Yī Guānjīng děng míng bānzhōu sānmèi xíngdào wǎngshēng zàn 依觀經等明般舟三昧行道往生讚
Verses for the Pratyutpanna-samādhi Circumambulation Practice of Pure Land Rebirth, Based on the Guān-jīng and Other Sūtras by 善導 (Shàndǎo, 撰)
About the work
A single-juǎn liturgical-meditative verse-cycle for the conduct of the bānzhōu sānmèi 般舟三昧 (Skt. pratyutpanna-samādhi, the “samādhi of standing in the presence of [the Buddhas of] the present”), composed by 善導 Shàndǎo as the third of his major Pure Land zàn compilations (after the Fǎshì zàn KR6p0074 and the Wǎngshēng lǐzàn jié KR6p0075). The verses are designed to accompany the xíngdào 行道 / circumambulation practice that constitutes the principal physical form of the pratyutpanna-samādhi — the practitioner walks continuously around the Buddha-image while reciting the verses and the Buddha-name, sustaining the practice through fixed periods of seven, twenty-one, or ninety days.
Abstract
The pratyutpanna-samādhi is the central meditative practice prescribed in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-sammukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra (《般舟三昧經》, the Bānzhōu sānmèi jīng, T418) and adapted by Lúshān Huìyuǎn 廬山慧遠 (334–416) for Pure Land devotional purposes — the historical root of the Chinese Pure Land tradition. By the Táng period the practice had been transformed by Shàndǎo into a fully developed liturgical-meditative observance, drawing also on the Guān wúliángshòu jīng 觀無量壽經 (the Guānjīng, the source of the title’s yī Guānjīng) for its visualisation framework. The Zàn supplies the verbal accompaniment to this physical-meditative practice: opening verses for entering into the xíngdào state; visualisation verses corresponding to the sixteen contemplations of the Guānjīng; zàn praise of Amitābha and the bodhisattvas of his retinue; closing verses for exiting the samādhi.
The work is therefore the third leg of Shàndǎo’s three-pronged liturgical programme: the Fǎshì zàn supplies the basic Pure Land devotional service (sūtra-recitation + circumambulation + vow); the Lǐzàn jié supplies the daily monastic observance (six-time devotion); and the Bānzhōu sānmèi zàn supplies the intensive retreat practice (the multi-day samādhi). Together these three works constitute the complete liturgical apparatus of seventh-century Chinese Pure Land Buddhism as Shàndǎo systematised it.
The Taishō text (T47N1981) is collated against the Korean canon and an original (原) variant. The dating bracket (660–681) covers Shàndǎo’s mature Cháng’ān period.
Translations and research
- Pas, Julian F. Visions of Sukhāvatī. Albany: SUNY, 1995.
- Harrison, Paul. The Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra Translated by Lokakṣema. Berkeley: BDK America, 1998 — the standard study and translation of the underlying sūtra.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “Pure Land Buddhist Worship and Meditation in China.” In Buddhism in Practice, ed. D. Lopez. Princeton, 1995.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-T’ai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu, 1986 — for the bān-zhōu in early Tiāntái.
Other points of interest
The Bān-zhōu sān-mèi practice is one of the few Chinese Buddhist meditative practices for which we have continuous historical documentation from the late Hàn (with Lokakṣema’s translation of the underlying sūtra in c. 179 CE) through the medieval and late-imperial periods to the present (where it is still practised in some monastic Pure Land retreats). Shàn-dǎo’s Zàn is the principal medieval liturgical document of this long lineage of practice.