Liánxiū bì dú 蓮修必讀
Required Reading for Lotus-Cultivation by 觀如 (Yángzhōu Guānrú, 輯)
About the work
A single-juǎn anthology of Pure Land devotional verse-and-gāthā compiled (jí 輯) by the late-Qīng Yángzhōu monk 觀如 Guānrú 觀如 at the Yángzhōu Cángjīngyuàn 揚州藏經院 (the Sūtra-Repository Cloister of Yángzhōu). The work selects from the entire range of pre-existing Pure Land poetic and devotional materials — shīgē jìsòng 詩歌偈頌 (poems, songs, gāthās, and chants) — and arranges them as a portable reading text for elementary practitioners who cannot manage the full Pure Land canonical corpus. The title is a deliberate echo of 古崑 Gǔkūn’s Liánzōng bì dú KR6p0116 (X1197), with the slightly different emphasis on xiū 修 (cultivation) rather than zōng 宗 (school).
Abstract
The Liánxiū bì dú zìxù 蓮修必讀自序 is signed by Guānrú at Yángzhōu cángjīngyuàn and dated Guāngxù bǐngxū nián qī yuè fó huānxǐ rì 光緒丙戌年七月佛歡喜日 (= the fóhuānxǐrì day, traditionally the 15th of the 7th month, of Guāngxù 12 = 12 August 1886).
The preface frames the editorial conception. The Buddhist dharma admits both cū yán 粗言 (coarse words) and xì yǔ 細語 (fine words), and “all shī gē jì sòng equally pertain to the first-meaning” (jiē guī dìyī yì 皆歸第一義). For practitioners new to Pure Land, who cannot yet engage the jìngzōng zhū diǎn 淨宗諸典 (canonical Pure Land corpus) and find difficulty even in memorisation, Guānrú has gathered the previously-published Pure Land verse and gāthā materials he has been able to find. He invokes the Yōngzhèng emperor’s preface to the Hánshān dàshì shī 寒山大士詩 — which famously declared that Hánshān’s verses were “neither vulgar nor merely metrical, neither doctrinal nor Chán, but truly the zhíxīn zhíyǔ 直心直語 (direct-mind-direct-words) of an ancient Buddha” — as the doctrinal warrant for treating Pure Land devotional verse as a fully canonical mode of Buddhist instruction. He also invokes Ǒuyì Zhìxù’s Xīzhāi shī zàn 西齋詩讚 in praise of 楚石梵琦 Chǔshí Fànqí’s Pure Land verses — yī dú èr dú chénniàn xiāo, sān dú sì dú rǎnqíng bó (“on first and second readings the dust-thoughts dissolve; on third and fourth readings the stained passions are reduced”).
The body of the anthology opens with the QuánTáng shī Hánshān dàshì 全唐詩寒山大士 selection (Hánshān as Pure Land voice, framed by the Yōngzhèng imperial preface), and continues through the standard late-imperial Pure Land verse repertoire: Chǔshí Fànqí, Liánchí Zhūhóng, Ǒuyì Zhìxù, 彭際清 Péng Jìqīng, Chèwù Jìxǐng, and 古崑 Gǔkūn.
Preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1214. The dating bracket adopted (1880–1886) covers the late-period editorial work culminating in the 1886 publication.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.