Jìngtǔ bì qiú 淨土必求
The Pure Land One Must Seek by 古崑 (Gǔkūn lǎorén, 集)
About the work
A short single-juǎn Pure Land devotional anthology gathered (jí 集) by the late-Qīng Hangzhou-area monk 古崑 Gǔkūn lǎorén 古崑老人. The title is taken from the Wúliàngshòu jīng 無量壽經 (the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha) — specifically from the famous passage in which the Buddha tells Maitreya that even if the sānqiān dàqiān shìjiè 三千大千世界 were filled with great fire, one must still pass through it to hear this scripture and accept it: hence “bì qiú” 必求, “one must seek [it].”
Abstract
Gǔkūn’s own preface (zìxù 自敘) opens with this passage from the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha and declares his motivation: in light of the immeasurable benefit promised by the Buddha to those who hear and rejoice in this teaching even for a single moment of mindfulness (nǎi zhì yī niàn 乃至一念), Gǔkūn has — “regardless of derision and slander” — gathered this anthology for the benefit of those with karmic affinity (yǒu yuán 有緣). The anthology contains extracts from the Jìngtǔ sānjīng core corpus together with Pure Land patristic passages and devotional verse, organised pastorally rather than systematically. The register is more compact and more devotional than Gǔkūn’s Jìngtǔ suí xué KR6p0106; the work is conceived as a portable encouragement for the lay-Buddhist practitioner.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1188. The dating bracket adopted (1860–1890) covers Gǔkūn’s principal active period.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.