Zhǐguān fǔxíng zhùlǎn 止觀輔行助覽
Reading-Aid for the Auxiliary-Practice of Cessation-and-Contemplation by 有嚴 (Yǒuyán / Zhāān Yǒuyán, 注)
About the work
A four-juan Northern-Sòng glossarial subcommentary on 湛然 Zhànrán’s Zhǐguān fǔxíng (KR6d0131, T1912) by 有嚴 Yǒuyán (1021–1101) of Tāizhōu — the same scholar whose Bèijiǎn (KR6d0009) and Jiānnán (KR6d0020) provide the parallel third-order subcommentaries on the Xuányì / Shìqiān and Wénjù / Wénjù jì commentarial chains. Together with these two, the Zhùlǎn completes Yǒuyán’s three-part Northern-Sòng glossarial apparatus on the entire Tiāntái triple-treatise commentarial chain.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Zhǐguān fǔxíng zhuànhóngjué zhùlǎn xù 止觀輔行傳弘決助覽序, signed Dānqiū shāmén Yǒuyán shù 丹丘沙門 有嚴 述. Yǒuyán writes: “Cessation-and-contemplation are the secret seal of all Buddhas. Formerly our patriarchal Chán-master [Zhìyǐ], with no-where-to-attach wisdom, attained it from the Wonderful-Dharma Lotus Sūtra. Later at Yùquán, the ninety-day compassionate-shower [Zhìyǐ’s lectures] — its meaning was deep-and-far, its text was vast-and-broad. Later students — without the profound-overview, observing transparently, eyes encompassing the whole text — could hardly reach its profundities. Now further, with the recording-text together with citations from sūtras, Vinaya, Confucian, Mohist, and various sayings — also difficult to understand. Fortunately by the lecture-occasion, [I] consequently checked-and-investigated other texts, then provided notes-and-explanations. Also assisting the mountain’s late-progressing student-readers’ strength; [I] do not say [I am] adding ungrounded-explanations like sifting chaff to blur others’ eyes. Folded into four [juan]…”
Abstract
Yǒuyán’s Zhùlǎn completes his three-part Northern-Sòng glossarial apparatus on the Tiāntái triple-treatise commentarial chain. Its method is parallel to the Bèijiǎn (KR6d0009) on the Xuányì / Shìqiān: glossarial annotation of obscure references, citations, and technical terms in Zhànrán’s Zhǐguān fǔxíng, drawing on Sòng-period scholastic resources unavailable to Táng-period readers.
The composition is dated, with Yǒuyán’s other glossarial works, to the late Yuánfēng 元豐 era (post-1078) through the early Jiànzhōngjìngguó 建中靖國 era (1101, the year of Yǒuyán’s death).
Translations and research
See KR6d0009 and KR6d0020 for the bibliography on Yǒuyán’s three glossarial works.
- Getz, Daniel A. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung, eds. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, 477–523. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
Other points of interest
The completion of Yǒuyán’s three-part glossarial apparatus — the Bèijiǎn on the Xuányì commentarial chain, the Jiānnán on the Wénjù commentarial chain, and the present Zhùlǎn on the Zhǐguān commentarial chain — provides the most systematic Northern-Sòng glossarial coverage of the Tiāntái triple-treatise tradition and is one of the principal scholastic productive achievements of the Sìmíng / Tāizhōu shānjiā lineage between 知禮 Sìmíng Zhīlǐ (960–1028) and the late-Northern-Sòng productive period.