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Abstract During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Buddhism developed rapidly, and a large number of Buddhist sutras and treatises were translated. While participating in the translation and learning these texts, Chinese Buddhist scholars wrote a large number of commentaries on Buddhist sutras and treatises, began to think independently, presenting a new landscape of the development of Buddhism in China.There are at least 53 commentaries on the Mahāparinirvā?a-sūtra (hereafter MPNS) in the Northern and Southern Dynasties preserved in Dunhuang manuscripts, which are basically Buddhist texts unavailable in the Tripi?aka. They are: Shanghai Library no. 064, no. 2764B in Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō (《大 正 新 修 大 藏 经》), BD00093, BD00260, BD02224, BD02316, BD02276, BD02291,BD05210, BD07889, BD09732, BD10681, BD11459, BD15639, BD15652, P. 2313, P. 2908, P. 3119,P. 3291, P. 3502, S. 00269V, S. 00531, S. 02430V, S. 02722, S. 02735, S. 03742A, S. 03742B, S. 06153,S. 07885, S. 08006, S. 08079, S. 08221A, S. 08221B, S. 08221C, S. 08221D, S. 08221E, S. 08221F,S. 08221G, S. 08221H, S. 08221I, S. 08221J, S. 08241, S. 09436, S. 10704, Canmo ( 残 墨) 002,Canmo 005, Canmo 009, kyo-U (杏雨) 430, kyo-U 589-7, kyo-U 725-1, kyo-U 762-1，Shodō (书道)006, Shodō 047.The first two manuscripts will not be discussed in this paper. The collation of the remaining 51commentaries on the MPNS may have made sporadic progress, but most of them have not attracted the attention of the academic field at all. Their basic information, combined conditions, textual features and characteristics need to be systematically elucidated and studied. These manuscripts, with a total of 7,886lines and more than 200,000 words, covers all the chapters in the MPNS except for the chapters of “On the questions raised by the crowd” (大 众 所 问 品) and “On actual illness” (现 病 品). These texts are large in size, and their specific contents include the preface to the MPNS, the explanation of the text and the discussion of the doctrines. Their contents are rich, which is a powerful supplement to the Tripi?akain the Northern and Southern dynasties.After the collation and comparative studies, these 51 manuscripts can be integrated into 23independent commentaries on the MPNS. Through the comparative analysis of these textual forms, it can been found that the southern and northern editions of the MPNS in the Northern and Southern Dynasties became complicated in the specific circulations. Some commentaries followed the chapter structure of the southern edition of the MPNS in the writing, but when referring to the specific words and sentences, they were subject to the contents of the northern edition of the MPNS. The ideological tendency behind them is worth noting. The explanation or discussion style in these commentaries also reflects the development and evolution of yishu (义 疏) genre in the early stage of Chinese Buddhism.Most of these manuscripts are basically yishu works, with specific titles such as shu (疏) and yiji (义记).Their explanation styles in the early yishu works share the features of paragraph divisions and clarification of the main ideas of the sutras . Gradually differences began to be demonstrated in shu and yiji. When shu still kept the tradition, yiji began to focus on the interpretation of thematic concepts,which will lead to the emergence of yizhang (义章) genre.In terms of contents, these commentaries preserved a wide range of interpretations, reflecting the active state of communication and development in the field of Buddhist thought at this time. These views can be compared with the Buddhist literature in Tripi?aka, which is helpful for a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the different aspects of Buddhist thought in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. In addition, these texts extensively cited various Buddhist sutras and treatises when interpreting the MPNS, such as the Humane King Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (《仁王般若波罗蜜经》), Sutra of the Diadem of the Primary Activities of the Bodhisattvas (《菩萨璎珞本业经》) and Chengshi Lun (《成实论 》), which further promoted the development of Nirvana Studies in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Therefore, the comparative studies with the commentaries on the other sutras and treatises should be an important direction of Buddhist studies in the Northern and Southern Dynasties in the future.
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2024, Vol. 54 
