Jìngtǔ zhèngxīn jí 淨土證心集
An Anthology of Realising the Mind through the Pure Land by 卍蓮 (Tiāntái Gǔhé Wànlián Xiǎoróu, 述)
About the work
A three-juǎn Pure Land devotional and doctrinal anthology composed (shù 述) by the late-Qīng Tiāntái 天台 monk 卍蓮 Wànlián 卍蓮 (fǎmíng Gǔhé 古和, zì / hào Wànlián / Xiǎoróu 曉柔, designated Dōngōu Shì Wànlián 東甌釋卍蓮 = “of the Eastern Ōu = the Wēnzhōu region”). The work is conceived as a comprehensive Pure Land devotional manual that integrates Tiāntái 天台 doctrinal scholarship with jìngtǔ devotional practice.
Abstract
The xù (preface) is by Wú Zhènghéng 吳鄭衡 of Lèchéng 樂成, dated DàQīng Guāngxù yǐhài suì mèngchūn yuè 大清光緒乙亥歲孟春月 (= early 1875), composed at the Sānyī 三一 studio. The author’s zìxù (self-preface) is dated DàQīng Guāngxù yuánnián suì cì yǐhài mèngchūn zhī yuè gǔdàn 大清光緒元年歲次乙亥孟春之月穀旦 (= early 1875), composed at the Yuēxī jīngshè 約西精舍 (“Yuēxī Hermitage”). In the body of the text the author records his monastic chronology: he took the tonsure in Dàoguāng bǐngwǔ autumn (= 1846); received full ordination in dīngwèi spring (= 1847); spent further training years through Xiánfēng jiǎyín dōng (= winter 1854); and after some twenty years of further practice composed the present work.
The text is organised in three juǎn and contains a wide variety of literary forms — what Wú Zhènghéng’s preface enumerates as shīgē 詩歌, míngcí 銘詞, zázhuì 雜綴 (twenty-nine miscellaneous pieces “to clarify the Pure Land”), tíxiàng 題像 (forty-eight image-encomia “to magnify the Pure Land”), the Wéixīn zhī sòng 唯心之頌 in 108 verses (an exhaustive Pure Land yǒng poem), the Yàoyuē zhī lǜ 要約之律 in twenty stanzas (an exhortation to Pure Land cultivation), with additional xīnyàn míng 欣厭銘 (acceptance-rejection inscriptions) and jǐngcè jì 警䇿偈 (admonitory gāthās). The doctrinal framework integrates Tiāntái school content (Wànlián is identified as chuán Tiāntái Gǔhé 傳天台古和, “transmitter of the Tiāntái lineage”) with Pure Land devotional content; Wú’s preface notes that the Wànlián — though technically a Tiāntái lineage-holder — “does not regard the doctrinal school (zōngjiào 宗教) as ultimate but rather takes the Pure Land as the ultimate refuge” (bù yǐ zōngjiào wéi jiūjìng, ér yǐ jìngtǔ wéi zhǐguī 不以宗教為究竟，而以淨土為指歸).
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1196. The dating bracket adopted (1865–1875) covers the late period of composition culminating in the 1875 edition.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The text is one of the principal late-Qīng witnesses to the Tiāntái-Pure Land integration (tāijìng shuāngxiū 台淨雙修) tradition of southern Zhèjiāng. The Wēnzhōu / Lèchéng 樂成 (modern Lèqīng 樂清) regional-literati network around Wànlián is documented through Wú Zhènghéng’s preface and the editorial colophons of the work.