Tiāntóng shān Jǐngdé sì Rújìng chánshī xù yǔlù 天童山景德寺如淨禪師續語錄
Supplementary Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Rújìng of Jǐngdé Monastery on Mount Tiāntóng
supplementary recorded sayings of Tiāntóng Rújìng 天童如淨 (1163–1228); compiled (biān 編) from materials Rújìng’s attendant-disciple 祖日 Zǔrì had omitted, by Rújìng’s dharma-heir Ruìyán Wúwài Yìyuǎn 瑞巖無外義遠; the sole manuscript was sent to 道元 Dōgen in Japan in 1241, lost for several centuries, and rediscovered and printed in 1715 by 卍山道白 Manzan Dōhaku
About the work
A single-juan supplement to KR6q0071 Rújìng héshàng yǔlù 如淨和尚語錄 (T48 n2002A), preserving twenty shàngtáng 上堂 / fǎyǔ 法語 entries from Rújìng’s Tiāntóng abbacy period that had been omitted from the 1229 main recension compiled under Zǔrì. Also circulates under the alternate title Tiāntóng yíluò lù 天童遺落錄 (“Record of Tiāntóng fragments dropped from the roll”). Taishō T48 n2002B.
The work is of exceptional significance for the textual history of Japanese Sōtō: the single manuscript that transmits its text was sent directly by the Chinese compiler Yìyuǎn 義遠 to Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄 (1200–1253) in Japan, thirteen years after Rújìng’s death and fourteen years after Dōgen’s own return from Tiāntóng. Dōgen himself wrote the postface, which functions as the principal Japanese-side biographical statement on his teacher. The non-commentary character of the work is reflected by omission of the commentedTextid field.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The work has two framing documents of its own that stand in for a tíyào: Manzan’s 1715 editorial preface and Dōgen’s 1241 postface.
Manzan’s preface (正德五年龍舍乙未春二月吉旦 永平遠孫卍山白嗣祖比丘稽首拜書, 1715) sets out the textual history in full: (1) the six-abbacy main yǔlù in two juan, compiled by attendants Wénsù 文素, 妙宗 Miàozōng, 唯敬 Wéijìng, 如玉 Rúyù, 智湖 Zhìhú, and Zǔrì 祖日, prefaced by 呂瀟 Lǚ Xiāo, postfaced by Língyǐn Gāoyuán Zǔquán 靈隱高原祖泉 and Tiānyī Xiāoyán Wényù 天衣嘯巖文蔚, and printed at Rújìng’s xiǎoshī 小師 廣宗 Guǎngzōng’s expense in Shàodìng 2 yǐchǒu (1229, by the reign-period reckoning; the cyclical year yǐchǒu in Manzan’s note is an error for jǐchǒu 己丑); (2) Manzan’s own 1680 collation and printing of this main text at the East-Sea Ōjigamine 東海王子峯; (3) the 1715 rediscovery, “thirty-five years later”, of a single-juan supplement handwritten by the monk 梵清 Fànqīng and kept secret at the Dānzhōu 丹州 Déyún 德雲 quarters — “edited by Ruìyán Yuǎngōng [義遠] the Worthy, containing Tiāntóng shàngtáng fǎyǔ in twenty items and nothing more.” Manzan identifies the supplement as the twenty items Zǔrì had dropped from the Tiāntóng section of the main yǔlù, which Yìyuǎn subsequently recovered and sent to Dōgen in Japan in Ninji 2 xīnchǒu (1241) — “thirteen years after Guǎngzōng’s printing.” The present printing, underwritten by 了山 Liáoshān of Déyún and 大鏡 Dàjìng of Nányáng 南陽, combines the rediscovered one-juan supplement with the earlier two-juan main into a unified three-juan set.
Dōgen’s postface (Ninji 仁治 xīnchǒu 辛丑 = 1241 spring, signed at Kannon-dōri Kōshō Hōrin-ji 觀音導利興聖寶林寺 — his Kyoto monastery of the pre-Eihei years) opens with the standard anthology-of-yǔlù frame, presents ten selected interview exchanges between Dōgen and Rújìng (including the celebrated shēnxīn tuōluò 身心脫落 awakening exchange in the Sōdō), and closes with a brief biographical notice on Rújìng — native place, lay surname, teacher, the tropes of bái lù lì xuě 白鷺立雪 (white egret on snow) and qīng shān zhí sǒng lú huā wài 青山直聳蘆花外 (the blue mountain standing tall beyond the reed-flowers). This is the earliest Japanese source for Rújìng’s life.
