Píní zuòchí xùshì 毗尼作持續釋
A Continued Commentary on the Vinaya Rules of Doing by 道宣 (Dàoxuān, 撰集), 讀體 (Dútǐ, 續釋)
About the work
A fifteen-fascicle early-Qīng commentary on Dàoxuān’s (道宣, 596–667) Sìfēnlǜ shānbǔ suíjī jiémó 四分律刪補隨機羯磨 (KR6k0019) by Jiànyuè Dútǐ 見月讀體 (讀體, 1601–1679), the principal early-Qīng Bǎohuáshān 寶華山 Vinaya-school revivalist. Zuòchí 作持 (“rules of doing”) indicates the karman / regulatory side of vinaya (paired with zhǐchí 止持, the rules of non-doing); xùshì 續釋 (“continued commentary”) signals Dútǐ’s editorial intent to revive the long-dormant Sòng zuòchí commentary tradition.
Prefaces
Dútǐ’s autograph xù, dated Kāngxī yǐsì (= Kāngxī 4 = 1665) “qián ānjū rì” (the day before the summer retreat), composed at Jīnlíng Bǎohuáshān Guānxī xuān 金陵寶華山觀西軒. The preface narrates the genesis of the work in extended detail. Dútǐ records that he received ordination at Rùnzhōu 潤州 in yǐhài 乙亥 (= 1635) and served his xiān lǎorén (= Sānmèi Jìguāng 三昧寂光, 1580–1645) in supporting Vinaya transmission throughout the empire. He repeatedly raised the question of zuòchí practice with Sānmèi, who replied that the Sìfēnlǜ 曇無德部刪補隨機羯磨 by Nánshān lǜzǔ 南山律祖 (Dàoxuān) was the canonical authority but had been “submerged for ages and difficult to revive in force”: Sānmèi charged Dútǐ to “expound it in future generations for the saṃgha.” After Sānmèi’s seclusion in yǐyǒu 乙酉 (1645), Dútǐ retreated to the mountain and produced the present Xùshì over twenty years, “burning lampwick to follow the sun, exhausting the Vinaya-piṭaka’s hidden subtleties, leading the saṃgha in personal practice, expounding the great norms of the jiémó.” The preface signature gives him as bǐní hòuxué Diānnán Dútǐ 毘尼後學滇南讀體 (“the Vinaya-junior Dútǐ of Diānnán” — Yúnnán in the south-west).
Abstract
The Xùshì is the principal early-Qīng Bǎohuáshān zuòchí commentary and the practical complement to Dìngān Déjī’s later Píní guānyào (KR6k0152) on the zhǐchí side. With its preface dated 1665 it is the earliest of the great Bǎohuáshān Vinaya works of the Kāngxī era and reflects Dútǐ’s twenty-year recovery of Dàoxuān’s karman tradition under conditions where (as Dútǐ explicitly notes in the preface) the zuòchí portion of the Vinaya had received “no expounder for several hundred years.” The work supplies guǎngqí shìfǎ shìqí yǐnwēi 廣其事法釋其隱微 (“amplifying the affairs and rules, glossing the subtle and hidden”) on each jiémó formula of the canonical Suíjī jiémó. The text is an indispensable witness to early-Qīng Vinaya pedagogy at its most institutionally consequential moment — the founding generation of the Bǎohuáshān Vinaya revival.
Translations and research
- Wáng Jiànchuān 王見川 et al., eds. Bǎohuáshān zhì 寶華山志 (modern reprint).
- Wǔ Lǐmíng 吳立民. Studies on the early-Qīng Lǜzōng revival.