Jīngāng jīng bùzhǐ 金剛經部旨
The Diamond Sūtra: Categorical Outline of the Tendency by 靈耀 Língyào (撰)
About the work
A two-juan early-to-mid-Qīng Vajracchedikā structural-doctrinal commentary by the monk Língyào Quánzhāng 靈耀全彰. The work opens (No. 493-A) with a fully-developed Tiāntái-style hierarchical kēpàn outline — yī zǒngtí; èr biéwén (sān): yī xùfēn (èr): yī tōngxù (rúshì), èr biéxù (ěrshí); èr zhèngzōng … 一總題 / 二別文(三) / 一序分(二) / 一通序(如是) / 二別序(爾時) / 二正宗 — making the volume primarily an outline and structural-tendency commentary rather than a verse-by-verse exposition. The title’s bùzhǐ 部旨 (“categorical / sectional tendency”) signals the format: a macro-structural reading identifying the zhǐ (tendency, doctrinal aim) of each major section of the sūtra, in the manner of Tiāntái xuányì / wénjù meta-commentary. Preserved as X25 no. 493. The text bears no internal date; notBefore / notAfter set conservatively to the Qīng era prior to publication (1644–1722). Catalog dynasty 清.
Abstract
The work is one of the more formally rigorous Tiāntái-school Vajracchedikā commentaries of the Qīng, distinct in genre from the lay-Buddhist devotional commentaries (e.g. KR6c0078), the Chán-flavored personal teachings (e.g. KR6c0061, KR6c0062), and the multi-author compendia (e.g. KR6c0079). Língyào’s bùzhǐ method places each phrase of the sūtra into a deeply nested hierarchical outline, with brief zhǐyào commentary at each terminal node. The 32-section Liáng Zhāomíng division is not used; instead the work follows the older Tiāntái 序分 / 正宗 / 流通 tripartite frame, sub-divided to several levels of nesting. This structural rigor and the avoidance of Chán-anecdotal apparatus mark Língyào as standing in the line of strict Tiāntái scholastic recovery characteristic of mid-Qīng monastic teaching.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
That the catalog and the Xùzàngjīng preserve a substantial late-period strictly-Tiāntái Vajracchedikā commentary like this — quite different in character from the more famous Wànlì lay-Chán commentaries — is a corrective to the impression that the Qīng Vajracchedikā tradition was uniformly devotional or syncretic. Língyào’s project demonstrates the persistence of formal scholastic-Tiāntái pedagogy on the sūtra into the eighteenth century.