Ēmítuó jīng shūchāo shìyì 阿彌陀經疏鈔事義
Glossary of Terms in the Shū-chāo on the Smaller Amitābha-sūtra by 袾宏 (Yúnqī Zhūhóng, 述)
About the work
A single-juǎn glossary of factual references and technical terms appearing in 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s Ēmítuó jīng shūchāo KR6p0019. The format is encyclopaedic: each entry takes a phrase or term from the Shūchāo as its lemma — for instance “雲棲寺”, “知所先後”, “四料簡” — and provides the relevant historical, doctrinal, or canonical reference. Many entries cite directly from the Sòng huìyào 宋會要 (specifically the Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì 咸淳臨安志) for place-name identifications, and from the Sìshū jízhù 四書集註 and other Confucian sources for the Confucian phraseology Zhūhóng routinely deploys (e.g. the Dàxué opening). The work is in effect Zhūhóng’s own desk reference to the Shūchāo.
Abstract
The Shì-yì (lit. “the affairs and meanings”) functions as a textual-critical apparatus: it allows the reader of the Shū-chāo to verify Zhūhóng’s references to historical persons, geographical names, technical terms from non-Buddhist literature (especially Confucian and Daoist), liturgical formulae, and dhāraṇī parallels. Its existence reflects the unusual breadth of Zhūhóng’s reference base — an aspect of his scholarship that contemporary readers found difficult to follow, leading them to request the supplementary glossary. The Shì-yì circulated together with the Shū-chāo from the late Wàn-lì period (the precise date is not preserved; a bracket of c. 1584–1615 covers Zhūhóng’s lifetime activity).
The Shìyì, the Wènbiàn KR6p0021, and the Yǎnyì KR6p0022 together form the first generation of supplementary works on the Shūchāo, all originating within Yúnqī’s immediate circle in the decades around 1600. They mark the Shūchāo’s transition from a sustained doctrinal commentary to a standard doctrinal authority — the work has become sufficiently canonical to require its own apparatus of glosses, defences, and amplifications.
Translations and research
- Yu Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China. Columbia UP, 1981 — for the Shū-chāo and its supplementary literature.
- Shi Shengyan 釋聖嚴, Míng-mò Fójiào yán-jiū. Taipei, 1987.