Fànyǔ qiānzìwén 梵語千字文
The Sanskrit Thousand-Character Classic (Edo-period Japanese reprint) by 義淨 (撰)
About the work
This entry is the Edo-period Japanese reprinting (享保 12 = 1727) of the same one-juan Sanskrit-Chinese learning primer Fànyǔ qiānzìwén of Yìjìng otherwise catalogued in the Kanripo at KR6s0021. The text-substance is identical to KR6s0021; the byline at the head of juan 1 is the same (sānzàng fǎshī Yìjìng zhuàn 三藏法師義淨撰), and the auto-preface is reproduced verbatim. The work entered the Taishō canon at T54 no. 2133B as the 附刻 (附刻 — “appended printing”) version, distinct from T2133A in carrying the additional Japanese editorial apparatus described below.
For substantive discussion of the Fànyǔ qiānzìwén — its authorship, dating (695–713), structural conception as a Sanskrit-paired Qiānzìwén, pedagogical function, and place in the Tang-period Sanskrit-pedagogy curriculum — see KR6s0021.
Prefaces
(1) Yìjìng’s auto-preface, identical to that in KR6s0021. (See that entry for paraphrase.)
(2) A second preface, the Fànyǔ qiānzìwén jiùkè xù 梵語千字文舊刻序 (“Preface to the Old Cutting of the Fànyǔ qiānzìwén”, with 5 fánlì appended), by the Japanese monk Jaku-myō 寂明 of the Yoga-vehicle (yújiā shèng 瑜伽乘 — a Shingon-aligned tradition), dated Kyōhō 享保 dīngwèi, spring (建寅 — first lunar month), the 15th day = early February 1727. Written at his lodging in Luòdōng 洛東 (East Kyoto). In paraphrase:
Brocade-bag, jade-box have once stored the precious volumes — the Fàn-yǔ qiān-zì-wén is one of these. The previous zhé [scholars] transmitted the saying that it is the zhuàn (composition) of the Yì-jìng tripiṭaka. But in the old volumes the citing-text only just preserved the whole work; it has long been hidden.
In old times, in Tōbu [Edo, the eastern military capital], I happened to outline-trace one copy. From the broken-baskets and bookworm-bamboo’s leftover, I could not yet make it whole. In recent years roaming to Luò [Kyoto], I have been fortunate to obtain various texts; Chányú [a colleague] examined and corrected, and roughly restored to right. Far-reaching and broadly-arrived, the strange-hearings of the Sanskrit Land — greatly washing-and-cleansing the stagnant doubts of the holy canon. The doubled-secret-treasury — only opens its brow in dignity. I look at the composer’s instruction-of-people, the universal-love that reaches to it. How could I conceal myself? Therefore I have forced the turning of the box-bag and undertaken the carving.
(Time: Kyōhō dīng-wèi spring, 15th day of the jiàn-yín month. Yú-jiā shèng śramaṇa Jaku-myō, written at the East-Kyoto lodging.)
The preface continues with 5 fánlì (general editorial principles) — beginning with the note that “this book has the alternative title FànTáng qiānzìwén 梵唐千字文” (per the Japanese An-nen 安然 catalog tradition, which records that the early-Heian Tendai scholar Cíjué dàshī 慈覺大師 [Ennin 圓仁, 794–864] received this work as one of his importation works). Substantive points concerning textual variants between the Tang printing and the Japanese transmission state.
Abstract
KR6s0022 is the Japanese Edo-period reprint of an East-Asian-transmitted text whose authorial composition is in late-Táng China. The 1727 Jaku-myō preface frames the printing as a recovery project: the text had become rare in Japan (“laid in brocade-bag and jade-box, but the cutting-blocks long worn out”) and Jaku-myō’s circle had assembled a corrected version from multiple manuscript witnesses for a new printing. The textual-state preserved here is therefore the best Edo-period Japanese recension, slightly different from the T2133A printing.
The reference to the Cíjué dàshī 慈覺大師 (Ennin 圓仁, 794–864) in the fánlì is significant: it indicates that the work was already known in Japan by Ennin’s importations of 838–847 — placing the Fànyǔ qiānzìwén among the earliest Tang Sanskrit-pedagogical texts to enter Japan via the nittōguhō (入唐求法) Buddhist study-mission tradition.
For all substantive content see KR6s0021.
Translations and research
See KR6s0021. The Japanese transmission specifically is treated in:
- Mizukami Bunichi 水上雅晴 and the Tendai-Shingon Sanskrit-pedagogy studies tradition — discussion of An-nen’s catalog references and the Ennin importation.
- Sano Akira 佐野章 et al. — modern Japanese editorial work on the Edo-period Buddhist Sanskrit-grammar tradition.
Other points of interest
The two-witness preservation in the Taishō canon (T2133A = KR6s0021 from one transmission line, T2133B = KR6s0022 from the Edo-Japanese transmission with Jaku-myō’s apparatus) makes the work a useful test-case for Tang-to-Japanese-Edo Buddhist-text transmission studies. The Jaku-myō preface and fánlì are themselves valuable Edo-period Japanese-Buddhist scholarship documents, situating the text within the Shingon-Tendai Shittan revival of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.