Píní rìyòng qièyào xiāngrǔ jì 毗尼日用切要香乳記
A Fragrant-Milk Annotated Record on the Crucial Essentials of Vinaya for Daily Use by 書玉 (Shūyù, 箋記)
About the work
A two-fascicle late-Qīng running commentary on Jiànyuè Dútǐ’s Píní rìyòng qièyào (KR6k0224) by Yíjié Shūyù 宜潔書玉 (書玉, 1645–1722) of Zhāoqìngsì 昭慶寺 in Hángzhōu — Dútǐ’s principal personal-attendant disciple and the principal late-Qīng inheritor of the Bǎohuáshān Vinaya line. The title’s xiāngrǔ 香乳 (“fragrant milk”) metaphor designates the commentary’s task: just as fragrant milk nourishes the vinaya-novice, the jì explicates the gāthās and dhāraṇīs of the parent text and supplies their full canonical context.
Prefaces
(A) Xù 序, signed Kāngxī wùyín jiǔyuè Hǎiníng Yáng Yōngjiàn Yǐzāi tí yú Fúguòxuān 康熈戊寅九月海寧楊雍建以哉題於弗過軒 — i.e. 1698 (Kāngxī 37), 9th lunar month, by Yáng Yōngjiàn (1620?–1704), a Hǎiníng official-scholar. Yáng describes how Zhāoqìngsì’s Yíjié lǜshī (Shūyù) presented him a manuscript copy of the Xiāngrǔ jì during the Tóngyīn dīlù, guìshú piāoxiāng season (autumn). Yáng’s reading-praise: “Reading it through, I knew that he is profoundly versed in the Brahmāpitaka (i.e. Vinaya), specialised in the five piān and three jù (the prātimokṣa categories), enabling those of black robe and white to grasp this text — sustaining half a verse in each of the four postures, walking, sitting, lying, day after day without a break — and one shall see maṇi-jewel and Brahmānet radiance interreflecting; he truly does not betray the orthodox transmission of Bǎohuáshān.”
(B) Xù 序, a second longer doctrinal preface treating the universal scheme of jīnglǜlùn 經律論 (sūtra-vinaya-śāstra), the zēngshàng 增上 doctrines of precept-meditation-wisdom, and the standard èrshèng sānzàng 二乘三藏 framework.
Abstract
The Xiāngrǔ jì is the standard companion commentary for Píní rìyòng qièyào and the principal pedagogical reading-aid for the Bǎohuá / Zhāoqìng Vinaya tradition. Where Dútǐ’s parent text supplies the gāthā and dhāraṇī in skeletal form keyed to each daily activity, Shūyù’s jì unpacks (i) the canonical source of each verse (most often the Jìngxíng pǐn of Huáyán); (ii) the meaning of each dhāraṇī in transliterated and transposed form; (iii) the doctrinal point of the gāthā’s phrasing; and (iv) attendant ritual rubrics. The work transformed the daily gāthā recitation from a memorised set of formulae into a programme of doctrinal-meditative formation. Composition is bracketed by Shūyù’s tenure at Zhāoqìngsì (he was installed there shortly after Dútǐ’s death in 1679 and remained there until his death in 1722) and the date of the 1698 Yáng preface; notBefore–notAfter are accordingly set 1690–1698. The work is the principal late-Qīng witness to the Píní rìyòng tradition.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. Shūyù’s life and his Zhāoqìng abbacy are covered in the Wǔlín Dàzhāoqìng lǜsì zhì 武林大昭慶律寺志 juan 9, and discussed by Holmes Welch (Practice of Chinese Buddhism) in connection with the modern Chinese ordination tradition.
Other points of interest
- The 1698 preface by Yáng Yōngjiàn 楊雍建 — a Hǎiníng jìnshì (1655) and high-ranking Qīng official — preserves a noted lay-Buddhist endorsement of the Bǎohuáshān Vinaya line.
Links
- CBETA online: https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X1116
- 書玉 DILA
- Kanseki DB