Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní jīng shì 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經釋
Explication of the Buddhoṣṇīṣa-vijaya-dhāraṇī Sūtra by 續法 (釋)
About the work
A one-fascicle (1卷) commentary by Bótíng Xùfǎ 伯亭續法 續法 (1641–1728), the early-Qīng Huáyán-school revivalist, on the Fódǐng zūnshèng tuóluóní jīng 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經. Preserved as X23 no. 445 in the Xùzàngjīng. The work supplements the long-standing Tang-period commentary tradition (Fǎchóng’s Yìjì, KR6j0732) with a fresh Huáyán-school doctrinal reading.
Prefaces
The opening Yǐn 引 (introductory note) records the proximate occasion of the work: “In the huáng-Qīng imperial reign, Yúnqī Zhāng shàngrén 雲棲彰上人 雲棲彰, recording the dhāraṇī from a zūnshèng-chuáng 尊勝幢 dhāraṇī-pillar at the Xiángfú [-sì] 祥符, gathered together this dhāraṇī sūtra and raised funds to cut blocks for it but had not finished. Now in our locality the lay-Buddhist Zhāng Kāishì Zuǒpíng 張開士佐平 張佐平 suddenly saw a strange light; on the first day of the seventh month he came to ask my counsel; I urged him to print and distribute it widely.” Xùfǎ then narrates the ten-fold Tang-period translation history of the dhāraṇī, with dates: 佛陀波利 Buddhapālita’s first translation in Yífèng 1 (676), Tiáolù 1 (679), Yǒngchún 1 (682), Guāngzhái 1 (684), Chuígōng 3 (687), and others. Composition window: c. 1685 (Xùfǎ’s mature scholarly period) – 1728 (death).
Abstract
The Shì applies Xùfǎ’s characteristic Huáyán-school synthetic method to the Zūnshèng tuóluóní: doctrinal-textual reading, lineage-historical scaffolding, and integration with the Pure-Land devotional context (Xùfǎ being a major early-Qīng Pure-Land sympathizer alongside his Huáyán scholarship). Unlike Fǎchóng’s eighth-century Esoteric-school reading, Xùfǎ presents the dhāraṇī as a Mahāyāna devotional object with significant Pure-Land soteriological function — appropriate to the eighteenth-century reception of the Zūnshèng in Chinese popular Buddhism. Composition: c. 1685–1728.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.