Qǐng guānyīn jīng shū chǎnyì chāo 請觀音經疏闡義鈔
Sub-Commentary “Explicating the Meaning” of the Commentary on the Qǐng guānyīn jīng by 智圓 (述)
About the work
A four-fascicle (4卷) sub-commentary by Gūshān Zhìyuán 孤山智圓 智圓 (976–1022), the principal Northern-Sòng shānwài 山外-school Tiāntái master, on Tiāntái 智顗 Zhìyǐ’s Qǐng guānyīn jīng shū (KR6j0729). Preserved as T39 no. 1801 in the Taishō. The sub-commentary recovers and re-transmits Zhìyǐ’s Shū, which in the post-Táng period had largely fallen out of active study.
Prefaces
The opening Qǐng guānyīn jīng shū chǎnyì chāo xù 請觀音經疏闡義鈔序 records Zhìyuán’s motivation: “From the time the Shū was expounded by the Wise One [Zhìyǐ] and recorded by Zhāng’ān [灌頂], no later master has been heard to praise or expound it. With the transmission’s voice ceased, later scholars have often been unaware of its name, or knowing the name have never opened the scrolls. This text is reduced to a single thread; that I, unworthy as I am, feel pained for it.” Zhìyuán recovered the text, organized its meaning into sections, and wrote it into a chāo 鈔 (sub-commentary) of two (or in the received recension, four) fascicles, “in order to clarify the cardinal purport and to enlighten the unschooled.”
Abstract
The Chǎnyì chāo is the principal Sòng-period sub-commentary on Zhìyǐ’s Qǐng guānyīn jīng shū and the textual vehicle by which Zhìyǐ’s commentary entered the Sòng-Yuán Tiāntái curriculum. Zhìyuán’s shānwài doctrinal orientation (emphasizing guānxīn 觀心) shapes the reading of the xiāofú dúhài 消伏毒害 dhāraṇī liturgy: he emphasizes the Avalokiteśvara invocation as a vehicle for guānxīn contemplation rather than as a primarily apotropaic ritual instrument. The work is a substantial document of the Sòng-period Tiāntái devotional revival centered on the Qǐng guānyīn and Lèngyán sūtras. Composition window: c. 1000 (Zhìyuán’s mature period at Gūshān) – 1022 (his death).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.