Yuánjué jīng xīyì shū 圓覺經析義疏
Commentary “Analysing the Meaning” on the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment by 通理 (Dátiān Tōnglǐ, 述)
About the work
A 4-fascicle systematic Huáyán-school commentary on the Yuánjué jīng (KR6i0551) by the great Qiánlóng-era Huáyán scholar-monk 通理 Dátiān Tōnglǐ 達天通理 (1701–1782). The signature line — xiánzōng hòuxué Tōnglǐ shù 賢宗後學通理述 (“the latter-day disciple of the Sage-school Tōnglǐ recounts”) — declares Tōnglǐ’s institutional self-understanding as a successor to the Huáyán (賢首 xiánshǒu) tradition founded by Fǎzàng 法藏 (643–712). The work is the most systematic single Qīng-period commentary on the Yuánjué jīng and the principal late-imperial complement to the 宗密 Zōngmì exegetical apparatus.
Abstract
The work is preceded by a substantial dàyì 大義 (“general principles”) preface that sets out the doctrinal framework: the Yuánjué jīng is read as the liǎoyì 了義 (“definitive-meaning”) teaching that elucidates the originally pure mind-substance, with the threefold guān of the Mighty-Virtue chapter as the soteriological key. The commentary itself proceeds line-by-line, integrating Zōngmì’s SòngYuánMíng exegetical heritage with the developed Qīng Huáyán doctrinal apparatus — particularly the liùxiāng yuánróng 六相圓融 (“interpenetration of the six characteristics”) and shíxuán mén 十玄門 (“ten profound gates”) frameworks for which Tōnglǐ was the principal Qīng-era authority. The xīyì 析義 (“analysing the meaning”) method takes each phrase apart into its constituent doctrinal elements, identifies the relevant doxographical placement, and reassembles them in the synthetic Huáyán reading.
The work has no surviving autograph preface fixing its date; the catalog meta is silent. Tōnglǐ’s other major works — including his KR6c0075 Jīngāng xīnyǎn shū (completed 1765 per its preface) — are concentrated in his Qiánlóng-era middle and late periods. The Yuánjué jīng xīyì shū is therefore bracketed at circa 1750–1782, the latter half of Tōnglǐ’s productive career. It is the principal Qīng commentary on the Yuánjué jīng and was widely used in late-Qīng monastic curricula.
Translations and research
- Xīnxù gāosēng zhuàn 新續高僧傳 j. 10 (biography of Dátiān Tōnglǐ).
- Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. — Treats the late-Qīng Huáyán curriculum that descended from Tōnglǐ.
Other points of interest
Tōnglǐ’s distinctive contribution to Yuánjué exegesis is the systematic Huáyán-doxographical framing: where Zōngmì had argued for the integration of Chán and Huáyán, and where the late-Míng commentators (德清, 通潤, 寂正) had foregrounded the Chán-practical dimension, Tōnglǐ returns the Yuánjué jīng firmly to a doctrinal Huáyán reading — appropriate to his role as the principal Qiánlóng-era restorer of the Huáyán scholastic tradition. The xīyì method specifically prefigures the late-Qīng 楊文會 Yáng Wénhuì textbook tradition’s analytical approach to Buddhist scholastic study.