一切經音義

Yīqiè jīng yīnyì 一切經音義

Phonological and Semantic Glosses on the Whole Buddhist Canon by 玄應 (撰)

About the work

The early-Táng twenty-five-juan canon-wide phonological and semantic glossary, conventionally known as Xuán-yìng yīn-yì 玄應音義, compiled by Xuán-yìng 玄應 of Dà-cí’ēn-sì 大慈恩寺 in Cháng’ān — the same monastery where his teacher Xuán-zàng 玄奘 directed the imperial translation bureau. The work systematically treats every difficult or technical term in the major sūtras, vinaya, and śāstras of the canon, sutra by sutra, listing each entry as a head-character (or compound) with phonological reconstruction (in the fǎn-qiè 反切 system), semantic gloss, and citation of canonical and secular philological sources (Shuō-wén 說文, Yùn-jí 韻集, Zì-lín 字林, Shēng-lèi 聲類, Cāng-jié-piān 倉頡篇, etc.). It is the foundational canonical-Buddhist yīn-yì (phonological-semantic) work in Chinese, and the indispensable preceding reference for the better-known one-hundred-juan Hui-lin yīn-yì 慧琳音義 (T2128, 783–807) which substantially incorporates and re-edits its content. The text is preserved in the Zhōng-huá Tripiṭaka (中華藏) at C56 no. 1163.

Prefaces

The work opens with the Dà-Táng zhòng-jīng yīn-yì xù 大唐眾經音義序, signed Zhōng-nán Tài-yī-shān shì-shì 終南太一山釋氏 (i.e. by a śramaṇa of the Tài-yī Mountain in the Zhōng-nán range — most likely the vinaya master Dào-xuān 道宣 (596–667) of nearby Jìng-yè-sì 淨業寺, the regular Zhōng-nán-shān Buddhist scholarly persona of this period). In paraphrase:

Since the Dharma King [Buddha] mounted his carriage, those who guide via him are the nine vehicles; those who broadly transmit and gather his sound-teaching, the three baskets. So the simile of “the finger pointing at the moon” is unwavering in its eternal rule, and the meaning of “depending on words” accords with the constant standard. Therefore bhūtatathatā in its dimness opens its lineage in characters; the Way in its ordering and reining-in esteems regional speech.

When the One Sound is each understood by itself, that is the filter-of-the-sage’s mouth-piece; when according to condition different awakenings come, that is the standard for the ordinary. The Western Brahmā Heavenly Speech has been ancient and never wanting; the Eastern Huá human speech has shifted through time. As for the Shuōwén in Hàn — characters stop at nine thousand; the Yùnjí coming out in Táng-language adds three ten-thousands. Generation after generation it is densely broad — matching the six categories of script and standing forth; from time to time appearing — entrusted to the eight forms and laying down trace. To seek their original basis, truly we must rely on a previous mold; to verify their separation and breadth, we must indeed return to the discussion of objects.

Buddhism translated east — over six hundred years ago. Lifting its outline-and-buckle: more than three thousand scrolls. Sound-glosses produced by section — what the previous discussions said is a deep mirror — in the various catalogs not yet have reached the great viewing. So necessarily, in the case of “rectifying names”: the bequeathed instruction of Master Kǒng; in following custom, in language understanding: the flowing kindness of the Buddhist Father. Without form, no means by which to draw the heart; without sound, no means by which to communicate understanding.

There is the Dàcí’ēnsì Xuányìng fǎshī 大慈恩寺玄應法師 — broad in hearing, strong in memory, mirroring the Línyùn its grand mark, exhausting his investigation of root-and-branch, communicating the mutual substance of past and present. So he was able to compare and check sources and currents, examine the yùnyuè of his epoch, prune the wild simplicity of the elegant ancients, file off the floating mixture of the diluted slight, awakening the common and manifesting the teaching, raising what is gathered and abridged and exalting its beauty. Truly he can be called the great chart of script and the tortoise-mirror of speech-sound.

At the close of the Zhēn-guān 貞觀 era, by imperial order he was summoned to be a participant-transmitter for the lineage-canon and right-weft, consulted as for a true record. Through the translation work he searched and read; he gathered the canon and made phonological-semantic glosses for it, with annotations and explications, drawing in the various texts as evidence — clearly able to be comprehended — knotted to make three [-juan-divisions, the source has 三[〦/失/衣]: an interlinear lacuna]. From the previous generations’ produced sūtras and śāstras, the various yīn gave readings by character only, with not even one looking back, leading to the loss of teaching-meaning — truly confused for the regulation of the common. What is now produced is wholly different from the ordinary stream: cutting and fixing by character, drawing by sound-evidence, and at the same time displaying Táng and Sanskrit regional-language translation-conversions, refining the yǎ and zhèng — pushing the mismatching of ten dynasties and fixing one period’s fēng-fǎ (style of teaching). The text is not idle word-prodigality; the work is for the rectifying of the outline. Fearing that the lover-of-the-strange would summarily abridge, this would make us obtain the brief but lose the meaning-source; in saving the disability and opening faith, finally to cover the dark transformation. So with full repetition I have detailed the entrusted intent — let no one be muddled.

