This paper is devoted to the first Chinese commentary on The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, which was written in the eighth century. Although The Platform Sutra is the primary scripture of Chinese Chan Buddhism and has been widely cited in the Chinese Buddhist community, a commentary on The Platform Sutra was never written until Ding Fubao, a lay Buddhist scholar, in the twentieth century. This present paper is probably the first study which discloses the intention and the interpretative strategy of Ding Fubao in his commentary.