Jīngāngbēi lùn sījì 金剛錍論私記
Private Notes on the Vajra-Lance Treatise recorded by 明曠 (Míngkuàng, 記); collated by 辯才 (Biàncái of Japan, 會)
About the work
A two-juan late-Táng subcommentary on Zhànrán’s Jīngāngbēi (KR6d0175, T1932) recorded by Míngkuàng 明曠, with editorial collation (會 huì) by the Japanese Tendai monk Biàncái 辯才. The work is one of the earliest substantial subcommentaries on the Jīngāngbēi and provides important late-Táng documentation of the doctrine’s reception and elaboration.
Prefaces
The text opens with an editorial preface framing the Jīn-gāng-bēi doctrinal context: “The Jīn-gāng-bēi: it is the standard of the Round-Real teaching-and-contemplation, and the profound treatise that causes the multitude of the deluded to remove the cataract-membrane of ignorance and see the buddha-nature’s finger. The Mahāyāna various teachings: those propagating this purport — none flourished more than the twin-grove [Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra] supreme proclamation. But its text being vast, broad, scattered and sideways, also bringing-along provisional explanations, therefore those studying it sometimes obstructed by the mutual-fusion purport hesitated in the partial-fixity realm — is this not erroneous? The Jīngxī zūn-zhě [Zhànrán] painfully grieved at this; in one moment, in a dream-vision…”
Abstract
Míngkuàng’s Sījì is one of the principal late-Táng subcommentaries on Zhànrán’s Jīngāngbēi and provides essential documentation of the late-Táng Tiāntái scholastic reception of Zhànrán’s doctrine of the buddha-nature of insentient beings. The Japanese editorial work by Biàncái subsequently preserved and standardised the text for transmission through the Japanese Tendai library tradition.
The composition of the original Míngkuàng record is bracketed within his late-Táng productive period c. 800–850.
Translations and research
- Penkower, Linda L. “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1993.