Píní guānyào 毗尼關要
The Essentials of Vinaya by 德基 (Déjī, 輯)
About the work
A sixteen-fascicle early-Qīng commentary on the Sìfēn bǐqiū jièběn 四分比丘戒本 (KR6k0010) compiled by Dìngān Déjī 定菴德基 (德基, 1634–1700/01), third-generation patriarch of Bǎohuáshān Lǜzōng 寶華山律宗 and dharma-heir of 讀體 Jiànyuè Dútǐ. Guānyào 關要 (“the essential pivot”) indicates a comprehensive practical study-manual rather than a strict textual commentary. The work supplies a thorough phrase-by-phrase exegesis of the prātimokṣa in the early-Qīng Bǎohuáshān manner and is paired with the companion glossary Píní guānyào shìyì 毗尼關要事義 (KR6k0153).
Prefaces
The Manji edition opens with a xù by an unnamed admirer (the source preserves the prefatorial signature only as the contributor’s zìshù) recording that the work was completed after Déjī’s “more than twenty summers” of Vinaya study, and naming the southern transmission Sānmèi → Jiànyuè → Dìngān as the institutional chain at Bǎohuáshān. The Tiānhuá lǎorén 千華老人 (= Sānmèi Jìguāng) and Nánlái Jiànzhě héshàng 南來見者和尚 (= Jiànyuè Dútǐ) are named as Déjī’s lineage predecessors.
Abstract
The Píní guānyào is the principal early-Qīng Bǎohuáshān Sìfēnlǜ study manual, occupying for the early-Qīng monastic curriculum the position that Dàoxuān’s Sìfēnlǜ shānfán bǔquē xíngshì chāo 四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔 had occupied for Tang and Sòng Nánshān monks. It systematises the practical implementation of the prātimokṣa under the institutional conditions of the Bǎohuáshān ordination platform — the dominant Vinaya-school institution of early-Qīng China — and absorbs the late-Míng Vinaya scholarship of 智旭 (the KR6k0151 Chóngzhì píní shìyì jíyào) into a Bǎohuáshān framework. The companion Shìyì (KR6k0153) supplies the lexical and historical glosses for the names, places, and technical terms cited in the Guānyào. Composition cannot be precisely dated; it must postdate Déjī’s succession to the abbacy after 1679 (Dútǐ’s death) but precede his own death in 1700/01.
Translations and research
- Wáng Jiànchuān 王見川 et al., eds. Bǎohuáshān zhì 寶華山志 (modern reprint of the 寶華山律宗 institutional gazetteer).
- Wǔ Lǐmíng 吳立民 / 黃啟江 (Hsiao-Lan Hu): scholarship on early-Qīng Bǎohuáshān Vinaya revival.