Zhàolùn lüèzhù 肇論略註
Brief Annotations on the Treatises of [Sēng-]Zhào by 德清 (Déqīng, 述)
About the work
A six-fascicle late-Ming annotated commentary on Sēngzhào’s Zhào lùn (KR6m0038 T1858) by 德清 Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), the great late-Ming Buddhist reformer and one of the four pillars of late-Ming Buddhist revival. X873 is one of the principal late-imperial Chinese reflections on the Zhàolùn tradition and the major Ming-period engagement with pre-Tang Mādhyamaka literature. Composition falls in Déqīng’s late period (after his exile from Beijing and his establishment at Cáoxī 曹溪 / Mount Nányuè), c. 1606–1623.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not list this Xù zàngjīng witness; no structural-division block is given.
Abstract
X873 opens with a direct quotation of Huìdá’s preface to T1858, paraphrased and lightly annotated: “There is a beautiful person, transcending speech and tied to silence; in standing the foundation, every sentence deeply attains the Buddha-mind; in clarifying the end, every word universally penetrates the multitude of teachings.” 有美若人。超語兼默。標本則句句深達佛心。明末則言言備通眾教 — Déqīng then proceeds to expound the Zhàolùn’s doctrinal architecture under the headings “the great division of deep meaning is called běnwú 本無 [original non-being]; therefore the establishing of the school’s purport raises shíxiàng 實相 [the true mark]; opening up the way of empty dharma, none surpasses zhēnsú 真俗 [the true and the conventional]…” The opening is a tour-de-force of Ming-Buddhist literary doctrinal exposition.
The body of the commentary works through the four constituent treatises of T1858 in order, with substantial Chan-inflected doctrinal exegesis. Déqīng’s reading of the Zhàolùn fuses the earlier Sān-lùn-school exegesis (especially KR6m0039 T1859 by Yuánkāng) with mature Chán doctrine, producing a synthetic late-Ming reading that is one of the most influential modern interpretations.
The work was widely circulated in late-Ming and Qing-period monastic circles and became one of the principal pedagogical references on the Zhàolùn tradition. The brevity (六卷, manageable for a monastic curriculum) made it pedagogically attractive; the literary quality made it cited as much for stylistic as for doctrinal reasons.
Translations and research
- Hsu Sung-peng 徐頌彭. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1979. (Standard English study of Hānshān Dé-qīng; substantial discussion of X873.)
- Yi-li Wu. Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing: The Life and Thought of a Great Ming Buddhist Master. Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming. (Modern reassessment.)
- Liu, Ming-Wood. Madhyamaka Thought in China. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, ed. Jōron kenkyū 肇論研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1955.
Other points of interest
Hānshān Déqīng was one of the four pillars of the late-Ming Buddhist revival (alongside Yúnqī Zhūhóng 雲棲祩宏, Zǐbó Zhēnkě 紫柏真可, and Ǒuyì Zhìxù 蕅益智旭). His engagement with the Zhàolùn through X873 was one component of a much larger project of re-engagement with the entire pre-Sòng Chinese-Buddhist doctrinal tradition; his other commentarial projects on the Lánkāvatāra, the Awakening of Faith, and the Yuánjué jīng are similarly motivated.