Dàzhì lǜshī lǐzàn wén 大智律師禮讚文
A Hymnody of Veneration for the Great-Wisdom Vinaya-Master by 則安 (Zéān, 述)
About the work
A single-fascicle Northern-Sòng lǐzàn wén 禮讚文 for the death-anniversary of Língzhī Yuánzhào 靈芝元照 (元照, 1048–1116), the Dàzhì lǜshī 大智律師 of the Nánshān Vinaya school in Qiántáng (Hángzhōu). Composed by Yuánzhào’s senior disciple Yánxiāng Zéān 巖香則安 (則安, dates not preserved). The full title-line reads Qiántáng Língzhī Dàzhì lǜshī lǐzàn wén (bìng xù) 錢唐靈芝大智律師禮讚文(并序). Author signature: ménrén Yánxiāng Liànruò Zéān shù 門人巖香練若 則安 述 (“disciple at the Yánxiāng āraṇya, Zéān, wrote this”).
Prefaces
Zéān’s own xù explains the genesis: “After the great master’s serene quiescence, fellow students entrusted me to compose a zànwén for the anniversary day. Years passed without my finding the leisure. Then one night I dreamed I entered a chamber where several monks were discussing my late master’s lifetime achievements; one suddenly said, ‘Sustaining what was tottering, upholding what was endangered, transmitting [the teaching] to the world and establishing the doctrine — his merit is not below that of the patriarchs. Why have you not written the eulogy?’ I awoke and chanced to set down a few couplets, and so this composition arose.” The work is therefore explicitly framed as a postmortem eulogy: Yuánzhào died in 1116, so Zéān’s zàn must postdate that.
Abstract
The Dàzhì lǜshī lǐzàn wén is the structural pendant of the three earlier Nánshān zǔshī lǐzàn wén (KR6k0207–KR6k0209): just as the Sòng masters Zhìyuán, Rényuè and Yǔnkǎn had composed zànwén for Dàoxuān’s anniversary, Zéān now composed one for Yuánzhào, his teacher and the Sòng-period restorer of the Nánshānlǜ school. The opening invocation runs Jīshǒu Língzhī jiàozhǔ Dàzhì lǜshī 稽首靈芝教主大智律師, and the eulogy stanzas walk through Yuánzhào’s signature achievements: his reception of the Nánshān lineage at Zhōngnán 終南; his reconstruction of the liǎngtán 兩壇 ordination platforms (“traversing the ages”); his sān jì 三記 — the three great Sòng commentaries on the fourpart vinaya (KR6k0167 Sìfēn lǜ xíngshì chāo zīchí jì, KR6k0173 Sìfēn lǜ jiémó shū jì, etc.); and his Pure-Land orientation. Composition is bracketed by Yuánzhào’s death (1116) and Zéān’s own floruit; notBefore is 1116, notAfter provisionally 1130 (Zéān was a senior disciple already at Yuánzhào’s death and would not have lived many decades thereafter). Zéān’s two other Nánshānlǜ pedagogical pieces are KR6k0159 (Jiémó jīng xùjiě) and KR6k0169 (Zīchí jì xùjiě bìng wǔlì jiǎngyì).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
- The zànwén is the principal liturgical commemoration of Yuánzhào preserved in the canon and gives a useful first-disciple framing of his zǔyè 祖業 (patriarchal achievements).
- The eulogy idiom — formal piántǐ 駢體 invocation alternating with chant-stanzas — is identical to Yǔnkǎn’s KR6k0209 Nánshān zǔshī lǐzàn wén, which Zéān was certainly using as a model.
Links
- CBETA online: https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/X1507
- 則安 DILA
- Kanseki DB