Zhūjīng yàojí 諸經要集
Collected Essentials of the Various Scriptures by 道世 (集)
About the work
A twenty-juan Buddhist topical anthology by Dào-shì 道世 of Xī-míng-sì 西明寺, structured into 30 piān (“chapters”) gathered into 2 zhì (“bundles”), excerpting one thousand canonical citations on themes of monastic and lay Buddhist practice — the Three Jewels, stūpa veneration, recollection, entry into the path, bài-zàn (chant-praises), incense and lamps, accepting and breaking fasts, wealth and poverty, gratitude, releasing life, planting merit, choice of friends, and so on. The byline at the head of juan 1 reads 西明寺沙門釋道世集 (“compiled by the śramaṇa Shì Dào-shì of Xī-míng monastery”). The work is preserved in the Taishō canon as T54 no. 2123 and is the natural twenty-juan companion to the same author’s hundred-juan Fǎ-yuàn zhū-lín (KR6s0002, 668 CE).
Prefaces
The text opens with a single short auto-preface by Dàoshì. In paraphrase:
Originally the dharma-body is one mark — but those who look up see different countenances. The right teaching is impartial — but speakers and hearers find different intents. So the master has the comparison of equal rain, and the disciples have the description of differing hearings. Truly because conferral follows capacity and depth tracks the vessel — even the great outline of the twelve divisions of the teaching and the broad currents of the eighty-four-thousand dharma-gates are stored in the Nāga palace and unread to the western groves; though the elephant-carriage gallops east, how could it exhaust the instruction of the palm leaves?
Therefore one who has not roamed the great sea has not seen the sun-fed marvel; one who has not looked up at Mount Tài has not seen the form-piercing-the-clouds. To obtain the dragon’s pearl is to verify that the fish-eye is no jewel; to hear the regulation of the huángzhōng tone is to know that beating the earthen pot is paltry. Hence the deep doctrine of the Buddhist canon, esteemed by sage and ordinary alike, is truly a hidden treasure of human and heavenly beings, surpassing the rare resonance of the Confucians and Mohists. Its majesty rocks the great chiliocosm; its light surpasses ten million; its benefit reaches into the realms of sand-grains; its merit exceeds dust-kalpas. Vast indeed is the technique of universal salvation.
But occasions and conditions had not yet met, and the gǎntōng (response and connection) had been irregular. From the dawn-grove changes of color [Buddha’s nirvana] and the night-dream-summons-and-omens [Hàn Míngdì’s dream], the founding of the Báimǎ [White Horse temple] was opened, and gradually the years of the Chìwū 赤烏 era [Wú, 238–251] were impressed. Sage-traces have been imparted from afar; over six hundred years have passed, and dào and sú have profited equally — like a single child to all. I lament that the True and Semblance ages have shifted, and we drift downstream toward the final age. Ordinary feeling is dim and short, and the vessel-knowledge is muddled. Each day grows more shallow and watered; the teaching sinks and the Way is lost. Hence the constant chapters have been transmitted in error and the traces of the teaching have been washed away; the textual phrases are vast as a flood, hard in the end to seek out and view.
Therefore in the Xiǎnqìng 顯慶 years (656–660) — reading through the entire canon, following intent and pursuing essentials, choosing what a person can put into practice and good and evil karmic recompense — I excerpted one thousand [citations], composed thirty piān, made it up into two zhì [bundles], in the hope that monastics and laity may follow it in practice — that the transmission of the lamp may have a basis to rest upon.
Reverently I observe that the deep mysteries of the Buddhist canon are not what shallow knowledge can reach; the recondite hiddenness of leaving the world cannot be discerned by one bound by delusion. Truly the sea is great and the boat is light, the mountain is high and the dust is small. To wield the knife and cut is easy; to weave the brocade is hard. Without measuring my mediocre understanding, I have spoken vainly of the secret canon, and have set up section-titles — increasing my shame and dread.
The preface fixes composition during the Xiǎnqìng era (656–660), Gāozōng’s reign — making the Zhūjīng yàojí the earlier of Dàoshì’s two great Xīmíngsì compilations and the seed-project from which the much-expanded Fǎyuàn zhūlín of 668 grew. notBefore = 656, notAfter = 660.
Abstract
Authorship and provenance are unambiguous from the byline and preface: a single-author imperial-monastery (Xīmíngsì) compilation of the late 650s, by the same hand who would later produce the Fǎyuàn zhūlín. The text-internal claim of “one thousand citations in thirty piān in two zhì” is preserved in the present 20-juan recension, which expands the original arrangement (T54 no. 2123 collates Sòng, Yuán, Míng, Gōng, Korean, jiǎ witnesses against the Taishō base).
The relation to the Fǎyuàn zhūlín is a recurring problem in modern scholarship. The two works share a substantial portion of canonical citations, and a tradition originating in the Sòng (cf. Yuánzhào 元照, Zīchí jì 資持記) holds that the Zhūjīng yàojí is essentially an extracted abridgement of the Fǎyuàn zhūlín. The preface, however, dates the Zhūjīng yàojí explicitly to the Xiǎnqìng years (656–660), eight to twelve years before the 668 completion of the Fǎyuàn zhūlín — making the Zhūjīng yàojí almost certainly the earlier project, and the Fǎyuàn zhūlín the much-expanded later development that integrated and topically reorganized its material together with vast new gǎnyìng miracle-tale apparatus. The 30 piān of the Zhūjīng yàojí correspond closely to the topical sequence of the central practice-oriented piān of the Fǎyuàn zhūlín, but without the cosmological opening piān (kalpas, three realms, six paths) or the elaborate gǎnyìng registers of the larger work.
The 30 piān are: 三寶部, 敬塔部, 攝念部, 入道部, 唄讚部, 香燈部, 受請部, 受齋部, 破齋部, 富貴部, 貧賤部, 獎導部, 報恩部, 放生部, 興福部, 擇交部, and continuing through topics of bodily and mental discipline, karma, and meritorious action.
The work is most often consulted today as a complement to the Fǎyuàn zhūlín for studies of mid-seventh-century Chinese Buddhist practice and as a witness to the early state of the same canonical citations Dàoshì later expanded.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located in Western languages. The work is most often discussed as a satellite of the Fǎ-yuàn zhū-lín in monographs cited under KR6s0002:
- Zhōu Shū-jiā 周叔迦 and Sū Jìn-rén 蘇晉仁 (eds.), Fǎ-yuàn zhū-lín jiào-zhù 法苑珠林校注 (Zhōng-huá Shū-jú, 2003) — discusses the textual relation of Zhū-jīng yào-jí to Fǎ-yuàn zhū-lín in the introduction.
- Wáng Wén-yán 王文顏, Zhū-jīng yào-jí yánjiū 諸經要集研究 (Tái-běi: Wén-jīn 文津, 1990s tradition).
- For canonical-citation studies see also the running concordances published by the Tōkyō Daigaku Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo.
Other points of interest
The Sòng-tradition view of Zhūjīng yàojí as an “abridgement” of the Fǎyuàn zhūlín is internally contradicted by Dàoshì’s own dating of the preface to Xiǎnqìng (656–660), confirming that this work precedes the larger encyclopedia by roughly a decade. The Taishō includes both as separately transmitted texts (T54 no. 2123 and T53 no. 2122 respectively) — a recognition of this independent status.
Links
- DILA authority: A000296 (道世)
- CBETA: T54n2123
- Companion encyclopedia: KR6s0002 Fǎyuàn zhūlín 法苑珠林 (T2122, 668)