Jìngmíng jīng jíjiě Guānzhōng shū juǎn xià 淨名經集解關中疏卷下
The Guānzhōng Compendium-Commentary on the Vimalakīrti Sūtra, Lower Fascicle by 道液 (述); critical edition by 黎明 (整理)
About the work
The lower fascicle of Dàoyè’s 道液 Jìngmíng jīng jíjiě Guānzhōng shū — see KR6v0026 for the full literary description and bibliographic discussion. The lower fascicle was composed at the Pútí dàochǎng 菩提道場 in Cháng’ān during Yǒngtài chū sì 永泰初祀 (765 CE), five years after the upper fascicle.
Abstract
See KR6v0026. The lower fascicle is the textually larger half of the work and contains Dàoyè’s commentary on chapters 7 (“Guānzhòngshēng pǐn” 觀眾生品) through 14 (“Zhǔlèi pǐn” 囑累品) of the Vimalakīrti. Lí Míng’s edition is based on five Dūnhuáng witnesses: Beijing Library Běixīn 0293 (base text — complete both ends), S. 6870 (head intact, tail damaged), S. 6418 (complete), Beijing Library Běixīn 1274 + Běixīn 1143 (rejoined fragments of one scroll, head damaged tail intact), and Beijing Library Běixīn 0292 (head damaged, tail intact). Significantly, Lí’s edition recovers approximately 10,000 characters that the Taishō text (T85n2777) had inadvertently omitted from the second half of chapter 5 through the first half of chapter 7 — making this the first complete critical edition of Dàoyè’s work.
Translations and research
- See KR6v0026.
- Lí Míng 黎明, “Jìngmíng jīng jíjiě Guānzhōng shū 卷下整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 3 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1996).
Other points of interest
The 10,000-character lacuna in the Taishō text — silently passed over until Lí Míng’s collation work — is one of the most consequential text-critical recoveries in modern Chinese Buddhist studies, restoring nearly half of Dàoyè’s commentary on chapters 6 (“Bùsīyì pǐn” 不思議品) and the opening of “Guānzhòngshēng pǐn.”