Qǐxìn lùn zhíjiě 起信論直解
Direct Explanation of the Awakening of Faith by 德清 (Hānshān Déqīng, 述)
About the work
A two-juǎn original direct commentary on the Awakening of Faith by 德清 Hānshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), distinct from his earlier abridgement of 法藏’s Yìjì (KR6o0117 shūlüè). The zhíjiě genre — “direct explanation” — is Déqīng’s signature commentarial format: short, didactically clear, designed for the practitioner rather than the scholastic.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not register Xùzàngjīng entries; the parent text is KR6o0078 (T32n1666).
Abstract
The Wàn-xù-zàng-jīng prints the text with Déqīng’s own preface, the Kè qǐ-xìn lùn zhí-jiě tí-cí 刻起信論直解題辭, which states the author’s pedagogical motive: “the Qǐ-xìn lùn was composed by the great master Aśvaghoṣa to refute the false views of Hīnayānists and outsiders. Drawing on a hundred sūtras of the Mahāyāna, he composed it to call forth right faith. Hence the treatise is grounded in the One Mind of the Dharma-realm, opens the two gates of true and false, exhausts the root of arising-and-perishing, fathoms the source of delusion-and-awakening, points the right path of practice, and shows the marvellous gate of zhǐ-guān 止觀 (calming and observation). In total it gathers more than 11,000 words; no principle is left unexpressed, no thing is not encompassed. It can truly be called the master-key of the great teaching, and the southern compass of the Chán school.”
Déqīng then explains why an abridgement was insufficient: “I once cut some of the prolixity of the original shū, calling it the shūlüè, and it has been carved at Shuāngjìng KR6o0117 — but in mountain seclusion I came to think that, since the Dharma-gate has fallen quiet and the lecture-podiums lie in disrepair, beginners have no master to lean on; if they cannot get to the Qǐxìn lùn through this treatise [the zhíjiě], they will have no way to enter the Mahāyāna and produce right faith.”
The composition is in zhíjiě style throughout: paragraph by paragraph, the Qǐxìn lùn text is quoted, and Déqīng’s gloss follows directly without intervening apparatus. The book became one of the most widely read late-imperial guides to the Awakening of Faith and circulated in several Qing reprints. Composition window: Déqīng’s mature commentarial period, c. 1590–1623.
Translations and research
- Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979.
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China. New York: Columbia UP, 1981.
- Shèngyán 聖嚴. Míng-mò fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究. Taibei: Dōngchū, 1987.
- Wu, Pei-yi. The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. — Discusses Déqīng’s autobiographical writings, with bearing on the dating of his commentaries.
Other points of interest
Déqīng explicitly distinguishes the zhíjiě format from the apparatus-heavy scholastic shū and jì of the Tang and Sòng commentators: it is intended for the xuérén 學人 (the practising student) rather than for the lecture-hall specialist. The format became one of the most influential late-Ming Buddhist commentarial genres; see the parallel Lèngyán jīng zhíjiě and other zhíjiě works in his corpus.