Jìngtǔ gànzhū 淨土紺珠
Dark-Blue Pearls of the Pure Land by 德真 (Fǎzhuàngshān Xūzhōu zhǎnglǎo Dézhēn, 輯)
About the work
A single-juǎn Pure Land doctrinal-numerical anthology compiled (jí 輯) by the late-Qián-lóng / Jiā-qìng-era Línjì 臨濟 Chán master 德真 Dézhēn 德真, hào Xūzhōu 虛舟 (“Empty-Boat”), abbot of Fǎzhuàngshān 法幢山. The work systematically gathers and arranges the numerically-organised passages (shǔshù 屬數 — “those that pertain to numbers”) drawn from the Pure Land canonical and pastoral literature. The title gànzhū 紺珠 (“dark-blue pearls”) borrows the celebrated metaphor of Zhāng Yāngōng 張燕公 (i.e. Zhāng Yuè 張說, 667–730), who was said to keep a gànzhū (a dark-blue pearl) on his desk that aided his prodigious memory: each “pearl” represents a discrete numerically-ordered Pure Land doctrinal proposition that the practitioner is to commit to memory.
Abstract
The Jìngtǔ gànzhū xù 淨土紺珠序 by Lùlián jūshì 露蓮居士 (“Dewy-Lotus Lay-Practitioner”) is dated jǐmǎo jìxià 己卯季夏 (the last month of summer of the jǐmǎo year). Given the doctrinal references (Tiāntái Zhìyǐ, Zhōngfēng Míngběn, Tiānrú Wéizé, Hānshān Déqīng — all pre-Qing) and the late-imperial register of the text, the jǐmǎo year is most plausibly Jiāqìng 24 (= 1819). Lùlián’s preface frames the editorial conception: although the Pure Land path “is not subject to numerical-grading” (shàng bù luò yú jiējí 尚不落於階級), the differing capacities of practitioners do produce differential rebirth-ranks (the sìtǔ jiǔpǐn 四土九品 hierarchy of four lands and nine grades), and the structured numerical organisation of Pure Land doctrine therefore has pastoral utility.
The zìxù (self-preface) opens with an autobiographical scene set in the Fǎzhuàng monastery in autumn of the same jǐmǎo year, in which an interlocutor questions Dézhēn’s Línjì lineage about its apparent failure (sìshí yú nián fǎyán xióngtú, wèi wén yǒu yī rén zuò jiā zhě 四十餘年法筵雄徒未聞有一人作家者 — “in over forty years of preaching to the assembly, I have not heard of a single ‘master craftsman’ arising”) — implying that Dézhēn was by 1819 already in the late stage of a forty-plus-year teaching career. The Pure Land turn is presented as the natural pastoral response to mòfǎ conditions of capacity-decline among practitioners.
The body of the text comprises numerical-doctrinal passages organised by their shù 數 (numerical attribute): the yīxīn bùluàn 一心不亂 (one-mind-undisturbed) of the Ēmítuó jīng, the èr lì 二力 (two powers), sān bèi 三輩 (three classes), sì tǔ 四土 (four lands), wǔ huǐ 五悔 (five repentance-rituals), liù xíng 六行 (six practices), qī rì 七日 (seven days of yīxīn), bā fǎ 八法, jiǔ pǐn 九品 (nine grades), shí niàn 十念 (ten recitations), and so on through the higher numerical groupings up to the bāshí suí xíng hǎo 八十隨形好 and beyond.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1202.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.