Huáyán jīng hé lùn jiǎn yào 華嚴經合論簡要
Concise Essentials of the Combined Edition of the Huáyán Scripture and the [Lǐ Tōngxuán] Treatise by 李贄 (Lǐ Zhì / Lǐ Zhuówú, 簡要 / abridged)
About the work
The Hé lùn jiǎn yào in 4 fascicles is the late-Míng abridgement of [[KR6e0066|Huáyán jīng hé lùn 華嚴經合論]] (X223, 120 fascicles) — the huì běn edition of the Avataṃsaka with 李通玄 Lǐ Tōngxuán’s commentary — by the major late-Míng Buddhist-syncretist intellectual 李贄 Lǐ Zhuówú 李卓吾 (1527–1602). The drastic compression — from 120 fascicles to 4 — reflects the work’s intended audience of educated lay Míng readers who needed a portable, readable introduction to Huáyán metaphysics rather than the full scholastic apparatus.
Prefaces
The work is preceded by the standard reproduction of 武則天 Wǔ Zétiān’s preface to the new (80-fascicle) translation, followed by Lǐ Zhuówú’s editorial preface (titled here “李長者華嚴經合論序”) explaining the rationale for the abridgement: to make Lǐ Tōngxuán’s reading of the Avataṃsaka accessible to a wider lay-Buddhist readership.
Abstract
The bracket adopted here (1580 – 1602) reflects the period of Lǐ Zhuówú’s mature Buddhist-syncretic activity, leading up to his suicide in 1602. The work is one of the principal documents of late-Míng lay-Buddhist intellectual culture: a major Confucian-trained intellectual making the central text of medieval Buddhist contemplative philosophy accessible to the educated reading public. Together with Lǐ Zhuówú’s other Buddhist writings (the [[焚書|Fén shū 焚書]]‘s Avataṃsaka-related essays, and the surviving correspondence with the contemporary Sānfēng Chán master Hànyuè Fǎzàng 漢月法藏), it documents the late-Míng confluence of Confucian-Buddhist learning that would shape the subsequent Qing intellectual landscape.
The work is preserved in the Manji Xù zàng jīng (X225) collection.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Handler-Spitz, Rivi. Symptoms of an Unruly Age: Li Zhi and Cultures of Early Modernity. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017. — The standard recent biography of Lǐ Zhuówú in English.
- Lee, Pauline C. Li Zhi, Confucianism and the Virtue of Desire. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012.
- Hamar, Imre, ed. Reflecting Mirrors (2007).
Other points of interest
- Lǐ Zhuówú’s choice of Lǐ Tōngxuán’s commentary (rather than Chéngguān’s) as the basis for his late-Míng abridgement is doctrinally telling: it reflects the late-Míng lay-Buddhist preference for the contemplative-philosophical reading of the Avataṃsaka over the scholastic-Huáyán-school reading.