大明三藏法數

Dà Míng sānzàng fǎshù 大明三藏法數

Numerical Categories of the Dharma in the Tripiṭaka, [Compiled in] the Great Míng by 一如 (奉敕集註), with associated compilers

About the work

The standard imperial-Míng Buddhist numerical-list lexicon (fǎshù 法數), in fifty juan, compiled at the imperial command of the Yǒnglè Emperor 永樂 by Yīrú 一如 (1352–1425, monk-rector of Shàng Tiānzhúsì 上天竺寺 in Hángzhōu) together with a court team. The work organizes Buddhist míngshù — numerical categories from the canon (one-mind, two-truths, three-jewels, four-noble-truths, five-aggregates, and so on, ascending through tens, hundreds, and thousands) — into 50 juan of headings, each entry citing the canonical source by sutra and zìhán 字函 (canon-bundle catalog letter), and adding interlinear glosses keyed to commentarial tradition. The byline reads Shàng Tiānzhú qiánzhùchí shāmén Yīrú děng fèng chì jízhù 上天竺前住持沙門一如等奉勑集註. The work is preserved as P181 (continuing through P183) no. 1615 in the Northern Yǒnglè Canon (北藏).

Prefaces

The local source files preserve only the zǒngmù 總目 (master table of contents) of juan 1 — without an imperial preface. The standard editions outside this digitization carry the Yǒnglè imperial preface (御製大明三藏法數序) at the head of juan 1, dated by the Bǔ xù gāosēng zhuàn tradition to Yǒnglè 17 (1419) at the work’s completion-presentation. The preface, in court-prose, frames the work as a Buddhist counterpart to the simultaneously-commissioned Sìshū / Wǔjīng dàquán 四書五經大全 of the same year, and as a reference apparatus designed for use alongside the Northern Yǒnglè canon (printing project begun 1410 in Beijing, completed 1440).

Abstract

Authorship and date are firmly fixed by the byline (Yīrú děng fèngchì jízhù) and by the well-attested completion year of Yǒnglè 17 = 1419 CE. The compilation work is conventionally placed in the period from ca. Yǒnglè 15 (1417) — the year of the imperial commission of the parallel Confucian Dàquán 大全 reference compilations — through Yǒnglè 17 (1419) when the Sānzàng fǎshù was presented. notBefore = 1417, notAfter = 1419. Catalog dynasty 明.

Yīrú 一如 (DILA A000007; lay surname unknown; zì / styles Yīān 一菴, Tuìwēng 退翁, Tiānzhúrú 天竺如; native of Shàngyú 上虞 in Zhèjiāng, 1352 – 29 March / 26 April 1425) was a senior Tiāntái 天臺 exegetical master who served successively as abbot of Yǎnfúsì 演福寺, of Shàngtiānzhúsì 上天竺寺 in Hángzhōu (the most prestigious Tiāntái lineage seat in the south), and finally as rectifier-of-doctrine of the imperial monastery Hǎiyìnsì 海印寺 in Bei-jing under the early Míng court. He died at Hǎiyìnsì at age 74 in Hóngxī 1 (1425).

The 50 juan are arranged by ascending numerical headings: juan 1 gathers all entries beginning with 一 (the One Mind, the One Cause-and-Condition, the One Vehicle, the One Reality-Mark, etc.); juan 2 onward through 二 (two), 三 (three), 四 (four), and so on into the hundreds. Each entry reads in the standard fǎshù form: xx-fǎ 法 (the numbered set), source citation in parenthesis with sutra-name + juan-number + canon-bundle-letter (e.g. 出華嚴經第十三卷平字函), then prose explication usually drawing on the major commentaries of the Huáyán 華嚴, Tiāntāi 天臺, Sānlùn 三論, Wéishí 唯識, and Pure Land 淨土 traditions. The work thus functions both as a canonical-numerical concordance and as an indexical apparatus for the early-Míng imperial canon-printing project.

The text superseded the much earlier Fǎmén míngyì jí (KR6s0004, Lǐ Shīzhèng, early Táng, 1 juan) and the Sòng-period Fānyì míngyì jí 翻譯名義集 of Fǎyún 法雲 (T2131, 1143) as the standard Buddhist reference of the MíngQīng period. It remained in continuous use as the standard fǎshù reference into the modern period and was reprinted in nearly every Chinese Buddhist canon project from Yǒnglè onward.

Translations and research

No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. Sinophone-Japanese references:

• Soothill–Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (London, 1937, repr. Taipei 1962) and Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨, Bukkyō dai-jiten 佛教大辭典 — both rely heavily on the Sān-zàng fǎ-shù as their primary source for numerical-category entries.
• Fó-guāng dà cí-diǎn 佛光大辭典 — uses the Sān-zàng fǎ-shù as a cross-reference standard.
• The work has been digitized and made searchable as part of the CBETA Yǒnglè-canon project; the Taiwan Tiān-tāi 天台 lineage standard reprints (Hsīn-wén-fēng 新文豐 1978) are commonly cited.

Other points of interest

The Sānzàng fǎshù is the single most cited Chinese Buddhist reference book of the past five centuries — it is the underlying source for the numerical-category articles in essentially every major Chinese, Japanese, and Western Buddhist dictionary from Mochizuki and Soothill–Hodous through to the Fóguāng and Dīng Fúbǎo dictionaries and modern digital projects. Its early-Míng imperial commissioning, alongside the Confucian Sìshū / Wǔjīng dàquán (1417), is also a primary witness to the Yǒnglè court’s program of canonical reference-tool standardization across the Three Teachings.

Links

• DILA authority: A000007 (一如)
• CBETA: P181n1615
• Earlier glossary: KR6s0004 Fǎmén míngyì jí (Táng, 1 juan)
• Companion míngyì glossary: T2131 Fānyì míngyì jí (Sòng, Fǎyún)