Guānyīn jīng yìshū jì huìběn 觀音經義疏記會本
Combined Edition of the Guānyīn Sūtra Doctrinal Subcommentary spoken by 智顗 (Zhìyǐ, 說); subcommentary by 知禮 (Zhīlǐ of Sòng, 述)
About the work
A four-juan combined-edition (huìběn 會本) interweaving Zhìyǐ’s Guānyīn yìshū (KR6d0048, T1728) with Zhīlǐ’s Guānyīn yìshū jì (KR6d0049, T1729) into a single readable text. The companion to the Xuányì jì huìběn of KR6d0052; together the two combined-editions complete 王季常 Wáng Jìcháng’s late-Míng editorial project on the Tiāntái Pǔmén corpus, undertaken at Jīnlíng in Chóngzhēn 崇禎 1–2 (1628–1629).
Prefaces
The text in the X35n0645 recension carries no separate translator’s preface beyond what is preserved in the bracketed […] sections drawn from the original Sòng Yìshū jì (see KR6d0049). The editorial method follows that of KR6d0052: each pericope of Zhìyǐ’s Yìshū is presented in the smaller / distinguished typography, immediately followed by the corresponding section of Zhīlǐ’s Yìshū jì, allowing the reader to follow the original Sui-period commentary and its Sòng subcommentary in parallel.
Abstract
The combined-edition (huìběn) is a late-Míng editorial product designed to make Zhīlǐ’s Sòng-period subcommentary on Zhìyǐ’s Guānyīn yìshū accessible to a non-scholarly readership. Together with the parallel Xuányì jì huìběn (KR6d0052) and the four auxiliary navigational works (KR6d0050, KR6d0051, KR6d0053, KR6d0054), it constitutes 王季常 Wáng Jìcháng’s complete late-Míng editorial reorganisation of the Tiāntái Pǔmén corpus into a unified accessible format.
The substantive content remains the Sui-period Yìshū of Zhìyǐ and the Sòng-period Yìshū jì of Zhīlǐ; for the doctrinal discussion of these works see KR6d0048 and KR6d0049 respectively. The huìběn itself is a late-Míng editorial production (1628–1629) and contributes no new doctrinal content beyond the editorial reorganisation.
Translations and research
See KR6d0048 and KR6d0049 for the bibliographies on the Yìshū and Yìshū jì.
- Yü, Chün-fang. Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokiteśvara. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Other points of interest
The completion of both 王季常 Wáng Jìcháng’s combined-editions (this text and KR6d0052) provides the late-Míng monastic and lay reader with a single-volume readable apparatus for the entire Tiāntái Pǔmén commentarial corpus, demonstrating the editorial ambition and pedagogical thoroughness of the late-Míng Buddhist publishing enterprise. The reorganisation of dense Sòng-period scholastic material into accessible combined-edition formats was one of the principal late-Míng monastic-editorial contributions to the broader transmission of the medieval Buddhist heritage to early-modern East-Asian readership.