Léngqié jīng zuǎn 楞伽經纂
Compendium of the Sūtra of Laṅkā compiled by 楊彥國 (Yáng Yànguó, 纂)
About the work
X325 in four fascicles is 楊彥國’s Sòng-period lay-scholar compendium-cum-commentary on [[KR6i0327|Léngqiéābáduōluó bǎo jīng 楞伽阿跋多羅寶經]] (T670). The author styles himself Tàilǎo jūrén 太姥居人 (“Recluse of Mt Tàilǎo”, a peak in modern Fújiàn) — a self-presentation as lay Buddhist (居士) rather than monastic. The work is one of the comparatively few Sòng-period lay engagements with the Laṅkāvatāra commentarial tradition.
Prefaces
The Taishō / Xuzangjing witness preserves at the head 楊彥國’s own preface, which lays out a Chán-tradition framing of the Laṅkāvatāra: from Bodhidharma’s Língshān pòyán 靈山破顏 (the Buddha’s smile on Vulture Peak as the proto-typical yīyǒu cānxué / cānchán moment) through “Shàolín facing the wall” (少林面壁), the Chán-school transmits the “essence of mind” (心要) without recourse to written words. But because of corruption in transmission and the multiplication of dubious teachings, “our patriarch (= Bodhidharma) came from the West, pointing out the secret text and transmitting it together [with the mind-seal], so that as the world declines and the dharma is firmer, as men err the text yet remains.” 楊彥國 takes up the Léngqié compendium as a continuation of that Bodhidharma project. The preface’s reference to “Tiānzhú [India] and the broad land [China] being different territories with different speech and tones” frames the textual difficulty for a Sòng reader: even with goodwill, the modern reader must be guided through the parent text by an exegete.
Abstract
Date bracket follows the Sòng dynasty more conservatively (1100–1250); the absence of internal dating in the witness and the absence of biographical data on 楊彥國 beyond the Tàilǎo jūrén self-styling makes a finer date bracket unwarrantable. The work is one of two surviving recensions of 楊彥國’s text (the other is KR6i0342 / C1821, the Zhōnghuá-canon recension preserving 求那跋陀羅’s parent text head-line with Yáng’s quánzhù below). The doubled transmission is itself a notable feature; for the Sòng Laṅkāvatāra commentarial corpus the work is exceeded in scale only by T1791 (寶臣) and X323 (善月).
Related canonical texts: parent sūtra KR6i0327 (楞伽阿跋多羅寶經 / T670); parallel Zhōnghuá-canon recension KR6i0342 (楞伽經纂 / C1821).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.