Bōrě xīnjīng dàyì 般若心經大意
General Meaning of the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra by 王起隆 (述, sobriquet Zhǐān 止庵)
About the work
A one-fascicle early-Qīng (Kāngxī 18 = 1679) Heart Sūtra commentary by the Xiùshuǐ 秀水 (Jiāxīng 嘉興 area) jūshì lay devotee 王起隆 Wáng Qǐlóng (sobriquet Zhǐān 止庵, Zàishēng jūshì 載生居士, Dōnghǎi Zhǐān 東海止庵). Preserved in the Wàn xùzàng / Manji zoku-zō as X561. Signature: 「秀水止庵 王起隆 述」. Title-paratext: 「心經大意(附)撮槩」 — “General Meaning of the Heart Sūtra (with appended Cuōgài abstract)“.
The commentary is the sequel to Wáng’s earlier Diamond Sūtra commentary (Jīngāng jīng dàyì 金剛經大意, X484, composed Shùnzhì 12 = 1655), making him one of the more prolific jūshì commentators of the early-Qīng. He also compiled the HuángMíng Jīngāng xīnyì lù 皇明金剛新異錄 (a collection of Míng-period miracle stories about the Diamond Sūtra).
Prefaces
The work opens with a preface by Cáoxī shòufǎ Fúzhēng 譚貞默 Tán Zhēnmò Pántán 曹溪受法福徵譚貞默槃談 (No. 561-A) — a friend and dharma-recipient of Wáng’s, jointly introducing both the Heart Sūtra Dàyì and the earlier Diamond Sūtra Dàyì under the unified title Xīnjīng Jīngāng jīng liǎng dàyì yǐn 心經金剛經兩大意引. The preface argues that, of all the Buddha’s sūtras, the Heart Sūtra and the Diamond Sūtra are the kings of sūtras: every person with sense-organs intact who can be called human knows to honour these two sūtras; whoever does not honour them must not be human. The preface continues with biographical praise of Wáng (“today’s Wáng Zhǐān”) as a contemporary equivalent to the famous Tang lay master Páng jūshì 龐居士 (龐蘊 Páng Yùn), with characteristic late-Míng / early-Qīng jūshì enthusiasm.
The body of the commentary then proceeds in a free-flowing essay style on the Heart Sūtra’s general meaning rather than a phrase-by-phrase gloss. The work is supplemented by an appended cuōgài 撮槩 (“essential abstract”) that summarises the main points in compressed form for ease of memorisation.
Abstract
X561 is the principal early-Kāngxī Heart Sūtra commentary by a non-clerical author and a primary witness to the Yangtze-delta jūshì Buddhist culture of the period. Wáng Qǐlóng was clearly a substantial Buddhist scholar — his pairing of Diamond Sūtra and Heart Sūtra commentaries (X484 = 1655 and X561 = 1679, twenty-four years apart) and his compilation of the Míng-period Diamond Sūtra miracle anthology give him a wider commitment to Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā literature. The lay-devotee identity is consistently maintained: Wáng explicitly identifies as jūshì, the preface celebrates the lay equivalence to monastic teaching authority, and the commentarial style is accessible and non-technical.
The pairing of two of the most widely-recited Mahāyāna sūtras (the Diamond Sūtra and the Heart Sūtra) by the same lay devotee author is itself a documentary witness to the early-Qīng jūshì devotional culture’s focus on these two short Prajñāpāramitā texts as the fundamental scriptural ground of lay practice.
Composition date: 1679 (Kāngxī 18), per DILA’s reference to Wáng’s own self-preface dating. Both notBefore and notAfter are 1679.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- For the Yangtze-delta early-Qīng jūshì culture, see Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China (1981); Timothy Brook, Praying for Power (1993).
- For the Diamond Sūtra-and-Heart Sūtra paired devotional culture in late-imperial China, see modern scholarship on the Jīngāng / Xīnjīng parallel reception.
- Huáng-Míng Jīngāng xīn-yì lù 皇明金剛新異錄 (X same author) — Wáng’s earlier compilation, useful as background on his Buddhist scholarly orientation.
Other points of interest
The opening preface’s pairing of citizen-king (fǎ zhōng wáng, “king among dharma” = Buddha sūtras) with king-among-king (jīng zhōng wáng, “king among sūtras” = Heart Sūtra and Diamond Sūtra) is a characteristic late-Wànlì / early-Qīng jūshì literary device, ranking the Prajñāpāramitā short sūtras at the very top of the scriptural hierarchy. This is in keeping with the broader devotional culture of the period in which the Diamond Sūtra and Heart Sūtra were the most widely chanted, copied, and recited Buddhist texts in lay Buddhist practice.
The reference to 龐蘊 Páng Yùn (the Tang lay master, a key figure of Chan literary tradition) as Wáng’s classical predecessor is a standard jūshì literary topos — the Tang lay master serving as the model for the late-imperial lay devotee.