Scriptural Exegesis and Doctrinal Authority in Late Ming Buddhism: The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Literati Interpretation, and Huayan Doctrinal Learning

During the late Ming period, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra 楞嚴經 became a prominent site for negotiating the relationship between scriptural interpretation, religious practice, and doctrinal authority. This article examines how literati, lay Buddhists, Chan-oriented readers, and scholastic monks participated in the interpretation of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, and how these interpretive activities reshaped the place of Huayan doctrinal learning (Huayan yixue 華嚴義學) within late Ming Buddhism. Rather than treating the sūtra merely as an object of commentary, the article argues that its reception reveals a broader contest over who could legitimately interpret Buddhist scriptures and define the proper relation between textual understanding and disciplined cultivation. Among literati readers, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra resonated with Yangming learning and Chan-oriented discourses of mind-nature (xinxing 心性), giving rise to modes of textual spirituality in which reading, intuitive insight, moral reflection, and claims to interpretive authority became closely connected. At the same time, monastic critics worried that such approaches risked detaching realization from precepts, practice, and doctrinal training. Against this background, Huayan doctrinal learning emerged as a crucial framework for interpreting the Śūraṅgama Sūtra and for reasserting the authority of doctrinal Buddhism. While Li Tongxuan’s 李通玄 (635–730) Huayan thought appealed to literati and Chan-oriented circles because of its flexible synthesis of Huayan and Chan, some scholastic monks increasingly emphasized Chengguan 澄觀 (738–839) as a more systematic doctrinal authority. By tracing these intersecting debates, this article shows that late Ming interpretations of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra were inseparable from wider efforts to renegotiate the authority of Chan, literati exegesis, and Huayan doctrinal learning in Chinese Buddhism.