Guānxīn lùn shū 觀心論疏
Subcommentary on the Treatise on Contemplating the Mind by 灌頂 (Guàndǐng / Zhāngān Guàndǐng, 撰)
About the work
A five-juan Suí-period subcommentary by 灌頂 Guàndǐng (561–632) on 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s Guānxīn lùn (KR6d0148, T1920). The work is the principal Suí-period subcommentary on the Guānxīn lùn and, more broadly, one of the few surviving Suí-period subcommentaries by Guàndǐng on his master’s works (most of Guàndǐng’s productive activity took the form of editing/recording Zhìyǐ’s lectures rather than independent subcommentary). Body attribution: Suí Tiāntái shāmén Guàndǐng zhuàn 隋天台沙門灌頂撰.
Prefaces
The text in the Taishō recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work opens with Guàndǐng’s structural framing: “The treatise has xù 序 (preface), zhèng 正 (principal), and liútōng 流通 (transmission) [sections]. From the initial Q. Buddha-sūtras [are] limitless downward, to four-month-one-year — having three-and-half pages — the treatise-text is entirely the xùfēn (preface-section). From Q. Contemplating self-arising mind, what is the four-fold non-expounding downward, to silent without word-speech having…”
Abstract
Guàndǐng’s Guānxīn lùn shū is one of the few independent Guàndǐng productions in the canonical apparatus and is consequently of substantial historiographical importance for documenting Guàndǐng’s mature exegetical work in his own voice rather than as a recorder of Zhìyǐ’s lectures. The work systematically expounds Zhìyǐ’s Guānxīn lùn through the Tiāntái scholastic apparatus, providing the standard Tiāntái interpretation of the guānxīn doctrine.
The composition is dated to Guàndǐng’s productive period after Zhìyǐ’s death (597) and before his own death (632), with a defensible bracket of c. 597–632.
Translations and research
- Penkower, Linda L. “In the Beginning … Guàndǐng 灌頂 (561–632) and the Creation of Early Tiāntái.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 23.2 (2000): 245–296. (Standard study of Guàndǐng’s productive role in the early Tiāntái tradition.)
- Penkower, Linda L. “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1993.
- Donner, Neal, and Stevenson, Daniel B. The Great Calming and Contemplation. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1993.
Links
- CBETA online text T1921
- Kanseki DB
- 灌頂 DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (620): T CBETA Taishō — Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932.