Lèngyán jīng guànshè 楞嚴經貫攝
Threading-Together and Encompassing Commentary on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra by 劉道開 (纂述)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) lay-Buddhist commentary on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra (KR6j0118) compiled (zuǎnshù 纂述) by Liú Dàokāi 劉道開 劉道開 (sobriquet Fēiyǎn xiānshēng 非眼先生; Bājùn jūshì 巴郡居士) of Sìchuān/Chóngqìng during the early Kāngxī period. Preserved as X15 no. 303 in the Xùzàngjīng. The work’s title programmatically combines two complementary commentarial methods: guàn 貫 (“threading-together”), which weaves the diverse received interpretations into a single continuous reading; and shè 攝 (“encompassing”), which incorporates the broad range of sectarian (Tiāntái, Xiánshǒu, Chán) exegetical traditions into a unified whole.
Prefaces
The opening preface — by an unidentified compatriot of Liú — characterizes the Lèngyán as “the very crown of the Tathāgata’s teaching” and Liú as a sùxué jùrú 宿學巨儒 (“a deeply-learned eminent literatus”) who “lived in retirement and devoted himself to writing, with particular mastery of the doctrines of the Five Houses [of Chán].” The preface explicitly endorses Liú’s project of bringing the verbal-exegetical lineage (yìxué 義學) into accord with the direct-pointing wordless transmission (biéchuán 別傳), against the iconoclastic anti-textual gesture of 德山宣鑒 Déshān Xuānjiàn 德山宣鑒 (who had famously burned his 青龍疏鈔 Qīnglóng shūchāo 青龍疏鈔). The author’s own afterword, dated Kāngxī 6 dīngwèi 丁未, eleventh month, winter solstice (December 1667), narrates the twenty-seven-year arc of the project: in gēngchén 庚辰 (1640) Liú first encountered the 楞嚴經會解 Lèngyán huìjiě 會解 in Bĕijīng; in jǐchǒu 巳丑 (1649) he met the master Lízhǐ héshàng 離指和尚 at Jiālíng 嘉陵, who possessed a 合轍全本 Hézhé quánběn 合轍全本 (full transmission edition); in gēngyín 庚寅 (1650) he obtained additional materials and gradually compiled the Guànshè; “twenty-seven years front-and-back, and the great vow was at last fulfilled” (前後二十七年。而大願始畢).
Abstract
The Guànshè is one of the most ambitious early-Qīng lay-Buddhist Śūraṃgama commentaries, both in its quarter-century compositional span and in its programmatic ambition: to reconcile the proliferating sectarian commentarial traditions on the sūtra into a single integrated reading. Liú signs the prefatory and editorial materials Bājùn jūshì Fēiyǎn Liú Dàokāi zuǎnshù 巴郡居士非眼劉道開纂述. Composition window: 1640 (first encounter with the sūtra) – 1667 (completion).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.