Shí niú tú sòng 十牛圖頌
Ten Ox-Herding Pictures with Verses
The canonical Southern-Sòng Chán allegorical-pedagogical cycle depicting the stages of spiritual awakening through the analogy of a herdsman searching for, finding, taming, and transcending an ox; by Kuò’ān Shīyuǎn 廓庵師遠 of the Liángshān 梁山 in Dǐngzhōu 鼎州 (modern Húnán), a LínjìYángqí dharma-heir of Nántáng Yuánjìng 南堂元靜
About the work
A one-juan Chán allegorical-pedagogical cycle, X64 n1269. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The ten-stage cycle is the most influential Chán visual-didactic composition, widely transmitted into Japanese Zen (where as Jūgyū-zu 十牛圖 it enters the standard Rinzai curriculum) and Korean Sŏn (where as Sip’u-to 十牛圖 it serves in the Chogye-order doctrinal training).
Kuò’ān’s ten stages: (1) Xún niú 尋牛 (Searching for the Ox), (2) Jiàn jī 見跡 (Seeing the Traces), (3) Jiàn niú 見牛 (Seeing the Ox), (4) Dé niú 得牛 (Catching the Ox), (5) Mù niú 牧牛 (Herding the Ox), (6) Qí niú guī jiā 騎牛歸家 (Riding the Ox Home), (7) Wàng niú cún rén 忘牛存人 (Forgetting the Ox, Person Remains), (8) Rén niú jù wàng 人牛俱忘 (Both Person and Ox Forgotten), (9) Fǎn běn huán yuán 返本還源 (Returning to the Source), (10) Rù chán chuí shǒu 入鄽垂手 (Entering the Marketplace with Helping Hands).
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. Opening line: Zhù Dǐngzhōu Liángshān Kuò’ān héshàng Shí niú tú sòng (bìng) xù 住鼎州梁山廓庵和尚十牛圖頌并序 (“Ten Ox-Herding Pictures with Verses (and preface), by Kuòān héshàng of Liángshān in Dǐngzhōu”). Kuòān’s own preface narrates the textual-historical context: an earlier Chán master Qīngjū 清居 produced an ox-herding cycle in five stages (going from black to white progressively); another master Zégōng 則公 expanded to ten stages of his own. Kuòān’s cycle — per the preface — improves on both by starting from “lost” (shī 失) and ending in “entering the marketplace” (rù chán 入鄽), thus completing the full cycle of spiritual development including return to the world.
Abstract
Kuò’ān Shīyuǎn 廓庵師遠 (DILA A000918; lifedates unrecorded; active mid-to-late 12th century), hào Kuò’ān 廓庵 (“Spacious Hermitage”). Southern-Sòng LínjìYángqí Chán master, dharma-heir of Nántáng Yuánjìng 南堂元靜 (DILA A008510). Native of Héchuān 合川, lay surname Lǔ 魯. Held the abbacy at Chángdé fǔ Liángshān 常德府梁山 (modern Dǐngzhōu 鼎州, Húnán), whence the alternate names Liángshān Shīyuǎn 梁山師遠 and Kuò’ān Yuǎn 廓庵遠.
One named dharma-heir: Xìnxiàng Yí chánshī 信相宜禪師 of Chéngdū fǔ. Other biographical information minimal.
Dating bracket: notBefore 1150 (Shīyuǎn’s mature period in the Nántáng Yuánjìng lineage), notAfter 1200 (working terminus for the text’s composition in late Southern Sòng). The precise compositional date is not recorded.
Translations and research
- Stephen Addiss (trans.). 2008. The Zen Art Book: The Art of Enlightenment. Shambhala. English translation of the Shí niú tú cycle.
- 鈴木大拙 Suzuki Daisetsu. 1934. Manual of Zen Buddhism. Includes standard English rendering of the cycle.
- Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山. 1974. 《禪の語錄》 17. Chikuma Shobō. Pairs the Shí niú tú sòng with Xìn xīn míng KR6q0085, Zhèng dào gē KR6q0090, and Zuò chán yí as the four canonical short Chán didactic-verse texts.
- Tokiwa Gishin. 1962. Collected translations and studies.
- Mohr, Michel. 1994. “Examining the Sources: Hakuin Ekaku and the Zen Ox-Herding Sequence.” Studies on the continuing Japanese reception.
Other points of interest
The Shí niú tú sòng’s classification of spiritual awakening as a ten-stage narrative-pictorial sequence has been among the most influential pedagogical schemas in East Asian Buddhism. Multiple earlier and subsequent ox-herding cycles exist — the earlier Pǔmíng 普明 version (eight stages black-to-white), the Qīngjū 清居 version (five stages), various later expansions — but Kuòān’s is the canonical received form. Its preservation in the four-text short-verse cluster (alongside KR6q0085, KR6q0090, and the Zuò chán yí 坐禪儀) in Yanagida’s critical-edition series marks it as a foundational short didactic text of classical Chán.
In Japanese Rinzai practice the Jūgyū-zu 十牛圖 has been a central curricular element since the Kamakura period, with numerous Japanese masters (Hakuin, Shidō Bunan, etc.) producing their own artistic-commentarial realisations. The ten-image sequence, with each stage paired with Kuòān’s verse and his preface, has become one of the most frequently-painted religious subjects in East Asian art.