Fóxìng wèndá 佛性問答
Questions and Answers on the Buddha-Nature anonymous Sānjiējiào composition; critical edition by 業露華 (整理)
About the work
A short anonymous Chinese Buddhist treatise, transmitted as a Dūnhuáng manuscript fragment with both head and tail damaged. The title Fóxìng wèndá (“Questions and Answers on the Buddha-Nature”) is a modern editorial title supplied by Yè Lùhuá 業露華. The text occupies a single fascicle and falls into three sections: (1) an exposition of fóxìng-guān 佛性觀 (“contemplation of the Buddha-nature”) with ten specific guānxíng 觀行 (contemplative practices); (2) an extensive discussion of zhēnrú fóxìng 真如佛性 (the tathatā-Buddha-nature) arguing that fǎxìng 法性 is unborn, neither pure nor defiled, arising and passing away by conditions; and (3) scriptural proof-citations that all sentient beings are the bodhi-maṇḍala of the buddhas of the three times — “Buddha is sentient beings, sentient beings are Buddha.”
Abstract
Identification as a Sānjiējiào 三階教 (Three Stages teaching) text rests on two grounds: (a) the formula “Xìnxíng qièwén” 信行竊聞 (“I, Xìnxíng, have privately heard…”) in the body of the text, identifying 信行 (Xìnxíng, 540–594), the founder of the Sānjiē sect, as the supposed first-person speaker; and (b) the heavy use of the Sadāparibhūta 常不輕菩薩 chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, a key proof-text in Sānjiējiào hermeneutics. The manuscript witness — Beijing National Library Běixīn 1002 — is a WǔZhōu period (690–705) copy displaying multiple WǔZhōu xīnzì 新字 (the unique sinographs decreed by Empress Wǔ Zétiān 武則天). The composition window thus pre-dates the manuscript copy: while the original Xìnxíng-attributed text may have been composed in the Suí (late 6th c.), the received recension preserved at Dūnhuáng dates to the WǔZhōu period (here taken as the notBefore–notAfter bracket for the recension), and the work was never recorded in any historical Buddhist catalog or canon. Yè Lùhuá’s edition is based on the single witness Běixīn 1002 with no collation copy. Cf. the related Sānjiējiào text KR6v0053 (Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ 大乘無盡藏法), edited by 方廣錩 in the same volume.
Translations and research
- Hubbard, Jamie, Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001) — the standard English-language monograph on Sānjiē-jiào, with extensive treatment of the textual corpus.
- Yabuki Keiki 矢吹慶輝, Sangaikyō no kenkyū 三階教の研究 (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1927) — the foundational study; identifies and edits many Dūnhuáng Sānjiē fragments.
- Nishimoto Teruma 西本照真, Sangaikyō no kenkyū 三階教の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1998) — the principal post-Yabuki monograph; revises and supplements Yabuki’s corpus.
- Yè Lùhuá 業露華, “Fóxìng wèndá zhěnglǐ běn qiányán 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 4 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1998).
Other points of interest
The manuscript’s WǔZhōu new graphs (xīnzì 新字) make it datable with unusual precision: their use was confined to the period 690–705. This places the surviving copy of Fóxìng wèndá within the active flourishing of Sānjiējiào at the capital before its first imperial proscription in Shènglì 1 (698). The text is thus an important data-point on early Tang-court reception of Sānjiē doctrine, even though the underlying composition may be earlier.
Links
- CBETA
- IDP: https://idp.bl.uk (search Beijing 北新 1002)
- Cf. KR6v0053 Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ (Sānjiējiào)
- Cf. KR6v0092 Fóxìng guān xiūshàn fǎ (also Sānjiējiào, ed. Nishimoto)