Shìmén guījìng yí tōngzhēn jì 釋門歸敬儀通真記
Notes Penetrating the True [Sense] of the Liturgy of Refuge-and-Reverence in the Buddhist Order by 了然 Liǎorán (述), with Japanese editorial collation by 慧光 Huìguāng (合)
About the work
A three-fascicle subcommentary by Zhìyǒng Liǎorán 智涌了然 (了然, 1077–1141, Hǔxī zūnzhě 虎溪尊者) of Xiāoshān 蕭山 (Hángzhōu region) — author also of the Dàshèng zhǐguān fǎmén zōngyuán jì (KR6d0153) — on Nánshān 道宣 Dàoxuān 道宣’s Shìmén guījìng yí 釋門歸敬儀 (KR6k0182). Author signature: DàSòng Xiāoshān shāmén shì Liǎorán shù 大宋蕭山沙門釋了然述. The X59n1095 witness is the late-Edo jiāzhù 夾註 (“interlinear”) edition prepared by the Japanese Vinaya master Huìguāng (慧光) of Cháorìshān 朝日山 (Luòběi 洛北 = north of Kyōto) — colophon dated Genroku 元祿 jǐsì 已巳 (= 1689) at the Mìyán dàochǎng 密嚴道場 (Luòxī 洛西), preface by Miàobiàn 玅辨; a second preface for a “newly carved” edition further records that the Japanese editor (named here bùkōng — perhaps another monk’s hào) collated several manuscripts to repair the heavily corrupted Sòng witness.
Abstract
The Tōngzhēn jì is the Tiāntái-line subcommentary on Dàoxuān’s Shìmén guījìng yí — a Sòng jì in the kēpàn 科判 plus interlineated-gloss style, organized around the zhǐguān 止觀 contemplative reading of the guījìng rite. Its standing among the Sòng exegetes is signalled by the second preface, which calls the work the principal complement to Yǒngjiā Yànqǐ’s Hùfǎ jì (KR6k0252): “there is the Yǒngjiā Vinaya-master Yànqǐ’s Hùfǎ jì in two juan elucidating its hidden depths, but readers wishing to see a complete book have not got one — and this defective state is precisely what the Tōngzhēn jì of the venerable Liǎorán in three juan, with its accompanying kēwén (chapter-divisions), supplies”. The two Sòng subcommentaries — Yànqǐ’s of 1150 and Liǎorán’s of the early twelfth century — are accordingly the standard pair in the post-Nánshān Vinaya pedagogical tradition.
Liǎorán’s exposition is distinctive for two doctrinal moves the prefaces flag: (a) he insists on the zhēnwù 真悟 (“true awakening”) zōng of the guījìng rite — viz. that the rite is in its contemplative dimension a zhǐguān practice, not merely a procedural decorum; and (b) he polemically rejects the Língzhī 靈芝 (元照 元照, 1048–1116) Vinaya-school reading of certain procedural fine-points — most prominently the ràofó ràotǎ zhī fāngguǐ 繞佛繞塔之方軌 (“rules for circumambulating the Buddha and the stūpa”). Liǎorán’s approach is thus characteristic of the Sòngdài Tiāntái lǜxué 宋代天台律學: the integration of Vinaya practice into a broader Tiāntái contemplative programme.
The original Sòng printing was poorly preserved; the colophon to juàn 下 records that 木菴如皎 Mùān Rújiǎo, abbot of the Zhāoqìng jiètán yuàn 昭慶戒壇院 in Shàoxìngfǔ 紹興府, oversaw a fresh carving in Kāixī 開禧 3 = 1207 — providing the textual base for the later Edo-period interlineated edition by Huìguāng. The X59n1095 exemplar is therefore Liǎorán (Sòng) → Mùān Rújiǎo (1207 carving) → Huìguāng / Miàobiàn (1689 Japanese collation) → present Xùcángjīng witness.
Translations and research
No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
- The catalog meta lists “1卷” but the source preface, the inner colophon, and the Xùcáng exemplar all give three fascicles (juàn shàng / zhōng / xià).
- Liǎorán’s polemic against the Língzhī Yuánzhào reading of the procedural rules makes the work a primary source for the Sòng-period contention between the Língzhī (Vinaya-line) and Tiāntái (Vinaya-zhǐguān-integrative-line) schools over the Vinaya textual heritage.
- Reading KR6k0252 (Yànqǐ, 1150) and the present work in tandem is the standard scholarly approach to the post-Nánshān Sòng-period reception of the Shìmén guījìng yí.