Hùguó sīnán chāo 護國司南抄
Annotational Sub-Commentary on the Renwang Hu-guo Bo-re Bo-luo-mi-duo Jing Shu by 玄鑒 (集); critical edition by 侯沖 (整理)
About the work
A Yúnnán-Buddhist sub-commentary on Liángbēn 良賁’s Rénwáng hùguó bōrě bōluómìduō jīng shū 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經疏 (T33n1709) — itself a commentary on the Rénwáng (Humane King) sūtra (T08n0246, in Bùkōng 不空 / Amoghavajra’s 765 translation). The original Hùguó sīnán chāo in five fascicles plus a one-fascicle Jiàokānlù 校勘錄 was compiled by Xuánjiàn 玄鑒, a senior monk of the Dàchánghéguó 大長和國 (the post-Nánzhāo Yúnnán kingdom), in Ānguó 安國 6 (= 908 CE). Only one fascicle survives in a Dàlǐguó 大理國 (1052) hand-copy by Shì Dàocháng 釋道常.
Abstract
The work is a chāo 抄 (annotation-of-an-annotation): rather than commenting on the Rénwángjīng itself, it glosses select words and passages of Liángbēn’s shū 疏. It draws on Han-Chinese Buddhist scriptures, but also extensively on Confucian and Daoist classics — testimony to the breadth of yìxué 義學 (“doctrinal-studies”) training of Nánzhāo / Dàchánghé monks. Several texts that Xuánjiàn cites are now lost; the Hùguó sīnán chāo is therefore a witness to several otherwise unknown 9th-c. Chinese works.
The manuscript was discovered in August 1956 at the Dǒngshì zōngcí 董氏宗祠 in Běitāngtiān 北湯天, Fèngyí, Dàlǐ — the same find as KR6v0066 Guǎngshī wúzhē dàochǎng yí and KR6v0067 Dàhēitiān shén dàochǎng yí. The scroll (height 30.8 cm) was already in three fragments at the time of discovery; the head and tail are now held by the Yúnnán Academy of Social Sciences Library, the middle fragment by the Yúnnán Provincial Library. Because the fragments are dispersed, prior accounts have been frequently inaccurate — most notably the misidentification of Xuánjiàn as a mìxué jiàozhǔ 密學教主 (“master of esoteric studies”) rather than the correct yìxué jiàozhǔ 義學教主 (“master of doctrinal studies”) — an error that has propagated misunderstandings of the doctrinal orientation of Nánzhāo Buddhism. Hóu Chōng’s edition fixes the misreading.
The text is written in a difficult mixture of cursive (xíngcǎo 行草) and abbreviation script (lüèshū 略書) — hùguó 護國 written hùkǒu 戶口, bōluómì 波羅密 written píluómián, jīngāng 金剛 written jīndāo, etc. These abbreviations have caused decades of misreading: the so-called “Báiwén” 白文 (Bai-script) interpretations of the manuscript, attempting to parse the text through the lens of the supposed Bái ethnic-regional script, were misguided. Hóu Chōng’s edition, working from photographic reproductions of all three fragments, supplies the first reliable transcription.
Translations and research
- Hou Chong 侯沖, Yúnnán Āzhālì jiào-pài jí qí jīngdiǎn yán-jiū (Beijing: Zhōngguó shū-jí, 2008) — extensive treatment.
- Hou Chong 侯沖, “Hùguó sī-nán chāo zuòzhě Xuán-jiàn shēn-fèn xīn kǎo” — re-analysis of Xuán-jiàn’s title.
- Bryson, Megan, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017).
- Chen, Jinhua, “Bùkōng’s Rénwáng-jīng Translation,” in Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia, ed. Charles Orzech et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2011) — context on the host scripture.
Other points of interest
Hùguó sīnán chāo is the only substantial extant yìxué (Buddhist doctrinal exegesis) work from the Nánzhāo / Dàchánghé / Dàlǐguó tradition. As such, it overturns the conventional view (which Hóu’s correction reinforces) that Yúnnán Buddhism was predominantly esoteric/ritual rather than scholastic-doctrinal. The presence of citations from now-lost Chinese works also makes it a philological document of more than regional importance.