Chóngdìng jiàoshèng fǎshù (xuǎnlù xùwén) 重訂教乘法數（選錄序文）
The Re-Edited Numerical Categories of the Teaching-Vehicle (Selected Prefatory Material Only) by 超海 (等重訂), commissioned by the Yōngzhèng 雍正 Emperor
About the work
The KR6s0009 Kanripo entry preserves only the prefatory matter of the Qiánlóng-canon recension of the 重訂教乘法數, an imperially-commissioned Yōngzhèng 雍正-era re-editing of the Míng Jiàoshèng fǎshù of Yuánjìng 圓瀞 (KR6s0008, 1431). The new redaction was prepared under the direction of Chāohǎi 超海, Tōnglǐ 通理, Guǎngchí 廣持, and others, “balancing nature and characteristic, holding equally to Tiāntái and Xiánshǒu”, and presented at the imperial throne for inclusion in the canon. The full revised text appears in the Qiánlóng canon (L1666); the present KR6s0009 = L162 no. 1666 (in this digitized form) carries only the imperial preface and the two original 1431 prefaces of the Míng predecessor, supplied here as the front-matter to the Qiánlóng canon entry.
Prefaces
The local source preserves three prefaces in sequence.
(1) Imperial preface by the Yōngzhèng Emperor (御製重訂教乘法數序), dated Yōngzhèng 13 yǐmǎo, the 15th day (wàngrì) of the 7th month = August 1735 — written only weeks before Yōngzhèng’s death (October 1735). In paraphrase:
Buddhist law is broad and great, like the dharma-dhātu; ultimate, like emptiness — it does not cross over into name and word; how could it harbor numerical-amount? But because the disease-vessels are of a thousand sources and the medicine-prescriptions are of ten-thousand types, in wishing to particularize the gate of remedies one must set up medicines for the symptoms. Hence the vehicles divide into three and five, and the flavors discriminate alike-and-different; the Yogācāra-Vijñaptimātratā exhausts the lineage-position of the hundred dharmas, the five positions, the various consciousnesses; Nāgārjuna and Aśvaghoṣa dissect the three subtle and six gross, the intent of the One Mind. It is not chasing the branch; properly it is to seek the root.
The bodhisattvas of the equal-awakening still travel in the gate of the illusion-net; even those who have reached the highest sage must complete the after-attained wisdom. As for those who count sand having entered the sea, who hold the receipt and number the jewels — they too are gripping a one-sided argument.
But the Twelve Divisions of the Teaching are vast as a sea of pools; the lùn and shū are broad and dense, and names and characteristics tangle together. Without the bright eye and wisdom-mind of one who has read through the entire canon — gathering its outline and braiding its sequence — by what means could those who go to the source recognize the channels, those who view the Dipper know the stars? This Jiàoshèng fǎshù is a book whose successive composers’ painful diligence cannot be lost.
Of the Buddhist canonical books, this work has long been in circulation. Continuing it, there were students of the Xiánshǒu lineage: Qiánxī Shēn 潛溪深 ordered it, and so it was named Xiánshǒu fǎshù 賢首法數. Afterwards the Tāi lineage Xīnyuán Jìng 心源瀞 [Yuánjìng] added detailed correction, with side-reach to the names-and-characteristics of the hundred schools as they touch on the inner [Buddhist] canon — gathering and continuing them, naming his work Jiàoshèng fǎshù. The book has been engraved three times, repeatedly entering and ever more detailed; though it is fully good, it still cannot avoid broad-and-brief discrepancies between the texts, and there is need for examination, deletion, and supplementation.
We have specially commanded the dharma-masters Chāohǎi, Tōnglǐ, Guǎngchí, etc., to balance xìng and xiàng (nature and characteristic), to hold equally to Tāi and Xián — with sincere faith and detailed verification — to add corrections in re-collation. After a year and more, they reported completion and presented it for our imperial perusal. Examining the sequence of arrangement, beginning with the One Mind and ending with the eighty-four-thousand dharma-gates, exhausting the open-and-closed and general-and-particular, the resemblances and differences and forms of address of one whole canon-teaching — without searching throughout, lucidly before the heart’s eye, compared to the old version it is truly more concise and condensed.
One who reads this book ought to know: from the general issue forth the particular, and through the particular complete the general; principle follows event and manifests; the yīduō (one-and-many) interconditional dependence is without bound; events obtain principle’s fusion, the thousand differences crossing one another without obstruction. Borrowing number to mark the journey, taking dharma to clarify the mind: expanding what is broad — not many — is the “many within the one”; marking what is brief — not one — is the “one within the many”; lifting the outline, every hole is right; pulling the robe, every thread comes. Just as the muni’s 108 beads cycle around but always return to one thread, the Great Being’s thousand hands and eyes are gathered in but still are one mind. Not only is this the lineage-binding of fǎshù; it is also a golden key to the teaching-vehicle. As is said: “Buddha-dharma before the eye is everything ready-formed.”
