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弘戒法儀

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Text ID
KR6k0246
Date
1610–1635
Dynasty
明

Hóngjiè fǎyí 弘戒法儀

A Code for Promoting the Precepts by 法藏 (Fǎzàng, 輯)

About the work

A two-fascicle late-Míng ordination-and-precept compilation by Sānfēng Hànyuè Fǎzàng 三峰漢月法藏 (法藏, 1573–1635), the controversial Línjì-school Chán master and dharmaheir of Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟. The work attempts what its preface calls a three-school synthesis (sānzōng: chán 禪 / jiào 教 / lǜ 律) — i.e. a Chán-school production of an ordination manual that integrates Chán mind-transmission with the formal Vinaya code. Author signature in the preface: Fǎzàng 法藏.

Prefaces

The Hóngjiè fǎyí xù lays out Fǎzàng’s doctrinal-historical thesis and is one of the most striking documents of late-Míng chánlǜ polemic:

“At the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, the jīnlán kāṣāya 金襴袈裟 was bestowed upon Mahākāśyapa, and chán, fǎ (i.e. jiào), and lǜ were transmitted together. They are called zǔyìn (the patriarchal seal); for realmark of nomark (shíxiàng wúxiàng 實相無相), the wonderful mind of nirvāṇa — this is the cardinal point of the three schools.

After the Buddha’s nirvāṇa the Vinaya school did not awaken to the xīnzōng (mind-school), and tore the single bhikṣu-dharma into five subschools (i.e. the five mainstream Indian vinaya schools, Sìfēnlǜ, Wǔfēnlǜ, Shísònglǜ, etc.). The Chán school therefore transmitted the fǎ and the xīn (the dharma and the mind) but did not transmit the xiǎolǜ (Hīnayāna vinaya), saying that Hīnayāna did not know that Chánand-Vinaya are one school but vituperate each other.

… I myself first received the precepts at Yúnqī (i.e. Zhūhóng), then completed full ordination at Línggǔ (the Línggǔsì in Nánjīng), and again received the [bodhisattva] precepts at the Yúnqī stupa, with instruction at Yúnmén… I take pity on Chánpeople who slight vinaya and emphasise mind only, and on precept-masters who cling to xiāng (form) and lose the tǐ (substance). Since the jiètán (ordination platform) was closed, the procedural code has been lost; mutual mockery and difficulty in mediation. Without measuring my shallow vision, I sought to recover the old standards: I obtained an old lǜshī’s full-precept formula at Nántán, slightly amplified it; following the bodhisattva-precept formula in the Jièshū fāyǐn (Zhūhóng’s Púsàjièyì shū fāyǐn) I diligently completed it; I sought to bring the three schools — Chán, jiào, and lǜ — back to the single point of the realmark of nomark…”

Structural Division

The two-fascicle compilation gathers under one cover:

  • The three refuges, five precepts, eight precepts;
  • The tonsure rite (tìdù 剃度);
  • The ten śrāmaṇera precepts;
  • The bhikṣu upasampadā (the báisì jiémó with seven proofs);
  • The bodhisattva precepts;
  • And a zhūpǐn shuōjiè 諸品說戒 manual for the various levels of recitation;
  • Plus the Shāmí lǜyí yàolüè, Bǐqiū jiè běn, and Fànwǎng jīng in standard reading-order, the Suíjī jiémó of Dàoxuān as the bhikṣu discipline-rule, and Fǎzàng’s own Fànwǎng yīxiàn 梵網一線 in two fascicles as the Chán-Vinaya doctrinal core, plus the Fózàng jīng in four fascicles. The whole boxed-set was published as the Hóngjiè fǎyí.

Abstract

The Hóngjiè fǎyí is the principal late-Míng Chán-school ordination manual — produced by Fǎzàng before Dútǐ’s Chuánjiè zhèngfàn (KR6k0226) and before the systematisation of the Bǎohuáshān model. The work’s distinctive feature is its insistence on the Chán + Jiào + Lǜ trinity, which Fǎzàng grounds in the doctrine of shíxiàng wúxiàng (realmark of nomark). His insistence on this synthesis became one of the principal ammunition-points in the Yōngzhèng emperor’s later polemic against the Sānfēng line of Línjì Chán: in 1733 Yōngzhèng issued the Bāng zhì gào yǒng yán 揀魔辨異錄 (T2046) explicitly to denounce Fǎzàng’s heresy, and ordered the Sānfēng corpus including this work to be expunged from the canon — yet the work survived in Wànzìzàng witnesses. Composition is bracketed by Fǎzàng’s mature Sānfēngsì career and his death in 1635; notBefore–notAfter are accordingly 1610–1635.

Translations and research

  • Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford University Press, 2008) — foundational study of the Mìyún / Hànyuè lineage controversy that surrounds this work.
  • Yōngzhèng, Jiǎn mó biàn yì lù 揀魔辨異錄 (1733) — the imperial-issued anti-Fǎzàng polemic, partially aimed at material in the present work.

Other points of interest

  • The work was officially proscribed in the Qiánlóng canon (the 1735 Lóngzàng) under Yōngzhèng’s instruction; its survival in Wànzìzàng is therefore historically remarkable and reflects the persistence of the Sānfēng line’s underground transmission.
  • A companion piece is KR6k0247 Chuánshòu sāntán hóngjiè fǎyí, in which Fǎzàng’s procedural manual was later “checked-and-recorded” (jiǎnlù 檢錄) by the early-Qīng monk Chāoyuǎn 超遠 (超遠) at Pánlóngsì on Mt Zhōngnán.

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