Jīngāngdǐng dàjiàowáng jīng sījì 金剛頂大教王經私記
Private Notes on the Great-Teaching-King Sūtra of the Vajraśekhara (Jp. Kongōchō Daikyōō-gyō shiki) by 曇寂 (Donjaku, 撰)
About the work
A 19-fascicle scholastic commentary on the Vajraśekhara-sūtra (KR6j0024, T18n0865) by the Edo-period Shingon scholar Donjaku 曇寂 (曇寂, 1674–1742). The work is the most extensive early-modern Japanese commentary on the Vajraśekhara and a principal document of the Edo-period Shingon scholastic revival.
Abstract
The Sījì (Jp. shiki) genre — “private notes” — is a Japanese-Buddhist scholastic format in which the author’s lectures, marginalia, and exegetical observations are collected into a continuous commentary. For Donjaku, the Sījì on the Vajraśekhara represents the synthesis of the medieval Heian-Kamakura Shingon scholastic tradition with early-modern Edo-period systematic-doctrinal method. Its 19 fascicles cover the entire scripture in full verse-by-verse exegesis, drawing on:
- the foundational Tang Esoteric commentaries (Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū on the parallel Garbhadhātu scripture, and Amoghavajra’s various ritual codifications);
- Kūkai’s foundational Shingon exegesis (the Kongōchōgyō kaidai, KR6j0025);
- the medieval Heian-Kamakura Shingon scholastic apparatus;
- the Edo-period Shingon doctrinal systematics.
The work establishes the standard Edo-period Shingon doctrinal interpretation of the Vajraśekhara and remains a principal modern reference for Shingon scholarly engagement with the scripture.
The composition dates from Donjaku’s mature career, conventionally bracketed 1700–1742 (his death year). The work was published posthumously and entered the canonical Shingon scholastic apparatus in the late Edo period.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. (The Sījì is referenced in modern Japanese-language Shingon scholastic studies but has not been the subject of dedicated Western-language analysis.)