Xīnjí zàngjīng yīnyì suíhán lù 新集藏經音義隨函錄
Newly Compiled Phonological-Semantic Glosses to the Canon, Recorded in Bundle Order (the Kěhóng yīnyì 可洪音義) by 可洪 (撰)
About the work
A thirty-juan Hòu-Jìn 後晉 (Later Jìn) Buddhist yīn-yì compendium, compiled by Kě-hóng 可洪, śramaṇa of the Hàn-zhōng 漢中 region (in modern Shǎnxī, then under the Later Jìn). Distinct from the Xuán-yìng / Huì-yuàn / Huì-lín / Xī-lín yīn-yì tradition (which works through the canon scripture-by-scripture), the Kě-hóng yīn-yì is organized by canon-bundle (hán 函) order — giving phonological-semantic glosses to difficult and miscopied characters in each ten-juan canon-bundle as actually shelved in the imperial canon-store. This suí-hán organization makes the work an indispensable canon-collation reference for the textual state of the post-Kāi-yuán-lù canon as it was actually preserved in the early-tenth century. Preserved in the Korean canon at K34 no. 1257 and in the Zhōng-huá Tripiṭaka at C1170. Universally cited as the Kě-hóng yīn-yì 可洪音義.
Prefaces
The text opens with two prefaces — a front preface (qiánxù 前序) and a rear preface (hòuxù 後序), both by Kěhóng himself.
(1) Qiánxù 前序: a doctrinal-cosmological preamble (paraphrased here in summary): the dharma-realm true mark is originally without low-or-high; the great-self dark-lineage originally without trace-or-omen; with capacity holding sea-and-mountain, longevity equal to the great void, the substance is heavenly-true and needs no carving. Yet because root-feeling is uncut, sentient beings continue to inherit the wombs and the seed-consciousness is not forgotten, again depending on the four births and three realms — taking the suffering-realm as their hometown, the illusion-body as their dwelling-house — through cycling-eternal kalpas, when have they ever generated the heart of returning-to-the-root? The Buddhas in their compassion bend down into the dense forest and show the right Way. The sage manifests, but not by speech-and-saying — there is no means by which to suit the time. With speech-and-saying given rise to, without writing-graph there is no means to transmit its intent. Living beings’ nature is sharp-or-dull, and the Buddhas’ transformation-and-instruction is therefore set up differently — some not blinking and not speaking, do Buddha-work; some moving brow and moving eye, instruct living beings; some by mind, by body, by name as the fǎshuō (preaching of dharma); some by gargling, sneezing, coughing, called speaking…
(2) Hòuxù 後序 — the closing preface gives the date: Tiānfú 天福 5, in the year gēngzǐ 庚子, 6th month, 20th day = 26 July 940 CE. This fixes the completion of the work.
Abstract
Authorship and date are unambiguously fixed by the byline (Hànzhōng shāmén Shì Kěhóng zhuàn) and by the Tiānfú 5 (940) post-date. Kěhóng 可洪 (DILA A000222; lay surname not preserved; native of Hànzhōng) was a Later-Jìn-period monk-philologist active during the chaotic Five Dynasties decade in the Hànzhōng region (which under the Later Jìn was part of the eastern frontier of the Shǔ 蜀 sphere of influence and a major Buddhist printing center). The compilation work likely began some years before completion; notBefore = 932 (a defensible terminus post quem — the early Later Jìn period); notAfter = 940 (the dated colophon). Catalog dynasty 後晉.
The 30 juan are organized following the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 canon-bundle ordering (the qiānzìwén 千字文 thousand-character-classic alphabet, by which canon-bundles were shelved): each juàn of the Suíhán lù covers a sequence of canon-bundles (each bundle holding ca. 10 sutra-juan), and within each bundle Kěhóng works through the difficult characters scripture by scripture. This makes the work directly indexed against the physical canon-store as it stood in early-tenth-century Hànzhōng — and a primary witness to the actual textual state of the canon at that moment, before the great Sòng canon-printing projects.
Kěhóng’s particular concern, more than that of his predecessors, is textual error-correction: he systematically catalogues xíngjiǎ 形假 (graphic borrowings), yīnjiǎ 音假 (phonetic borrowings), miscarvings, and scribal corruptions in canonical manuscripts. Many of his entries take the form “the canon-text writes X — this is an error for Y; the correct reading is Z, fǎnqiè a-b, meaning Q”. In this respect the work is more nearly a manuscript-collation register than a strict yīnyì and is an indispensable resource for medieval-Chinese-Buddhist textual criticism.
The Kě-hóng yīn-yì is preserved only in the East Asian canonical tradition because the Goryeo Tripiṭaka editors incorporated it (presumably from a Liáo-canon copy); the work was lost to Chinese transmission and was reintroduced into Sinophone scholarship only with the Chóng-kān Korean Tripiṭaka. The work is therefore one of the principal lost-and-recovered treasures of medieval Chinese Buddhist philology.
Translations and research
Substantial Sinophone and Japanese phonological-philological literature; Western scholarship is limited:
- Hán Xiǎo-jīng 韓小荊, Kě-hóng yīn-yì yán-jiū 可洪音義研究 (Sì-chuān Dà-xué Bó-shì lùn-wén / Bā-Shǔ Shū-shè, 2009) — the standard monograph, with collated text and phonological analysis.
- Hán Xiǎo-jīng 韓小荊, Kě-hóng yīn-yì yǐn-shū kǎo 可洪音義引書考 (Sì-chuān Dà-xué Chū-bǎn-shè, 2011) — Kě-hóng’s secular and Buddhist citations.
- Xú Shí-yí 徐時儀 et al., the Shàng-hǎi yīn-yì working group’s various studies.
- Karashima Seishi 辛嶋静志 (Sōka Univ.) — uses Kě-hóng’s manuscript-error registers as primary evidence for early Buddhist Chinese textual transmission.
Other points of interest
The Kěhóng yīnyì’s organization by canon-bundle rather than by scripture-text is unique among the major Chinese-Buddhist yīnyì compilations and reflects the work’s origin in the practical demands of the Hànzhōng monastic canon-store in the early tenth century. It is therefore one of the most direct material-philological witnesses to how a tenth-century Chinese Buddhist canon was actually organized and used. The work also preserves substantial material from canonical manuscripts now otherwise lost — including pre-Sòng-printing readings of texts that the Sòng canon-printers (especially those of the Kāibǎo printing of 971–983) “regularized” away.