Huāyán wǔjiào zhāng bùshěn 華嚴五教章不審
Unresolved Doubts on Fa-zang’s Avataṃsaka Five-Teachings Treatise by 實英 (撰)
About the work
A twenty-fascicle Kegon disputational sub-commentary on Fa-zang’s Wǔ jiào zhāng 華嚴五教章 KR6a0011 by Jitsuei 實英, organised around bùshěn (不審, “things-not-clear / unresolved doubts”) — that is, the contested doctrinal points where the prior Japanese commentarial tradition had failed to reach consensus. Each fascicle treats one section of the Wǔ jiào zhāng by enumerating its unresolved questions and proposing answers; the work thus constitutes a dispute-resolution manual for the post-Gyōnen Tōdaiji Kegon tradition.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The opening fascicle bears the notation “Not yet revised” (Notyetrevised), suggesting the text survives as a working manuscript rather than as a finalised redaction. The author Jitsuei 實英 (DILA A001609) is documented only through this canonical attribution. The text’s references to Fa-zang’s two-fascicle Pányuè jīng (the Korean Sea-East Letter 海東書) and to the Hua-yan zhuan’s alternate citation of the title — “the Sòng-court four masters used the title Huāyán yīchéng jiàoyì fēnjì zhāng for their cross-textual commentary; why use the present Japanese current title?” — indicate a sustained philological-historical concern with the Wǔ jiào zhāng’s textual history. notBefore = 1300, notAfter = 1700 is conservative.
Doctrinal content: the opening of the work treats the question of the proper title of Fa-zang’s Wǔ jiào zhāng — which has five different transmitted titles. Jitsuei argues that the currently-circulating Japanese version (Huā-yán yī-chéng jiào fēn-jì) is the correct one, citing Fa-zang’s own Sea-East Letter (海東書) to Korean Wǒnch’ǔk and the Avataṃsaka-zhuan (華嚴傳) by Fa-zang’s disciple Hui-yuan. The work then proceeds to systematic exposition of unresolved doctrinal questions, drawing on the prior Japanese commentarial tradition (Juryō KR6t0033, Kikai KR6t0034, Gyōnen KR6t0035) and offering interpretive resolutions.
The work is at twenty fascicles the third-longest Wǔ jiào zhāng sub-commentary in the Taishō (after Gyōnen’s 52-fascicle KR6t0035 Tōnglù jì and the partly-overlapping 22-fascicle KR6t0019 Shīzǐhǒu chāo). Its disputational-resolution focus complements the other approaches: where Gyōnen pursues comprehensive exposition, where Shinjō KR6t0036 pursues disputational questions, where Reiha KR6t0038 pursues lecture-record format, Jitsuei pursues the identification and resolution of unresolved doubts — making the four works together the canonical map of the medieval Japanese Wǔ jiào zhāng commentarial enterprise.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Jitsuei 實英 and Kegon gokyōshō fushin 華嚴五教章不審.
Other points of interest
The “Not yet revised” notation at the head of the work makes it one of the few medieval Japanese Buddhist canonical texts that openly declare manuscript-incompleteness — preserving the text’s working-draft state as it entered the Taishō. This testifies to the editorial policy of including substantive scholarly drafts even when unfinished.