúliángshòu fó jīng 觀無量壽佛經 (the Amitāyurdhyānasūtra — the so-called “Contemplation Sūtra,” third of the three principal Pure Land sūtras). The author signs as 法聰 Fǎcōng with no further self-identification. The prefatory Kè Shì Guānwúliángshòu jīng jì xù 刻釋觀無量壽經記序 — a Japanese editor’s preface to the printing — explicitly aligns Fǎcōng with the Zhōngnán 終南 / Pure Land lineage of Shàndǎo 善導 善導, and contrasts his approach with that of the Tiāntái master Zhìyǐ 智顗 智顗 and Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 知禮. The text follows the standard Tang Pure Land kēpàn 科判 method: short topical headings, brief paraphrastic gloss, and closing summary remarks.
Abstract
Fǎcōng’s Jì is one of the smaller Tang commentaries on the Guānjīng, surviving in a Japanese-mediated Xùzàngjīng recension. The author belongs to the post-Shàndǎo Pure Land tradition rather than to the Tiāntái-school exegetical line that culminated in Zhīlǐ’s Miàozōng chāo 妙宗鈔 KR6p0007. The doctrinal interest of the text is in its (a) treatment of the sixteen contemplations (shíliù guān 十六觀) as a graduated devotional sequence, (b) its strong reading of chēng míng 稱名 (recitation of the name) as the operative practice that the contemplations support rather than supplant, and (c) its reliance on Shàndǎo’s Sì tiēshū 四帖疏 (T1753) as primary authority. The work was apparently lost early in China: the surviving recension derives from a Japanese woodblock edition based on a manuscript transmitted to Nara — the editor’s preface notes its rarity and the difficulty of obtaining a reliable copy. Dating is by inference from textual citation: Fǎcōng cites Shàndǎo (d. 681) and is in turn presupposed by early-eighth-century Japanese Pure Land literature, suggesting a working bracket of c. 681–750.
Translations and research
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨, Chūgoku jōdo kyōrishi 中國淨土教理史. Kyoto, 1942/1964 — surveys the post-Shàndǎo Guānjīng commentary tradition.
- Inagaki Hisao, The Three Pure Land Sutras: A Study and Translation. Kyoto: Nagata Bunshōdō, 1995/2003.
- Pas, Julian. Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-Fo Ching. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995 — for the broader Shàndǎo tradition.