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佛性觀修善法

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Text ID
KR6v0092
Date
580–594
Dynasty
隋

Fóxìng guān xiūshàn fǎ 佛性觀修善法

The Method of Buddha-Nature Contemplation and Cultivation of the Good by 信行 (Xìnxíng, 撰); critical edition by 西本照真 (整理)

About the work

A Suí-period Chinese Buddhist treatise in one fascicle attributed to Xìnxíng 信行 (540–594), founder of the Sānjiējiào 三階教. A foundational Sānjiē text alongside KR6v0053 Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ and KR6v0052 Fóxìng wèndá (which itself contains a long Fóxìngguān xiūshàn fǎ 佛性觀修善法 section). The work expounds Sānjiē’s signature doctrines: fóxìngguān 佛性觀 (“contemplation of the Buddha-nature”), the universal Buddha-nature in all beings, and the practical xiūshàn fǎ 修善法 (“methods of cultivating the good”) that follow from this contemplation — including pǔjìng 普敬 (universal reverence — bowing to every passer-by as a future Buddha), rènè 認惡 (self-acknowledgment of evil), and the Chángbùqīngbóusà 常不輕菩薩 (Sadāparibhūta-bodhisattva) practice modelled on the Lotus Sūtra.

Abstract

Two Dūnhuáng manuscript witnesses survive at the National Library of China: Běidūn 07879 (zhì 制 79; microfilm 8386) — head damaged, tail intact, with damaged tail-cartouche reading □□guān xiūshàn fǎ (the first two graphs lost); and Běidūn 14802 (xīn 1002) — head intact, tail damaged. The two manuscripts are demonstrably copies of the same work: they overlap by approximately 2,600 graphs in the middle, with Běidūn 14802 preserving the head-portion and Běidūn 07879 the tail-portion. Combined, they reconstruct nearly the entire text — over 10,000 graphs — and confirm the title as Fóxìngguān xiūshàn fǎ 佛性觀修善法 (filling in the lost two-graph head of the tail-cartouche of Běidūn 07879).

The text is unrecorded in any historical Buddhist catalog and absent from all canonical editions. Yè Lùhuá 業露華 had already published a transcript of Běidūn 14802 in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 4 (under KR6v0052 in modified form). The present edition by Nishimoto Teruma 西本照真 prints Běidūn 07879 with collation against Běidūn 14802 and the Yè transcript — completing the reconstruction. The composition window is bracketed by Xìnxíng’s emergence as Sānjiē founder (ca. 580) and his death in 594.

Translations and research

  • Hubbard, Jamie, Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001) — most extensive English-language treatment.
  • Nishimoto Teruma 西本照真, Sangaikyō no kenkyū 三階教の研究 (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1998) — the foundational modern study.
  • Nishimoto Teruma 西本照真, “Bussei-kan shu-zen-hō no kiso-teki kenkyū 佛性觀修善法的基礎研究,” in Higashi-Ajia bukkyō no keisei to tenkai (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2002) — key supporting study.
  • Yabuki Keiki 矢吹慶輝, Sangaikyō no kenkyū (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1927).

Other points of interest

With this reconstruction, Fóxìngguān xiūshàn fǎ becomes the largest extant Xìnxíng-attributed Sānjiē text — substantially larger than either Dàshèng wújìnzàng fǎ or Fóxìng wèndá. Together these three constitute the surviving documentary base for Sānjiē doctrinal study; outside this trio, the school’s literature is reconstructed from quotations.

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