Tiānshèng guǎngdēng lù 天聖廣燈錄
Tiānshèng-Era Expanded Record of the Lamp
compiled by 李遵勗 (Lǐ Zūnxù, 988–1038), presented to the throne in 1029 and printed 1036
About the work
The second of the Sòng-era Chán lamp records, in 30 juan, compiled by the lay Chán enthusiast and imperial in-law Lǐ Zūnxù 李遵勗 as a supplement to the Jǐngdé chuándēng lù 景德傳燈錄 (KR6q0003). The title (“Expanded Lamp Record of the Tiānshèng era”) reflects its Chinese imperial reign-era dating and its deliberate expansion of the Jǐngdé genealogy with additional Línjì-line figures and more complete recorded dialogues.
Abstract
Lǐ Zūnxù — fùmǎ dūwèi 駙馬都尉 (Imperial Son-in-Law), husband of a sister of Sòng 真宗 Zhēnzōng’s empress — was a substantial lay Chán patron and a serious student of the Línjì line under 谷山石鑑 Gǔshān Shíjiǎn and 孤雲元文 Gūyún Yuánwén. His compilation presents lamp-record material in the Jǐngdé template but with two shifts of emphasis: first, a more detailed treatment of 臨濟義玄 Línjì Yìxuán and the early Línjì line, effectively promoting the Línjì lineage within the canonical Chán genealogy; second, the inclusion of more ample recorded-dialogue material (yǔlù 語錄-style) alongside the biographical-entry format.
The work was presented to Sòng 仁宗 Rénzōng in 1029 (Tiānshèng 7, hence the title) and officially printed in 1036. It was incorporated into subsequent canonical collections — the received text is in the Xuzangjing (X78 n. 1553) — and remained one of the five principal Sòng lamp records whose synthesis produced the Wǔdēng huìyuán 五燈會元 (KR6q0011) in 1252.
Lǐ Zūnxù is a rare case of a lay Chán layman producing a work that entered the formal Chán canonical transmission on equal terms with those by monastic compilers, and the Tiānshèng guǎngdēng lù is accordingly also important as a document of early eleventh-century lay Chán.
Translations and research
No English translation exists. The text is treated within Sinophone and Japanese Chán scholarship as one of the five standard Sòng lamp records, but no monograph is devoted specifically to it; it is discussed in Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati (OUP, 2006), in Chen Yuan 陳垣’s Shìshì yílǜ 釋氏疑年錄, and in Yanagida Seizan’s surveys of Sòng Chán historiography. Modern Chinese punctuated versions are included in several Chán-literature anthologies; a standalone Zhōnghuá Shūjú critical edition has not been located.
Other points of interest
The promotion of Línjì Yìxuán and the early Línjì line to a more central place than they held in the Jǐngdé chuándēng lù is one of the visible moves in the eleventh-century consolidation of Línjì orthodoxy.