貞元新定釋教目錄

Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mùlù 貞元新定釋教目錄

The Newly Established Catalog of Buddhist Teaching of the Zhēn-yuán Era by 圓照 (撰)

About the work

A thirty-juan Tang-period comprehensive Buddhist canonical bibliography, compiled by Yuánzhào 圓照 of Xīmíngsì 西明寺 in Zhēnyuán 貞元 era — completed in Zhēnyuán 16 = 800 CE. The work is the comprehensive canonical-bibliographic restatement of the entire Chinese Buddhist canon as known in 800 CE — combining Zhìshēng’s Kāiyuán shìjiào lù (KR6s0093, 730) with the post-730 translation output (covered by the same author’s KR6s0096 Xù Kāiyuán shìjiào lù) into a single unified canonical bibliography. It became the standard late-Tang canonical bibliography, supplementing the Kāiyuánlù in subsequent canon-printing tradition. Preserved at T55 no. 2157.

Prefaces

The text opens with Yuánzhào’s auto-preface:

Xījīng Xīmíngsì shāmén Yuánzhào zhuàn 西京西明寺沙門圓照撰.

Carefully consulting the old catalogues: it is said: “Now, the rise of catalogs is for the purpose of distinguishing the true and the false, clarifying the right and the wrong, recording the past-and-present of personal generations, marking the multitude or fewness of the canonical bù and juan, gathering up what was lost and pruning the doubled-and-redundant — wishing to cause the right teaching to fit the principle, the golden words to have a continuum, the outline raised and the essentials lifted — clearly and observably to be viewed.”

But the dharma-gate is dim-and-deep, the transformation-net broad-and-vast. Front-and-back transmission-translation, the years moved and the generations changed. It has repeatedly been through dispersal-and-extinction, the juànzhóu uneven. There have also been strange persons at times adding false-and-empty [works]. Causing it to be tangled and hard to investigate the trail.

Therefore the previous virtues, the worthy Confucians, made these systematic registers. Today those still preserved are about six or seven houses — yet still they have not exhausted the root and source, with much still loose-and-missing. Shēng [Zhìshēng] with mediocre-shallow understanding, has long undertaken…

[The preface acknowledges direct quotation from Zhìshēng’s preface; Yuánzhào’s catalog is explicitly framed as the continuation and updating of the Kāiyuánlù tradition.]

Abstract

Authorship and date: composed by Yuánzhào in Zhēnyuán 16 = 800 CE at Xīmíngsì in Chángān. notBefore = 800, notAfter = 800. Catalog dynasty 唐.

The 30-juan structure is organized in parallel to Zhìshēng’s Kāiyuánlù but expanded in scope to incorporate the post-730 translation output documented in KR6s0096:

• Juan 1–14: dynastic-period bibliographic register (expanded from Kāiyuánlù’s 10-juan version).
• Juan 15–28: comprehensive sectional catalogue (expanded from Kāiyuánlù’s 8-juan version).
• Juan 29–30: Rùzàng lù (canonical roster) plus appendices.

The work supplements the canonical roster with the post-Kāi-yuán-lù translations — particularly the substantial output of the Esoteric translation-bureau under Bù-kōng 不空 (705–774), Prajñā 般若 (734–810?), and other late-Tang translation-figures. Compared to Zhì-shēng’s 5,048-juan canonical roster, Yuán-zhào’s expanded canonical roster is approximately 5,390 juan (5,048 + ~343 added).

The work was the standard late-Tang and immediately-pre-Sòng canonical bibliography. The Kāibǎo canon-printing project of 971–983 used both the Kāiyuánlù and the Zhēnyuánlù together as its canonical-bibliographic foundation — making Yuánzhào’s catalog one of the principal sources for the Kāibǎo canon’s canonical scope.

Translations and research

See KR6s0093 for general references. Specific to Yuán-zhào’s Zhēn-yuán-lù:

• Hé Méi 何梅, Lì-dài hàn-wén dà-zàng-jīng mù-lù xīn-kǎo (2014) — comprehensive treatment.
• Tāng Yòng-tóng 湯用彤, Suí Táng fó-jiào shǐ-gǎo.
• Antonello Palumbo and the modern Tang-canonical-bibliography tradition.

Other points of interest

Yuánzhào’s Zhēnyuánlù is the terminal canonical bibliography of the Tang dynasty — completed in 800 CE, just before the Huìchāng persecution of 845 (which targeted the entire Buddhist canonical institution) and the subsequent decline of Tang Buddhist scholarly production. Its consolidation of the 5,390-juan late-Tang canon as the bibliographic standard preserved the canonical scope through the troubled late-Tang and Five-Dynasties periods until the canonical-bibliographic-and-printing revival of the early Sòng with the Kāibǎo canon project (971).

Links

• DILA authority: A001417 (圓照)
• CBETA: T55n2157
• Author: Yuánzhào 圓照 (Tang, ca. 720s–800s)
• Predecessor: KR6s0093 Kāiyuán shìjiào lù of Zhìshēng (730), KR6s0096 Xù Kāiyuán shìjiào lù of the same author (794)
• Subsequent canon-printing: Kāibǎo canon (971–983) used this as one of its bibliographic-foundational sources, alongside Zhìshēng’s Kāiyuánlù