Collected Records Concerning the Tripitaka

Although there were earlier works of bibliography with respect to Buddhist texts at the time, Sengyou's Collected Records Concerning the Tripitaka (Chu sanzang ji ji) introduced important innovations in how the texts were arranged, including a hierarchy of authenticity. Not only were Buddhist texts continually trickling in along the Silk Road, but the Chinese had begun to pass off local productions as authentic Indian sutras. Sengyou proposed criteria for assessing the authenticity of Buddhist sutras at a time when many fake or apocryphal texts were in circulation. He was particularly focussed on the translator of a text, and this made him suspicious of unattributed texts. As Tanya Storch says, "Absence of information about the translator was a signal that it might be a compilation by a Chinese person who did not understand Sanskrit and had never studied Buddhism in the west India.

The Chu sanzang ji ji is presented in five sections

• A discussion on the provenance of translated scriptures,

• A record of (new) titles and their listings in earlier catalogues,

• Prefaces to scriptures,

• Miscellaneous treatises on specific doctrines, and

• Biographies of translators.

"By subjecting Buddhist scriptures to the textual criticism similar to that applied to the Confucian classics, Sengyou managed to elevate the literary and social status of the Tripiṭaka.」 At the Liang court, Sengyou's work was overshadowed by the catalogue of Baochang (寶唱) who produced his catalogue in 521 CE. However, it is Sengyou's catalogue that survives.

Sengyou was assisted in his literary work by his student, Liu Xie, who went on to write an important work on literary aesthetics.

Bibliography

• Buswell, R and Lopez D. (Eds) The Princeton Encyclopedia of Buddhism.

• Knechtges David R. and Chang Taiping (eds). 2014. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol. 2) Brill

• Storch, T. (2014). The History of Chinese Buddhist Bibliography. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.

生平

僧祐幼年時候喜歡佛寺，不肯回家，父母允許其出家。14歲時候，受具足戒後研習律部，後經常開講戒律，並用所得進行寺院修繕、舉行無遮大會、捨身齋等，收集經文。梁武帝非常器重他，所有關于佛教僧侶事宜皆由他審決。天監十七年于建初寺圓寂，享年74歲。他以《十誦律》為宗，又搜集各類經文傳記，編寫《出三藏記集》、《弘明集》。他門下有智藏、慧廓、寶唱等僧俗達萬餘人。