Chánlín bǎoxùn hé zhù 禪林寶訓合註
Combined Commentary on the Chánlín bǎoxùn
A Qing-dynasty 4-juan combined-commentary (hé zhù 合註) on KR6q0099 Chánlín bǎoxùn 禪林寶訓, collated (jiào dìng 較定) by 張文嘉 Zhāng Wénjiā with editorial review (cān yuè 參閱) by his brother 張文憲 Zhāng Wénxiàn
About the work
A four-juan Qing lay-scholarly combined commentary on the parent Chánlín bǎoxùn KR6q0099. X64 n1263. commentedTextid: KR6q0099.
The hé zhù format brings together multiple earlier annotations on the Chánlín bǎoxùn into a single comprehensive commentary, supplemented with the Zhāng brothers’ own editorial work.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The opening preface Chánlín bǎoxùn xù 禪林寶訓序 narrates the work’s compositional context: “This book has flourished in Jiāngběi and been honoured in Wúzhōng, but in Fújiàn and Guǎngdōng eighteen or nineteen of every ten shīsēng [monks] have never seen or heard of it. If we wish to revive the Chán forest and elevate the dharma-way, can this [ignorance] continue? I formerly on pilgrimage to Yúnqī [= Zhūhóng’s Yúnqī sì] encountered it and treasured it as the supreme jewel… Although I could not personally put it into practice, I never dared to neglect it for a moment. This collection starts with the Míngjiào venerable [Qìsōng 契嵩] and ends with the Lǎnān master [Lǎnān Dǐngxū 懶菴鼎需], comprising three hundred items, all flowing from the painful hearts of the various old worthies.” The preface continues to emphasise the text’s importance for Mǐn (Fújiàn) and Yuè (Guǎngdōng) where it had been absent.
Abstract
Zhāng Wénjiā 張文嘉 and Zhāng Wénxiàn 張文憲 are lay-scholar brothers (likely of Fújiàn or Guǎngdōng provenance, given the preface’s regional emphasis), active in the Qing period. Both are lay-Buddhist practitioners without monastic status. The hé zhù compilation is their joint editorial work.
No independent biographical material has been located on the Zhāng brothers. Dating bracket: notBefore 1660, notAfter 1700 (working Qing bracket). Catalog dynasty 清.
Translations and research
- Yifa. 2002. The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China. Hawai’i.
Other points of interest
The hé zhù format of combining multiple earlier commentaries with new editorial apparatus is characteristic of late-imperial Chinese scholarly-commentarial practice. The Zhāng brothers’ lay-scholarly authorship — rather than monastic-editorial authorship — reflects the continuing late-imperial lay-Buddhist scholarly tradition in which Confucian-trained literati supply philological-scholastic apparatus for canonical Buddhist texts.