Lèngyán jīng mìlù 楞嚴經秘錄
Secret Records on the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 一松 (說), 靈述 (記)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) lecture-record commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118) consisting of the oral teachings of the late-Míng Tiāntái master Yīsōng dàshī 一松大師 一松 (lifedates and biographical details otherwise unrecorded) as recorded (jì 記) by his disciple Língshù 靈述 靈述 of Yǔxī 語谿. The title Mìlù 秘錄 (“secret records”) signals that the text preserves the inner-circle oral teachings that Yīsōng did not commit to writing himself. Preserved as X13 no. 283 in the Xùzàngjīng. Yīsōng’s other surviving teaching-record is the Fǎhuá jīng yǎnyì 法華經演義 (KR6d0091, X33n0625).
Prefaces
The work opens directly with the lecture-text, identifying speaker and recorder: “Tiāntái — Master Yīsōng — said: / Yǔxī disciple — Língshù — recorded: // ‘In explaining the sūtra, the great division is into two: 1. The title; 2. The sūtra-text. The first is again two: 1. Dàfódǐng etc. — the dharma-title; 2. Tángtiān etc. — the people-title. Now first explain the dharma-title. The title’s Dàfó etc. twenty characters constitute the entire sūtra’s general name. With respect to this single title, there is the general (tōng 通) and the particular (bié 別). In the particular title, the Dàfó etc. are established on the basis of the sūtra and not without reason. As later in the eighth fascicle, where Mañjuśrī requests the conclusion of the sūtra-name and the Tathāgata’s golden mouth himself proclaims — i.e., this single sūtra has five names …‘” (天台一松大師說 / 語谿門人靈述記 // 將釋以經。大分為二。初題目。二經文。初又二。初大佛下法題。二唐天下人目。今先釋法題。題中大佛等二十字。乃一經之總名也。就此一題有通有別。別題中云大佛等。乃據經而立。非無由也。如後第八卷中文殊請結經名。如來金口親宣。即此一經而有五種 …).
Abstract
The work preserves the late-Wànlì Tiāntái lecture tradition on the Lèngyánjīng in its most direct form — through Yīsōng’s actual classroom-teaching as transcribed by an immediate disciple. As such it is the textual analogue of 傳燈’s KR6j0689 Yuántōng shū, but with the closeness-to-the-master that characterizes a jì (record) rather than a free-standing shū (commentary).
Both the master’s biographical details and his exact dates are unrecorded — the preface to Xiǎoróu’s 曉柔 Xīnkè Fǎhuá yǎnyì xù 新刻法華演義序 confesses, with respect to the parallel Fǎhuá yǎnyì lecture-record, that “the Master is not known of what country he was, nor is his era clearly understood.” Yīsōng should not be confused with the better-known late-Wànlì Tiāntái patriarch Bǎisōng Zhēnjué 百松真覺 百松真覺 (1537–1589), the master of 傳燈 and 傳如. The dating bracket is therefore set provisionally to 1573 – 1620 — the broad Wànlì era within which the lecture-record is most plausibly placed.
Translations and research
- For the broader late-Wànlì Tiāntái revival in which Yīsōng’s Mìlù belongs, see Shèngyán 聖嚴, Míngmò fójiào yánjiū 明末佛教研究 (Taipei, 1987), chap. 2.
- No complete Western-language translation of the Mìlù located.