Bōrě xīnjīng qǐngyì shuō 般若心經請益說
“Begging-Benefit” Discourse on the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra by 道霈 (說, sobriquet Wèilín 為霖)
About the work
A one-fascicle Kāngxī-era Heart Sūtra commentary by Wèilín 道霈 Dàopèi (1615–1702), the principal Cáodòng-school dharma-heir of 元賢 Yuánxián at Gǔshān 鼓山涌泉寺 in Fújiàn. Preserved in the Wàn xù-zàng / Manji zoku-zō as X563. Composed Kāngxī 9 (1670), twelfth lunar month, eighth day, in his cell at Gǔshān. Signature: 「鼓山沙門 道霈 說／弟子 (太光源深)等 同錄」 — “spoken by the śramaṇa Dàopèi of Gǔshān; recorded together by his disciples Tàiguāng Yuánshēn and others”. One fascicle.
The genre marker — qǐngyì shuō “begging-benefit discourse” — refers to the qǐngyì (asking-for-instruction) format: a sermon delivered in response to disciples’ formal request for teaching. The opening note specifies that on the eighth day of the twelfth month of Kāngxī gēng-xū (1670), having just finished delivering precepts to a group of Vinaya-disciples, Dàopèi was sitting in incense-meditation in his cell when the Chan disciples Gūyuè 孤月, Dúhǎi 毒海, Xuányìn 玄印, and Déguāng 德光 came to bow and request a Heart Sūtra teaching. The present text is the resulting discourse, recorded from oral delivery by his disciples.
Prefaces
The framing-note (the opening text after the title) gives the precise composition circumstances and provides the discourse’s opening: “The Heart Sūtra’s main purport is ‘illumining-and-seeing the five aggregates as all empty’ — and that is the end. What more is there to say? The assembly all held their breath and silently received [the answer]. I had each of them seat themselves; after a long while I then said: ‘Prajñā is Sanskrit, here translated wisdom. Why not say wisdom but say Prajñā? Because wisdom is a light-and-shallow word, the common term used by worldly people. Prajñā is venerated [reserved for] — why? Because the sūtra says: ‘the bodhisattva relying on Prajñāpāramitā has no obstruction in mind, down to ultimate nirvāṇa; the Buddhas of the three times relying on Prajñāpāramitā attain the supreme bodhi.’ Knowing this, Prajñā is not only the master of bodhisattvas but also the master of Buddhas — hence venerated.”
The discourse then unfolds the standard three-fold Prajñā analysis (shíxiàng — true-emptiness mind-substance; guānzhào — original great-wisdom-light on the mind-substance; wénzì — sounds-names-phrases-letters flowing from the post-attainment-wisdom of the zì-xīn rúlái / “self-mind Tathāgata”). Each is then mapped to a phase of the practitioner’s path.
Abstract
X563 is one of the most personally-documented Heart Sūtra commentaries in the canon: composed at a specific date (8th of 12th month, Kāngxī 9 = 19 January 1671 by Western reckoning), in response to a specific request from named disciples (Gūyuè, Dúhǎi, Xuányìn, Déguāng), in a specific monastic context (Gǔshān cell, post-precept ceremony). The opening narrative provides a vivid documentary glimpse into the daily life of a Kāngxī-era Cáodòng-school monastery: the abbot has just finished a Vinaya teaching, settles into incense-meditation, is approached by Chan disciples for a sūtra teaching, and delivers a substantial discourse that the disciples take down for printing.
Doctrinally Dàopèi follows the Cáodòng-school synthesis established by his master Yuánxián: a Chan-style jiàn xìng reading combined with substantive doctrinal apparatus (the three-fold Prajñā, the xīn / fó / zhòngshēng axiom, the tǐ-yòng analysis). The pairing with Yuánxián’s Zhǐzhǎng (X558 = KR6c0177) gives Gǔshān a substantial two-generation Heart Sūtra commentarial output that documents the Cáodòng-school’s continued doctrinal engagement with the Prajñāpāramitā tradition through the early Qīng.
For the wider history, X563 is a primary witness to the Gǔshān Cáodòng-school under Dàopèi’s abbacy and to the early-Qīng Cáodòng-school’s commitment to integrated Vinaya-doctrine-Chan teaching.
Composition date: 1670 (Kāngxī 9), per the precise dating in the opening narrative. Both notBefore and notAfter are 1670.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located of X563 specifically.
- For Dàopèi and the Gǔshān Cáodòng tradition, see Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute (Oxford, 2008) — extensive treatment.
- Wèilín Dàopèi chánshī yǔlù 為霖道霈禪師語錄 — Dàopèi’s collected sayings and teachings, in multiple juan.
- Modern Chinese-language scholarship on Gǔshān Yǒngquán-sì and the Yuánxián / Dàopèi lineage.
Other points of interest
The narrative-framing format — abbot in cell after a Vinaya ceremony, disciples requesting teaching, oral discourse subsequently transcribed — is one of the more vivid documentary records of Qīng monastic teaching practice. The named disciples (Tàiguāng Yuánshēn 太光源深 as the principal recorder; Gūyuè 孤月, Dúhǎi 毒海, Xuányìn 玄印, Déguāng 德光 as the requesting Chan students) are otherwise difficult to trace but document the active Chan study circle around Dàopèi at the Gǔshān monastery.
The work’s pairing with Yuánxián’s earlier Zhǐzhǎng (X558 = KR6c0177, composed 1654) gives Gǔshān a two-generation Heart Sūtra commentary cluster spanning sixteen years (1654–1670), documenting the institutional continuity of the Cáodòng-school’s commentarial tradition at this monastery through the early-Qīng generation.