Ēmítuó jīng yìshū wénchíjì 阿彌陀經義疏聞持記
The Yìshū (Commentary) on the Smaller Amitābha-sūtra, with the Wén-chí (Sub-commentary) by 元照 (Yuánzhào Língzhī, 述) and 戒度 (Zhuō’ān Jièdù, 記)
About the work
A composite three-juǎn text combining (a) the Ēmítuó jīng yìshū 阿彌陀經義疏 of 元照 Yuánzhào Língzhī 元照靈芝 (1048–1116) — the major Lǜzōng-school 律宗 commentary on the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha — together with (b) 戒度 Zhuō’ān Jièdù’s Wénchí jì 聞持記 (“Notes Heard and Retained”) sub-commentary on Yuánzhào’s Yìshū. The Wénchí jì is the cognate of Jièdù’s Zhèngguānjì on the Guānjīng commentary KR6p0010, and together they constitute the principal Sòng Lǜzōng treatment of the two Sukhāvatī sūtras. Both Yuánzhào’s Yìshū and Jièdù’s Wénchí are explicitly Vinaya-grounded readings of the Pure Land sūtras, treating Pure Land devotion as inseparable from monastic discipline.
Abstract
The Sòng Lǜzōng-Pure Land synthesis instituted by Yuánzhào is the principal late-Northern-Sòng alternative to the Tiāntái Pure Land of 知禮 Sìmíng Zhīlǐ. Yuánzhào — who served late in life as patriarch of Língzhī sì 靈芝寺 in Hangzhou and is therefore conventionally cited as 靈芝大智律師 Língzhī Dàzhì Lǜshī (“Great-Wisdom Vinaya Master of Língzhī”) — produced both a Guānjīng xīnshū 觀經新疏 and the present Ēmítuó jīng yìshū in his last years, integrating the Sìfēnlǜ 四分律 disciplinary framework with Pure Land devotional practice. The Yìshū on the smaller sūtra reads each section of Kumārajīva’s translation through the categories of Vinaya practice (precepts, retreat, recitation, dedication of merit), arguing that chēngmíng 稱名 (recitation of the Buddha-name) is properly understood as a form of disciplinary cultivation rather than as a contemplative or merely affective practice.
Jièdù’s Wénchí jì, completed roughly a century later, provides the standard sub-commentary: each phrase of Yuánzhào’s Yìshū is glossed and the underlying sūtra-passage cited, with extensive citation of Yuánzhào’s other writings and the Lǜzōng disciplinary literature. The Wénchí jì preface explicitly contrasts Yuánzhào’s school with that of 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva (“童壽” Tóngshòu) on the level of translation choice: where Kumārajīva’s economy of phrasing leaves doctrinal latitude, Yuánzhào’s Yìshū fixes the disciplinary reading. Jièdù’s text was widely transmitted in Japan from the Kamakura period (where Yuánzhào’s Língzhī-school combined with the Risshū revival under Eison 叡尊) and survived continuously in Japanese temple-library traditions; the Xùzàngjīng recension derives from this transmission.
The dating bracket (c. 1100–1230) covers from the late life of Yuánzhào (the Yìshū probably c. 1100–1116) through the maturity of Jièdù’s commentarial activity in the early thirteenth century.
Translations and research
- Huáng Qǐ-jiāng 黃啟江, Bei Sòng fójiào shǐ lùnshū 北宋佛教史論述. Taipei, 1997 — for Yuánzhào’s biography and the Lǜzōng-Pure Land lineage.
- Getz, Daniel A. “Siming Zhili and Tiantai Pure Land in the Song Dynasty.” In Buddhism in the Sung. University of Hawai’i Press, 1999 — discusses the Tiāntái-Lǜzōng polemic.
- Andrews, Allan A. The Teachings Essential for Rebirth: A Study of Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū. Tokyo: Sophia University, 1973 — for the broader Sino-Japanese Lǜzōng-Pure Land context.