Shǒulèngyán yìshū zhùjīng 首楞嚴義疏注經
Annotated Sūtra-and-Commentary on the Significance of the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 子璿 (集)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) Northern-Sòng commentary on the Dàfódǐng rúlái mìyīn xiūzhèng liǎoyì zhū púsà wànxíng shǒulèngyán jīng 大佛頂如來密因修證了義諸菩薩萬行首楞嚴經 (KR6j0118, T19 no. 945) — the pseudo-Śūraṃgamasūtra in the redaction of the Tang translator-figure Pramiti 般剌密諦 (Bānlámìdì) and the literary polish of Fáng Róng 房融 (whose preface dates the translation to the 1st year of Shénlóng 神龍 = 705). The commentary is by Chángshuǐ Zǐxuán 長水子璿 子璿 (965 – 1038), the principal Sòng-period redactor of the Tang Huáyán-Chán synthesis tradition descended from Zōngmì 宗密 (780–841). The work is preserved as T39 no. 1799 and is the foundational Sòng commentary on the Lèngyánjīng — predating the Yàojiě 要解 of 戒環 by some seven decades and serving as the principal target of all subsequent Sòng-Yuán-Míng Lèngyán sub-commentary, both supportive (Huáiyuǎn’s Shìyào chāo KR6j0675, Sītǎn’s Jízhù KR6j0676) and critical (e.g., the Zhèngmài shū KR6j0683 of 真鑑).
Prefaces
The work opens with a substantial preface by Wáng Suí 王隨 (973 – 1039), Northern-Sòng official titled Zhōngsàn dàfū, shǒu yùshǐzhōngchéng, chōng lǐjiǎnshǐ, quánpàn lìbù liúnèiquán, shànghùjūn, Lángyá jùn kāiguó hóu, shíyì yīqiān jiǔbǎi hù shíshífēng èrbǎi hù, cì zǐjīnyúdài 中散大夫守御史中丞充理檢使權判吏部流內銓上護軍瑯琊郡開國侯食邑一千九百戶實食封二百戶賜紫金魚袋 — i.e., a senior member of the Sòng court at the height of his official career under Emperor Rénzōng. Wáng Suí (a jìnshì of Tàipíngxìngguó 太平興國 5 = 980, yóushǐ of the Yùshǐtái and later Right Vice-Director of the Department of State Affairs) is independently attested as a Buddhist patron and as Zǐxuán’s principal lay-aristocratic supporter. His preface frames the Lèngyán as “the great norm (hóngfàn 洪範) of the country of bamboo (zhúqián 竺乾, i.e., India), the precious canon of the Dharma-garden” (大佛頂密因了義首楞嚴經者。乃竺乾之洪範。法苑之寶典也), and provides a hagiographic narrative of the buddha’s compassionate teaching across kalpas. Through this preface and through Wáng Suí’s broader patronage, Zǐxuán’s Yìshū became the official Sòng-court-sanctioned commentary on the Lèngyánjīng.
Abstract
The Yìshū takes the form of a lemma-by-lemma running commentary (zhùjīng 注經) on the entire ten-fascicle sūtra, organized through Zǐxuán’s characteristic Huáyán doctrinal-classification apparatus: the sūtra is read as preaching the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine in alignment with the Awakening of Faith and Fǎzàng’s 法藏 Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn yìjì 大乘起信論義記, with explicit cross-references to Zōngmì’s Yuánjué jīng dàshū 圓覺經大疏. The commentary is doctrinally non-Tiāntái: rather than reading the Lèngyán through the zhǐguān 止觀 / sānguān 三觀 framework characteristic of the later huìjiě 會解 tradition (which becomes dominant from the Yuán Tiānrú Wéizé onward), Zǐxuán reads it through Zōngmì’s Tathāgatagarbha-centered HuáyánChán synthesis, foregrounding the sūtra’s identification of rúláizàng xīn 如來藏心 with the yīzhēn fǎjiè 一真法界.
The dating bracket is set to 1024 – 1030, the productive period when Zǐxuán was active at the Chángshuǐyuàn 長水院 in Hua-zhou 華州. The preface by Wáng Suí is undated in the transmitted text but is no later than the latter’s death in 1039; internal references and the Sòng Fózǔ tǒngjì 佛祖統紀 record place the work’s composition in the Tiānshèng 天聖 (1023–1032) era. The work was completed before Zǐxuán’s death in 1038. The standard Sòng catalogue Zhìyuán fǎbǎo kāntóng zǒnglù 至元法寶勘同總錄 lists the work and confirms its Sòng date of composition.
The work entered Japanese and Korean Buddhist scholastic curricula as the principal pedagogical commentary on the Lèngyán; it is the textual base of the substantial Sòng-period sub-commentarial corpus (Huáiyuǎn’s Shìyào chāo, Sītǎn’s Jízhù, etc.) and remained the standard reading-text of the Lèngyán through the Míng Tiānrú huìjiě tradition.
Translations and research
- Charles Luk (Lù Kuān-Yú) 陸寬昱, The Śūraṅgama Sūtra (Leng Yen Ching) (London: Rider & Co., 1966; Hong Kong: Buddhist Book Distributor, repr. 1973) — uses Zǐxuán’s commentary as one of its principal interpretative bases, although the translation is of the sūtra itself.
- James A. Benn, Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007) — discusses the Lèngyán commentarial tradition including Zǐxuán’s role.
- Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (Princeton UP, 1991), and Robert M. Gimello, “Mārga and Culture: Learning, Letters, and Liberation in Northern Sung Ch’an,” in Paths to Liberation, ed. Buswell and Gimello (Hawaiʻi UP, 1992) — both treat Zǐxuán’s editorial and commentarial work in the broader Sòng Huáyán-Chán synthesis.
- No complete Western-language translation of the commentary itself located.
Other points of interest
The Wáng Suí preface includes the distinctive Northern-Sòng court-style preface-genre device of expanding the official’s complete title as a witness to the work’s imperial / aristocratic patronage. Wáng Suí’s title-string here is one of the longest in the Sòng commentary corpus and is independently useful for prosopographic dating of his Lǐbù 吏部 / Yùshǐtái 御史台 service period.