Èrlín chànghé shī 二林唱和詩
Antiphonal Verses of the Èr-lín Circle by 彭紹升 (Zhīguīzǐ Péng Shàoshēng, 集)
About the work
A single-juǎn anthology of antiphonal verse (chànghé 唱和) gathered (jí 集) by 彭紹升 / 彭際清 Péng Jìqīng (1740–1796, zì Zhīguīzǐ 知歸子, hào Èrlín jūshì 二林居士). The work documents the early Pure Land–poetry circle that formed around Péng’s Èrlínjū 二林居 (“Two-Forests Studio”) in Sūzhōu in the early 1770s, in which Péng exchanged Buddhist devotional verse with three close friends — Wāng Yuánliàng 汪元亮 (hào Zhúxiāngzǐ 竹香子), Luó Yǒugāo 羅有高, and Wāng Jìn 汪縉 — all of whom belonged to Péng’s lay-Buddhist Sūzhōu circle.
Abstract
The anthology contains six numbered chànghé sequences:
- Péng Shàoshēng ǒutí sì shǒu 彭紹升偶題四首 (Péng’s four occasional verses);
- Wāng Yuánliàng hé Zhīguīzǐ ǒushù sì shǒu 汪元亮和知歸子偶述四首 (Wāng Yuánliàng’s four matching verses);
- Péng Shàoshēng chóu Zhúxiāngzǐ pǔ chéng zhū tóngxué sì shǒu 彭紹升酬竹香子普呈諸同學四首 (Péng’s four reciprocating verses to Zhúxiāngzǐ, presented to all fellow-students);
- Luó Yǒugāo dé Zhīguīzǐ ǒushù shī jí Zhúxiāngzǐ héshī huānxǐ zàntàn yì chéng héshī sì shǒu 羅有高得知歸子偶述詩及竹香子和詩歡喜讚歎亦成和詩四首 (Luó’s four matching verses, composed in joy and praise after receiving the verses of the prior two);
- Wāng Jìn hé Zhīguīzǐ ǒushù sì shǒu 汪縉和知歸子偶述四首 (Wāng Jìn’s four matching verses, with a brief preface);
- Luó Yǒugāo Èrlínjū chànghé shī bá yī shǒu 羅有高二林居唱和詩䟦一首 (Luó’s bá postface, dated Qiánlóng 41 / 1776).
The verses are uniformly Pure Land devotional in content, treating themes of xìnyuànxíng 信願行 commitment, the urgency of practice given the brevity of life, the integration of Confucian zhōngxiào 忠孝 (loyalty-and-filial-piety) ethics with Buddhist Pure Land devotion, and the sānjiào 三教 (Three-Teachings) interpenetration. Wāng Jìn’s contribution is particularly distinctive in its dream-philosophical structure: each four-line sequence runs “there is a one who dreams he is a Confucian / a Daoist immortal / a Buddha / a worldly fellow” — and concludes that “only the zhōngxiào heart” survives the dream-and-awakening cycle of the sānjiào identifications.
The work is a unique documentary witness to Péng Jìqīng’s early lay-Buddhist circle and to the literary mode of his Pure Land programme: the Èrlínjū circle composed verse together as an integral part of their devotional practice, and Péng compiled the resulting chànghé anthology as a permanent record. Luó Yǒugāo’s Qiánlóng 41 (1776) bá records that he saw the manuscript while passing through Sūzhōu in 1776 and at Péng’s request “examined the characters most violently in violation of antiquity”; the manuscript was already six years old at that point — implying composition c. 1770. The dating bracket adopted (1770–1776) covers from initial composition through the 1776 bá.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1210.
Translations and research
- Goossaert, Vincent. “Late Qing Buddhist Lay Movements.” In Modern Chinese Religion II. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China. New York: Columbia UP, 1981.
Other points of interest
The Èrlínjū circle of Péng Jìqīng + Wāng Yuánliàng + Luó Yǒugāo + Wāng Jìn is the seminal cohort of late-Qīng jūshìfójiào 居士佛教 (lay Buddhism), and the chànghé poems collected here are the principal documentary record of its early devotional life. The connection to Wāng Jìn 汪縉 (1725–1792), an important figure in the Sūzhōu Wúpài 吳派 kǎozhèng 考證 evidential-scholarship milieu, illustrates the interpenetration of late-Qīng Pure Land lay practice with the gāo wénhuà (high-cultural) intellectual networks of the period.