Jīngāng jīng rúshì jiě 金剛經如是解
The Diamond Sūtra: Explained as “Thus” by 無是道人 Wúshì dàorén (註解)
About the work
A one-juan early-Qīng Vajracchedikā commentary by an ex-official Buddhist layman who signs under the sobriquet Wúshì dàorén 無是道人 (“Way-Person Without Affirmation”). The work’s hermeneutic conceit, announced in the self-preface (No. 485-A), is to read the entire sūtra through the single word rúshì 如是 (“thus”) — the opening word of every Mahāyāna sūtra, the structural marker of the liù chéngjiù 六成就 (six-fold-accomplishment) opening, and the recurring formula throughout the Vajracchedikā (rúshì zhù, rúshì jiàngfú, rúshì shēng qīngjìng xīn, etc.). Rúshì, the author argues, is “the body of nature” (性體也), unchanging and undifferentiated — and the sūtra is in effect a sustained variation on that one word. Preserved as X25 no. 485. notBefore set conservatively to 1644 (the Manchu conquest); notAfter = 1657 (the dated Tán Zhēnmò preface). Catalog dynasty 清.
Abstract
Three prefaces frame the volume. (a) The author’s self-preface (No. 485-A) lays out the rúshì hermeneutic. (b) An admiring preface (No. 485-B) by 譚貞默 Tán Zhēnmò (1590–1665, sobriquet Dàoyī jūshì 道一居士 / 槃談), the early-Qīng Jiāxīng layman, dated 順治丁酉臘八日 = 1657 lunar 12/8 (= 1658-01-11), frames the work in the Vajracchedikā tradition descending from 菩提達磨 Bodhidharma’s preference for the Laṅkāvatāra and 弘忍 Hóngrěn’s preference for the Vajracchedikā — affirming the latter as the canonical xīnyìn 心印. (c) An earlier preface (No. 485-C) by 王鐸 Wáng Duó (1592–1652), the famous late-Míng / early-Qīng calligrapher and Míng official-turned-Qīng official, dated 順治庚寅冬 = 1650 winter — Wáng’s last full year of life — calls the author xiàn zǎiguān shēn 現宰官身 (“manifesting in the body of an official-administrator”), suggesting an ex-Míng-official background and inscribing the work in the literature of dynastic-transition lay-Buddhist withdrawal.
The body of the commentary takes the rúshì operation through each phrase of the sūtra: Rúshì zhù (thus dwell) becomes the canonical name for the bodhisattva’s non-grasping abiding; rúshì jiàngfú (thus subdue) the canonical name for the bodhisattva’s non-grasping discipline of mind; the famous closing rúrú bùdòng (thus-thus immovable) is read as the doctrinal endpoint of the whole rúshì exercise. The commentary is brief, intellectually unified, and a striking late-Míng / early-Qīng specimen of the lay-literary devotional reading.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The two prefacers — Wáng Duó and Tán Zhēnmò — are themselves significant figures. Wáng Duó’s calligraphic prestige and his turbulent late-life career as a senior Qīng official surrendering from the Míng made his preface a high-profile endorsement; Tán Zhēnmò’s involvement signals the work’s reception in the Jiāxīng lay-Buddhist publishing circuit that produced the Jiāxīng Tripiṭaka. The xiàn zǎiguān shēn hint to the author’s official background, combined with the Wúshì sobriquet and the 1650 / 1657 datings, is consistent with a Míng yímín (loyalist hold-out) layman context.