Léngqié jīng tōngyì 楞伽經通義
Penetrating Meaning of the Sūtra of Laṅkā composed by 善月 (Shànyuè, 述)
About the work
X323 in six fascicles is 善月’s Southern-Sòng Tiāntái-school commentary on [[KR6i0327|Léngqiéābáduōluó bǎo jīng 楞伽阿跋多羅寶經]] (T670). The genre is tōngyì 通義 (“penetrating meaning”): a programmatic exposition of doctrinal content rather than a phrase-by-phrase gloss, organising the parent sūtra’s teachings under thematic rubrics drawn from the late-Sòng Tiāntái scholastic apparatus.
Prefaces
The Taishō / Xuzangjing witness preserves at the head a Sòng-period preface by Jiǎng Zhīqí 蔣之奇 (1031–1104), the same preface that prefaces T670 in the Sòng print transmission. Jiǎng Zhīqí’s preface is dated to the late 1080s or 1090s; it forms a frontispiece to the Sòng Laṅkāvatāra edition that 善月’s commentary engages.
Abstract
善月 (1149–1241), Sòng Tiāntái-school master sobriquet Bótíng 柏庭, native of Dìnghǎi 定海, was successively abbot of major Tiāntái scholastic institutions (Dōnghú Biànlìsì 1180, Nánhú 1192, Shàngtiānzhúsì 1213), and a prolific commentator on the major Mahāyāna sūtras. The Léngqié jīng tōngyì is one of his mature works; date bracket follows his post-1180 productive period. As a Tiāntái commentary on a sūtra normally read through Yogācāra and Chán lenses, the Tōngyì is doctrinally distinctive: 善月 reads the Laṅkāvatāra’s eight-consciousness scheme through the Tiāntái xìngjù 性具 framework, and treats the meat-prohibition chapter as evidence for the Tiāntái precept-corpus.
Related canonical texts: parent sūtra KR6i0327 (楞伽阿跋多羅寶經 / T670).
Translations and research
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku: Konpon shisō to sono tenkai. Kyoto: Heirakuji, 1968. The standard study of the late-Sòng Tiāntái scholastic tradition.
- Tokiwa Gishin 常盤義伸. Ryōgakyō no kenkyū. Tokyo: Daitō, 1976.
No book-length English translation located.