Lèngyán jīng xuánjìng 楞嚴經懸鏡
The Hanging Mirror on the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 德清 (述)
About the work
A short single-fascicle (1卷) prolegomena-style synoptic essay on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118) by Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 德清 (1546–1623), one of the late-Míng “Four Great Masters” alongside 袾宏, 紫柏真可 (Zǐbǎi Zhēnkě), and 智旭. The title Xuánjìng 懸鏡 (“hanging mirror”) evokes the Lèngyán’s own Tathāgatagarbha-mirror metaphor for the inherently-luminous mind that reflects all phenomena without being moved by them. Preserved as X12 no. 277 in the Xùzàngjīng; together with KR6j0686 (Tōngyì lüèkē 通議略科) and KR6j0687 (Tōngyì 通議 proper) it forms Hānshān’s three-part Lèngyán commentarial corpus.
Prefaces
The author’s self-preface is a substantial late-Míng historico-philological essay on the textual problems of the Lèngyán, addressing two principal “doubts of indecision” (bùdìng zhī yí 不定之疑): “Xiàolèngyán — the great fixity’s general name. But of those who receive this sūtra in the world, there are two doubts of indecision. The first is: the transmission of the sūtra is uncertain. At the beginning of the Tang Shénlóng era, the triśrī-master Pramiti (Bānlàmìdì 般刺密諦) secretly took the Sanskrit slip-bundle, privately entered Guǎngzhōu, translated it, and bestowed it on Chief Minister Fáng Róng 房融. At the time his original country reproached his contravention of the prohibition; he took the slip-bundle and fled. Róng also presented it but it was not implemented. Externally, the Sanskrit original was without testimony; internally, the catalogues had lost the record. Already there could not but be doubt. And Zhìshēng 智昇 also said the śramaṇa Huáidí 懷迪 [Huáidí, the vinaya-master associated with the Lèngyán translation in the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù] met an Indian monk in Guǎngzhōu and together they translated ten fascicles, comparing it with Róng’s recension and finding no difference. So did Huáidí and Róng record at the same time? Zhìshēng’s record is not detailed-enough — how can we transmit-as-evidence? Considering: Fǎxiǎn 法顯 recited it in the Jin; Fǎcōng 法聰 held it in the Liang; Zhìyǐ [Tiāntái Zhìyǐ] could not see it in the Sui …” (首楞嚴者大定之總名也。而世之受此經者有不定之疑二焉。其一曰傳經不定。唐神龍初般刺密諦三藏潛將梵筴私入廣州譯而授房相國融。時本國責其違制持筴遁去。融亦奏上不行。外則梵本無徵。內則目錄失載。巳不能無疑。而智昇又謂沙門懷迪遇梵僧於廣州共譯十卷。校之融本並不差異。豈迪與融同時筆受耶。智昇所記不詳如此何以傳信。及考法顯誦之於晉。法聰持之於梁。智者不得見之於隋 …).
Abstract
The preface is a remarkable witness to late-Míng critical philological awareness of the Lèngyánsūtra’s textual-historical problems — anticipating the modern Mochizuki-Demiéville-Epstein hypothesis of Tang-period Chinese composition. Hānshān himself does not draw the conclusion that the sūtra is apocryphal but uses the philological doubts as a propaedeutic to a doctrinal-meditative reading that grounds the sūtra’s authority in its inner coherence rather than in its external transmission history.
The preface is dated Wànlì 25 = 1597 CE in the standard reception (corresponding to the period when Hānshān was at the Lóngshēngsì 隆生寺 / Lèizhōu 雷州 area, before his exile to Guǎngdōng); the work is one of the principal products of his middle-life period of intensive Lèngyán study before composition of the full Tōngyì (KR6j0687).
Translations and research
- Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1979) — the standard Western-language monograph on Hānshān, with discussion of his Lèngyán commentarial corpus.
- Pei-yi Wu, The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China (Princeton UP, 1990), chap. 4 — discusses Hānshān’s autobiographical writings as a window onto his Buddhist intellectual development.
- No complete Western-language translation of the Xuánjìng located.