Léngqié jīng jīngjiě pínglín 楞伽經精解評林
Forest of Critical Evaluations on the Detailed Explication of the Sūtra of Laṅkā compiled by 焦竑 (Jiāo Hóng, 纂)
About the work
X333 in one fascicle is 焦竑’s late-Wàn-lì compilation of critical evaluations (pínglín 評林) on [[KR6i0327|Léngqiéābáduōluó bǎo jīng 楞伽阿跋多羅寶經]] (T670). The genre is anthological-critical: short critical comments by various commentators are arranged paragraph-by-paragraph alongside the parent text, allowing the late-Míng reader to engage the Laṅkāvatāra through a curated polyphony of voices.
Abstract
The Taishō / Xuzangjing witness preserves at the head only the catalog title-line (without the xù by 焦竑 that the Fǎhuá jīng jīngjiě pínglín in the same series carries). The first lemma cites Luó Zhěngān 羅整菴 (Luó Qīnshùn 羅欽順, 1465–1547), an important Wáng-Yáng-míng-school neo-Confucian — Luó’s Yīnzhī jì 因知記 declaiming that “Bodhidharma transmitted the Dharma to the Second Patriarch [Huìkě], saying the four-fascicle Léngqié can seal the mind. The sūtra was translated four times. The four-fascicle version is the Liú-Sòng translation T670; its expression is rather profound and difficult to read. That it issues from the Buddha is beyond doubt.” The next lemma cites Hángjiǎnzǐ 行簡子 enumerating the Laṅkāvatāra’s “four great gist-points” (大旨有四). The compilation thus brings together neo-Confucian and Buddhist voices on the same parent text — characteristic of 焦竑’s late-Míng literati Buddhist editorial method.
焦竑 (1540–1620) — zhuàngyuán of Wànlì 17 (1589) and one of the central literati patrons of the late-Wàn-lì Buddhist publishing renaissance, including the Jiāxīngzàng — is best known for his Fǎhuá jīng jīngjiě pínglín (KR6d0078) on the Lotus. The present X333 is the Laṅkāvatāra counterpart in the same generic register. Date bracket follows 焦竑’s post-jǐnshì productive period (1583–1620; the work is generally dated to the early 17th century, though without internal dating).
Related canonical texts: parent sūtra KR6i0327 (楞伽阿跋多羅寶經 / T670); 焦竑’s parallel Lotus-sūtra compilation KR6d0078 (法華經精解評林 / X612).
Translations and research
- Eichman, Jennifer. A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
- Wu Jiang. Enlightenment in Dispute. Oxford, 2008. Treats the late-Wàn-lì literati Buddhist scene of which 焦竑 is the central figure.
No book-length English translation located.
Other points of interest
The juxtaposition of Luó Qīnshùn (a Wáng-Yáng-míng-school Confucian critic of Buddhism) on the very first lemma of a Buddhist pínglín commentary is itself a striking late-Míng phenomenon: it shows a syncretic three-teachings reading practice in which Buddhist and Confucian xīnxué (心學) traditions could be cited side-by-side as exegetical resources for a Buddhist sūtra.