Tiān qǐngwèn jīng shū 天請問經疏
Commentary on the Sūtra of the Deva’s Inquiry by 文軌 (撰); critical edition by 李際寧 (整理)
About the work
A complete one-fascicle commentary on Xuánzàng’s 玄奘 648-translation of the Devatāparipṛcchā-sūtra (Tiān qǐngwèn jīng 天請問經, T no. 592). The host scripture, a short Hīnayāna sūtra in question-and-answer form between an unnamed deva and the Buddha at the Jetavana, treats nine pairs of questions (the gravest sword, deadliest poison, fiercest fire, deepest darkness; profit/loss, armour, weapon; thieves and the wealth of the wise; happiness and beauty; supreme suffering and supreme bliss; the unwholesome friend; the cosmic obstacles to rebirth; the indestructible — fú 福; final question on self-deception). Wéngui’s 文軌 commentary expounds each scriptural passage according to the Yogācāra (Fǎxiàng wéishí 法相唯識) school: he opens the prologue (xù fēn 序分) with the standard Fódìjīng lùn 佛地經論 fourfold scheme (general → special), and reads each answer through the lens of the three- and ten-pāramitā schemes, the èr dì 二諦, and the eighteen jiè 界.
Abstract
The catalogue is silent on Wéngui’s life-dates. He was a Yogācāra monk at Cháng’ān 長安 — first attested at the Dà Zhuāngyán Sì 大莊嚴寺 (where he composed his important Yīnmíng rù zhènglǐ lùn shū 因明入正理論疏, often cited as Zhuāngyán shū 莊嚴疏), later (after 658) at the Xīmíng Sì 西明寺. He probably attended Xuánzàng’s lectures personally — Dìngbīn 定賓 reports him as “personally received instruction from the Tripitaka master” — but, as Kuíjī 窺基 makes clear (Yīnmíng dà shū 因明大疏: “fēi fān jīng zhī lǚ 非翻經之侶”), he was not a member of the translation bureau. The present commentary on the Devatāparipṛcchā-sūtra (translated by Xuánzàng on 1 March 648 / Zhēnguān 22) was almost certainly composed in 648–649, immediately after the host scripture became available and before Wéngui’s attention turned to the yīnmíng 因明 corpus. The work is unrecorded in any Chinese catalogue but listed in Yìtiān’s 義天 Xīn biān zhū zōng jiào zàng zǒng lù 新編諸宗教藏總錄. It survives in three Dūnhuáng witnesses: Beijing Library Běi-xīn 316 (the present base text — complete, originally from the Ōtani 大谷 collection in Lǚshùn 旅順), Pelliot chinois 2135, and Beijing Library Běi 6662 (黃 19). The Taishō text (T no. 2780, vol. 85) was set from a 1925 lead-type printing of the Běi 6662 fragment alone — incomplete and missing the author’s name. Lǐ Jìníng’s 李際寧 1995 edition supplies for the first time a critical text with full attribution; an extensive appended essay by Lǐ also identifies a second Dūnhuáng work by Wéngui (P. 2101 Guǎng bǎi lùn shū 廣百論疏) and reconstructs his biography against the Dōngyù chuándēng mùlù 東域傳燈目錄 of Yǒngchāo 永超 and the Zhùjìn Fǎxiàngzōng zhāngshū 注進法相宗章疏 of Zàngjùn 藏俊.
Translations and research
- Lǐ Jìníng 李際寧, “Wéngui de zhùzuò jí qí tā 文軌的著作及其它,” appended to the 1995 critical edition (= KR6v0006 fù) — the principal study, supersedes earlier biographical reconstructions.
- Frankenhauser, Uwe, Die Einführung der buddhistischen Logik in China (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996) — covers Wéngui’s yīnmíng work.
- Tucci, Giuseppe, “Buddhist Logic before Diṅnāga,” JRAS 1929 — older but still cited on Wéngui’s Zhuāngyán shū.
- Shěn Jiànying 沈劍英, Yīnmíng yán jiū 因明研究 (Shanghai: Dōnghuá shīfàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 1985) — recovers and contextualises Wéngui’s Yīnmíng rù zhènglǐ lùn shū.
Other points of interest
- The host sūtra (Tiān qǐngwèn jīng, T592) was traditionally classed in the Mahāyāna by DàZhōu lù 大周錄 but reclassified as a Hīnayāna text by Zhìshēng 智昇 (Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄) on the grounds that its content “leans towards the Lesser School” — a judgement Wéngui himself preserves in his prologue (míng shì shēngwénzàng shè 明是聲聞藏攝) while reading the doctrine through Mahāyāna Yogācāra.
- The base manuscript (Běixīn 316) carries the unusually informative colophon “Cǐ wén wú yī cuò miù, kàn dìng le yě. Shànnú Fónú xìn 此文無一錯謬，勘定了也，善奴佛奴信” — an explicit certification by the proof-reader Fónúxìn 佛奴信. The commissioning donor signs himself Wáng Yǒují 王有吉.
Links
- CBETA
- Host sūtra: T15n0592
- Cf. T85n2780 (the older fragment-based Taishō recension)