Jìngtǔ chénzhōng 淨土晨鐘
The Morning Bell of the Pure Land by 周克 (Zhōu Kèfù, 復纂)
About the work
A substantial ten-juǎn lay-compiled Pure Land anthology compiled (or re-compiled — fùzuǎn 復纂 — from an earlier version) by the early-Qīng lay-Buddhist scholar 周克 Zhōu Kèfù 周克復. The title — chénzhōng 晨鐘 (“morning bell”) — borrows the standard Buddhist metaphor for a doctrinal work that wakes the practitioner from spiritual slumber.
Abstract
The ten juǎn cover the standard topics of Qīng-period Pure Land anthological scholarship: scriptural foundations from the canonical Pure Land sūtras; doctrinal expositions drawn from the Tānluán 曇鸞 – Dàochuò – Shàndǎo 善導 – Yánshòu 延壽 – Yúnqī Zhūhóng 袾宏 tradition; hagiographical exempla of Pure Land devotees from across the Chinese tradition; practical instructions on daily niànfó, retreat practice, and deathbed zhìniàn; selected devotional verse and prayers; and pastoral counsel directed to lay-Buddhist householders. The anthological method is characteristically Qīng — comprehensive, well-organised, drawing on the mature late-imperial Pure Land tradition without significant doctrinal innovation — and the work served as a major reference handbook for lay-Buddhist Pure Land study in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The text is preserved in the Jiāxīng 嘉興 canon and the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 (X1172). No preface fixes a precise composition date; the bracket adopted (1660–1730) covers the most plausible early-to-mid Qīng period. The fùzuǎn designation suggests the work has an earlier compilation behind it that Zhōu Kèfù has revised; this earlier version is not separately preserved.
Translations and research
- No substantial dedicated secondary literature located on the Jìng-tǔ chén-zhōng itself.
- Goossaert, Vincent. “Late Qing Buddhist Lay Movements.” In Modern Chinese Religion II. Leiden: Brill, 2016 — for the broader Qīng lay-Buddhist context.
- Welch, Holmes. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1968.