Bā shí guījǔ sòng jiě 八識規矩頌解
Explication of the Eight-Consciousnesses Verses by 真可 (Zǐbǎi Zhēnkě, 述)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng commentary on the Bā shí guījǔ sòng 八識規矩頌 by 真可 Zǐbǎi Zhēnkě (1543–1603), one of the Wǎn-Míng sì dà gāosēng 晚明四大高僧 (“Four Great Masters of the Late Míng”) alongside 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng, 德清 Hānshān Déqīng, and 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0892. Authorship line: “Míng Zhēnkě shù 明真可述.”
Prefaces
No separate preface; the text opens directly with the first verse (“性境現量通三性”) and the running commentary. The Jiě is the most compact of the late-Míng guījǔ commentaries, presenting the text in lecture-note style without elaborate apparatus.
Abstract
The Bā shí guījǔ sòng jiě by Zhēnkě is one of the four Late-Míng “Great Master” guījǔ commentaries (alongside Hānshān’s KR6n0135, the parent revival commentary by Pǔtài KR6n0131, and Zhìxù’s KR6n0137). Zhēnkě reads the guījǔ concisely and from a Chán-flavoured perspective: each of the four 12-line verse-blocks (front-five, sixth, seventh, eighth) is given a short doctrinal exposition with attention to the practical implication of the analysis for meditation rather than to the philological detail. This makes the Jiě the least technical and the most accessible of the late-Míng guījǔ commentaries.
The dating window 1570–1603 brackets Zhēnkě’s productive monastic life. He died in 1603 in prison after being implicated in the Yāoshū 妖書 affair (one of the great late-Míng court-vs-Buddhist conflicts).
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究.
- Jonathan Pettit and Stephen Eskildsen, The Way of Heaven and Earth: Late Imperial Chinese Engagements with Buddhist Cosmology. (Various studies on Zhēn-kě.)
- Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China. Oxford UP, 2008 — covers Zhēn-kě’s place in the late-Míng monastic landscape.