Abstract

Authorship and date are fixed by the byline (翻經沙門玄應撰 “translation-team śramaṇa Xuán-yìng compiled”) and by the preface’s chronological reference: “at the close of Zhēn-guān 貞觀 era, by imperial order he was summoned…” Composition therefore overlapped the late Zhēn-guān years (Zhēn-guān 19 = 645 CE is the year of Xuán-zàng’s return from India and the formal opening of the imperial translation bureau at Hóng-fú-sì) and continued into early Yǒng-huī 永徽 (650–) and Xiǎn-qìng 顯慶 (656–) — Xuán-yìng’s death is conventionally placed in the early to mid 660s. notBefore = 645 (commencement of the imperial translation project Xuán-yìng joined); notAfter = 656 (a defensible upper bound; the work was certainly complete before Xuán-zàng’s death in 664 and is referenced as a finished work by Dào-xuān 道宣 in his 664 Dà-Táng nèi-diǎn lù 大唐內典錄, T2149). Catalog dynasty 唐.

Xuányìng 玄應 (DILA A000300; native place not preserved) was a leading philological talent of Xuánzàng’s translation team. The Sòng gāosēng zhuàn tradition records him as “broadly-heard and strongly-remembering, deeply versed in yīnyùn (phonology) and wénzì xùngǔ (lexicography)”, and as one of the senior collaborators in Xuánzàng’s bureau from its founding in Zhēnguān 19 (645) onward. His other recorded works include a ten-juan Shè dàshèng lùn shū 攝大乘論疏, a Biàn zhōngbiān lùn shū 辯中邊論疏, a three-juan Yīnmíng rù zhènglǐ lùn shū 因明入正理論疏, and a three-juan Dà bōrě jīng yīnyì 大般若經音義 — all now lost or only fragmentarily preserved. The 25-juan Yīqiè jīng yīnyì is his only fully-extant work and the one for which he is universally remembered.

The 25 juan are organized scripture-by-scripture: each juan opens with a mù-lù of the sūtras / vinaya / śāstras it covers, and the entries within each scripture run sequentially through that text’s juan and folio order. Each entry typically gives the difficult character or compound, immediately followed by phonological reconstruction (fǎn-qiè + yīn-zhú 音注), Sanskrit and other regional-language correspondences where relevant (e.g. 摩竭提 = 摩揭陀 = Magadha with the alternate-form analysis), semantic gloss, and citation of Shuō-wén, Zì-lín, Cāng-jié, Yùn-jí, Sān-cāng, Guǎng-yǎ, etc. The work is therefore as much a secular philological compendium preserving fragments of pre-Táng lexical and phonological scholarship as it is a Buddhist reference. Many quotations from now-lost lexicographical works (Sān-cāng 三蒼, Yùn-jí 韻集 of Lǚ Jìng 呂靜, etc.) survive only through Xuán-yìng’s citations.

The text was substantially incorporated into the much expanded one-hundred-juan Yīqiè jīng yīnyì of Huìlín 慧琳 (T2128, completed 807) and so transmitted into the standard Dàzàngjīng tradition; the present 25-juan independent transmission, however, was preserved in continuous use within the Zhōnghuázàng tradition and remains the canonical reference for the early state of the work (before Huìlín’s redaction).

Translations and research

A substantial Sinophone-Japanese tradition of yīn-yì studies; Western-language work on Xuán-yìng is mainly philological:

• Karlgren, Bernhard, Grammata Serica Recensa (Stockholm, 1957) — extensive philological use of Xuán-yìng’s fǎn-qiè reconstructions for early-Táng Mandarin.
• W. South Coblin, Studies in Old Northwest Chinese (Berkeley, 1991) — uses Xuán-yìng’s transliterations of Sanskrit / Khotanese / Tocharian as primary phonological evidence.
• Sven Bretfeld and other students of medieval Chinese-Buddhist Sanskrit transcription have used Yī-qiè jīng yīn-yì as a primary source.
• Záo Lù 周祖謨 (ed.), Yī-qiè jīng yīn-yì yǐn-shū kǎo 一切經音義引書考 (Zhōng-huá Shū-jú, 1957) — the standard concordance of Xuán-yìng’s secular-philological citations.
• Xú Shí-yí 徐時儀 et al., Xuán-yìng yī-qiè-jīng yīn-yì jiào-zhù 玄應一切經音義校注 (Zhōng-huá Shū-jú, 2008) — the standard punctuated and annotated Chinese edition.
• Mizukami Bunichi 水上雅晴 and the Kyōto–Zhōng-huá yīn-yì working groups have produced extensive Japanese commentary.

Other points of interest

The Yīqiè jīng yīnyì preserves the earliest substantial corpus of Sanskrit-Chinese transliteration analysis in surviving form, predating the formalized Sanskrit-grammar studies of the TángSòng Dàzhuàn and Xītán traditions by several generations. As a phonological-historical document, it is one of the principal witnesses to the Cháng’ān-area Mandarin of the mid-seventh century, used in tandem with Lù Fǎyán’s 陸法言 Qièyùn 切韻 (601) by historical-Chinese-phonology scholars to reconstruct Middle Chinese. The work also preserves substantial fragments of the lost Yùnjí 韻集 of Lǚ Jìng 呂靜, the lost Sāncāng 三蒼, and other pre-Táng lexicographical works otherwise unknown.

Links

• DILA authority: A000300 (玄應)
• CBETA: C056n1163
• Successor work (with substantial incorporation): T2128 Yīqiè jīng yīnyì of Huìlín (807)
• Companion work by author (mostly lost): Dà bōrě jīng yīnyì 大般若經音義 (3 juan)
• Teacher: Xuánzàng 玄奘 (596–664), translation-team head