Fǎhuá jīng kēshí xuántán juànshǒu 法華經科拾懸談卷首
Front-Matter Hanging-Discussion of the Sectional-Gleanings on the Lotus Sūtra sectional structure by 佛閑 Fóxián (Fóxián Xùyī, 立科); supplementary editing by 智一 Zhìyī (Xuědùn, 拾遺)
About the work
The opening front-matter (juànshǒu 卷首) volume of the three-text Fǎhuá jīng kēshí commentarial complex by 佛閑 Fóxián 佛閑 (also referenced as Fóxián Xùyī 佛閑勗伊大師) of the Pǔdésì 普德寺 in Nánjīng, with editorial supplementation by his disciple 智一 Zhìyī 智一. The three-text complex — this work (KR6d0092, front matter), the Kēshí kē (KR6d0093, sectional analysis), and the Kēshí proper (KR6d0094, main commentary, 7 juan) — represents the principal early-Kāngxī Nánjīng Buddhist contribution to the Lotus Sūtra commentarial corpus.
Prefaces
The text opens with Zhìyī’s preface dated Kāngxī yǐyǒu 康熙乙酉 (= 1705 CE). The xuántán 懸談 (“hanging-discussion”) in the title is a technical Buddhist scholastic term for the introductory doctrinal-historical exposition that precedes the running commentary on a text — analogous to the Tiāntái xuányì 玄義 framework but more discursive and less systematically organized.
Abstract
Fóxián’s Kēshí xuántán juànshǒu establishes the doctrinal-historical framework for the entire Kēshí complex: it provides the introductory exposition of the Lotus Sūtra’s place in the Mahāyāna canonical tradition, the principal interpretive issues, and the editorial method to be employed in the subsequent main commentary. The work is structurally parallel to other three-text commentarial complexes of the early-Qīng period (智祥 Zhìxiáng’s Shòushǒu complex, KR6d0087–KR6d0089; 大義 Dàyì’s Dàchéng complex, KR6d0084–KR6d0086).
The dating is securely fixed by Zhìyī’s 1705 preface, with composition presumably extending back through Fóxián’s late-Kāngxī productive period (c. 1700–1705).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.