Huāyánzōng dàyào chāo 華嚴宗大要抄
Compendium of the Great Essentials of the Kegon School by 實弘 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle Kegon-school doctrinal reference manual by Jitsugu 實弘, organised as a tightly-compressed enumeration of the principal Avataṃsaka categorical schemes: the ten bodies of the Buddha (shí shēn 十身), the six characteristics (liù xiāng 六相 — zǒng-xiāng 總相 [general], bié-xiāng 別相 [specific], tóng-xiāng 同相 [identical], yì-xiāng 異相 [distinct], chéng-xiāng 成相 [completed], huài-xiāng 壞相 [destroyed]), the ten doors of profound dharma (shí xuán mén 十玄門 — the Kegon school’s principal account of the mutual-interpenetration of all phenomena), and the ten meanings (shí yì 十義). The treatment is conspicuously schematic — the work is essentially a xiàng-xī biǎo 相細表 (categorical reference-table) rather than a discursive treatise, designed for memorisation in the Tōdaiji Kegon curriculum.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The catalog meta gives Jitsugu 實弘 as author. DILA Buddhist Person Authority A001608 records him only by way of this single canonical attribution; no biographical detail survives. The text contains no transmission colophon. The work’s organisational style — particularly the use of zǒng-bié-tóng-yì-chéng-huài six-characteristic verse — derives directly from Fa-zang’s Wǔ jiào zhāng KR6a0011 and the Tàn-xuán jì KR6a0009, and the categorical lists (the ten Buddha-bodies; the ten profound doors) are taken from Chéng-guān 澄觀’s Avataṃsaka commentary. This places the work firmly within the medieval Japanese Tōdaiji-Kegon scholastic curriculum, in the period between Shin’en’s KR6t0024 (1019) and Gyōnen’s KR6t0031 (1314). notBefore = 1000, notAfter = 1300 is conservative.
Doctrinal content: the ten Buddha-bodies verse is reproduced in full: “Sentient-beings, lands, karma, and karmic-retribution / Śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas / The Tathāgata’s wisdom-Dharma-emptiness-body / Within the Tathāgata’s body are also ten bodies: / Bodhi, vow, transformation, and abiding / Marks-and-signs adornment and powers-of-force / Wish-fulfilling, merit, wisdom-Dharma-body — / These are then the body within the Tathāgata’s body.” This is the standard Kegon ten-body doctrine drawn from the Avataṃsaka’s thirty-eighth fascicle in the 80-fascicle recension. The ten profound doors are listed in their classical Fa-zang sequence: Simultaneous-Mutual-Containing, Broad-Narrow-Self-Mastery-Without-Obstruction, One-and-Many-Mutual-Containing-Without-Sameness, All-Dharmas-Mutual-Identity-Self-Mastery, Secret-Hidden-and-Manifest-Mutually-Completed, Subtle-Mutual-Containing-Established, Indra’s-Net-Realm-Door, Reliance-on-Things-to-Manifest-Doctrine-and-Generate-Understanding, Ten-Worlds-Differentiated-Distinctly-Established, Master-and-Companion-Round-and-Bright-Virtues-Complete.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- The work is briefly noted in Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Jitsugu 實弘 and Kegon-shū daiyō shō 華嚴宗大要抄.
Other points of interest
The work’s schematic, table-like compression makes it a unique witness to the memorisation-oriented dimension of medieval Japanese Kegon pedagogy. Most Japanese Kegon canonical works are discursive sub-commentaries; this one is essentially a study-card for the seven principal Kegon numerical schemes, and as such captures the practical, didactic side of the school’s scholasticism.