Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

In this paper, I investigated the methodological characteristics of Textual organization(Gwamun) in the Commentary of Jiexuan and Zhengmai Commentary, both widely distributed commentaries on the Śūrańgama sutra in China and Korea. Even though this sutra was never accepted into the core canon of the various schools of Buddhism, many commentaries on the Śūrańgama sutra have been written in schools such as Huayan, Tientai and Chan. The first concern that many commentaries on the Śūrańgama sutra deal with is establishing its status and classification. In Chinese Buddhism, the panjiao (Doctrinal classification) served as a tool to define the relationships between the many different Buddhist teachings and establish the status of each, while the kwapan was a tool to analyze and clarify the structure of a scripture in order to reveal the crux of the text. The classification and systematization of Buddhist scriptures is necessary for clarifying the meaning of individual scriptures, and vice versa. The panjiao and kwapan are thus mutually synergistic tools for the greater goal of understanding Buddhist teachings. Commentaries on the Śūrańgama sutra have been very controversial due to its ambiguities and internal contradictions that make it difficult to assess through pre-existing analytical frameworks. It also has many passages on Chan meditation which demand the exegete’s own meditation experience and hermeneutic perspective, and the Chan tradition has thus contributed many of its commentaries. To address these problems, the Commentary of Jiexuan Textual organization(Gwamun) analyzed this sutra as a coherent structural whole, while the Jeongmaegso Textual organization(Gwamun) focused on its internal structure. They suggested a new internally consistent Textual organization(Gwamun) structure, and applied their own hermeneutic viewpoint in their analysis of the text. These commentaries opposed conventional doctrine and frameworks of analysis with a novel focus on the text itself.