Jìngtǔ chéngēn jí 淨土承恩集
The Anthology of Receiving Grace from the Pure Land by 芳慧 (編)
About the work
A short single-juǎn Pure Land anthology gathered by the mid-Qīng monk 芳慧 Fānghuì 芳慧, recording the teachings and devotional verses of the master 妙能 Miàonéng fǎshī 妙能法師 — Fānghuì’s own teacher — together with hagiographical accounts of the deathbed wǎngshēng 往生 (rebirth-in-the-Pure-Land) experiences of those who had practised under his instruction. The title — chéngēn 承恩 (“receiving grace”) — refers explicitly to the practitioners’ grateful reception of the fǎēn 法恩 (the boon of the dharma) through Miàonéng’s teaching.
Abstract
The Xīnkè xù 新刻序 (preface to the new printing) at the head of the text describes Miàonéng as “by nature pure and substantial” (shēnglái chúnhòu 生來純厚), with an innate root of Pure Land faith. He is reported to have made a regular pastoral practice of urging laypeople and fellow monastics to recite ten niànfó invocations every morning and to keep numerical chímíng records (jìshù chímíng 記數持名). The hagiographical body of the anthology preserves three named cases — including the monk Chāozōng 超宗 of Chángníngsì 常甯寺 in Ruìyì 瑞邑 (modern Ruì’ān 瑞安, Zhèjiāng), who is said to have known the time of his death three days in advance, distributed his clothes and books to relatives, and on the appointed day called the assembly together for a final niànfó before passing — together with edited extracts of Miàonéng’s own pastoral teachings. The compilation is a documentary record of an otherwise minor late-Qián-lóng / Jiāqìng / early-Dào-guāng Pure Land pastoral master and the devotional community he formed in the Wēnzhōu / Ruìān region of southeastern Zhèjiāng.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1189. The dating bracket adopted (1750–1830) is broad: the work is mid-to-late Qīng but not precisely datable from the surviving prefaces.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.