Rújìng héshàng yǔlù 如淨和尚語錄
Recorded Sayings of Reverend Rújìng
recorded sayings of the Cáodòng 曹洞 master Tiāntóng Rújìng 天童如淨 (1163–1228), the teacher of the Japanese Sōtō founder 道元 Dōgen; compiled (biān 編) at the Qīngliáng chánsì 清涼禪寺 of Jiànkāng 建康 by the attendant 文素 Wénsù and subsequently by other attendants at Rújìng’s successive abbacies; collated and republished in Japan in 1680 by 卍山道白 Manzan Dōhaku (1636–1715)
About the work
A two-juan yǔlù 語錄 for Tiāntóng Rújìng, compiled from the records of his abbacies at four monasteries (Jiànkāng Qīngliáng 建康清涼, Míngzhōu Ruìyán 明州瑞巖, Hángzhōu Jìngcí 杭州淨慈 — twice — and Míngzhōu Tiāntóng Jǐngdé 明州天童景德), paired here as “upper” and “lower” juan: juan 1 collects the pre-Tiāntóng records, juan 2 collects the Tiāntóng material (shàngtáng 上堂, xiǎocān 小參, pǔshuō 普說, fǎyǔ 法語, sònggǔ 頌古, zàn fózǔ 讚佛祖, xiǎo fóshì 小佛事, and jìsòng 偈頌). Taishō T48 n2002A, distinct from — but editorially paired with — T48 n2002B, the Tiāntóng Rújìng chánshī xù yǔlù 天童如淨禪師續語錄 (KR6q0072).
The work is the sole full-length primary source for Rújìng’s teaching, and the sole Chinese-side witness to the master under whom the Japanese Sōtō founder Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄 (1200–1253) trained at Tiāntóng in 1225–1227 — in particular Rújìng’s signature formula shēnxīn tuōluò 身心脫落 (“dropping away of body-and-mind”), which Dōgen made the cornerstone of his own teaching.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The text is framed by unusually informative colophons at both the Chinese and the Edo-period Japanese redaction stages. The Chinese-side preface, Rújìng chánshī yǔlù xù 如淨禪師語錄序, is signed by 呂瀟 Lǚ Xiāo (hào Tóngbǎi sǎnlì 桐柏散吏), dated Shàodìng 2 jǐchǒu 紹定二祀歲在己丑 (1229), and introduces Rújìng within a broad Cáodòng-vs-Línjì comparative frame — “where Cáodòng hides its trigger and Línjì is explicit with staff and shout, Rújìng alone neither drifts nor leans, but combines both.” Juan 2 ends with three Chinese-side postfaces: by Língyǐn Gāoyuán Zǔquán 靈隱高原祖泉 dated Shàodìng gǎiyuán kāilú rì 紹定改元開爐日 (stove-lighting day, winter 1228); by Tiānyī zhù shān bǐqiū Wényù 天衣住山比丘文蔚 dated Shàodìng wùzǐ zhōngqiū 紹定戊子中秋 (autumn 1228); and a printing-cutting notice dated suìcì jǐchǒu liùyuè chū fú rì 歲次己丑六月初伏日 (early-summer 1229), with the woodblocks cut at Rújìng’s xiǎoshī 小師 廣宗 Guǎngzōng’s expense and the text collated by Zǔquán of Língyǐn. The text closes with a long Edo-period Japanese postface dated Enpō 8 gēngshēn zhōngyuán hòu yī rì 延寶八年龍次庚申中元後一日 (1680, day after mid-yuán festival) by Baikū Manzan Dōhaku 白卍山（道白）at the “East-Sea Ōjigamine” 東海王子峯, recording the two-manuscript collation that produced the received text.
Abstract
The work has two superimposed layers. The first is the Chinese-side compilation of 1228–1229, assembled at speed in the months following Rújìng’s death on Shàodìng 1.7.17 (25 August 1228, per DILA A013813): the juan-by-juan record bears the colophons of seven individually-named attendants — 文素 Wénsù (juan 1, Qīngliáng), 祖日 Zǔrì (juan 2, Tiāntóng opening), 義遠 Yìyuǎn (juan 2, Tiāntóng continuation — independently attested as a dharma-heir of Rújìng at Ruìyán), 德霑 Dézhān, 清茂 Qīngmào, and 德祥 Déxiáng (further juan-2 sections) — plus the two postface-writers (Zǔquán, Wényù). The catalog meta’s nominal isolation of 文素 reflects the convention of naming only the first-listed attendant-compiler. A Chinese printing was produced in summer 1229 under Guǎngzōng at Língyǐn.
