Sìmíng shíyì shū 四明十義書
Sì-míng’s Ten-Meanings Letter by 知禮 (Zhīlǐ / Sìmíng Zhīlǐ / Fǎzhì dàshī, 撰)
About the work
A two-juan (上 / 下) Northern-Sòng polemical-doctrinal letter by Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 (960–1028), articulating ten doctrinal positions against the shānwài 山外 tradition. The work is one of the principal shānjiā polemical instruments alongside the Zhǐyào chāo (KR6d0158) and the Èrbǎi wèn (KR6d0184).
Prefaces
The text opens with the Chóng-kè Sì-míng shí-yì shū xù 重刻四明十義書序 (“Re-engraving Preface”): “The Round-School contemplation-Way is vast, far, deep, and complete. Necessarily one must rely on the inheriting of the school-master’s opening-decision, and further oneself precisely select [it]; only thus can one well attain penetration. If not so, then renowned monks and senior elders still lose the proper road. Much less new-learning later-progressing — those not entering the false path are nearly few. Formerly Cí-guāng Ēn-shī [the shān-wài figure Cí-guāng Ēn-yán 慈光恩岳], also lecturing on the Avataṃsaka [Huāyán], not deeply [grasping] the original teaching, mistakenly used the other school [Huāyán]…”
Abstract
Zhīlǐ’s Shíyì shū systematically articulates ten doctrinal positions against the shānwài tradition, providing the most concentrated polemical statement of the shānjiā tradition’s doctrinal commitments. The ten positions concern the xìngjùè doctrine, the guānwàngxīn doctrine, the strict identity of xíng and jiào, and other contested points.
The composition is bracketed within Zhīlǐ’s mature productive period at the Yánqìngsì 延慶寺 in Sìmíng, c. 996–1028.
Translations and research
See KR6d0158 for the bibliography on Zhīlǐ and the shān-jiā / shān-wài polemic.
- Getz, Daniel A. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung, eds. Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, 477–523. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
- Ziporyn, Brook. Evil and/or/as the Good. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.