Zhù Xīnyào fǎmén 注心要法門
Annotations on the Heart-Essence Dharma-Gate by 宗密 (注); critical edition by 方廣錩 (整理)
About the work
A Táng-period commentary by Guīfēng Zōngmì 圭峰宗密 (780–841) — the fifth and last patriarch of Huáyán and a major Hézé 荷澤-line Chán figure — on the Xīnyào fǎmén 心要法門 of Qīngliáng Chéngguān 清涼澄觀 (738–839?), the fourth patriarch of Huáyán. The host text is Chéngguān’s response to the huángtàizǐ 皇太子 Lǐ Sòng 李誦 (756–806, later emperor Shùnzōng 順宗), composed during Chéngguān’s call to the capital from Wǔtáishān 五臺山 in Zhēnyuán 7–8 (791–792) under emperor Dézōng 德宗’s patronage. The host Xīnyào fǎmén is preserved canonically (in Jǐngdé chuándēnglù 景德傳燈錄 j. 30, T51n2076) under the title “Wǔtáishān Zhènguó dàshī Chéngguān dá huángtàizǐ wèn xīnyào 五臺山鎮國大師澄觀答皇太子問心要”; the present text is Zōngmì’s annotated edition.
Abstract
Zōngmì’s Zhù Xīnyào fǎmén is unrecorded in any historical Chinese Buddhist catalog and absent from the historical Chinese canons. Three witnesses are known: (1) the Jǐngdé chuándēnglù preservation gives only Chéngguān’s host text (Jǐngdé witness); (2) the Japanese Xùzàngjīng 續藏經 includes the annotated form (Xùzàng witness, X-J X58n1006), but the Xùzàng attribution to Zōngmì has been doubted as a single uncorroborated source; (3) a copy from the Hēichéng 黑城 (Khara-Khoto) library in Inner Mongolia, excavated by P. K. Kozlov’s Russian expedition in 1908–1909 and now held by the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, St. Petersburg (the Hēichéng witness). The Hēichéng witness was made available to Fāng Guǎngchāng in 1994 by Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高 in the form of a photocopy. The Hēichéng discovery confirms the authenticity of the Zōngmì attribution: the Hēichéng head-cartouche reads “Qīngliáng dá Shùnzōng, Guīfēng lánruò shāmén Zōngmì zhù 清涼答順宗，圭峰蘭若沙門宗密注” (Cháomào 抄帽 of Zhù Xīnyào fǎmén) above the host Xīnyào fǎmén title-cartouche.
The composition window is bracketed by Chéngguān’s call to the capital (791) — the earliest possible date for the host text — and Zōngmì’s death (841). The Hēichéng witness preserves a structural-divisional outline (kēwén 科文) at the head of each section; the Xùzàng witness lacks this. Hēichéng therefore preserves a closer-to-original form of the work. Fāng Guǎngchāng’s edition uses the Hēichéng photocopy as base, the Xùzàng edition as collation copy, and the Jǐngdé canonical text for the host Xīnyào fǎmén parts.
Translations and research
- Gregory, Peter N., Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991; rep. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002) — the standard English-language monograph on Zōng-mì.
- Gregory, Peter N., Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity: An Annotated Translation of Tsung-mi’s Yüan-jen lun (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995).
- Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄, Shūmitsu kyōgaku no shisō-shi-teki kenkyū 宗密教學の思想史的研究 (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku, 1975) — comprehensive Japanese study of Zōng-mì.
- Fāng Guǎngchāng 方廣錩, “Hēi-chéng běn Zhù Xīn-yào fǎ-mén yán-jiū,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 7 (1998).
Other points of interest
The Hēichéng recovery of Zhù Xīnyào fǎmén in its scholastically-divided form is a methodologically important data-point for Buddhist text-history: it shows how the late-Táng Buddhist scholastic apparatus (the kēwén 科文 outline-structure) was systematically stripped from texts when they were abridged for circulation in Xùzàngjīng sources, and how the Hēichéng (Tangut/Khara-Khoto) collection preserves Buddhist textual forms that the central-plain transmission lost.
Links
- CBETA
- T51n2076 j. 30 (the host Xīnyào fǎmén in Jǐngdé chuándēnglù)
- X58n1006 (the Xùzàng annotated edition)