Fǎhuá jīng tōngyì 法華經通義
Comprehensive-Meaning Commentary on the Lotus Sūtra by 德清 (Déqīng / Hānshān Déqīng, 述)
About the work
A seven-juan late-Míng running commentary on the Lotus Sūtra by 德清 Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), one of the Míngmò sìdà gāosēng 明末四大高僧. The work is the longer companion to Déqīng’s synoptic Jījié (KR6d0076, X31n0610): the Jījié providing the synoptic accent on selected passages, the Tōngyì providing the comprehensive running commentary on the entire Lotus.
Prefaces
The text in the X31n0611 recension carries Déqīng’s own framing of the tōngyì 通義 (“comprehensive meaning”) genre. The genre indicates a continuous synthetic commentary that “penetrates the meaning” of the entire sūtra-text, drawing together the various exegetical strands into a unified expository treatment.
Abstract
The Tōngyì is the principal late-Míng monastic Lotus Sūtra running commentary outside the Tiāntái scholastic tradition. Its method combines (1) Hānshān Déqīng’s distinctive Chán–Yogācāra–Tathāgatagarbha synthetic doctrinal framework; (2) sustained engagement with the Tiāntái commentarial tradition (particularly 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s Wénjù (Fǎhuá wénjù 法華文句 KR6d0014) and 湛然 Zhànrán’s Wénjù jì (Fǎhuá wénjù jì 法華文句記 KR6d0015)); (3) integration of Huāyán and Sānlùn interpretive perspectives; and (4) Déqīng’s characteristic philological-experiential reading style.
The work belongs to the broader late-Wànlì revival of Mahāyāna scholastic commentary outside the institutional school traditions: where Tiāntái commentary in the late Míng was largely produced by Tiāntái-affiliated monks (Yōuxī 傳燈 Chuándēng, 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù), Déqīng’s commentary represents the parallel Chán–Pure-Land–Yogācāra synthetic tradition’s engagement with the Lotus. Together with Zhìxù’s Huìyì (KR6d0082) and the parallel commentaries by 通潤 Tōngrùn (KR6d0080) and 圓澄 Yuánchéng (KR6d0079), the Tōngyì represents the principal late-Míng non-Tiāntái Lotus Sūtra commentary.
The composition is bracketed within Déqīng’s productive period c. 1590–1623, with the work most plausibly placed in his post-exile productive years c. 1612–1623 at Cáoxī 曹溪.
Translations and research
- Hsu Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1979.
- Wu, Jiang. Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
- Eichman, Jennifer. A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
- 聖嚴 Shèngyán. Mínmò Zhōngguó Fójiào zhī yánjiū 明末中國佛教之研究. Taipei: Dōngchū chūbǎnshè, 1987.
Other points of interest
Hānshān Déqīng’s Lotus Sūtra commentaries are part of his broader late-Míng Mahāyāna commentarial corpus, which he composed largely during and after his political exile in Léizhōu (1595–1612). The exile period — initially intended as punishment for his role in the late-Wànlì factional struggles — proved to be his most productive scholastic period, during which he composed the majority of his major commentaries. The Lotus Sūtra commentaries (Jījié and Tōngyì) belong to this exile-and-post-exile productive phase and document Déqīng’s mature engagement with the Lotus tradition.