Shìmén guījìng yí hùfǎ jì 釋門歸敬儀護法記
Notes Defending the Dharma in the [Reading of the] Liturgy of Refuge-and-Reverence in the Buddhist Order by 彥起 Yànqǐ (撰)
About the work
A subcommentary in three juàn (the catalog records “1卷” — the zǒngmù count, not the actual fascicle structure as the colophon and the preface both confirm three juàn; the present Xùcáng witness contains juàn 上 only) on Nánshān 道宣 Dàoxuān 道宣 (596–667)‘s Shìmén guījìng yí 釋門歸敬儀 (KR6k0182, T1896), composed by Yànqǐ (彥起) of the Yǒngjiā Chángníngsì 永嘉常寧寺 in Wēnzhōu and dated Shàoxīng 紹興 20 (1150) at the close of the summer-retreat. Author signature: Yǒngjiā Chángníngsì shāmén shì Yànqǐ shù 永嘉常寧寺沙門釋彥起述.
Abstract
Dàoxuān’s Shìmén guījìng yí (codified ca. 661, near the end of his life) had become the standard Vinaya-school manual for the rituals by which monastics and laity alike take refuge in and pay reverence to the Three Jewels, and Yànqǐ’s preface acknowledges Dàoxuān’s authority — “just as Confucius (Xuānní 宣尼) of Eastern Lǔ codified the rites, so the Vinaya-Patriarch of Nánshān clarified the dharma of refuge-and-reverence”. By the early twelfth century, however, the original text was felt to be obscure (wén gāo yì yuǎn 文高義遠), and earlier glosses — most prominently the Xuānhé 宣和 era schematic exegesis of Fànqí lǜshī 梵琦律師 — were judged incomplete. A senior member of Yànqǐ’s congregation pressed him to expand the schema; he obliged “after a single day’s lecture-session” and produced his three-juàn jì.
The work follows the standard Sòng-period exegetical scaffolding: title-analysis (tízhōng wǔzì 題中五字: distinguishing shìmén 釋門 = generic / guījìng 歸敬 = particular, with separate dào 道 and sú 俗 readings); analysis of the author’s name and titles (with brief biographical notes on Dàoxuān drawn from 李邕 Lǐ Yōng’s hángzhuàng 行狀 and the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (KR6r0054)); structural analysis of Dàoxuān’s ten chapters (shí piān 十篇); and then a sentence-by-sentence gloss in the standard kēpàn 科判 manner. The pedagogical apparatus is heavily Confucian-comparative — drawing on the Gōngyáng zhuàn 公羊傳 (KR1e0005), the Báihǔ tōng 白虎通 (KR3j0023), the Lèjì 樂記 (chapter of KR1d0052 Lǐjì), and the Ěryǎ 爾雅 (KR1j0001) — placing the guījìng rite within a broader Sòng lǐjiào 禮教 ritual programme.
The colophon notes that the master copy was jiàochóu dìngzhèng 挍讎訂正 against an East-Mountain Quányǒngsì Yúnlínyuàn 東山泉涌寺雲林院 manuscript brought back to Japan, and copied at the Xīnwángyuàn dōngliáo 心王院東寮 in Kanbun 寬文 9 (1669) by 宗覺 Zōngjué, with a further Japanese collation in Kyōhō 享保 2 (1717) by 慈元高淳 Cíyuán Gāochún of Jīnfēng 金峰. The X59n1094 exemplar is therefore an Edo-period Japanese reprint of a Sòng work transmitted via the Quányǒngsì 泉涌寺 line.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. Brief notice in Yáng Cǎojuān 楊曹娟, Sòngdài lǜxué chuánchéng yǔ Sìfēn lǜ shūchāo 宋代律學傳承與四分律疏鈔 (Sòng-dynasty Vinaya pedigrees and the Sìfēn lǜ shūchāo).
Other points of interest
- The Korean and Japanese transmission of Sòng vinaya subcommentaries on Dàoxuān is well attested by this work’s two-stage Edo collation: a 1669 hand-copy at Xīnwángyuàn and a 1717 collation by 慈元高淳 Cíyuán Gāochún at Quányǒngsì.
- Yànqǐ’s contemporary KR6k0253 Shìmén guījìng yí tōngzhēn jì 釋門歸敬儀通真記 by 了然 Liǎorán covers the same parent text from a Tiāntái angle; the two subcommentaries are best read in tandem as the principal Sòng exegesis of the Shìmén guījìng yí.
- The Fànqí lǜshī whose Xuānhé-era schematics Yànqǐ supersedes is unrelated to the better-known late-Yuán Chán master Chǔshí Fànqí 楚石梵琦 (1296–1370 — see 梵琦), and the present author was apparently a lǜ (Vinaya) specialist.