Source: Naitō 1970

Naitō gives some general information about Fajing's 法經 Zhongjing mulu 眾經目錄 T2146. It was composed in the space of two months in 594 by a commission of 22 scholars. Hayashiya argued that the catalogue was composed in preparation for the copying of the full canon. Naitō argues that there must have been some circumstances precipitating the rush. He notes that suspicious texts were also recorded and categorised as such, which would be odd if the sole purpose of the catalogue was to list works to be included in an approved version of the canon. He therefore proposes that the catalogue, and the canon connected to it, were prepared as a response to the notorious incident in Guangzhou in 593 surrounding the use of the Zhancha jing 占察經, in which practices of self-flagellation, "stupa repentance" rites, and the "mixing of the sixes" were connected with the use of a scripture that a commission of experts then declared spurious. Among the reasons they gave that the text was inauthentic was that the text was recorded in no earlier catalogues, which Naitō treats as circumstantial evidence that there was a mentality current that could see the compilation of a new catalogue as associated with a similar agenda to determine which texts were authoritative and, by implication, which were spurious, in order to forestall recurrence of like incidents.

Naitō also treats the problem of the sources of Fajing's work. Determination of his sources is made difficult by the fact that the catalogue does not explicitly give its sources. Fei Zhangfang/Changfang says that Fajing had seventeen catalogues at his disposal, but then does not himself admit that so many catalogues were extant in their time. Naitō reports very briefly that he has compared the treatment of extant translations in Fajing with treatment in other sources, for a total of 79 translators and 556 works, but here gives no details, rather, promising to report his findings in another venue. He notes that a total of 428 texts were ascribed to named translators in CSZJJ, but in Fajing, that number increases to 459 for translators down to the end of the Qi (i.e. before Sengyou's time). In other words, Fajing has added at least 31 new ascriptions. As a matter of fact, there are 34 more ascriptions on which Fajing does not agree with CSZJJ, for a total of 65 new ascriptions. Naitō is unable to determine Fajing's sources for these ascriptions, but he notes that in total, they entail, among other things, the addition of nine new "translators" to the record: Tanguo 曇果 [cf. T196], Tankejialuo 曇柯迦羅 [to whom no extant texts are ascribed today], Kang Sengkai 康僧鎧 [cf. T360, T1432, X11], Fajian 法堅 [cf. T495], Zhi Fadu 支法度 [cf. T17, T527], An Faqin 安法欽 [cf. T816, T2042], Fahai 法海 [cf. T1490], Xian gong 先公 [cf. T640, T641], and Xiang gong 翔公 [cf. T234].

Naitō argues that probably five catalogues were in fact extant at Fajing's (and Fei's) time, in addition to GSZ: CSZJJ, Baochang's 寶唱 catalogue, Li Kuo's 李廓 catalogue, Fashang's 法上 catalogue, and the Zhongjing bielu 眾經別錄. Prior scholarship had understood that Baochang collected information from a range of older catalogues, and that Baochang was in turn the proximate source for the use of information from these older catalogues in Fei's LDSBJ (Naitō refers to Tokiwa for this view). Naitō doubts this, because he believes that Baochang only reported 226 ascriptions for sutras, and this number probably did not exceed 300 even when śāstras and vinaya works are taken into account; but this total is too few to account for the profusion of new information reported under the Sui. He notes further that comparison to CSZJJ, the only case in which we can check Fei's information against his source, shows that when LDSBJ says "see such-and-such a catalogue", it only means that the title is listed in the source, not the ascription --- CSZJJ is cited in this manner for texts that CSZJJ itself clearly treats as anonymous.

Naitō also discusses Fajing's probable use of Fashang's catalogue. He notes that Fashang stopped at about 568-570, and that Fajing does the same. He takes this fact to indicate that Fajing just took Fashang's information over holus-bolus, and suggests that ascriptions to Fajian, Fahai, and Xian gong were probably added on this basis.

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