Lèngyán jīng bǎojìng shū 楞嚴經寶鏡疏
“Precious-Mirror” Commentary on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra by 溥畹 (述)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) Huáyán-school commentary on the Śūraṃgama-sūtra (KR6j0118) by Lángǔ Pǔwǎn 蘭谷溥畹 溥畹, the Yúnnán Fǎjièsì imperial sūtra-lecturer. Preserved as X16 no. 316 in the Xùzàngjīng and also included in the Jiāxīng canon 嘉興藏. The work is the main book of which KR6j0722 (科文) and KR6j0723 (懸談) are the structural outline and prolegomenon. The metaphor bǎojìng 寶鏡 (“precious mirror”) signals an exegesis that presents itself as a clear reflective surface in which the doctrinal content of the sūtra can be seen without distortion.
Abstract
The Bǎojìngshū is one of the major mid-Qīng Huáyán-school commentaries on the Lèngyán: it stands alongside 通理 Tōnglǐ’s Zhǐzhǎng shū (KR6j0716) as the principal eighteenth-century continuation of the Xiánshǒu commentarial tradition initiated by Chángshuǐ Zǐxuán 長水子璿 子璿 in the Sòng. Pǔwǎn opens his running commentary at the canonical rúshì wǒwén 如是我聞 incipit and applies the standard Xiánshǒu method of unfolding each phrase first under the Five-Meaning Witness-of-Faith scheme (wǔyì zhèngxìn 五義證信: faith / hearing / time / lord / place) and then under the broader six-fold zhèngxìn including the audience. The Yúnnán institutional position behind this work is unusual: imperial appointment of a Jiāngnán native (Yángzhōu / Guǎnglíng) to the abbacy of a major Yúnnán monastery is a relatively rare instance of long-distance Buddhist patronage in the high Qīng. Composition: 18th century (Kāngxī through Qiánlóng).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The double publication (in both the Xùzàngjīng and the Jiāxīng zàng) attests to the work’s wide reception in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Buddhist circles.