Xuědòu Xiǎn héshàng Míngjué dàshī sònggǔ jí 雪竇顯和尚明覺大師頌古集
The Sòng-gǔ Collection of Master Xuě-dòu Xiǎn (Zhòng-xiǎn), Míng-jué dà-shī by 釋重顯 (撰)
About the work
Xuědòu Xiǎn héshàng Míngjué dàshī sònggǔ jí 雪竇顯和尚明覺大師頌古集 is the SBCK 1-juǎn edition of Xuědòu Zhòngxiǎn’s 釋重顯 Sòng gǔ bǎi zé 頌古百則 (“Hundred Gāthā-Eulogies on Old Cases”) — the foundational text of the Chán / Zen kōan / gōngàn literary tradition. The catalog title in the SBCK distinguishes it from the broader poetic Zǔyīng jí KR4d0032; this is specifically the 100-zé corpus that Yuánwù Kèqín 圜悟克勤 took as the verse-substrate of the Bìyán lù 碧巖錄 KR6q0007.
Tiyao
No tíyào in source — the file is digitized from the SBCK base, which carries instead the preface by Yuǎn Chén 遠塵 (“the disciple Yuǎnchén compiled this”), with Tányù 曇玉 as the secondary editor. The SBCK preface narrates the line of Yúnmén Chán succession from Xuěfēng to Yúnmén, then to Xuědòu under whom in Tiānxǐ (1017–1021) the school first came to wide fame. Xuědòu was said to “answer the appointed time” — to “extend the patriarchal lineage” — selecting 100 of the most subtle past Chán encounters and producing eulogies in verse, which then “served the cause.” (The text given is the Bìyán lù’s case-and-eulogy substrate.)
Abstract
The 100 zé (cases) are gōngàn drawn from Tang-period Chán encounter dialogues — masters like Mǎzǔ 馬祖, Bǎizhàng 百丈, Yúnmén 雲門, Dòngshān 洞山, Zhàozhōu 趙州, etc. — each followed by a verse eulogy in Xuědòu’s hand. Xuědòu’s verse pendants explicate, complicate, or undercut the cases in a deliberately puzzling manner that became the kōan genre’s defining stylistic feature. The opening case (preserved in the SBCK file) is the famous Bodhidharma-Wǔ-dì exchange: “Emperor Wǔ asked Bodhidharma ‘What is the highest meaning of the holy truth?’ Bodhidharma said ‘Vast empty, no holy.’ ‘Then who is facing me?’ ‘I do not know.‘”
The collection’s transmission has two phases: the original Xuědòu manuscript circulated in Yúnmén monastic circles (the present SBCK 1-juǎn corresponds to this); then in Xuānhé 7 / 1125 the Línjì Yángqí master Yuánwù Kèqín, while teaching at Jiāshàn Língyǐn yuàn, used the Sòng gǔ bǎi zé as the basis of his oral jǔchàng 舉唱 (case-presentations and lectures), with student transcripts compiled into the Bìyán lù — the kōan-anthology format that became the principal genre of the entire later Chán / Zen tradition.
The dating bracket marks Xuědòu’s preface to the Zǔyīng corpus (1032) — under which the bǎi zé were composed — to the broad late-Northern-Sòng terminus ante quem of the SBCK underlying manuscript witness, which is pre-Bìyán lù (i.e. the bǎi zé in their original form before Yuánwù’s commentary).
Translations and research
- Cleary, Thomas, and J. C. Cleary, trans. 1977. The Blue Cliff Record. Shambhala. The standard English translation of the Bì-yán lù (with Xuě-dòu’s bǎi zé embedded).
- Sekida, Katsuki, trans. 1977. Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku. Weatherhill. Alternative English of the Bì-yán lù.
- Foulk, T. Griffith. 2000. “The Form and Function of Koan Literature.” In The Koan, ed. Heine and Wright. Oxford UP. Treats the genesis of the kōan genre with Xuě-dòu’s bǎi zé.
- Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高 et al. 1981. Setchō juko 雪竇頌古. Iwanami shoten. Standard Japanese annotated edition.
Other points of interest
This is the kōan-genre’s foundational text. Read separately from the Bìyán lù it is a Chán verse anthology; read with Yuánwù’s píngchàng / zhuóyǔ / cèyǔ commentary it is the kōanshū. The full Bìyán lù version is catalogued separately in the Buddhist canon at KR6q0007; the present SBCK Sònggǔ jí preserves the prose of the cases and Xuědòu’s verse eulogies without Yuánwù’s commentary.
Links
- Hekiganroku / Bi-yan-lu (Wikipedia)
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §54 (Sòng Chán).