Jīn shīzǐ zhāng kānwén 金師子章勘文
Examination of Fa-zang’s Golden Lion Chapter by 景雅 (撰), supplementary notes by 聖詮 (追勘)
About the work
A single-fascicle textual-philological examination of Fa-zang’s celebrated Huā-yán jīn shī-zǐ zhāng 華嚴金師子章 (“The Golden-Lion Chapter of the Avataṃsaka,” T1881 = KR6a0012) — the famous brief Kegon doctrinal exposition that Fa-zang gave to the Empress Wǔ-Zé-tiān 武則天 in 700 CE using the imperial palace’s golden lion-statue as an illustration of the Kegon doctrine of dependent-arising. The work was originally collated and examined by the late-Heian Ninna-ji 仁和寺 Kegon scholar Kyōga 景雅 (the author of KR6t0025 Huā-yán lùn cǎo, dated 1189), with supplementary corrections later added by Shōzen 聖詮 (the author of KR6t0037 Wǔ-jiào zhāng shēn-yì chāo).
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The terminal colophon is precise: “One collation completed. Originally Kyōga examined it; for what was missing, Shōzen later examined.” A subsequent 17th-century transmission note reads: “Keian 5 (= 1652), 7th month 16th day, copied from the Sekisui-in Scripture Repository version, by the unworthy hand of śramaṇa Yōben 永辨; on the 20th, one collation completed.” The Sekisui-in is Myōe’s meditation hall at Kōzan-ji — the same institutional setting that preserved KR6t0027 Huā-yán xiū-chán guān-zhào rù jiě-tuō mén yì and the rest of Myōe’s Kegon corpus.
Kyōga 景雅 (DILA A001246; the author of KR6t0025 Huāyán lùn cǎo, dated 1189) was a Ninna-ji-affiliated lay Kegon scholar holding the court rank Dainagon-hōkyō. The composition of Jīn shīzǐ zhāng kānwén is plausibly contemporary with his KR6t0025 Huāyán lùn cǎo — i.e., late 1180s. notBefore = 1180, notAfter = 1200 is conservative. The supplementary corrections by Shōzen (the author of KR6t0037) were added later, presumably in the 14th–15th century.
Doctrinal content: the work is structured as a topical examination — kān-wén 勘文 (“examination text”) — of doctrinal points raised in or implied by Fa-zang’s Golden Lion Chapter. The examination proceeds through citations from a substantial range of Kegon canonical and commentarial sources: the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (specifically the Xián-shǒu pǐn 賢首品 of the 60-fascicle version); the Tàn-xuán jì 探玄記 (Fa-zang’s KR6a0009); the Dà jí jīng 大集經 (the Mahāsaṃnipāta-sūtra) — particularly its Ocean-Seal Samādhi (hǎi-yìn sānmèi) doctrine; the Wǔ-jiào zhì-guān 五教止觀 (Du-shùn’s Avataṃsaka meditation manual); and various yīn-yì (phonetic-glossarial) works.
The closing list — a bibliography of consulted sources — names: the Kōmoku 孔目 (Zhì-yǎn’s Avataṃsaka notes); the Wǔ jiào zhāng upper and middle volumes; the Huā-yán yī-chéng chéng-fó miào yì 花嚴一乘成佛妙義 by the Korean (青丘) monk Jian-deng 見登; the Huā-yán yī-chéng shí-xuán mén 花嚴一乘十玄門 by Zhì-yǎn 知儼 of Mount Zhì-xiàng; the Wǔ jiào zhāng zhǐ-shì upper and middle [= KR6t0033]; the Kōmoku fascicle 4; the Huā-yán fǎ-jiè guān by Du-shùn; the Huā-yán wǔ-jiào zhǐ-guān by Du-shùn; the Dà-shèng fǎ-jiè wú chā-bié lùn shū by Fa-zang; the Jù-shè lùn guāng-jì fascicle 23. This bibliography is a unique witness to the late-Heian Kegon canonical library at Ninna-ji and other Kyōto institutions in the 1180s.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located. The Jīn shī-zǐ zhāng itself has been translated multiple times into English — most authoritatively by Garma C. C. Chang in The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (1971); by Francis H. Cook in Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra (1977); and by Thomas Cleary in Entry into the Inconceivable (1983). The present Japanese kān-wén commentary is not separately translated.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Kyōga 景雅 and Konshishi-shō kanmon 金師子章勘文.
Other points of interest
The work’s bibliographic list — including the Korean monk Jian-deng’s Huāyán yīchéng chéngfó miào yì — is one of the principal medieval Japanese witnesses to the continued Korean-Japanese Kegon transmission through the Heian period. The Sekisui-in Scripture Repository’s preservation of the work into the Edo period (1652 copy by Yōben) confirms the long Kōzan-ji custodianship of the KyōgaShōzen Kegon corpus.