A further Japanese postface is signed at Takagamine 鷹峯 Hōjurin 寶樹林 north of Kyoto by 心聞海音 Xīnwén Hǎiyīn, also dated 1715 yǐwèi spring.
Abstract
The Rújìng corpus as transmitted consists of two paired texts — KR6q0071 (main, 2 juan) and KR6q0072 (supplement, 1 juan) — with the supplement being the later editorial recovery and the carrier of the Dōgen postface. The compiler, Wúwài Yìyuǎn 無外義遠, was one of Rújìng’s named Chinese dharma-heirs (DILA A001475), and held the abbacy at Ruìyán 瑞巖 — one of the four monasteries Rújìng himself had served. Yìyuǎn’s act of assembling the twenty dropped items and sending them to Dōgen in 1241 is the crucial Chinese-side gesture consolidating Dōgen as the Japanese legitimate heir of Rújìng, a point Dōgen’s postface subtly amplifies.
The dating bracket is wide because the text as received is the product of two stages: (a) Yìyuǎn’s post-1228 compilation, demonstrably complete by spring 1241 when Yìyuǎn had the manuscript dispatched to Dōgen, who acknowledged it on receipt; (b) Manzan’s 1715 editorial retrieval from the Déyún manuscript cache and his integration of the supplement with the main two-juan yǔlù. The received Taishō text is Manzan’s 1715 recension. notBefore 1241 (the compilation terminus before transmission to Dōgen), notAfter 1715 (Manzan’s rediscovery and printing); the material itself is late-Rújìng, 1225–1228.
The twenty entries are substantive: several of them are dialogues with Dōgen personally, and include the direct Rújìng pronouncement that became the Japanese Sōtō school’s foundational formula — fú cānchán zhě shēnxīn tuōluò, zhǐguǎn dǎshuì zuò mósheng 夫參禪者身心脫落只管打睡作麼 (“for those engaged in cān chán, it is dropping-away of body-and-mind; what are you doing dozing off?”). Dōgen’s own record of his awakening in response to this line, and his subsequent interview in which Rújìng “stamps” his realisation with the phrase tuōluò tuōluò 脫落脫落, is preserved here in the Chinese source directly.
Translations and research
- Kodera, Takashi James. 1980. Dōgen’s Formative Years in China. Routledge. Draws heavily on the Dōgen postface and on the twenty supplementary entries.
- Kim, Hee-Jin. 2004 (rev. ed.). Dōgen Kigen — Mystical Realist. Wisdom. Extended treatment of the Yìyuǎn–Dōgen transmission.
- Heine, Steven. 2006. Did Dōgen Go to China? What He Wrote and When He Wrote It. Oxford. Chapter-length analysis of Dōgen’s citations of Rújìng, including the supplementary material.
- Faure, Bernard. 1987. “The Daruma-shū, Dōgen, and Sōtō Zen.” Monumenta Nipponica 42.1: 25–55.
- 鏡島元隆 1985. 《天童如淨禪師の研究》, 東京：春秋社. The standard Japanese monograph on Rújìng, making extensive use of both T48 n2002A and n2002B.
- 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.
- 何燕生 2000. 《道元と中國禪思想》. Hōzōkan.
Other points of interest
The yíluò lù 遺落錄 / “fragments-dropped record” subtitle is an unusual editorial naming, and the textual situation it registers — a Sòng teacher’s sayings partly omitted by one disciple, recovered by another, sent to a third in Japan, and printed in the Edo period — is without close parallel in the Buddhist canon.
The pairing with KR6q0071 is the canonical case of a zhèng lù 正錄 / xù lù 續錄 Chinese–Japanese double transmission: the main text comes down through the Chinese channel (Guǎngzōng 1229 → Manzan 1680), the supplement through the Japanese channel (Yìyuǎn → Dōgen 1241 → Manzan 1715). The two channels converge only in Manzan’s 1715 combined printing.