Lèngyán jīng tōngyì 楞嚴經通議
Comprehensive Discussion of the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 德清 (述)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) full lemma-by-lemma commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118) by Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 德清 (1546–1623) — the third part of his three-volume Lèngyán corpus, completing the prefatory Xuánjìng (KR6j0685) and Tōngyì lüèkē (KR6j0686). Preserved as X12 no. 279 in the Xùzàngjīng. The work is the most influential late-Míng commentary on the Lèngyán alongside 真鑑’s Zhèngmài shū (KR6j0683); together with Zhèngmài shū it defines the two principal late-Míng reform readings of the sūtra.
Prefaces
The author’s substantial self-preface to the Tōngyì: “The Lèngyánjīng is the great-totality-holding gate, the secret heart-seal of the buddhas and Tathāgatas. It comprehensively contains the entirety of the great Tripiṭaka teachings of the five periods and three vehicles, the holy and ordinary, the true and the false, the deluded and awakened, cause and effect — all dharmas without remainder. The grades of cultivation-and-attainment, the topsy-turvy conditions of birth-and-death — all are clearly displayed before the eye like looking at a fruit in the palm. It can be said to penetrate to the source of the one mind, to comprehend the principles of the myriad dharmas. There is no other [sūtra] surpassing this one in vastness and completeness. The Tathāgata, on account of one great cause-condition, appeared in the world; setting this aside there is no other guidance and direction. Therefore those who classify-the-teachings limit it to one period and one teaching — is this not ‘looking-at-tube and measuring-with-shell’? Since [the sūtra] entered the Middle Land, the explainers number more than ten houses. As for the Huìjiě, recently outside it, the zībái (monks) and white-robed [laity] have each brought forth hand and eye to spread it widely — not just one. The reverent-respect has reached its extreme; the planning-of-meaning has reached its depth. Yet to unfold the text and explain …” (首楞嚴經者。諸佛如來大總持門祕密心印。統攝一大藏教五時三乘聖凡真妄迷悟因果攝法無遺。修證邪正之階差。輪迴顛倒之情狀。了然目前如觀掌果。可謂澈一心之源該萬法之致無尚此經之廣大悉備者。如來以一大事因緣出現世間捨此別無開導矣。故判教者局於一時一教豈非管窺蠡測哉。自入中土解者凡十餘家。如會解之外近世緇白各出手眼而弘通者非一。崇尚巳極。刻意巳深。而披文釋 …).
Abstract
The Tōngyì presents Hānshān’s mature Wànlì–era reading of the Lèngyánsūtra: a syncretic Chán-Pure-Land–Huáyán-influenced reading that explicitly engages with the Tiānrú Wéizé Huìjiě tradition (the dominant late-Yuán to mid-Míng synthesis) and with the emerging Zhèngmài shū tradition of 真鑑. Hānshān’s distinctive contribution is to recover the practical-meditative dimension of the sūtra — particularly the ěrgēn yuántōng 耳根圓通 doctrine and the xiūxīn sānguān 修心三觀 — for monastic-and-lay practical Buddhism, rather than pursuing the polemical-doctrinal contestation that animates the Zhèngmài shū. The preface explicitly positions the Tōngyì against both the huìjiě tradition and the recent zībái (monk-and-laity) profusion of partial commentaries.
The dating bracket is set to 1597 – 1623, the productive period of Hānshān’s Lèngyán labors from the Xuánjìng preface (1597) to his death.
Translations and research
- Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing (Pennsylvania State UP, 1979) — the standard Western-language monograph; chap. 4 specifically discusses Hānshān’s Lèngyán commentarial corpus.
- Yü Chün-fang, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (Columbia UP, 1981) — discusses Hānshān within the broader Wànlì-era Buddhist revival.
- Shèngyán 聖嚴, Míngmò fójiào yánjiū 明末佛教研究 (Taipei, 1987), chap. 2 — Hānshān’s Lèngyán commentaries in the late-Míng Lèngyán commentarial network.
- No complete Western-language translation of the Tōngyì located.