Jīngāng jīng yǎngǔ 金剛經演古
The Diamond Sūtra: Expounding the Ancients by 寂燄 Jìyàn (述)
About the work
A one-juan early-Qīng (Kāngxī-era) condensed Huáyán-tradition Vajracchedikā commentary by the monk Jìyàn of the Shígǔshān 石鼓山 (Héngyáng, Húnán) Chán xuǎnfóchǎng selection-hall. The work was undertaken in the summer of jǐyǒu 己酉 (Kāngxī 8 = 1669) when Jìyàn was studying together with fellow monks at Shígǔshān; finding 宗密 Zōngmì’s Zuǎnyào “concise but obscure” and 子璿 Chángshuǐ Zǐxuán’s Kāndìngjì “detailed but unmemorable,” he combined the two with editorial pruning and his own fūyǎn tiāotī 敷演挑剔 (“expounding and selecting”) into the present yǎngǔ (“expounding the ancients”) synthesis. notBefore / notAfter = 1669. Preserved as X25 no. 495. Catalog dynasty 清.
Abstract
The opening preface (No. 495-A) lays out the work’s place in the Vajracchedikā’s broader textual history: the sūtra is the Mahāprajñāpāramitā’s 9th assembly (第九會), juan 577 of the 600-juan corpus; six Chinese translations exist, of which 鳩摩羅什 Kumārajīva’s is most current; the Asaṅga-Vasubandhu vyākhyā tradition supplies the Indian doctrinal frame. Jìyàn’s yǎngǔ method is condensation: he keeps the substantive doctrinal apparatus of Zōngmì + Zǐxuán while pruning prolix glosses, aiming to make the combined material accessible kāijuàn liǎorán 開卷瞭然 (“clear at the opening of the book”). The body interleaves the Kumārajīva sūtra with the condensed combined commentary in a single fluent column; the work occupies a position between the more elaborate ten-juan multi-stratum KR6c0079 and the one-juan KR6c0080 of 行策 Xíngcè, neither merely re-printing nor independently composing.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated secondary literature located.