Lèngyán jīng xūnwén jì 楞嚴經熏聞記
Records of Hearing-and-Permeation on the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 仁岳 (述)
About the work
A five-fascicle (5卷) Northern-Sòng Tiāntáishānwài 天台山外 commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118) by Gūshān Jìngjué Rényuè 孤山淨覺仁岳 仁岳 (b. 992; death year unrecorded). The full title is Shǒulèngyán jīng jíjiě xūnwén jì 首楞嚴經集解熏聞記 — i.e., “Records of Hearing-and-Permeation on the Collected Explanations of the Śūraṃgamasūtra”; the xūnwén metaphor (vāsanā + śravaṇa, “permeation through hearing”) is drawn from the Lèngyán’s own ear-and-hearing-faculty doctrine (the ěrgēn yuántōng 耳根圓通 of the chapter on the twenty-five attainments of perfection). Preserved as X11 no. 269 in the Xùzàngjīng.
Prefaces
The work opens with a verse of refuge: “I take refuge in the Tathāgata-storehouse, / Manifesting the secret sūtra; / The teaching-master Śākyamuni, / Knower-of-all in dust-fields and lands; / Mañjuśrī, Ānanda, etc., / Bodhisattvas and worthy saintly assemblies; / In compassion that is unconditional …” (歸命如來藏。顯祕修多羅。教主釋迦文。塵剎遍知者。文殊阿難等。菩薩賢聖僧。惟以無緣慈 …). The colophon to the first fascicle identifies the author as Wúxīng shāmén Rényuè 吳興沙門仁岳 (“the śramaṇa of Wúxīng [Húzhōu], Rényuè”).
Abstract
Rényuè was originally a senior disciple of the Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 (知禮, 960 – 1028), the principal Tiāntái shānjiā 山家 master of the early Northern Sòng. After breaking with Zhīlǐ in the early 1020s over the shānjiā / shānwài polemic, Rényuè established himself at Gūshān 孤山 (the West Lake island in Hangzhou) and at Wúxīng as the principal voice of the shānwài 山外 (“off-mountain”) tradition. The Xūnwén jì is one of his major late-career works on a non-Tiāntái scriptural target, applying Tiāntái-method exegetical apparatus (the Wǔzhòng xuányì 五重玄義 framework, the zhǐguān 止觀 doctrinal grammar) to the Lèngyánjīng’s own ěrgēn yuántōng doctrine. The work is one of the earliest extant Tiāntái readings of the Lèngyán, predating the Tiānrú Wéizé Huìjiě tradition by some 250 years.
The dating bracket is set to 1030 – 1060, after Rényuè’s break with Zhīlǐ and during his productive Gūshān / Wúxīng period. He is reported productive into the late Northern Sòng but his death year is unrecorded.
Translations and research
- Brook Ziporyn, Evil and/or/as the Good: Omnicentrism, Intersubjectivity, and Value Paradox in Tiantai Buddhist Thought (Harvard University Asia Center, 2000), and Daniel Getz, “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate,” in Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz Jr. (eds.), Buddhism in the Sung (Hawaiʻi UP, 1999), pp. 477–523 — discuss Rényuè’s role in the shānjiā / shānwài controversy.
- No complete Western-language translation of the commentary located.