Yuánjué jīng lèijiě 圓覺經類解
Topical Explanation of the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment by 行霆 (Xíngtíng, 解)
About the work
A 4-fascicle commentary on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551) by the southern-Sòng monk 行霆 Xíngtíng 行霆 (hào Jìngān 鏡庵), compiled at the commission of the Wúxīng 吳興 layman 沈應辰 Shěn Yīngchén. According to the work’s own preface, Shěn Yīngchén had obtained from Xī Shǔ 西蜀 (western Sichuan) the lecture-notes (jiǎngyì 講義) of a master named 復庵 Fùān, who had used Guīfēng’s Lüèshū outline together with parallel passages from the sūtras, the masters’ (zǐ 子) writings, and Chán records to give a direct and accessible exposition of the sūtra’s meaning. To make these notes more useful for general readers, Shěn commissioned chuánjiào 傳教 shì Xíngtíng to “trim the redundant, fill in the gaps, and engrave printing-blocks for circulation” (削繁補漏刊版流通); because the result classifies the sūtra’s lemmas under topical headings and matches each of them with parallel scriptural and sub-canonical material that confirms the intent of the Lüèshū, the title was set as Lèijiě — “topical explanation”. The work opens with twelve summary verses, one per sūtra-chapter, framed as Xíngtíng’s own poetic synopsis of the threefold-and-twelvefold structure that Zōngmì had imposed on the text.
Abstract
Xíngtíng was a chuánjiào (a Tiāntái or Huáyán doctrinal preacher) of the southern Sòng. His specific lifedates are not recorded in standard biographical sources; the catalog assigns him to the Sòng dynasty without further specification. The composition window is bracketed here at circa 1200–1260 on the basis of the work’s reception in early-Yuán commentaries and on the nature of its reliance on the developed thirteenth-century Wúxīng / Líng’ān cultural milieu (Shěn Yīngchén being identifiable as part of the Wúxīng lay-Buddhist community of that period). The Sichuan master Fùān 復庵, whose jiǎngyì underlies the work, is otherwise undocumented and his identity is uncertain; he is sometimes tentatively identified with the Northern-Sòng Yúnmén-line monk Fùān Zōngyǎn 復庵宗演, but the evidence is inconclusive.
The Lèijiě is one of several southern-Sòng commentaries that aim to render the dense Zōngmì exegetical apparatus more accessible by the device of lèijiě — “topical explanation” — extracting the doctrinal substance of the Lüèshū and presenting it through the framework of parallel passages drawn from the Mahāyāna scriptural and Chán literature. It is a characteristic product of the southern-Sòng Buddhist scholarly culture in which lay patrons like Shěn Yīngchén commissioned monastic compilers to produce “user-friendly” canonical scripture-with-commentary editions for both monastic and educated lay use.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The opening twelve verses, each devoted to one bodhisattva-chapter of the sūtra, are an interesting specimen of southern-Sòng chánshī poetic theology and serve as a mnemonic outline of the sūtra’s argument. They are sometimes reproduced as an independent piece in later Buddhist anthologies.