聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

楞嚴經懸談

4 min read

Text ID
KR6j0701
Date
1610–1646
Dynasty
明

Lèngyán jīng xuántán 楞嚴經懸談

Hovering Discussion on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra by 觀衡 (撰)

About the work

A short single-fascicle (1卷) prolegomena-essay (xuántán 懸談 — “hovering discussion”) on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra (KR6j0118) by Zhuānyú Guānhéng 顓愚觀衡 觀衡 (1579 – 1646), the principal documented Dharma-heir of 德清 Hānshān Déqīng and one of the most senior Línjì-tradition Chán masters of the late-Míng / early-Qīng transition. Preserved as X14 no. 293 in the Xùzàngjīng. The genre name xuántán parallels xuányì 玄義 (“profound significance”) and xuánshì 懸示 (“hovering demonstration”) in the late-Wànlì commentarial vocabulary.

Prefaces

The work opens directly with an exposition of the sūtra’s title: “Dàfódǐng Rúlái mìyīn xiūzhèng liǎoyì zhū púsà wànxíng shǒulèngyán jīng. The three characters Dàfódǐng — taking the place to name the dharma — manifest the dharma’s most-honored unsurpassed appellation. To say Dàfódǐng — that is, the supreme-most-honored, no-seeing flesh-knot mark among the Tathāgata’s thirty-two characteristics. Generally the Tathāgata’s whole body transcends the worldly and supramundane; even the foot-wheel mark also surpasses the worldly and supramundane. Therefore the nine realms’ holy-and-ordinary all bow-prostrate at the Buddha’s foot. The Buddha’s foot is already extreme-supreme — one can know that the Tathāgata’s thirty-two characteristics: the foot-wheel is at the lowest, the flesh-knot is at the highest. This crown-mark, then, is the no-supreme mark within the no-supreme [supreme] body of the Buddha’s whole body. Try to look within the three realms …” (大佛頂如來密因脩證了義諸菩薩萬行首楞嚴經。大佛頂三字。是以處名法。顯法尊極無上之稱也。言大佛頂者。即如來三十二相中。最極尊上無見肉髻相也。蓋如來全體超出世出世間。即足輪相。亦超越世出世間。故九界聖凡。咸頂禮佛足。是佛足巳極尊上。可知如來三十二相足輪在最下。肉髻在最上。是此頂相。乃佛全體無上軀中無上之相。試觀三界內 …).

Abstract

Guānhéng 觀衡, who took ordination at age 14 (1592) at the Wǔtái Yuánzhàosì 五臺圓照寺 and received the formal Dharma-transmission from Hānshān at the Héngyáng Húdōngsì 衡陽湖東寺 in 1616, was the principal Hānshān-line Línjì master of the seventeenth century. His commentarial corpus is extensive (preserved primarily in the Zǐzhúlín Zhuānyú Héng héshàng yǔlù KR6q0433 and other works). The Xuántán is a short prolegomena to the Lèngyán jīng in the prolegomena-genre established for the sūtra by Hānshān’s Xuánjìng (KR6j0685) — a fitting tribute by a Hānshān Dharma-heir to his master’s Lèngyán commentarial project. Doctrinally it is a Línjì-Chán reading focused on the sūtra’s Tathāgata-uṣṇīṣa / Dàfódǐng doctrinal core.

The dating bracket is set to 1610 – 1646, the productive period of Guānhéng’s commentarial career between his initial training under Hānshān (c. 1608) and his death in 1646. The Xuántán is most plausibly placed in the post-1616 (post-Hānshān-transmission) phase.

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) — discusses Guānhéng as Hānshān’s principal Dharma-heir.
  • Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford UP, 2008) — places Guānhéng in the late-Míng / early-Qīng Línjì-revival landscape.
  • No complete Western-language translation of the Xuántán located.

Graph View

Backlinks