Tiāntái jiàodiǎn rùzàng kǎo 天台教典入藏考
A Study of the Canonization of the Tiāntái Corpus by 方廣錩 (Fāng Guǎngchāng)
About the work
A scholarly article by Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, included as item No. 050 in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 5 (1998). The paper investigates when and how the Tiāntái jiàodiǎn 天台教典 — the school’s foundational exegetical and treatise corpus, compiled by Zhāng’ān Guàndǐng 章安灌頂 (561–632) under imperial-prince patronage from Yáng Guǎng 楊廣 (later Suí Yángdì 煬帝) after the death of Zhìyǐ 智顗 (538–597) — entered the Chinese Buddhist canon (dàzàngjīng 大藏經).
Abstract
The traditional view (echoed in modern reference works) is that the Tiāntái corpus was first canonised in the Northern Sòng Tiānshèng 天聖 era (1023–1032) under imperial patronage. Fāng Guǎngchāng argues against this: from a careful reading of Fózǔ tǒngjì 佛祖統記 (compiled by Zhì-pán 志磐, 1269), Suí inscriptions, and the Lìdài sānbǎo jì 歷代三寶記 rù-zàng-lù 入藏錄, he proposes that the Tiāntái corpus was already admitted to the imperial nèi-dào-chǎng 內道場 (“inner-palace ritual hall”) canon under Suí Yángdì, much earlier than the Sòng date suggests. The argument turns on Yáng Guǎng’s documented decade-long patronage of Guàndǐng’s jié-jí 結集 (“compilation council”) immediately after Zhìyǐ’s death — Zhì-pán draws an explicit analogy to Ānanda’s compilation of the canon under Ajātaśatru’s patronage. Fāng’s article systematises evidence for this Suí-period canonization and traces the corpus’ subsequent loss and gradual re-canonization through the Táng (under intermittent imperial patronage; Fǎchéng’s Dūnhuáng activity provides indirect evidence of late-Táng circulation) and Sòng (the Tiānshèng canonization being only the re-canonization after Five-Dynasties textual loss).
The paper also opens a methodological discussion: the Tiāntái corpus is the first sectarian zōngpàixìng wénhuì 宗派性文匯 in Chinese Buddhism — and thus the prototype for later exegetical-school canonical compilations. The history of its canonization is therefore central to a broader history of the Chinese Buddhist dàzàngjīng and its relation to non-translation native compositions (Zhōnghuá zhuànzhù 中華撰著). The article is excerpted from Fāng’s earlier monograph Bā—shí shìjì fójiào dàzàngjīng shǐ 八——十世紀佛教大藏經史 (Beijing: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué, 1991).
Translations and research
- Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, Bā—shí shìjì fójiào dà-zàng-jīng shǐ 八——十世紀佛教大藏經史 (Beijing: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué, 1991) — the monograph from which this article elaborates.
- Chen, Jinhua, Making and Remaking History: A Study of Tiantai Sectarian Historiography (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1999) — important parallel work on the Tiāntái historiographical tradition.
- Penkower, Linda, “In the Beginning… Guanding 灌頂 (561–632) and the Creation of Early Tiantai,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.2 (2000).
Other points of interest
This paper is part of a wider project by Fāng Guǎngchāng to revise the conventional periodization of the formation of the Chinese Buddhist canon: he argues that imperial internal canons (nèidàochǎng) and pre-Sòng dynastic-canon compilations have been systematically under-counted in modern scholarship because the only surviving canonical-edition witness is the SòngYuánMíngQīng tradition.