Guānhé jí jiéchāo 觀河集節鈔
A Selected Excerpt of the Anthology of Contemplating the [Heng] River by 彭紹升 (著), excerpted by an anonymous sīshū dìzǐ 私淑弟子 (posthumous disciple, 節鈔)
About the work
A single-juǎn selected excerpt (jiéchāo 節鈔) from 彭紹升 / 彭際清 Péng Jìqīng’s personal poetry collection 《觀河集》 Guānhé jí, prepared posthumously by an anonymous sīshū dìzǐ 私淑弟子 (“posthumous disciple”). The title Guānhé 觀河 (“contemplating the [Heng] river”) is taken from the famous Léngyán jīng 楞嚴經 dialogue between the Buddha and King Prasenajit (Bōsīnì wáng 波斯匿王) at the Jetavana, in which the Buddha contrasts the biànzhě 變者 (“that which changes” — i.e. the body, growing from infancy through old age) with the bùbiànzhě 不變者 (“that which does not change” — the jiànxìng 見性, the seeing-nature, which has remained constant from infancy to old age).
Abstract
Péng’s own preface (xù), dated Qiánlóng sìshísì nián jìchūn zhī wàng 乾隆四十四年季春之望 (= 15th day of the 3rd month of Qiánlóng 44 = 30 April 1779), and signed Péng shēng Shàoshēng 彭升紹題 [sic] (= Péng Shàoshēng 彭紹升), opens with the Buddhist commonplace from a Brahmin’s autobiographical encounter — “xī rén shàng cún hū? Wǒ yóu xī rén, fēi xī rén yě 昔人尚存乎？吾猶昔人，非昔人也” (“does the man of old still exist? I am still the man of old, but not the man of old”) — and applies it to himself: at age forty (= the year 1779; Péng was born in 1740), he is no longer the man of yesterday, of last year, of forty years past, and yet he is the same. The preface deploys the Léngyán king-and-river dialogue as the doctrinal frame: the biànzhě changes; the bùbiànzhě does not; recognition of the latter sustains the practitioner through the entire span of life.
Péng explains that he had begun composing poetry at age 18 (= 1758) and had accumulated, over more than twenty years, two collections: the Cè-hǎi jí 測海集 (the parallel work, KR6p0130 X1212), specifically devoted to liè-cháo shèng-dé shī 列朝聖德詩 (“verses on the dynastic sage-virtues”) and sī-xián 思賢 (“longing-for-the-worthies”) commemorations; and the Guān-hé jí, treating the broader range of gǎn wù xìng huái 感物興懷 (“things-felt and stirrings-of-feeling”) — the personal-occasional vein of Péng’s verse, including reflections on family relations, on his career, and on his Buddhist practice. The preface concludes with a citation of the Lúnyǔ 9.16 zǐ zài chuān shàng 子在川上 (“Confucius standing by the river”) to align the Buddha’s guān-hé dialogue with the Confucian counterpart, and to identify the work’s underlying zhǐ-guān 止觀 (samatha-vipaśyanā) intention.
The jiéchāo (selected-excerpt) was prepared by an unnamed sīshū dìzǐ — a disciple in spiritual succession but not in person — most plausibly within the Pure Land circle of Péng’s son 彭希涑 Péng Xīsù or his immediate dharma-heirs after Péng’s death in 1796. Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1211.
The dating bracket adopted (1759–1796) covers from Péng’s initial poetry composition (age 18) through his death.
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 Guānhé jí and its companion Cèhǎi jí KR6p0130 together represent the poetic part of Péng Jìqīng’s literary output, which the lay-Buddhist canonical tradition deemed sufficiently important to include in the Xùzàngjīng alongside his more directly doctrinal works (the Yīshèng juéyí lùn KR6e0147, the Huáyán niànfó sānmèi lùn KR6e0148, the Niànfó jǐngcè KR6p0100, etc.). Their inclusion documents the elevated late-Qīng status of Péng as a yī shēn jiān shī rén / lùnshī / chéngjiā lay-Buddhist — at once devotional poet, doctrinal essayist, and tradition-systematiser.