Yuánjué jīng jīngjiě pínglín 圓覺經精解評林
Forest of Critical Evaluations and Refined Explications of the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment by 焦竑 (Jiāo Hóng, 纂)
About the work
A 1-fascicle critical-evaluative anthology of glosses on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551) compiled by the late-Míng polymath 焦竑 Jiāo Hóng 焦竑 (1540–1620). The work is in the pínglín 評林 (“forest of critical evaluations”) format characteristic of the late-Wàn-lì literati commentary genre, which Jiāo Hóng helped popularise across the Buddhist canon. Each section of the sūtra-text is followed by a sequence of comments drawn from earlier commentators (chiefly 宗密 Zōngmì, but also 孝宗帝 Sòng Xiàozōng, 元粹 Yuáncuì, and others), with Jiāo Hóng’s own bǔzhù 補註 (supplementary notes) woven through. The result is a compact, classroom-and-private-study commentary aimed at the educated lay-Buddhist literati readership that was Jiāo’s principal audience throughout his Buddhist publications.
Abstract
The signature line at the head of the work — 太史漪園焦竑弱侯父纂 — identifies Jiāo by his court title (tàishǐ 太史, “Senior Historian”, his Hànlín appointment), his sobriquet Yīyuán 漪園, his given name Hóng 竑, his zì Ruòhóu 弱侯, and the kinship-honorific fù 父 (“father”); the editorial action is zuǎn 纂 (“compile”). The work has no autograph preface fixing its date; it must be earlier than Jiāo’s death in 1620 and most likely later than his 1589 zhuàngyuán attainment, which provides the conventional terminus a quo for his major literary publications. The active period 1589–1620 is therefore the appropriate compositional window; further narrowing is not possible from internal evidence.
The Jīngjiě pínglín is part of Jiāo’s extensive Buddhist commentary cycle, which also includes his KR6d0078 Fǎhuá jīng jīngjiě pínglín 法華經精解評林 (X31 no. 612) on the Lotus Sūtra. Jiāo’s pínglín genre as a whole reflects the late-Wàn-lì conjunction of literati intellectual culture and Buddhist publishing: extensive use of woodblock printing, anthological-critical exegetical method, and literati patronage of the monastic canon-publishing projects. Jiāo himself was a major patron of the Jiāxīngzàng 嘉興藏 project; his commentaries circulated in close interaction with that monumental publishing enterprise.
Translations and research
- Wǎn-Míng sīxiǎng shǐlùn 晚明思想史論 (Jí Wénfǔ 嵇文甫, 1944) and the broader literature on Wànlì literati Buddhism.
- Jiang Wu 吳疆. Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. — Treats the late-Míng / early-Qīng literati commentary genre.
Other points of interest
The Jīngjiě pínglín genre as a whole is one of the most distinctively late-Míng contributions to the Buddhist commentary tradition. Whereas medieval commentaries had been classroom or monastic-curriculum products, the pínglín anthology is a literati product, explicitly literary in tone, deliberately ecumenical in source-selection, and oriented to the private-study reading of sūtras by educated laypeople. Jiāo Hóng’s Yuánjué and Fǎhuá pínglín are the principal exemplars.