Shū 書
Letter by 克勤 (Kèqín, the Míng abbot of Wǎguānsì, distinct from the Sòng Línjì master Yuánwù Kèqín, 著)
About the work
A short single-juan late-Míng letter (shū 書) by the Tiāntái monk Kèqín 克勤, abbot of the Wǎguān jiàosì 瓦官教寺 in Jiànkāng (Nánjīng), addressed to the Japanese Tendai abbot at Hieizan (the Yánlìsì 延曆寺 / Enryaku-ji). The letter is dated only to jiǔyuè yīrì 九月一日 (“9th month, 1st day”) with the year unspecified. Body attribution: Míng sēng Kèqín shū 明僧克勤書.
Prefaces
The text in the X57n0971 recension carries the standard front matter; the body opens with the salutation: “9th month, 1st day, the Wǎguān jiàosì abbot Kèqín, prostrating-twice, sends a letter to the Yánlìtáng [Enryaku Hall] abbot, the great Master attendant. The Way flourishes from acquiring the [right] person and decays from losing the [right] person. Affairs are accomplished from purposive activity and fail from non-activity — this is the certain discussion of past and present.”
Abstract
The letter narrates the institutional history of the Tiāntái-Tendai tradition from Zhìyǐ through the Tang transmission to Japan (via 最澄 Saichō and 道邃 Dàosuì) through the late-Tang persecution and the Sòng recovery. The work is one of the principal late-Míng documents of the Sino-Japanese Tendai institutional dialogue.
The text references Xīngdào zūnzhě (道邃 Dàosuì, the tenth Tiāntái patriarch and Saichō’s teacher), the Rìběn chuánjiào dàshī (最澄 Saichō), and the late-Tang collapse-and-recovery period — providing valuable late-Míng documentation of the Sino-Japanese Tendai institutional self-understanding.
The composition is bracketed within the Míng productive period (1368–1644).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The letter is one of the few late-imperial Sino-Japanese Buddhist correspondences preserved in the canonical apparatus and provides essential evidence for the continued Sino-Japanese Tendai institutional dialogue through the Míng period. Its preservation in the Manji-zoku canon attests to its institutional significance for the broader history of East-Asian Buddhist institutional exchange.