Fǎhuá jīng zhǐzhǎng shū 法華經指掌疏
Pointing-the-Palm Subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra by 通理 Tōnglǐ (Dátiān Tōnglǐ / Chǎnjiào Chánshī, 述)
About the work
A seven-juan mid-Qīng (Qiánlóng-era) running subcommentary on the Lotus Sūtra by Dátiān Tōnglǐ 達天通理 (1701–1782), the principal mid-Qīng Beijing Buddhist scholar and Chǎnjiào Chánshī 闡教禪師. The principal substantive volume of the four-text Zhǐzhǎng shū complex (KR6d0095 sectional analysis; KR6d0096 introductory exposition; KR6d0097 main commentary; KR6d0098 matters-and-meanings glossary). The genre title zhǐzhǎng 指掌 (“pointing-the-palm”) indicates a commentary intended to make the Lotus Sūtra’s meaning as clear as if pointing to one’s own palm.
Prefaces
The text in the X33n0631 recension carries the standard front matter and proceeds with chapter-by-chapter exposition. The body attribution names Tōnglǐ as 述 (“composed”).
Abstract
Tōnglǐ’s Zhǐzhǎng shū is the most ambitious mid-Qiánlóng Lotus Sūtra commentary outside the imperial Lóngzàng canon project. The work draws on the Tiāntái commentarial tradition (智顗 Zhìyǐ’s Wénjù KR6d0014, 湛然 Zhànrán’s Wénjù jì KR6d0015), the late-Míng synthetic apparatus of 德清 Hānshān Déqīng and 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù, and the early-Qīng compendia of 智祥 Zhìxiáng (KR6d0089) and 大義 Dàyì (KR6d0085), synthesising these into a definitive Qiánlóng-era exposition.
Tōnglǐ was the most institutionally significant Beijing Buddhist scholar of the mid-Qīng. He was Chǎnjiào Chánshī under Qiánlóng imperial appointment and was responsible for the systematic Buddhist instructional curriculum of the high-Qiánlóng court. His four-text Zhǐzhǎng shū complex represents the institutional culmination of mid-Qīng Buddhist scholastic productive activity at the Beijing imperial court.
The dating is bracketed within Tōnglǐ’s mature productive period c. 1750–1782; the four-text complex was probably completed in the 1770s, after the major imperial canon project of the Lóngzàng (1738) had been completed and after Tōnglǐ had achieved his mature institutional position.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The four-text Zhǐzhǎng shū complex is the most comprehensive mid-Qīng Lotus Sūtra commentarial production and demonstrates the institutional vitality of high-Qiánlóng Beijing Buddhism. Tōnglǐ’s productive output in the broader Mahāyāna sūtra commentarial tradition — including parallel commentaries on the Avataṃsaka, the Awakening of Faith, and the Vajracchedikā — establishes him as one of the most institutionally significant late-imperial Chinese Buddhist scholars.