Yúlánpén jīng shū zhézhōng shū 盂蘭盆經疏折中疏
Mediating Commentary on the Commentary on the Yúlánpén Sūtra commentary by 靈耀 (Língyào, 撰)
About the work
X378 in one fascicle is an early-Qīng commentary on the Yúlánpén jīng by 靈耀 (Língyào Quánzhāng 靈耀全彰), the same Qīng-dynasty Tiāntái-school exegete responsible for the Vajracchedikā commentary KR6c0081. The title 折中 (“mediating between extremes”) signals the work’s programmatic aim: to mediate between 宗密’s “old commentary” and 智旭’s “new commentary” (the Xīnshū), each of which 靈耀 judges to be one-sidedly excellent.
Abstract
The preface is unusually candid in its diagnostic: “予閱盂蘭盆新舊二疏而歎夫先賢之未得兼長也” (“I have read the New and Old commentaries on the Yúlánpén and lamented that the earlier worthies did not manage to combine the strengths of both”). 靈耀 then specifies the limits of each: “舊疏依經判釋，多約阿含事相，矩度井井，而未揭言外義趣” — Zōngmì’s Shū is methodologically careful and follows the sūtra closely, drawing on Āgama-style narrative exposition, but does not unfold the “meaning beyond words” (yánwài yìqù); whereas “新疏妙辯縱橫，文義富麗，理觀圓極，而似不合現文” — Zhìxù’s Xīnshū is dialectically masterful and richly written, doctrinally complete, but does not sit comfortably with the actual text. 靈耀 then critiques 智旭’s Tiāntái five-fold xuányì: in singling out fǎgòng 法供 (“Dharma-offering”) as the title-meaning, 智旭 discards the binomial 佛說 (“the Buddha-said”) that begins the title; in making xiàocí 孝慈 the tenet, he over-emphasizes circulation; in making the self-nature three-treasures the substance, he flattens the yuánsān jiětuō 圓三解脫 (“perfect threefold liberation”) doctrine. 靈耀 proposes a zhézhōng 折中 (“mediating”) commentary that supplements 宗密 with selective deployment of Tiāntái categories, without adopting 智旭’s wholesale Tiāntái substitution. Composition window: 靈耀’s active early-Qīng period, c. 1644–1700; no precise date is preserved.
Parent sūtra: KR6i0364 (T685). Other commentaries: KR6i0365 (Zōngmì T1792), Sòng cluster KR6i0367–KR6i0371, Míng KR6i0372 (智旭), Qīng KR6i0374 (元奇 Lüèshū 略疏).
Translations and research
- Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton, 1988.
No standalone Western-language study of this commentary located.