Jīngāng jīng dìngyì 金剛經訂義
Establishing the Meaning of the Diamond Sūtra by 俞樾 Yú Yuè (著)
About the work
A one-juan late-Qīng (Guāngxù-era) Vajracchedikā philological-evidential notebook by Yú Yuè, sister volume to KR6c0094 Jīngāng jīng zhù. Where the zhù is a verse-by-verse commentary, the dìngyì is a kǎozhèng-style critical-philological notebook on disputed readings of the sūtra — short individual essays each “establishing the meaning” (dìng yì 訂義) of a particular phrase against received commentarial mis-interpretations. Author signs as 德清俞樾 (Yú of Déqīng). Preserved as X25 no. 507. notBefore set to 1883 (alignment with zhù sister-volume); notAfter = 1900 (Yú’s late period, allowing for incremental composition). Catalog dynasty 清.
Abstract
The work consists of numbered short evidential essays. The qí yī 其一 (“the first”) opens by citing a sūtra-passage: shàn nánzǐ shàn nǚrén fā Ānòuduōluó sānmiǎo sānpútí xīn, yīng yúnhé zhù, yúnhé jiàngfú qí xīn (Section 2: “good men and good women have given rise to the Anuttarā samyaksaṃbodhi-citta; how should they abide, how should they subdue the mind?”); Yú comments that xīn (mind) here refers to the Anuttarā…-citta itself — zhù is abiding-in-this-mind, jiàngfú is subduing-this-mind. He sharply criticizes the received vulgar interpretation that zhēnxīn dāng zhù, shǐ zhī bù tuìzhuǎn; wàngxīn dāng jiàngfú, shǐ zhī bù rǎoluàn 真心當住，使之不退轉；妄心當降伏，使之不擾亂 (“the true mind should be abided so as not to retrogress; the false mind should be subdued so as not to disturb”) as fēnbié wéi èr, shū shī yǔqì, qiě fēi rúlái lìjiào zhī zhǐ 分別為二，殊失語氣，且非如來立教之旨 (“falsely splitting it into two, badly missing the linguistic register, and contrary to the Tathāgata’s teaching-tendency”). Subsequent entries address other contested passages with similar grammatical-philological precision. The work is a model of how kǎozhèng method can yield doctrinally significant readings.
Translations and research
See entry KR6c0094 for principal modern studies of Yú Yuè.
Other points of interest
The Dìngyì genre — applied to Confucian classics by Hé Xiū, Liú Bǎonán, and others — was a familiar evidential-scholar’s instrument; Yú’s deployment of it on a Buddhist sūtra is consequential, treating the Vajracchedikā as a text whose grammatical structure demands the same evidential rigor as the Lúnyǔ or the Yìzhuàn. The polemical edge against “sú jiě” (vulgar interpretations) marks the work as targeting popular devotional commentary practice.