Lǜyuàn shìguī 律苑事規
Procedural Regulations for the Vinaya Monastery by 省悟 Xǐngwù (編述), with editorial collation by 嗣良 Sìliáng (參訂)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (juàn) Yuán-dynasty Vinaya-school monastic code by Xīnyuán Xǐngwù 心源省悟 (省悟), abbot of the Yǎnzhōng lǜsì 演忠律寺 in Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō, modern Zhèjiāng), with editorial collation by his disciple Sìliáng (嗣良). Two prefaces frame the work: one by the Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì 翰林侍講學士 袁桷 Yuán Jué (1266–1327) — hào Qīngróng jūshì 清容居士, neighbour to the Kāiyuánsì 開元寺 ordination platform — dated Tàidìng 泰定 1 Zhōngyuánrì (1324); a second by an anonymous Hángzhōu Vinaya patron from the Míngqìng dàxìngguósì 明慶大興國寺 dated Tàidìng 2 (1325); and the author’s own postface, Tàidìng yǐchǒu zhōngyuán qián wǔ rì 泰定乙丑中元前五日 (= 10 days before the mid-summer festival, Tàidìng 2 = July 1325), in which Xǐngwù records that the work was a twenty-year compilation pursued at the urging of Hǔyán zōngzhǔ 虎巖宗主 of the Míngqìng 明慶 monastery.
Abstract
The Lǜyuàn shìguī is the principal Yuán-dynasty Vinaya-school monastic code, conceived as the Vinaya-school’s structural counterpart to 百丈懷海 Bǎizhàng Huáihǎi’s Chánlín qīngguī 禪林清規 (KR6r0050 / KR6r0049). Xǐngwù’s postface frames the project explicitly: “Bǎizhàng dàzhì chánshī cǎiqǔ lǜzhì yǐwéi chánlín qīngguī, jǔshì shèngxíng, ér wújiā lǜxuézhě jí bùjí yān” — i.e., Bǎizhàng’s Chán monastic code had taken over from Vinaya regulation and become universally adopted, leaving the Vinaya school itself without a parallel comprehensive procedural code. The Língzhī 靈芝 and Nánshān 南山 sub-commentaries, however brilliant doctrinally, did not codify xíngshì yíshì 行事儀式 (“the procedural ritual practice”); the present work supplies that lack.
The structure follows the Sòng qiānzì wén 千字文 fascicle-numbering convention (tiān, dì, xuán, huáng 天地玄黃 …) familiar from temple liturgy:
- Juàn 1 (天): Jiéjiè yí 結界儀 (rituals for delimiting the sīmā boundary).
- Juàn 2 (地, 玄, 黃): Luòfà yí 落髮儀 (tonsure); Shòujùjiè cèfā yí 受具戒策發儀 (preparing for full ordination); Shòu wǔjiè yí 受五戒儀 (lay five-precept conferral).
- Subsequent fascicles cover the bājiè 八戒, the bǐqiūní 比丘尼 ordination, the bùsà 布薩 fortnightly recitation, the zìzì 自恣 retreat-end confession, and the full ritual cycle including precept-recitation banners, processional protocols, and disciplinary procedures. The final fascicles include a Bèiyòng yàoyǔ 備用要語 (“Useful phrases ready-to-hand”) supplying the verbal formulae for each ceremony.
The literary register is consistently formal-prescriptive — describing each rite step-by-step as performed by named monastic offices, with citations to Vinaya authority for each disputed point. The work was widely circulated as the late-Yuán to Míng standard for Vinaya monastic ordination ritual, alongside the Chányuàn qīngguī tradition for the Chán monasteries.
The X60n1113 edition has all three prefaces (1113-A by Yuán Jué; 1113-B the anonymous Míngqìng preface; 1113-C the author’s postface) plus the ten-fascicle main text. The Yuán Jué preface is signed Qīngróng jūshì Yuán Jué — the catalog meta variant Yuán Jiǎo 袁捔 reflects a graphic confusion of 桷 with 捔 attested in the source.
Translations and research
- 今津洪岳 (Imatsu Kōgaku), 1953, Zhōngguó fójiào jiàotuán de zhìdù bìng yílǐ guānyú zhū wénxiàn de kǎochá 中國佛教教團の制度並に儀禮に關する諸文獻の考察 (其の一), Zen-gaku Kenkyū 禪學研究 44: 1–6 — the fundamental modern survey of Chinese Buddhist monastic-code literature, which discusses the Lǜyuàn shìguī as one of its principal subjects.
- T. Griffith Foulk, The “Ch’an School” and Its Place in the Buddhist Monastic Tradition (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1987) — comprehensively contextualizes Vinaya-school monastic regulation against the Chánlín qīngguī tradition.
Other points of interest
- The Lǜyuàn shìguī is the principal source for reconstructing the actual practiced Yuán-period Vinaya ordination ritual, distinguishing it both from the schoolroom-doctrinal Vinaya writings of the Sòng (元照 Yuánzhào, 了然 Liǎorán, 允堪 Yǔnkān) and from the Chánlín qīngguī tradition.
- Yuán Jué’s preface remarks that he had often attended ordinations at the Kāiyuánsì next to his Hángzhōu residence, and witnessed candidates “ascend the platform and collapse, unable to complete the proceeding” (dēng tán pūjué bùnéng zhōngshì 登壇仆絕不能終事) — a vivid first-person observation of the awe-inducing severity of the Yuán-period precept-platform ritual.