Jìngtǔ zhǐjué 淨土旨訣
Essential Instructions on the Pure Land by 道霑 (Dàozhān, 撰)
About the work
A short single-juǎn Pure Land doctrinal-pastoral handbook in the zhǐjué 旨訣 (“essential instructions / pithy formulas”) genre, composed by the Qīng-dynasty Pure Land monk 道霑 Dàozhān 道霑 (also written 道沾). The genre is characterised by its compressed, mnemonic register: short numbered points that summarise the doctrinal essentials of Pure Land cultivation in a form suitable for memorisation and oral transmission.
Abstract
The work covers the standard topics of mid-Qīng Pure Land devotional pedagogy: the doctrinal foundation in xìn 信 / yuàn 願 / xíng 行 (faith / vow / practice); the proper conduct of daily niànfó practice; the integration of niànfó with monastic discipline; the deathbed zhìniàn practice; the conditions and obstacles to rebirth; the pastoral guidance for ordinary practitioners. Each topic is presented as a numbered series of short instructions, with minimal exegetical elaboration — the work assumes the reader has access to the more substantial doctrinal texts of the late-Míng / early-Qīng tradition (Yúnqī’s Yíbiàn, the Ǒuyì Yàojiě, the Jìngtǔ shíyào anthology) and serves as a compact summary-handbook rather than a freestanding doctrinal treatise.
The work belongs to the mid-Qīng Pure Land popular-pedagogical tradition — the genre of short accessible Pure Land handbooks aimed at ordinary lay-Buddhist and junior-monastic readers — alongside 古崑 Gǔkūn’s three works (KR6p0085, KR6p0106, KR6p0107) and the various brief tracts attributed to Xǐng’ān Shíxián 實賢. It is preserved only in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 (X1171). No preface fixes a precise composition date; the bracket adopted (1700–1800) covers the most plausible eighteenth-century period.
Translations and research
- No substantial dedicated secondary literature located on the Jìng-tǔ zhǐ-jué itself.
- Goossaert, Vincent. “Late Qing Buddhist Lay Movements.” In Modern Chinese Religion II. Leiden: Brill, 2016 — for the broader Qīng Pure Land context.
- Welch, Holmes. The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1967 — for the institutional successor to the Qīng Pure Land culture.