If one grasps the general and stalls in principle, mistakes the disease and confuses the direction, one already violates the great vow of the dharma-gate to study, and abandons the great mind to ferry across all sentient beings. Boundless are the afflictions — when can they be cut off? Highest is the bodhi — there should be no obtaining-principle. May those of intent in the teaching-vehicle not slight this!
Yōngzhèng 13, yǐmǎo, 7th month, full-moon day. — This is the preface.
(2) The original Xuāndé 6 (1431) preface by Dàoxiá 道遐 (here written Qúxiá 衢遐), reproduced verbatim as the Jiàoshèng fǎshù yuánxù 教乘法數原序. (See KR6s0008 for paraphrase.)
(3) The original Xuāndé 6 (1431) self-preface of Yuánjìng, similarly reproduced. (See KR6s0008 for paraphrase.)
Abstract
Authorship and date of the 重訂 (re-editing) work are fixed by the imperial preface: a one-year + project commissioned by the Yōngzhèng emperor, completed in mid-1734 and presented for printing in 1735, undertaken jointly by Chāohǎi 超海, Tōnglǐ 通理, and Guǎngchí 廣持. notBefore = 1734, notAfter = 1735. Catalog dynasty 清.
The catalog meta names Chāohǎi 超海 alone as principal “重訂者” — the senior figure of the editorial team. The DILA Buddhist Person Authority records a Chāohǎi (A022509, zì Sìháng 四航; 1662–1728; native of Hǎiyán 海鹽; abbot of Chóngfúsì 崇福寺) — but with death in 1728, this person could not have headed an editorial project completed in 1734. Either there is a date-error in the Chóngfúsì zhì lifedates, or this is a different (perhaps namesake) Chāohǎi active in the imperial monastic establishment of the 1730s. The latter is more likely: a Yōng-zhèng-era court editorial project would have employed Beijing-based monks. Tōnglǐ 通理 is plausibly the noted Qīng Xiánshǒu scholar Tōnglǐ Dátiān 通理達天 (1701–1782) of Lóngshànsì, who would then have been a young scholar in the early 1730s.
The work expands and re-organizes the Míng twelve-juan (later forty-juan) Jiàoshèng fǎshù under explicit Yōng-zhèng-era doctrinal balancing — the imperial preface twice insists on holding “Tāi and Xián equally” (折衷性相持平台賢) and on “balancing xìng and xiàng” — reflecting the emperor’s well-known personal interest in non-sectarian Buddhist synthesis, as also seen in his Yùxuǎn yǔlù 御選語錄 (1733) and his sponsorship of the Lóngzàng 龍藏 (Qiánlóng canon) printing project (begun 1735, completed 1738). The completed Chóngdìng jiàoshèng fǎshù was incorporated into the Qiánlóng canon at L1666.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. The work is most often discussed in the context of:
- Wáng Jūn-zhōng 王俊中, Yōng-zhèng huáng-dì yǔ Fó-jiào 雍正皇帝與佛教 — for Yōng-zhèng’s editorial Buddhism.
- Cuī Zhèng-sēn 崔正森, Wǔ-tái-shān fó-jiào shǐ 五臺山佛教史 — context for Tōng-lǐ Dá-tiān.
- Bǔ xù gāo-sēng zhuàn 補續高僧傳 successor compendia for the editorial figures.
- Fó-guāng dà cí-diǎn 佛光大辭典 — entry on Jiào-shèng fǎ-shù notes the Yōng-zhèng re-editing.
Other points of interest
The Yōngzhèng emperor’s August 1735 imperial preface is one of his last extant Buddhist-canonical writings — he died in October of that year. The imperial-court re-editing of a Tiāntái–Huáyán fǎshù compilation is itself part of Yōngzhèng’s larger canonical project of imperially-curated Chán and doctrinal compilations, of which this is a less-celebrated but doctrinally programmatic example. The catalog meta’s identification of the editor as the 1662–1728 Chāohǎi of Chóngfúsì appears to be a DILA mismatch: a separate, 1730s-active imperial-monastery namesake is much more likely.
Links
- DILA authority: A022509 (超海 — possible mismatch; see Abstract)
- CBETA: L162n1666
- Míng predecessor: KR6s0008 Jiàoshèng fǎshù of Yuánjìng (1431)
- Imperial commissioner: Yōngzhèng emperor (Aisin Gioro Yìnzhēn 胤禛, r. 1722–1735)