Chímíng sìshíbā fǎ 持名四十八法
Forty-Eight Methods for Holding the [Buddha’s] Name by 鄭韋庵 (Jiāngdū Zhèng Wéiān, 述)
About the work
A short single-juǎn Pure Land chímíng 持名 (Buddha-name-recitation) handbook composed by the mid-Qīng lay-Buddhist scholar 鄭韋庵 Zhèng Wéiān 鄭韋庵 of Jiāngdū 江都 (= Yángzhōu, Jiāngsū). The number forty-eight invokes the famous forty-eight vows (sìshíbā yuàn 四十八願) of Amitābha in the Wúliàngshòu jīng 無量壽經; Zhèng’s sìshíbā fǎ are forty-eight ancillary methods or “ways of holding the Name” — practical pastoral techniques for cultivating chímíng practice in different circumstances, conditions, and dispositions.
Abstract
The text opens with a long gé 偈 (gāthā) on the centrality of jièshā 戒殺 (the prohibition of killing) and chímíng 持名 as joint Pure Land disciplines, with jièshā as the zhù 助 (auxiliary) and chímíng as the zhèng 正 (primary). The body lists forty-eight numbered chímíng methods — covering vocal vs. silent recitation, slow vs. rapid recitation, xiǎngniàn 想念 (visualisational) vs. kǒuniàn 口念 (vocal) practice, recitation in conjunction with jīngjì 經偈 (scriptural verses) or with fútú 浮屠 (stūpa-circumambulation), recitation while encountering particular life-circumstances (illness, anger, lust, drowsiness, distraction), and so on through the catalogue.
The work appears to incorporate later editorial supplementations: an interlinear note signed Liánxī jūshì fùzhì 蓮西居士附識 records an event at Lǚsì 呂四 (in modern Tōngzhōu 通州, Jiāngsū) in Xiánfēng shí nián 咸豐十年 (= 1860), the report of a one-legged beggar’s testimony of karmic retribution. This implies that the editorial layer dates to the early 1860s, with Zhèng’s original composition somewhat earlier. The text concludes with an appended Zhèng Wéiān xiānshēng jièshā fàngshēng cí (qī shǒu) tiáojì Xījiāng yuè 鄭韋庵先生戒殺放生詞(七首)調寄西江月 — a set of seven cí 詞 lyrics on the prohibition-of-killing and animal-release theme, set to the tune Xījiāng yuè 西江月.
The work is a characteristic mid-to-late-Qīng lay-Buddhist pastoral compendium with a strong moral-discipline orientation (the prohibition of killing alongside chímíng), set within the popular Yángzhōu literati Pure Land tradition. Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1206. The dating bracket adopted (1830–1880) covers Zhèng Wéiān’s mature period through the post-1860 editorial layer.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Chímíng sìshíbā fǎ has remained a continuously-circulated text in Chinese Pure Land circles from the late Qīng to the present, in part because its forty-eight discrete recitation-methods are particularly amenable to the kind of pastoral instructional use that the Yìnguāng 印光-era Republican Pure Land programme made central. The work is sometimes printed as a freestanding pamphlet under the abbreviated title Chímíng fǎ 持名法.