Fǎhuá jīng wénwài yì 法華經文外義
Extra-Textual Meanings of the Lotus Sūtra anonymous Chinese composition; critical edition by 李際寧 (整理) and 張曉娟 (整理)
About the work
A short anonymous yì 義 -style (“meanings”) commentary on Kumārajīva’s Miàofǎ liánhuá jīng 妙法蓮華經 (T9 no. 262), structured in question-and-answer form (wèndá 問答). The head of the manuscript is lost, so the work’s full structure cannot be reconstructed; the surviving sub-headings (kēfēn 科分) — liào jiǎn wén jīng lǐ jīng 料簡文經理經, èr zhì 二智, cì míng yīnyuán 次明因緣, shāo shèzhái zhě 燒舍宅者, jìngtǔ zhě 淨土者, wǔbǎi yóuxún xiǎnnán dào zhě 五百由旬險難道者, cì míng èryī 次明二依, shídì zhě 十地者 — outline the work’s principal exegetical concerns. The text is markedly kǒuyǔhuà 口語化 (colloquial) in register and uses many tōngjiǎ 通假 and súxiě 俗寫 character-forms.
Abstract
The work is unrecorded in any Buddhist catalogue and unknown to canonical editions. The unique surviving witness is Shanghai Museum 3317. The closing colophon dates the manuscript precisely: “Fǎhuá jīng wénwài yì, one fascicle. One collation completed. Eleventh year of Dàtǒng 大統 (545 CE), the year yǐchǒu 乙丑*, ninth month, twenty-first day. The* bǐqiū Huìxí 惠襲 finished writing it at the Fǎhǎi sì 法海寺*. May it circulate without break to the latter age.*” The Dàtǒng reign is the regnal era of the Western Wèi 西魏 (535–551) — making this manuscript one of the earliest precisely-dated Dūnhuáng Buddhist commentary witnesses, and the work itself a Northern-Dynasties (post-Kumārajīva, pre-mid-sixth-century) Lotus exegesis. The cover-slip carries a calligraphic title-tag by Qǐ Gōng 啟功 (1912–2005). The colloquial register and scribal informality place the work outside the major commentary lineages (KumārajīvaDàoshēngSēngzhào, or the early Tiāntái) and suggest a regional (Hexi or Northern) school context.
Translations and research
- Hurvitz, Leon, Chih-i (538–597): An Introduction to the Life and Ideas of a Chinese Buddhist Monk, Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques XII (1960–62) — context on Lotus commentary in pre-Tiāntái China.
- Kanno Hiroshi 菅野博史, Hokekyō chūshakushi 法華経注釈史 (Tōkyō: Daitō shuppansha, 2008) — survey of pre-Tang Lotus commentary.
- Watson, Burton, The Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) — the host sūtra in translation.
- Lǐ Jìníng 李際寧 and Zhāng Xiǎojuān 張曉娟, “Fǎhuá jīng wén-wài yì 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 2 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1996).
Other points of interest
The 545 CE colophon makes this one of the earliest precisely datable Buddhist commentary manuscripts from the Dūnhuáng corpus, and a key dating-reference for the development of Chinese Buddhist exegesis between Sēngzhào and the rise of Tiāntái. The colloquial register is unusual enough that the manuscript is also of interest to historical-linguistic scholars studying the suxie and tongjia practices of Northern-Dynasties scribes.
Links
- CBETA
- Host sūtra: T09n0262