Lüè zhū jīnglùn niànfó fǎmén wǎngshēng jìngtǔ jí (juǎn shàng) 略諸經論念佛法門往生淨土集卷上
An Abridged Anthology Drawn from Sūtras and Treatises on the Niàn-fó Method for Rebirth in the Pure Land (Upper juǎn*)* also known as Cíbēi jí 慈悲集 by 慧日 (DàTáng Címǐn sānzàng Huìrì, 撰)
About the work
The surviving upper juǎn of an originally three-juǎn Pure Land doctrinal anthology composed by the great Táng Pure Land master 慧日 Huì-rì 慧日 (680–748), conferred the imperial title Cí-mǐn sān-zàng 慈愍三藏 (“Tripiṭaka of Compassionate-Pity”) by the Xuán-zōng 玄宗 emperor — alongside Xuán-zàng 玄奘 and Yì-jìng 義淨, one of the small number of Táng Buddhist masters granted the sān-zàng honorific for Indian travel. The full title-page heading gives the alternate title Cí-bēi jí 慈悲集 (“Compassion Anthology”) in interlinear note. The work’s middle and lower juǎn are not extant as such; only the upper juǎn survives, transmitted through Taishō Vol. 85, No. 2826, which derives the text from the Gǔ-yì-bù 古逸部 ancient-lost-texts division of the canon (the Dūnhuáng manuscript materials and other lost-canon recoveries).
Abstract
The work opens with a gāthā invocation — jīshǒu guīyī dà dǎoshī, shífāng sānshì zhū rúlái 稽首歸依大導師十方三世諸如來 (“I bow my head and take refuge in the great guide-master, in all the Tathāgatas of the ten directions and the three times”) — and announces the editorial conception: to gather (jí 集) the niànfó methods scattered across the Buddhist canonical literature into a single accessible compendium for the shēngsǐ àihé 生死愛河 (“the love-river of birth-and-death”) sentient beings.
Huì-rì is a foundational figure of Chinese Pure Land orthodoxy — uniquely among Táng Pure Land authorities, his teaching was directly transmitted from India after his fourteen-year pilgrimage (c. 702–719) to the Buddhist holy lands. He travelled by sea via Sri Vijaya and Sri Lanka, reaching Kapilavastu and other northern Indian sites, where he is reported to have received a personal vision of Avalokiteśvara on Mount Potalaka instructing him in the orthodoxy of Pure Land devotion. He returned to China in 719 and was personally received by Xuán-zōng, who conferred the Cí-mǐn sān-zàng title.
Huì-rì’s distinctive doctrinal contribution — preserved in the present Lüè zhū jīng-lùn niàn-fó fǎ-mén — is the Pure-Land-as-orthodoxy polemic against the contemporaneous Northern-school Chán current that rejected niàn-fó practice. The text systematically gathers passages from the Wú-liàng-shòu jīng 無量壽經, the Guān Wú-liàng-shòu fó jīng 觀無量壽佛經, the Ē-mí-tuó jīng 阿彌陀經, the Bō-zhōu sān-mèi jīng 般舟三昧經, the Léng-yán 楞嚴, the Huá-yán 華嚴, the Léng-jiā 楞伽, and the Wéi-mó-jié 維摩詰 sūtras, together with passages from Lóng-shù (Nāgārjuna)‘s Shí-zhù pí-pó-shā 十住毘婆沙 and other Pure Land scriptural and śāstric authorities, organised to demonstrate that niàn-fó practice is the canonically warranted soteriological path par excellence.
In his lineage Huìrì stands alongside 善導 Shàndǎo (613–681) of the prior generation as one of the two principal Táng systematisers of orthodox Pure Land doctrine. His system — sometimes termed the Címǐnpài 慈愍派 (“Címǐn faction”) — was carried into the next generation by his disciple Chéngyuǎn 承遠 and through Chéngyuǎn to 法照 Fǎzhào (the Tang Pure Land master, c. 747–821), of the Wǔhuì niànfó tradition. The two principal Táng Pure Land lineages thus converge on Huìrì’s foundational teaching.
The dating bracket adopted (729–748) covers Huìrì’s mature post-Indian-pilgrimage scholarly period. He died in Tiānbǎo 7 (748) at age 69 at the Báimǎsì 白馬寺 (Luòyáng).
Translations and research
- Chappell, David W. “From Dispute to Dual Cultivation: Pure Land Responses to Ch’an Critics.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, edited by Peter N. Gregory. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986.
- Pas, Julian F. Visions of Sukhāvatī: Shan-tao’s Commentary on the Kuan Wu-liang-shou-Fo Ching. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995 — for the broader Táng Pure Land context.
- Sharf, Robert H. “On Pure Land Buddhism and Ch’an / Pure Land Syncretism in Medieval China.” T’oung Pao 88 (2002): 282–331.
- 池田魯参 Ikeda Rosan. 「慈愍三藏慧日的浄土教」 (Cí-mǐn sān-zàng Huì-rì’s Pure Land teaching). Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū (1972).
Other points of interest
The transmission of the Lüè zhū jīnglùn in the Gǔyìbù of Taishō Vol. 85 — rather than in the main canonical divisions — reflects its history as a Dūnhuáng-recovered text: the work was lost from the Chinese canonical mainstream and survived only in the manuscript-cache materials. This is characteristic of much of Huìrì’s literary output and that of the Címǐn pài, which was overshadowed in the late-Táng / Sòng canonisation by the Shàndǎo lineage and became known to modern scholarship principally through the Dūnhuáng recoveries.