Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng qiǎnzhù xuánshì 大乘本生心地觀經淺註懸示
Prefatory Outline to the Shallow Notes on the Mahāyāna Mind-Ground Sūtra by 來舟 (Lái Zhōu, 述)
About the work
A single-fascicle prefatory outline (xuánshì 懸示) prefacing Lái Zhōu’s eleven-fascicle commentary [[KR6b0011|Qiǎnzhù 淺註 (X367)]] on [[KR6b0008|Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng (T159)]]. The xuánshì genre is the conventional Huáyán-school prefatory exposition that introduces a sūtra’s general purport (zōng 宗), its essential principles (qù 趣), the method of exposition (shīshuō 施設), the explanation of the title, the differentiation from other sūtras, and so on, before the line-by-line commentary begins.
Prefaces
The fascicle opens with Lái Zhōu’s own author-preface, which records the genesis of the project: “Once Chángshuǐ dàshī 長水大師 (子璿 Zǐxuán) commented on the Śūraṅgama-sūtra, and on the day of his lecture the heavens rained jewel-flowers; the place of his exegesis was given the imperial name Lèngyán Jiǎngsì 楞嚴講寺. People praised his commentary, saying its language was concise but its meaning rich, its exposition detailed but its principle close. He gathered the strengths of Tang-dynasty 惠振 Huìzhèn, 慤沇 Quèyǎn, and other masters; he embraced the essentials of 賢首 Xiánshǒu’s Five Teachings and Awakening of Faith’s Five Profundities. … My master 廣度 Guǎngdù Fǎshī, dharma-heir of Xiánshǒu, has carried the burden of the doctrine, occupying the lecture-seat for over thirty years. I attended on him in the zhāntán abbatial cell, with bottle-flower and bowl-water in quiet retirement, devoting my efforts to commentarial work. … The Běnshēng xīndìguān jīng, fluent in language and profound in purport, has had no proper commentary from Tang to today. Examining the canonical sūtras, harmonising the various śāstras, refining my contemplation in stillness, sealing the work with one mind, I produced an eleven-fascicle commentary on the model of Chángshuǐ’s Lèngyán commentarial divisions. Out of deep humility I named it Qiǎnzhù — ‘Shallow Notes’.”
Abstract
The Xuánshì sets out the framework within which Lái Zhōu’s Qiǎnzhù operates: the commentarial method is explicitly modelled on Chángshuǐ Zǐxuán’s Lèngyánjīng yìshū — the Sòng-period Huáyán-Chán reading of the Śūraṅgama-sūtra — and is therefore a Huáyán-school commentary on a Mahāyāna-Yogācāra sūtra, integrating 賢首 Xiánshǒu Fǎzàng’s Five-Teachings doctrinal classification (pànjiào 判教) and the Awakening of Faith doctrinal framework into the exegesis. The work is the first substantial commentary on T159 since its Tang translation, and stands at the head of the modern Chinese exegetical tradition for this sūtra.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Tang Dazhao 唐大潮. Dàshèng běnshēng xīndìguān jīng yánjiū 大乘本生心地觀經研究. Beijing: Zhōngguó Shèhuì Kēxué Chūbǎnshè, 2007. (Treats the Lái Zhōu commentarial set as the standard pre-modern access-point.)