Rénwáng jīng kēshū 仁王經科疏
Outline-and-Subcommentary on the Rénwáng-jīng by 真貴 Zhēnguì (述, sobriquet Yúān 愚菴)
About the work
A five-fascicle late-Wànlì-era subcommentary on the Rénwáng jīng (KR6c0202 = T245) by 真貴 Zhēnguì (b. c. 1558), the late-Wànlì Cíhuìsì (Beijing) doctrinal lecturer. Preserved in the Wàn xùzàng / Manji zoku-zō as X517. The main piece of Zhēnguì’s three-part Rénwáng jīng commentary apparatus (KR6c0211 outline + KR6c0212 introduction + X517 main commentary). Five fascicles.
The genre marker — kēshū “outline-and-subcommentary” — signals an integrated commentary that combines structural-outline analysis with line-by-line gloss, the standard mid-to-late Míng Buddhist scholastic commentary format.
Abstract
X517 is the principal late-Wànlì-era Rénwáng jīng commentary and the most systematic late-Míng treatment of the sūtra. Doctrinally Zhēnguì draws extensively on the canonical Tang-Sòng commentaries (Tiāntái Zhìyǐ’s T1705, Jízàng’s T1707, Wǒnch’ǔk’s T1708, Liángbì’s T1709) and synthesises them in a late-Wànlì pedagogically-accessible register suitable for monastic-and-lay study at the Beijing Cíhuìsì lecture-hall.
The five-fascicle scale and the systematic three-part apparatus (kēwén + xuántán + main commentary) make X517 the most ambitious Rénwáng jīng commentary project of the late-Míng / early-Qīng period. Its production at the Empress-Dowager-sponsored Cíhuìsì in Beijing (founded 1589, with imperial title bestowed) connects the work to late-Wànlì state-Buddhist patronage networks.
For the wider history, X517 is significant as: (i) the most substantial late-Wànlì Rénwáng jīng commentary; (ii) a primary witness to the late-Wànlì Beijing aristocratic-patronage Buddhist scholarly tradition; and (iii) a documentation of the continued institutional life of Rénwáng jīng commentary scholarship in the late-Míng period.
The three-part apparatus (KR6c0211 + KR6c0212 + X517) by the same hand parallels Xùfǎ’s later three-piece programme on Buddhist canonical literature and represents a structurally ambitious late-imperial commentarial output.
Composition date: same bracket as KR6c0211 and KR6c0212 (Zhēnguì’s mature commentarial career at Cíhuìsì, c. 1590–1620).
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- See the references for KR6c0211 and KR6c0212 (Zhēnguì’s other works).
- For the late-Wànlì Beijing Buddhist context, Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China (1981); Timothy Brook, Praying for Power (1993).
Other points of interest
The Empress-Dowager imperial sanction of Zhēnguì’s monastery (Cíhuìsì) reflects the late-Wànlì pattern of imperial Buddhist patronage, particularly through the Empress Dowager Císhèng 慈聖太后 (Wànlì’s mother), who was a major Buddhist patron and supported numerous late-Wànlì monasteries and Buddhist publishing projects. The patronage context illuminates the institutional setting for Zhēnguì’s substantial Rénwáng jīng commentary project.