Jīngāng bōrě jīng shū 金剛般若經疏
Commentary on the Vajracchedikā Sūtra anonymous Chinese composition; critical edition by 華方田 (整理)
About the work
A substantial anonymous Vajracchedikā commentary in two (or possibly three) fascicles, distinctive in that it commentates on the Bodhiruci (菩提流支, Northern-Wèi) translation of the host sūtra rather than on Kumārajīva’s much-more-frequently-commented version. The bulk of Jīngāng jīng commentaries through the Táng treat Kumārajīva’s text — making this commentary’s choice of base text a textually important and scholarly unusual decision. The commentary heavily cites Asaṅga’s Jīngāng bōrě lùn 金剛般若論 (T1510) and Vasubandhu’s Jīngāng bōrě bōluómì jīng (lùn) 金剛般若波羅蜜經論, plus the Shídì lùn 十地論, Fódì lùn 佛地論, Dà zhì dù lùn 大智度論, Jùshě lùn 俱舍論, Dàpǐn bōrě jīng 大品般若經, Dàjí Yuèzàng jīng 大集月藏經, Wénshū-shīlì suǒshuō bōrě bōluómì jīng 文殊師利所說般若波羅蜜經, Nièpán jīng 涅槃經, and Fǎxiǎn 法顯’s Fǎxiǎn zhuàn 法顯傳.
Abstract
The work is unrecorded in any Buddhist catalogue and unknown to canonical editions. Huá Fāngtián’s edition reconstructs the text from five Dūnhuáng manuscripts that all share a single hand and tǐlì 體例: S. 6378 (601 lines, head/tail damaged), S. 6021 (45 lines), Beijing Library Běi 4443 (始 37, 105 lines, head/tail damaged), Běi 4444 (閏 28, 439 lines, head damaged tail intact, with the unique tail-title “Jīngāng bōrě shū juǎn xià” 金剛般若疏卷下), and Běi 4445 (閏 21, 184 lines, head/tail damaged). All five are pieces of one original commentary. The principal textual-critical achievement is reordering the fragments to match the host sūtra’s chapter sequence: S. 6378 (sūtra ch. 1–6) + S. 6021 (ch. 11–13) + Běi 4443 (ch. 14–end-of-15) + Běi 4444 upper (ch. 16–early-17) + Běi 4445 (ch. 17–19) + Běi 4444 lower (ch. 20–32). Běi 4444 is itself a join of two non-contiguous fragments from different parts of the commentary, glued together by a later (mistaken) hand. The Vasubandhu / Asaṅga citation density firmly places the commentary in the Dìlùn 地論 / Yogācāra-influenced Vajracchedikā tradition, plausibly in the seventh-to-eighth century.
Translations and research
- Conze, Edward, Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā, SOR XIII (Roma: IsMEO, 1957) — Sanskrit edition with Tibetan and English translation.
- Schopen, Gregory, “The Manuscript of the Vajracchedikā Found at Gilgit,” in Studies in the Literature of the Great Vehicle, ed. L. O. Gómez and J. A. Silk (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1989).
- Tucci, Giuseppe, Minor Buddhist Texts, vol. I (Roma: IsMEO, 1956) — covers the Asaṅga commentary tradition.
- Huá Fāngtián 華方田, “Jīngāng bōrě jīng shū 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 3 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1996).
Other points of interest
The choice of Bodhiruci’s Vajracchedikā (T8 no. 236) as the base text — rather than Kumārajīva’s T8 no. 235, which dominates the Chinese commentary tradition — is itself a doctrinal positioning: the Bodhiruci version is associated with the Dìlùn 地論 / Yogācāra reading-tradition, while Kumārajīva’s translation became the standard for Sānlùn 三論 / Madhyamaka readers. This commentary is therefore an important witness to the Dìlùn-school Vajracchedikā exegesis, otherwise scarcely preserved.
Links
- CBETA
- Host sūtra: T08n0236 (Bodhiruci’s translation; cf. T08n0235 for Kumārajīva’s)