The second layer is the Edo-period Japanese collation. By the seventeenth century the Chinese text had become scarce and fragmentary, but Dōgen’s own Eihei kōroku 永平廣錄 and Shōbōgenzō 正法眼藏 (KR6q0256) cite Rújìng extensively. Manzan Dōhaku (1636–1715), the Sōtō reformer associated with the menju shihō 面授嗣法 dispute, had been editing the Eihei kōroku when a disciple, 禪山 Zenzan, arrived in summer 1680 with two independent manuscript recensions — one from the elder 義林 Yìlín of Yúnlóng 雲龍, the other copied from a Chinese táng běn 唐本 (woodblock-printed Chinese original) carried back to Japan by another monk’s teacher. Manzan collated the two line-by-line (“separating water from milk”, “picking gold from sand”) over two months, added wakunde-ten 倭點 (Japanese reading marks) and editorial glosses, and delivered the finished text to the printer. He notes that cross-checking against the Eihei kōroku’s citations recovers roughly 40–50% of what Dōgen cites, and infers — correctly — that a fuller guǎnglù 廣錄 once existed, urging later scholars to search for it. This Manzan recension is the direct ancestor of the received Taishō text; the Taishō T48 n2002A collates the Manzan printing as its base witness.
Because the received text is a Sòng compilation as mediated by a 1680 Japanese collation, the dating bracket is wide: notBefore 1228 (compilation begins at Rújìng’s death), notAfter 1680 (Manzan’s collation and printing). The dynasty tag follows the catalog meta and reflects the original compilation period, not the received-text stage. Catalog-vs-DILA discrepancy on the author’s birth year: older reference works (Fóguāng dà cídiǎn) give 1163; some secondary sources give 1162. DILA A013813 and the sui-age reckoning from the 1228 death at age sixty-six both give 1163, followed here.
Translations and research
- Kim, Hee-Jin. 2004 (rev. ed.). Dōgen Kigen — Mystical Realist. Wisdom. Extensive use of the Rújìng material, especially juan 2.
- Kodera, Takashi James. 1980. Dōgen’s Formative Years in China: An Historical Study and Annotated Translation of the Hōkyō-ki. Routledge. Central source on the Rújìng–Dōgen encounter; draws on the Yǔlù throughout.
- Bielefeldt, Carl. 1988. Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. California. Includes discussion of Rújìng’s shēnxīn tuōluò formula.
- Faure, Bernard. 1987. “The Daruma-shū, Dōgen, and Sōtō Zen.” Monumenta Nipponica 42.1: 25–55.
- Heine, Steven. 2020. Readings of Dōgen’s “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”. Columbia. Multiple chapters on Rújìng citations.
- He, Yansheng 何燕生. 2000. 道元と中國禪思想. Kyoto: Hōzōkan. Chapter-length treatment of Rújìng’s teaching.
- 張寬如 2006. 《兩宋曹洞禪學研究──以宏智正覺、天童如淨為主軸》, 佛光人文社會學院碩士論文. Paired treatment with KR6q0070.
- Schlütter, Morten. 2008. How Zen Became Zen. Hawai’i. Places Rújìng in the late Sòng Cáodòng context.
For the Manzan editorial layer: Bodiford, William M. 1993. Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan. Hawai’i. Riggs, David E. 2002. The Rekindling of a Tradition: Menzan Zuihō and the Reform of Japanese Sōtō Zen in the Tokugawa Era (Diss., UCLA) — though treating Menzan rather than Manzan, situates the textual-philological project.
Other points of interest
The paired text KR6q0072 Tiāntóng Rújìng chánshī xù yǔlù 天童如淨禪師續語錄 (Taishō T48 n2002B) is the supplementary recension compiled by Rújìng’s Chinese dharma-heir 義遠 Yìyuǎn at Ruìyán — editorially continuous with juan 2 here — and should be read as the second part of the Rújìng yǔlù corpus.
Manzan’s 1680 postface is a valuable document for the Edo-period Sōtō textual-critical project: it names the two manuscript sources by provenance, describes the Japanese kunten apparatus added for first-time readers, reports the collation yield against Dōgen’s citations (“ten-to-four-or-five”), and closes with an appeal for search of the putative full guǎnglù — a lost-text topos directly modelled on the twelfth-century Yuánwù Kèqín / Xuědòu framing of the Sòng gǔ bǎi zé transmission.