Léngqiéābáduōluó bǎo jīng zhùjiě 楞伽阿跋多羅寶經註解
Annotated Explication of the Treasure Sūtra of the Descent into Laṅkā co-annotated by 宗泐 (Zōnglè, 註) and 如玘 (Rúqǐ, 註)
About the work
T1789 in four fascicles is one of the three “imperially-decreed commentaries” (御製註解) of Hóngwǔ 11 (1378), produced by the Línjì Chán abbot 宗泐 (1318–1390) of the Tiānjièshànshìchánsì 天界善世禪寺 in tandem with the Tiāntái scholar 如玘 (1320–1385) of the Yǎnfújiàosì 演福教寺. The commentary is on [[KR6i0327|Léngqié ābáduōluó bǎo jīng 楞伽阿跋多羅寶經]] (T670, the four-fascicle 求那跋陀羅 Laṅkāvatāra) — the version of the Laṅkāvatāra with the strongest Chán-school affiliation.
Prefaces
The Taishō text preserves at the head a Qīnlù 欽錄 (imperial record): “On the tenth day of the seventh month of Hóngwǔ 11 (= 3 August 1378), the abbot of Tiānjièshànshìchánsì 宗泐 and the abbot of Yǎnfújiàosì 如玘 together with the Kǎogōng commissioner Lǐyǒng 李永 and others, presented the new Léngqiéjīng annotation at the West-China Tower (西華樓).” This is one of the most precisely datable Chinese Buddhist commentaries: the imperial record gives day, month, and year of the formal presentation to Tàizǔ 太祖 Zhūyuánzhāng 朱元璋.
Abstract
T1789 is paired with the Heart-Sūtra and Diamond-Sūtra commentaries that 宗泐 and 如玘 produced in the same Hóngwǔ 11 imperial commission (T1714 = the Heart-Sūtra commentary; the Diamond-Sūtra commentary). Their Laṅkāvatāra commentary is methodologically distinctive in two respects: (i) it is paragraph-by-paragraph, with the Sòng-period Chán reading of the sūtra (originating with Bodhidharma’s transmission to Huìkě) given priority over the Yogācāra-doctrinal reading characteristic of 菩提流支’s and 實叉難陀’s recensions; (ii) it is doctrinally syncretic, drawing on Tiāntái categories from 如玘’s scholastic background and Chán readings from 宗泐’s — characteristic of the late-Yuán / early-Míng cross-school synthesis.
The zhùjiě genre is markedly elementary by comparison with T1791 of 寶臣 (a Sòng commentary on T672), reflecting the imperial commission’s intended audience: monks and lay readers throughout the new Míng dynasty’s saṅgha rather than the Tiāntái or Chán scholastic specialist. The Hóngwǔ emperor’s preface (preserved in the Taishō and elsewhere) explicitly frames the project as making the Laṅkāvatāra widely accessible.
Note on names: the catalog meta records the second author with a Unicode private-use-area glyph (如); the standard form, confirmed by both the imperial record at the head of T1789 and by DILA Authority A000334, is 如玘 (Rúqǐ).
Related canonical texts: parent sūtra KR6i0327 (楞伽阿跋多羅寶經 / T670); paired imperial commentaries KR6c0141 (心經註解 / T1714) and the Diamond-Sūtra commentary T1703.
Translations and research
- Brose, Benjamin. Patrons and Patriarchs: Regional Rulers and Chan Monks during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2015. Provides background on the late-Yuán Chán tradition into which 宗泐 entered.
- Heller, Natasha. “Halves and Holes: Collections, Networks, and Politics in Yuan-Ming Buddhism.” Journal of Chinese Religions 39 (2011): 25–48. The Hóngwǔ programme of imperial Buddhist commentaries.
No book-length English translation located.