Qǐxìn lùn xùshū 起信論續疏
Continued Commentary on the Awakening of Faith by 通潤 (Yīyǔ Tōngrùn, 述疏)
About the work
A two-juǎn late-Ming commentary on the Awakening of Faith by 通潤 (Tōngrùn / Yīyǔ, 1565–1624), the Lotus-Sūtra exegete from Dòngtíng Xīshān 洞庭西山 on Lake Tài. The title xùshū 續疏 (“Continued Commentary”) indicates that Tōngrùn presents his work as a continuation and completion of 法藏’s Yìjì KR6o0105 tradition, refreshed for a late-Ming readership.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not register Xùzàngjīng entries; the parent text is KR6o0078 (T32n1666).
Abstract
The opening zìxù offers a doxographic statement of remarkable clarity: “The Buddha taught countless dharma-gates, but if one summarizes their drift, all are the One Mind. If one lays out their tributaries, then there are three traditions: fǎxiàng 法相 (Yogācāra), pòxiàng 破相 (Madhyamaka), and fǎxìng 法性 (Tathāgatagarbha).” Tōngrùn then characterizes each: fǎxiàng posits the eight consciousnesses of arising-and-perishing, the five positions of the path, the hundred dharmas, the three natures, the two selves; its aim is gradual; it has six pāramitās to cultivate, ignorance to overcome, bodhi to attain. Pòxiàng relies on the silent quiescent one mind, manifests true nature directly, refuses to teach phenomenal characteristics, treats all things as merely deluded thought, all dharma-realms as wholly transcending speech. Fǎxìng, the position of the Qǐxìn lùn itself, opens both gates — zhēnrú (true thusness) and shēngmiè (arising-and-perishing) — and accommodates both perspectives within a single mind.
This three-part doxographic frame becomes Tōngrùn’s interpretive key: the Awakening of Faith is the canonical exposition of the third tradition (fǎxìng) and is read as the integrative completion of the polarised positions of fǎxiàng and pòxiàng. Composition window 1600–1624 covers Tōngrùn’s mature commentarial activity through to his death.
Translations and research
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia UP, 1981.
- Shèngyán 聖嚴. Míng-mò fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究. Taibei: Dōngchū, 1987.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Daijō kishin-ron no kenkyū 大乘起信論之研究. Tōkyō, 1922.
Other points of interest
Tōngrùn’s three-tradition doxographic framework anticipates the standard modern East-Asian Buddhist taxonomy of Tathāgatagarbha-Yogācāra-Madhyamaka, and demonstrates how late-Ming Buddhist authors increasingly treated the three Indian Mahāyāna positions as comparative-doctrinal alternatives rather than as the mere expedient sub-divisions assumed by the earlier commentators.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority (Tōngrùn): A001425