Shòu púsà jiè fǎ 受菩薩戒法
Procedure for Receiving the Bodhisattva Precepts by 延壽 Yánshòu (集)
About the work
A one-fascicle bodhisattva-precept conferral manual compiled by Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽 (延壽, 904–975), abbot of the Huìrì Yǒngmíngsì 慧日永明寺 in the Wúyuè state and the principal post-Táng synthesist of Chán, Huáyán, and Pure Land doctrine. The author signature reads Dà Wúyuèguó Huìrì Yǒngmíngsì Zhìjué chánshī Yánshòu jí 大吳越國惠日永明寺智覺禪師延壽集 — “compiled by the Chán-master Zhìjué Yánshòu of the Huìrì Yǒngmíngsì of the Great Wúyuè kingdom”; the conferral title given on the inner verso is Fànwǎng púsà jiè yí 梵網菩薩戒儀 (“Bodhisattva-precept liturgy of the Fànwǎng jīng”), placing the work explicitly in the Fànwǎng 梵網經 commentarial tradition.
Abstract
The Shòu púsà jiè fǎ is Yánshòu’s bodhisattva-precept handbook, compiled while he was abbot of the Yǒngmíngsì under Wúyuè patronage (he assumed the abbacy in 961 and died in 975 — the work belongs to that fifteen-year window). Unlike the procedural-rite manuals of KR6k0248 (Huìsī attribution), KR6k0249 (Zhànrán), and KR6k0250 (Chéngzhào), Yánshòu’s work is structured not as a step-by-step karma-vācanā but as a doctrinal preface plus a long question-and-answer (wèndá 問答) catechism vindicating the bodhisattva-precept conferral against the standard objections then current in Wúyuè-region Buddhism. The opening doctrinal frame announces the work’s signature thesis: the bodhisattva precepts are the source of becoming Buddha (chéngfó zhī yuán 成佛之源) — quoting Fànwǎng “all sentient beings who receive the Buddha-precepts forthwith enter the rank of all the Buddhas” (眾生受佛戒即入諸佛位) — and equating jiè 戒 with the awakened nature of mind itself, on which the zōngjìng 宗鏡 doctrinal system rests.
The catechumenal questions then mounted address: (1) whether ordinary fettered worldlings (jùfú fánfū 具縛凡夫) may receive the bodhisattva precepts at all, given that the precepts are seen as the property of Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra; (2) whether, since sentient minds already possess the Buddha-precepts, the conferral rite is actually needed; (3) whether, given that worldlings will inevitably violate the precepts they receive, conferral is wise at all; (4) the meaning of the doctrine that bodhisattva-precept xìng is inexhaustible (wújìn 無盡); (5) how a bodhisattva-precept-recipient can be said to “violate”; and (6) the relation between bodhisattva-precept conferral and the simpler niànfó 念佛 path of Pure-Land birth — to which Yánshòu offers his characteristic chánjìng shuāngxiū 禪淨雙修 reply: niànfó alone leads to the lower nine grades of birth and a slow ripening, whereas precept-reception combined with niànfó secures the upper grades.
The work thus serves two functions simultaneously: it is a handbook for actual bodhisattva-precept conferral at the Yǒngmíngsì, and it is a doctrinal apologia for the bodhisattva-precept rite within the integrative zōngjìng program of Yánshòu’s larger oeuvre — the Zōngjìng lù 宗鏡錄 (KR6q0092), the Wànshàn tóngguī jí 萬善同歸集 (KR6q0093), and the Wéixīn jué 唯心訣 (KR6q0094).
A Korean bá 跋 colophon at the end of the work (No. 1088-A) — written by a filial son commemorating his deceased mother of the Lǐ 李 lineage — postdates Yánshòu by several centuries and shows the work circulated as a posthumous private-printing in the Koryŏ–Chosŏn Buddhist book economy. (The colophon names a Xìngānzháizhǔ 興安宅主, a Xiānfù Shùnpíngjūn 順平君, and the lay-donor name 朴天祥 Pǔ Tiānxiáng — all clearly Korean.)
Translations and research
- Albert Welter, Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu : A Special Transmission within the Scriptures (Oxford University Press, 2011) — the standard English-language monograph on Yánshòu, with substantial discussion of his precept-and-Pure-Land integrative program.
- Heng-ching Shih, The Syncretism of Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism (Peter Lang, 1992) — an earlier study foregrounding Yánshòu’s chánjìng shuāngxiū synthesis, of which the present text is a primary source.
Other points of interest
- Yánshòu’s signature Wúyuè kingdom + Yǒngmíng monastery + Zhìjué chánshī line is preserved verbatim in the source — a useful prosopographic anchor for dating.
- The Korean bá shows the Shòu púsà jiè fǎ circulated independently of Yánshòu’s larger doctrinal works on the Korean peninsula well into the late Koryŏ / Chosŏn period.
- The catechism format makes the work atypical for the bodhisattva-precept manual genre: contrast the procedural-rite structure of the parallel manuals at KR6k0248–KR6k0250.