Sìshāmén Xuánzàng shàngbiǎo jì 寺沙門玄奘上表記
Record of Memorials Submitted to the Throne by the Monastery-monk Xuán-zàng
written by 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 602–664, 撰, in the form of his memorial-correspondence with the Tang court)
About the work
A 1-juan compilation of memorials, court submissions, and court replies (shàngbiǎo 上表 / xiàzhào 下詔) exchanged between Xuánzàng 玄奘 (602–664) and the Tang imperial court — chiefly Tàizōng 太宗 (r. 626–649) and Gāozōng 高宗 (r. 649–683) — between Xuánzàng’s return from the Western Regions in Zhēnguān 貞觀 19 = 645 and his death in Líndé 麟德 1 = 664. The catalog meta does not name a compiler; the work is anonymously transmitted but plainly assembled at Dà Cí’ēnsì 大慈恩寺 in the years immediately after Xuánzàng’s death. Transmitted in Taishō 52 as T2119.
Prefaces
The work has no compiler’s preface. The first document is Xuán-zàng’s 《進經論等表》 Jìn-jīng-lùn děng biǎo (Submitting the Sūtras and Treatises etc.), dated Zhēn-guān 20.7.13 = 14 August 646, in which Xuán-zàng presents to Tài-zōng the scriptures, icons, and relics he brought back from India (“the gěn-běn manuscripts of the sūtras and śāstras, in total one thousand bundles, six hundred and fifty-seven titles; seven Buddha-images; one hundred and fifty grains of Buddha-flesh-relic; one casket of bone-relics”) together with the first batch of his translations completed at Hóng-fú-sì: the Mahāyāna-piṭaka-sūtra in 20 juan, the Buddha-bhūmi-sūtra in 1 juan, the Six-Gates Dhāraṇī-sūtra in 1 juan, the Yogācāra-bhūmi-prologue (“Xiǎn-yáng shèng-jiào lùn”) in 20 juan, and the Mahāyāna-Abhidharma-samuccaya in 16 juan — a total of fifty-eight juan in eight bundles.
The second document is 《進西域記表》 Jìn Xīyù jì biǎo (Submitting the Records of the Western Regions), the memorial accompanying the presentation of the 《大唐西域記》 Dà Táng Xīyù jì (T2087) at imperial command.
Abstract
The work is the principal documentary source for Xuánzàng’s institutional relationship with the Tang court during the two decades of his translation career. The texts are arranged broadly chronologically and cover four major themes:
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The presentation of the Indian materials and the inception of the translation project (645–646): the foundational memorial of 645 (the day of Xuánzàng’s return to Cháng’ān), the 646 memorial submitting the first batch of translations and the first request for an imperial preface (which would eventually become the famous 《大唐三藏聖教序》 DàTáng sānzàng shèngjiào xù by Tàizōng); the 646 Xīyù jì memorial.
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The translation-bureau correspondence (646–662): requests for assistants, replacements, and additional staffing of the translation bureau; reports on completed translations; requests for imperial prefaces to specific texts; thanks for imperial gifts of robes, kāṣāya, foodstuffs, and writing materials.
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The Cí’ēn-sì foundation (648 onward): the correspondence around the founding of the Dà Cí’ēn-sì 大慈恩寺 by Crown Prince Lǐ Zhì 李治 (the future Gāo-zōng) in memory of his deceased mother Empress Wén-dé 文德皇后, and Xuán-zàng’s installation as abbot — including the famous request that the Yogācāra-bhūmi-śāstra and other newly-translated texts be supplied with imperial prefaces.
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The late-life correspondence with Gāo-zōng (656–664): requests for reduction of administrative burdens; discussion of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra (Dà bō-rě) translation project at Yù-huá-gōng 玉華宮 (the western imperial mountain palace where Xuán-zàng spent his final years); the dying memorial of 664.
Many of the same memorials are also preserved in 《大慈恩寺三藏法師傳》 KR6q0014 Dà Cí’ēnsì sānzàng fǎshī zhuàn (T2053, the biography by Huìlì 慧立 and Yàncōng 彥悰), and the textual relationship between the two compilations is the principal philological problem in the secondary scholarship: Hú Shì 胡適 in 1929 and subsequent researchers have shown that the Shàngbiǎo jì is not derivative from the Cí’ēnzhuàn but supplies a number of memorials and replies absent from the latter, and is therefore an independent primary witness to the documentary side of Xuánzàng’s career, of comparable historical value to the biographical narrative.
The work’s documentary character — its preservation of dated court memorials and imperial replies — makes it the principal corrective to the more hagiographically-stylised Cí’ēnzhuàn tradition, and a key source for Tang Buddhist court ceremonial, the diplomatic protocols of the imperial-monastic translation bureau, and the chronology of Xuánzàng’s translations.
Translations and research
- Antonino Forte, “Hui-chih (fl. 676–703 A.D.), a Brahmin Born in China,” Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli 45 (1985): 105–134 — uses the Shàng-biǎo jì extensively.
- Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987) — uses the work for the chronology of the Xuán-zàng project.
- 楊廷福, 《玄奘年譜》(Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 1988) — the standard chronology of Xuán-zàng’s life, drawing extensively on the Shàng-biǎo jì.
- 平岡定海, 《玄奘三藏：史実とその影響》 (Tōkyō: Yūzankaku, 1986).
- Richard McBride, “The Mystical Doctrines of Yujie liunian,” T’oung Pao 90 (2004): 102–123 — discusses Xuán-zàng’s late-life memorials.
- Max Deeg, Das Gaoseng-Faxian-zhuan als religionsgeschichtliche Quelle (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005) — situates the genre.
- Liu Shu-fen 劉淑芬, 《玄奘的最後十年》(Běijīng: Zhōnghuá shū-jú, 2011) — uses the Shàng-biǎo jì as the principal source for Xuán-zàng’s last decade.
Other points of interest
The work preserves the only surviving record of the precise inventory of materials Xuán-zàng brought back from India — the celebrated figure of “six hundred and fifty-seven titles” of sūtras and śāstras derives from this memorial of Zhēn-guān 20.7.13 (= 14 August 646), and is the basis for all subsequent reconstructions of the Indian source-base for Tang Buddhist translation.
Links
- CBETA: T52n2119