Fǎhuá jīng lúnguàn 法華經綸貫
Threading-Through Notes on the Lotus Sūtra by 智旭 (Zhìxù / Ǒuyì Zhìxù, 述)
About the work
A single-juan late-Míng synoptic Lotus Sūtra commentary by Ǒuyì Zhìxù 蕅益智旭 (1599–1655), one of the Míngmò sìdà gāosēng 明末四大高僧 and the principal late-Míng systematiser of Tiāntái doctrine. The work is the synoptic companion to Zhìxù’s longer Fǎhuá jīng huìyì (KR6d0082, X32n0616, 7 juan): the Lúnguàn providing the unifying synoptic framework, the Huìyì providing the comprehensive running commentary. The genre title — lúnguàn 綸貫 (“threading-and-stringing”) — indicates a commentary that “threads” the structural and doctrinal elements of the sūtra together into a unified interpretive framework.
Prefaces
The text in the X32n0615 recension carries Zhìxù’s own framing of the lúnguàn genre. The work belongs together with Zhìxù’s Jiéyào on the Xuányì (KR6d0010) as part of his comprehensive late-Míng pedagogical apparatus on the Tiāntái Lotus tradition.
Abstract
Zhìxù’s Lúnguàn applies a yītǐ 一體 (“unified-essence”) synoptic framework to the Lotus Sūtra, presenting the entire text as a single integrated doctrinal architecture rather than as a sequence of chapters with distinct themes. The work’s distinctive contribution is its harmonisation of the Tiāntái kāiquán xiǎnshí / fājì xiǎnběn hermeneutic with the Pure Land yīniàn jíshēng 一念即生 (single-thought immediate-rebirth) doctrine, characteristic of Zhìxù’s broader Tiāntái-Pure Land synthesis.
The dating is bracketed within Zhìxù’s mature productive period after his entry to Mount Jiǔhuá in 1641 and before his death in 1655; the work is most plausibly placed in the period 1645–1655 when Zhìxù produced the bulk of his major Tiāntái productions (Fǎhuá lúnguàn, Fǎhuá huìyì, Yújiā jíyào, Línjì zōng pài bútú, Yuèzàng zhījīn).
Translations and research
See KR6d0010 for the bibliography on Zhìxù.
- Yu, Beverley Foulks McGuire. Living Karma: The Religious Practices of Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655). New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
- Shengyen 聖嚴. Mínmò Zhōngguó Fójiào zhī yánjiū 明末中國佛教之研究. Taipei: Dōngchū chūbǎnshè, 1987.
Other points of interest
The lúnguàn genre is one of Zhìxù’s distinctive scholastic productions: a synoptic interpretive framework that “threads” through the entire sūtra-text, allowing the reader to grasp the work’s overall doctrinal architecture before engaging with the more detailed phrase-by-phrase commentary. Zhìxù applied the lúnguàn method also to other Mahāyāna sūtras in his corpus, demonstrating the consistency of his late-Míng pedagogical project.