Lèngjiā shī zī jì 楞伽師資記
Record of the Master-Disciple Transmission of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
The earliest major Chán lineage-history text, compiled (jí 集) by Jìngjué 淨覺 (683–750) of the Ānguó sì 安國寺 in Chāng’ān in the early 8th century, presenting a genealogical-doctrinal account of the Northern School / Lèngjiā-zōng 楞伽宗 transmission from Guṇabhadra 求那跋陀羅 through Bodhidharma down to Jìngjué’s own teachers Shénxiù 神秀 and Xuánzé 玄賾
About the work
A one-juan Chán lineage-history text, Taishō T85 n2837, preserved only through Dūnhuáng manuscript witnesses (Stein 2054, Pelliot 3436, and others). Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Among the most important primary-source documents for early-Chán lineage-history, and the single most detailed surviving Northern-School self-presentation of the lineage.
The work’s structure is biographical-genealogical: individual biographical sections on eight successive patriarchs, each consisting of a life-narrative followed by characteristic doctrinal citations (yǔ 語 sayings) and interpretive material. The eight lineage figures, in order:
- Guṇabhadra 求那跋陀羅 (394–468) — the translator of the Lèngjiā jīng 楞伽經 (Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra); treated here as the root patriarch of the Lèngjiā-zōng.
- Bodhidharma 菩提達磨.
- Huìkě 慧可 (487–593).
- Sēngcàn 僧璨 (d. 606).
- Dàoxìn 道信 (580–651).
- Hóngrěn 弘忍 (602–675).
- Shénxiù 神秀 (606?–706) — Jìngjué’s elder teacher.
- Pǔjì 普寂 (651–739), Jìngxiǎn 敬賢 (660–723), Yìfú 義福 (658–736), Xuánzé 玄賾 — Shénxiù’s four major dharma-heirs.
The lineage-scheme — placing Guṇabhadra as the root and Bodhidharma as a second-generation figure — is a Northern-School construction specific to the Lèngjiā shī zī jì and its immediate milieu, distinct from both the subsequently-dominant Southern-School genealogy (which ran Bodhidharma → Huìkě → … → Huìnéng) and from the more common Northern-School genealogy that began with Bodhidharma directly. Jìngjué’s Guṇabhadra-rooted scheme reflects an early-8th-century moment before the lineage-history discourse had fully stabilised.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The opening portion of the Taishō recension is lost — the surviving Dūnhuáng manuscript begins mid-narrative in the middle of a discussion of the early Chán patriarch (most likely Bodhidharma), with the preserved text opening “Liǎng mù zhōng, gè chū yī wǔ-sè guāng shè-lì, jiāng zhī dàshī chéng dào yǐ jiǔ yě 兩目中各出一五色光舍利將知大師成道已久也” (“From both eyes issued a five-coloured ray of śarīra-relics, showing that the Great Master had attained the Way long ago”). The preserved autobiographical passage shortly after identifies the author: “In the Jǐnglóng 2 year [708] of the Emperor Zhōngzōng, [the master] was summoned by imperial edict to Chāng’ān, and then opened the Chán dharma widely at Luòyáng. Jìngjué took refuge in the assembly, single-mindedly serving, coming and going between the two capitals to pay respects, over ten years and more. Whatever I presented as my mind-state was quickly resolved.”
Abstract
Jìngjué 淨覺 (683–750, DILA A001121, Wikidata Q45560319, CBDB 93916), lay surname Wéi 韋, was the shù dì 庶弟 (younger half-brother) of the Empress Wéi of the Táng emperor Zhōngzōng. Despite imperial favour, Jìngjué refused ennoblement and entered monastic life at the Tàiháng shān 太行山; ordained there; studied first under Shénxiù at the Chāng’ānLuòyáng imperial Chán court (708–706), then after Shénxiù’s death under Xuánzé 玄賾 (Jìngjué’s main teacher per DILA). Composed the Lèngjiā shī zī jì at the Tàiháng shān Língquángǔ 靈泉谷 (“Spirit-Spring Valley”); later resided at the Dàānguó sì 大安國寺 in Chāng’ān.
Dating bracket: notBefore 710 (earliest plausible composition after Jìngjué’s completed study under both Shénxiù and Xuánzé), notAfter 730 (working terminus ante quem; the text does not postdate Jìngjué’s mature Chāng’ān period). Jìngjué died in 750 but the Lèngjiā shī zī jì does not reflect events from his late life. Catalog dynasty 唐.
Translations and research
- Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山 1971. 《初期の禪史 I》 and 1976 《初期の禪史 II》. Chikuma Shobō. The foundational critical edition and annotated Japanese translation with extensive apparatus.
- McRae, John R. 1986. The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch’an Buddhism. Hawai’i. Extensive translation and analysis.
- Faure, Bernard. 1989. Le traité de Bodhidharma: Première anthologie du bouddhisme Chan. Paris: Le Mail (French translation).
- Adamek, Wendi L. 2007. The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Contexts. Columbia. Extended monograph treatment.
- 印順 1971. 《中國禪宗史》. Zhèngwén Chūbǎnshè.
Other points of interest
The Lèngjiā shī zī jì’s doctrinal stance — treating the Lèngjiā jīng 楞伽經 (Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra) as the canonical scriptural foundation of the Chán lineage — is the distinctive Northern-School position. The Southern School’s subsequent displacement of the Lèngjiā jīng with the Jīn’gāng jīng 金剛經 (Vajracchedikā) as the central scripture (per the opening of the Tánjīng KR6q0082) is a direct polemical rejection of the Jìngjué-style lineage-thinking this text codifies.
The loss of the text from the mainstream canonical tradition and its survival only through Dūnhuáng manuscript witnesses is characteristic of the broader fate of Northern-School primary sources in the post-Shénhuì period. The rediscovery of the Dūnhuáng manuscripts in the early 20th century by Paul Pelliot and Sir Aurel Stein made the Lèngjiā shī zī jì available to modern scholarship and has fundamentally reshaped the scholarly understanding of early Chán lineage-history.
Jìngjué’s unique position — aristocratic birth (imperial-consort kin), Northern-School monastic training, extensive doctrinal sophistication — makes him the first major Chán historiographer in the tradition, and the Lèngjiā shī zī jì accordingly an exceptionally articulate primary source for the first-person 8th-century Northern-School doctrinal self-understanding.