Xīfāng yuànwén 西方願文
The Vow-Text for [Rebirth in] the Western [Pure Land] by 袾宏 (Yúnqī Zhūhóng, 著並釋)
About the work
A short single-juǎn devotional-doctrinal text consisting of (a) a vow-text (yuànwén 願文) for daily recitation by Pure Land devotees, expressing the practitioner’s resolve for rebirth in Sukhāvatī, and (b) a sustained commentary (shì 釋) by 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng 雲棲袾宏 (1535–1615) explicating the doctrinal content of the vow phrase by phrase. Composed during Yúnqī’s mature abbacy at Yúnqīsì 雲棲寺 in Hángzhōu.
Abstract
The base vow-text is concise — a few hundred characters in classical literary Buddhist style — but doctrinally comprehensive: it covers the practitioner’s profession of faith in Amitābha’s vows, the resolve to single-minded niànfó, the request for protection at the moment of death, the prayer for rebirth in the highest grade of the nine grades of Pure Land rebirth, and the bodhisattva resolve to return from Sukhāvatī to deliver sentient beings. Yúnqī’s commentary expands each phrase into a doctrinal exposition: the analysis of the four lands (sìtǔ) underlying the cosmology; the analysis of xìn 信 / yuàn 願 / xíng 行 (faith / vow / practice) as the threefold structure of Pure Land soteriology; the practical instructions for deathbed niànfó; and the bodhisattva-path implications of return-from-Pure-Land.
The Xīfāng yuànwén is one of Yúnqī’s most widely-circulated devotional texts and — together with the Wǎngshēng jí (his Pure Land hagiography), the Jìngtǔ yíbiàn KR6p0058 and the Dá sìshíbā wèn KR6p0063 — defines the standard Pure Land devotional repertoire of the late-imperial period. The vow-text itself was widely adopted as a daily devotion by lay-Buddhist Pure Land practitioners and continues in liturgical use in contemporary Chinese Buddhist communities. The commentary became the standard doctrinal exegesis. A substantial Qīng-period sub-commentary on the vow-text by 實賢 Shíxián is preserved as the Xīfāng fāyuàn wén zhù KR6p0087.
The text is preserved only in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 (X1160). No preface supplies a precise composition date; the bracket (1580–1615) covers Yúnqī’s mature period.
Translations and research
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia, 1981 — the Yuàn-wén discussed in the context of Yúnqī’s complete Pure Land programme.
- Eichman, Jennifer. A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
- Araki Kengo 荒木見悟. Yúnqī Zhūhóng no kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 1985.
Other points of interest
The vow-text continues in active liturgical use in contemporary Chinese Buddhist Pure Land communities, often recited as part of the daily zǎokè / wǎnkè (morning / evening) services. It is one of the few Yúnqī compositions that has retained an unbroken liturgical life from its sixteenth-century composition to the present.