Yuánjué jīng zhíjiě 圓覺經直解
Direct Explication of the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment by 德清 (Hānshān Déqīng, 解)
About the work
A 2-fascicle commentary on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551) by the late-Míng master 德清 Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), one of the WǎnMíng sì dàshī 晚明四大師 (“Four Great Masters of the Late Míng”). The work is in Hānshān’s signature zhíjiě 直解 (“direct explication”) format — a programmatic departure from the dense scholastic apparatus of the 宗密 Zōngmì commentary tradition in favour of a clear, immediate, and rhetorically vigorous reading aimed at advanced lay practitioners and Chán students. Hānshān produced zhíjiě commentaries on a series of major Mahāyāna scriptures and treatises, of which the Lèngyán jīng zhíjiě 楞嚴經直解, Lèngqié jīng zhíjiě 楞伽經直解, and the present Yuánjué jīng zhíjiě are the principal Buddhist titles.
Abstract
The signature line at the head of the work — 明匡山逸臾憨山釋德清解 — places its composition in Hānshān’s late period at Lúshān 廬山 (= Kuāngshān 匡山, in Jiāngxī), where he resided after his 1606 partial rehabilitation following the 1595 Lǎoshān prosecution and Léizhōu exile. The work is therefore datable to the years 1606–1623, the late Wànlì 萬曆 / Tiānqǐ 天啟 period. Hānshān’s preface (preserved in his collected works Hānshān lǎorén mèngyóu jí 憨山老人夢遊集 even where the Xùzàng has trimmed the apparatus) explains his motivation as the recovery of the sūtra’s zhízhǐ 直指 (direct-pointing) intent from the encrustation of Sòng-and-Yuán scholastic commentary. The exegesis is brief, dense, and oriented to Chán practice: the threefold guān of the Mighty-Virtue chapter is read as a contemplative-practical instruction, and the twelve bodhisattva-dialogues are taken as a graded path to awakening rather than as a doxographical map.
The Zhíjiě has had broad influence in late-Míng and Qīng Buddhism and remains in continuous circulation. It is widely regarded as the most accessible of the major commentaries on the Yuánjué jīng and is the form in which the sūtra is read in most contemporary Chinese Buddhist practice communities.
Translations and research
- Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979. — Standard English-language study of Hānshān; treats his commentary corpus.
- Wú Lìmǐn 吳立民. Hānshān Déqīng zhuàn 憨山德清傳. Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà chūbǎnshè, 2003.
- Sheng-yen 聖嚴. Mingmo zhongguo fojiao yanjiu 明末中國佛教研究. Taipei: Dōngchū chūbǎnshè, 1987.
- Yü Chün-fang 于君方. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. — Treats Hānshān as part of the late-Míng Buddhist revival.
Other points of interest
Hānshān himself attributed his most decisive Buddhist awakening to his early reading of the Yuánjué jīng — see his autobiographical Mèngyóu jí — and the Zhíjiě may be read as the matured statement of a lifelong engagement with the text.