Shèlì chànfǎ 舍利懺法
A Repentance Liturgy for the Buddha-Relics by 繼僧 (Jìsēng, 著)
About the work
A single-fascicle Qīng-period repentance liturgy (chànfǎ 懺法) compiled by Shēnqī Jìsēng 深栖繼僧 (also known as 聲碧 Shēngbì), a Tiāntái-mountain ascetic, at the Fúguó jīngshè 福國精舍 in Hánjiāng 邗江 (Yángzhōu region) in the spring of 1718. The liturgy takes the śarīra (shèlì 舍利, Buddha-relics) as the cardinal object of veneration and dhāraṇī recitation as its instrumental support: practitioners chant the Dà bǎo guǎngbó suíxīn tuóluóní 大寶廣博隨心陀羅尼 across forty-nine days of altar service to “extinguish all sin and fulfil all wishes.” Edited (校) by Dìngshān bǐqiū Yánzhāng 定山比丘嚴章.
Prefaces
The work opens with three prefaces. (A) Shèlì língyìng xù 舍利靈應序 (“Preface on the Numinous Response of the Relics”), signed Dà-Qīng Kāngxī wùxū zhōngqiū qián sānrì Láoshān Lǐ Zhào 大清康熙歲次戊戌中秋前三日勞山李照拜手書 — i.e. three days before mid-autumn, 1718. Lǐ Zhào recounts how, while visiting Fúguó jīngshè to consult Jìshēng chánshī 濟生禪師, he met Shēngbì héshàng 聲碧和尚, who described how a śarīra had appeared at the tip of his brush while he was copying the Huáyán jīng 華嚴經 in his own blood on Mount Tiāntái, and how a second auspicious cloud had appeared three days later. (B) Shèlì chàn yuánqǐ xù 舍利懺緣起序 (“Preface on the Origin of the Relic Repentance”), signed Hánjiāng Fúguó Yuándù 邗江福國元度. Yuándù (a fellow disciple of Jìsēng’s late teacher) describes Shēngbì’s blood-copying of the Huáyán, Fǎhuá 法華 and Lèngyán 楞嚴, the manifestation of the relics at the brush-tip while writing the Shíxìn 十信 chapter, and the establishment of the present chànfǎ by Shēngbì at Fúguó. (C) Zì xù 自序 (“Author’s Preface”), signed Gǔ-Wú Shēnqī Jìsēng zìshù 古吳深栖繼僧自述. The author dates his liturgical fast to a forty-nine-day altar held in 1718 (戊戌歲), at the conclusion of which (5th lunar month, full-moon day) the relics descended in answer to the assembly’s prostrations.
Abstract
The Shèlì chànfǎ is a relic-cult repentance manual produced in response to a specific late-Kāngxī devotional event at Fúguó jīngshè in Yángzhōu in 1718. The compiler Jìsēng (dates not precisely known; flourished early Qīng) had spent the years 1705–1718 secluded on Tiāntáishān copying Mahāyāna sūtras in his own blood; the manifestation of relics in his brushwork during the writing of the Huáyán’s Shíxìn chapter became the occasion for him to compose a structured chànfǎ organising the relic-cult around the suíxīn dhāraṇī. The work divides the rite into ten kē 科 (procedural sections). Composition is precisely datable to 1718 (Kāngxī 57) on the basis of the three contemporary prefaces; both notBefore and notAfter are set to that year. The DILA Buddhist Person Authority notes Jìsēng’s life-dates are not preserved beyond his own statements in this work’s prefaces.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- CBETA online: https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X1490
- 繼僧 DILA
- Kanseki DB