Rù zhòng xū zhī 入眾須知
Required Knowledge on Entering the Community
An anonymous Sòng / Yuán monastic manual setting out the detailed procedural knowledge required for novice monks entering a cónglín 叢林 community, organised as a series of topical headings each treating a specific procedural occasion
About the work
A one-juan anonymous monastic-practice manual, X63 n1247. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Companion and later-development to the similar KR6q0137 Rù zhòng rì yòng of Zōngshòu; the xū zhī 須知 (“required knowledge”) title marks this as the procedural-comprehensive counterpart to Zōngshòu’s behavioural-daily rì yòng.
The text is structured as a topical index covering specific monastic procedural occasions: zuò chán 坐禪 (seated meditation), rù shì 入室 (entering the master’s chamber), qǐng yì yīnyuán 請益因緣 (consultation occasions), gào xiāng 告香 (incense-petition), shuò wàng xún táng 朔望巡堂 (first-and-fifteenth day hall-inspection), xún liáo 巡寮 (chamber-visitation), chá bǎng shì 茶榜式 (tea-announcement forms), shuò wàng shàng táng 朔望上堂 (first-and-fifteenth ascending-the-hall), xiǎo cān jí wǔ rì shēng táng 小參及五日升堂 (minor-instruction and five-day hall-ascent), bǐng fú 秉拂 (holding the fly-whisk), and many more. Each heading is followed by detailed procedural description.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. No preface; the text is anonymous.
Abstract
Dating bracket: notBefore 1200 (Southern Sòng monastic-manual genre’s active period), notAfter 1300 (Yuán dynasty). The procedural detail the text preserves is characteristic of the late Southern-Sòng and early-Yuán cónglín institutional world before the Déhuī 1336 Chì xiū Bǎizhàng qīngguī standardisation.
No persons are named in the frontmatter (per catalog) — the work circulates anonymously.
Translations and research
- Yifa. 2002. The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China. Hawai’i.
- Foulk, T. Griffith. 1987. The “Ch’an School”. Diss., Michigan.
- 近藤良一 1968. 《百丈清規の成立》. Chibunkaku.
Other points of interest
The Rù zhòng xū zhī, together with Zōngshòu’s Rù zhòng rì yòng KR6q0137 and Míngběn’s Huànzhùān qīng guī KR6q0139, constitutes a small cluster of Sòng and Yuán monastic-practice manuals circulating as complementary but distinct genre-texts. Each addresses a somewhat different audience and level of institutional engagement — rì yòng (daily routine), xū zhī (procedural knowledge), qīng guī (full monastic code) — together constituting the monastic pedagogical curriculum for novice through senior-administrative levels.
The text’s Japanese transmission as part of the mid-Kamakura Zen textual import is significant: it circulates in Kamakura Zen monasteries from the mid-13th century onward and informed the Japanese Sōtō and Rinzai school’s regulatory practice. The continuity of specific procedural details between Chinese Sòng and Japanese medieval Zen monastic practice can often be traced through this specific text.