Lèbāng wénlèi 樂邦文類
Classified Anthology of [Texts on the] Land of Bliss by 宗曉 (Shízhī Zōngxiǎo, 編)
About the work
A five-juǎn anthology of Pure Land literature compiled in the early thirteenth century by the Southern-Sòng Tiāntái master 宗曉 Shízhī Zōngxiǎo (1151–1214). The work systematically collects scriptural passages, prefaces, postfaces, biographies, doctrinal essays, liturgical fragments, and other documentary material relating to Pure Land devotion across the Chinese tradition from Lúshān Huìyuǎn (334–416) through the late twelfth century. It is the most extensive single collection of Pure Land secondary literature in the Sòng canon and the principal documentary source for the modern reconstruction of Sòng-period Pure Land institutional and doctrinal history.
Abstract
The Lèbāng wénlèi is structured into thematic categories corresponding to the genres of Pure Land literature it collects: (a) scriptural extracts (jīnglèi 經類); (b) prefaces and postfaces (xùbá lèi 序跋類); (c) doctrinal treatises (lùnzhù lèi 論著類); (d) hagiographies and biographies of Pure Land patriarchs and exemplary practitioners (chuán 傳 / zhuàn 傳); (e) liturgical and devotional materials (chànyí lèi 懺儀類); (f) verse and gāthā material (sòng 頌 / jié 偈). Within each category, items are arranged chronologically. The total compass runs to several hundred individual texts, many of which survive only through their inclusion in the Wénlèi — making it a textual conservatory of considerable importance.
The work is also doctrinally significant for its embedded Pure Land patriarchate: Zōngxiǎo’s organisation of the Pure Land literature implicitly assumes a lineage running from Lúshān Huìyuǎn through Tánluán 曇鸞, Dàochuò 道綽, Shàndǎo 善導, Huáigǎn 懷感, Shǎokāng 少康, Yánshòu 延壽, and Xǐngcháng 省常 — the proto-form of the standard “five patriarchs” / “seven patriarchs” Pure Land lineage that would become canonical in the Yuán and Míng. This patriarchate-construction is the central historiographical achievement of the work.
The Taishō text is collated against the Korean canon and one Sòng-period palace edition. Dating: Zōngxiǎo’s preface is dated 嘉泰 4 (1204), placing the work’s completion in that year; the underlying compilation work was probably done over the preceding decade. The dating bracket adopted (1200–1204) reflects this.
The companion Lèbāng yígǎo 樂邦遺稿 KR6p0049 (T47N1969B), also by Zōngxiǎo, is a supplementary “remaining fragments” collection appended after the Wénlèi’s completion, gathering further Pure Land material that came to Zōngxiǎo’s attention later.
Translations and research
- Getz, Daniel A. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung. Hawai’i, 1999 — the standard treatment of Zōngxiǎo’s lineage construction.
- Sharf, Robert H. “On Pure Land Buddhism and Ch’an / Pure Land Syncretism in Medieval China.” T’oung Pao 88 (2002): 282–331.
- Mochizuki Shinkō, Chūgoku jōdo kyōrishi. Kyoto, 1942/1964.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “T’ien-t’ai’s Mo-ho chih-kuan and Pure Land Devotionalism.” In Buddhism in the Sung. Hawai’i, 1999.
Other points of interest
The Wénlèi is the principal source for the modern reconstruction of the early Pure Land patriarchate and is therefore a foundational document of Chinese Buddhist historiography. Many of the briefer Pure Land texts of the Tang and early Sòng survive in their only attested form within the Wénlèi; the work is therefore essential for textual-critical study of the entire pre-Sòng Pure Land corpus.