Jièshā sìshíbā wèn 戒殺四十八問
Forty-Eight Questions on the Precept Against Killing by 周夢顏 Zhōu Mèngyán / Zhōu Sīrén (述)
About the work
A one-fascicle Qīng-period anti-killing tract by Zhōu Mèngyán 周夢顏 (周夢顏, 1656–1739) — the famous Ānshì jūshì 安士居士 of Kūnshān 崑山 — written in the form of a forty-eight-question Buddhist–lay catechism against the eating of meat. Author signature: Kūnshān Zhōu Sīrén shù 崑山周思仁述 (Sīrén being the author’s zì). The text circulated as a freestanding work and as a constituent section of Zhōu’s larger Wànshàn xiānzī 萬善先資 anti-killing collection within the Ānshì quánshū 安士全書.
Abstract
The Jièshā sìshíbā wèn is the principal Qīng-period popular-religious anti-killing apologetic. The xù 引 (“preface”) frames the work in apocalyptic yīnguǒ 因果 (karmic-retribution) terms: the slaughter that humans inflict on animals is daily and unrelenting, and accumulates as the karmic lìqì 戾氣 (“malevolent atmosphere”) that produces successive shājié 殺劫 (“killing-kalpa”) of human catastrophe in the form of war and pestilence. Zhōu cites the 慈受懷深 Císhòu chánshī verse — “there is much killing in the world, and so the kalpa-of-the-blade arrives” — as the doctrinal frame; the work’s pedagogical task is to address the forty-eight typical lay objections to vegetarian / anti-killing practice and to convert the reader to the precept by reasoned demolition of those objections.
The forty-eight questions are organized into twelve thematic groups:
- Shēngwù yǎngrén 釋生物養人之疑 (5 questions): “Heaven-grew the animals to feed humans” — i.e. anthropocentric-providential objections.
- Sújiàn duànshā 釋俗見斷殺之疑 (6 questions): vernacular-customary objections (e.g., what would happen if everyone stopped killing? how would we eat?).
- Yèzhòng nánjiù 釋業重難救之疑 (5 questions): karmic-fatalism objections (people can’t escape their bad karma anyway).
- Hūnxuè dǎoshén 釋葷血禱神之疑 (3 questions): on blood-and-meat sacrifices to spirits.
- Xiǎngqīn jìzǔ 釋享親祭祖之疑 (4 questions): on Confucian ancestral sacrifices that involve animal slaughter.
- Yànbīn wéisú 釋宴賓違俗之疑 (1 question): on banquet etiquette.
- Gǔshèng jiàoshā 釋古聖教殺之疑 (2 questions): on classical-Confucian “sage” sanction of killing.
- Rénmín àiwù 釋仁民愛物之疑 (2 questions): on Mencian rénmín àiwù 仁民愛物 (love-the-people, cherish-the-things) and its scope.
- Yīnguǒ chābié 釋因果差別之疑 (6 questions): on the rules of karmic accounting.
- Wùyè yǒuwú 釋惡業有無之疑 (4 questions): on the question of whether sin (in this Buddhist sense) exists at all.
- Chízhāi duànròu 釋持齋斷肉之疑 (7 questions): on the practical questions of vegetarian self-discipline.
- Fólǐ nánxìn 釋佛理難信之疑 (3 questions): on the apparent implausibility of Buddhist doctrine to the educated lay reader.
The argumentative voice is recognisably Confucian-classical-citationary: Zhōu engages the Shūjīng 書經 (KR1b0001) (“Heaven-and-earth are the parents of the ten-thousand things, and humans are the spiritual essence of the ten-thousand things”), the Mèngzǐ (KR1h0001), and other classical sources, often turning their language back against the meat-eating Confucian interlocutor. The work also draws extensively from Buddhist sources: precept-conferral texts, Pure Land devotional verses, yīnguǒ miracle-stories, and the Cíbēi dàochǎng chànfǎ 慈悲道場懺法 (KR6k0198) vegetarian-confessional tradition. The closing sections turn from anti-killing apologetic to active Pure Land devotion: Línzhōng chímíng 臨終持名 (“recitation of the [Buddha-]name at the moment of death”) and Fāyuàn chànhuǐ chímíng 發願懺悔持名 (vow-making, repentance, and Buddha-name recitation).
The text contains anachronistic interpolations: a parenthetical Xiánfēng 咸豐 reign (1851–1861) anecdote signed by 蓮西居士 Liánxī jūshì — manifestly an editor of a later printing, since Xiánfēng era postdates Zhōu’s death by over a century — has been preserved in the Xùcáng exemplar.
Translations and research
- The Ānshì quánshū circulated in countless reprints throughout the Qīng and Republican periods. A modern critical edition is Ānshì quánshū jīnyì 安士全書今譯 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà chūbǎnshè, 2011).
- For the broader context of Qīng lay Buddhist yīnguǒ tract literature, see Yu-chen Li 李玉珍, Qīngdài jūshìfójiào 清代居士佛教 (Taipei, 2003), and the yīnguǒ tract literature sections of David Palmer and others’ work on Chinese popular religion.
- For the anti-meat-eating tradition specifically, see Vincent Goossaert, “L’interdit du bœuf en Chine: agriculture, éthique et sacrifice” (Bibliothèque de l’IHEC, 2005).
Other points of interest
- The Pure-Land devotional concluding sections (Línzhōng chímíng, Fāyuàn chànhuǐ chímíng) link the Jièshā tract to the larger Xīguī zhízhǐ 西歸直指 in the Ānshì quánshū, showing the editor’s strategy of combining ethical injunction with Pure-Land practice.
- The text’s address to specifically Confucian objections — citing the Shūjīng, Mèngzǐ, and Sòng lǐxué arguments — makes it a primary source for late-imperial Buddhist–Confucian dialogue at the popular level.
- The 蓮西居士 Liánxī jūshì editor’s Xiánfēng-era interpolation is a useful textual marker for dating the surviving Xùcáng exemplar’s print-history.