Xù Zhēnyuán shìjiào lù 續貞元釋教錄
A Continuation of the Zhēn-yuán Catalog of Buddhist Teaching by 恒安 (集)
About the work
A single-juan Southern Tang (南唐) Buddhist canonical bibliographic supplement, compiled by Héngān 恒安 in Bǎodà 保大 3, the yǐsì year = 945 CE. The work supplements Yuánzhào’s Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mùlù (KR6s0097, 800 CE) with the post-800 translation activity through the late Tang and Five-Dynasties periods. The byline reads 西都右街報恩禪院取經禪大德恒安集 (“Composed by Héngān, qǔjīng chán dàdé of Bàoēn Chán Cloister, the right street of the Western Capital”). Preserved at T55 no. 2158.
Prefaces
The text opens with the title-and-byline:
DàTáng Bǎodà yǐsìsuì xù Zhēnyuán shìjiào lù, yī juàn 大唐保大乙巳歲續貞元釋教錄一卷 (“The Great Tang Bǎodà yǐsì year Continuation of the Zhēnyuán Catalog of Buddhist Teaching, one juan”).
Then the body of the text begins with the bibliographic-historical narrative:
Hearing that Mātaṅga entered the Hàn — the sound-and-teaching first reached unto Cīna. Through the operation of the sage Tang — the Sanskrit canons flourished and rounded into the sea-canon. And again, our Xuán-zōng huáng-dì [Tang Xuán-zōng] reigned over the world-bounds, in the year Kāi-yuán 18, gēng-wǔ: the Western Capital Xī Chóng-fú-sì śramaṇa Zhì-shēng composed the Kāi-yuán shì-jiào lù in 20 juan, titled the Kāi-yuán-lù canon, gathering Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna jīng / lǜ / lùn and the worthy-and-sage biographical collections, totaling 5,048….
[The text continues with extensive bibliographic-historical narration through the post-800 translation activity.]
Abstract
Authorship and date: composed by Héngān 恒安 (DILA does not preserve a separate authority entry; otherwise unattested) at the Bàoēn Chán Cloister 報恩禪院 in the Western Capital = Chángān, in Bǎodà 保大 3 = 945 CE.
The dating is significant: Bǎodà is the era-name of the Southern Tang (南唐) regional dynasty (937–975) under Yuánzōng 元宗 Lǐ Jǐng 李璟 (r. 943–961) — making the work a Southern-Tang regional Buddhist canonical bibliography, produced by Buddhist scholars in the Southern-Tang-controlled lower-Yangtze and Jiang-nan region during the chaotic Five-Dynasties period. The use of “Tang” in the title — Bǎodà yǐsì-year DàTáng — reflects the Southern Tang’s claim to be the legitimate continuation of the original Tang dynasty (which had collapsed in 907 in the central plain, but which the Southern Tang regime claimed to have preserved in the south).
notBefore = 945, notAfter = 945 (firmly dated). Catalog dynasty 南唐.
The work documents the post-Yuán-zhào (post-800) translation activity through the late Tang into the early Five-Dynasties period — a substantial expansion of the canonical roster covering ~150 years of additional translation output, including:
- Late-Tang Esoteric translations (post-Bù-kōng / Prajñā generations).
- Five-Dynasties translation activity in the Southern Tang and other regional courts.
- Liturgical, ritual, and commentarial canonical-additions.
The 1-juan brief format makes this a focused supplement rather than a comprehensive restatement — paralleling Dàoxuān’s 1-juan supplement KR6s0089 to his own main DàTáng nèidiǎn lù (KR6s0088).
Translations and research
- Hé Méi 何梅, Lì-dài hàn-wén dà-zàng-jīng mù-lù xīn-kǎo (2014) — comprehensive treatment.
- Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati (Oxford, 2006) — Five-Dynasties Buddhist context.
- Edmund H. Worthy, The Founding of Sung China, 950-1000 (Princeton, 1976) — Southern-Tang political-cultural context.
Other points of interest
The Southern-Tang Bàoēnyuàn provenance places the work in the Southern-Tang Buddhist scholarly establishment that was a principal pre-Sòng preserver of Tang-period Buddhist culture during the chaotic Five-Dynasties decade. The Southern Tang’s Buddhist patronage was substantial and continuous, and produced significant canonical-bibliographic and translation activity that supplied the post-conquest Sòng dynasty (which absorbed the Southern Tang in 975 / 976) with much of its inherited Buddhist scholarly apparatus — including catalogs like this one, which fed directly into the early-Sòng Kāibǎo canon-printing project of 971–983.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry for Héngān)
- CBETA: T55n2158
- Author: Héngān 恒安 (Southern Tang, fl. 945)
- Predecessor: KR6s0097 Zhēnyuán xīndìng shìjiào mùlù of Yuánzhào (800)
- Subsequent canon-printing: Kāibǎo canon (971–983) used both Tang catalogs and this Southern-Tang supplement
- Political context: Southern Tang (南唐, 937–975) regional dynasty