Cèhǎi jí jiéchāo 測海集節鈔
A Selected Excerpt of the Anthology of Sounding the Sea 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 《測海集》 Cèhǎi jí, prepared posthumously by an anonymous sīshū dìzǐ 私淑弟子 (“posthumous disciple”). The companion-volume to the Guānhé jí jiéchāo KR6p0129 (X1211); the two together constitute the canonical excerpt of Péng’s poetic œuvre. The title cèhǎi 測海 (“sounding the sea”) borrows the Hànshū idiom of measuring an ocean with a calabash — the impossibility of fully comprehending the depth of the zhèngtǒng sage-virtue tradition — and applies it to Péng’s two principal poetic themes: the dynastic sage-virtues of the reigning Qīng emperors (liècháo shèngdé shī 列朝聖德詩) and the commemorative biographies of historically exemplary worthies (sīxián yǒng 思賢詠).
Abstract
The Cèhǎi jí jiéchāo preserves two principal sequences:
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Liècháo shèngdé shī 列朝聖德詩 — seven piān (chapters) of poems on the shèngdé (sage-virtues) of the successive Qīng emperors. Of these the jiéchāo preserves one zhāng (verse) per piān; the surviving fragment is from the Shìzōng shèngdé piān 世宗聖德篇 (verses on the Yōngzhèng emperor) — yǒu yào, ruì zuò shèng yě 有曜睿作聖也 (“brilliantly luminous, perspicacious in his sage-making”), praising Yōngzhèng’s míng yǐ zhì shì, yán yǐ zhì guān, kuān yǐ dé zhòng 明以制事，嚴以治官，寬以得眾 (“clear in handling affairs, strict in governing officials, broad in winning the populace”). The verse is followed by an additional piān (the fifth) on the same Yōngzhèng theme.
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Sīxián yǒng 思賢詠 — originally a sequence of 160 commemorative verses; the jiéchāo preserves “ten or so” (shí yú shǒu 十餘首). The opening selection is the verse on Jiǎng Chāo Hǔchén 蔣超虎臣 (Xiūzhuàn 修撰, native of Jīntán 金壇 in Jiāngnán, Shùnzhì 4 = 1647 jìnshì). Péng’s accompanying biographical note records Jiǎng’s character (austere, abstaining from meat and wine, friendly to fāngwài monastics), his sudden Chán-awakening on hearing a chant during a court audience, his consultation with the Chán master Dàbó héshàng 大博和尚, and his eventual late-life retirement from the Shùntiān fǔ xuézhèng 順天府學政 to a hermit life on Mt. Lúshān, Mt. Lùmén 鹿門, and Mt. Éméi 峨嵋, dying at Fúhǔsì 伏虎寺. The verse itself describes the snow-buried mountain hermitage and Jiǎng’s evening meditation among the magnolias.
The remaining selections continue the same combination of xián-biographical note + commemorative verse, drawing across the late-Míng / early-Qīng yímín 遺民 transition and the late-imperial Pure Land lay-Buddhist tradition. The work is therefore a Buddhist-Confucian conciliation poem-cycle: Péng’s commemoration of the dynastic sage-virtues (shèngdé) is consistent with high-Qīng orthodoxy, while his commemoration of the sīxián worthies — many of whom were Buddhist lay-practitioners or yímín recluses — reflects his Pure Land lay-Buddhist programme.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1212. The dating bracket adopted (1759–1796) covers Péng’s full poetic period.
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 Cèhǎi jí and its companion Guānhé jí KR6p0129 together constitute the poetic legacy of Péng Jìqīng — the jūshìfójiào 居士佛教 lay-Buddhist tradition’s most consequential late-Qīng literary intellectual. The inclusion of these poetry collections in the Xùzàngjīng attests to the lay-Buddhist tradition’s claim that Pure Land devotional life is integrated with literary cultivation, and that the xián-commemorative yǒng verse is a legitimate genre of Buddhist devotional practice.