Chán mén bǎo zàng lù 禪門寶藏錄
Record of the Treasury of the Chán Gate
A three-juan Goryeo 高麗 (Kor. Chán / Sŏn) apology for the “separate transmission outside the teachings” (jiào wài bié chuán 教外別傳) doctrine, compiled by the Korean Sŏn master Chinjŏng Ch’ŏnch’aek 真靜天頙 (Kor. Chinjŏng Ch’ŏnch’aek; Chin. Zhēnjìng Tiānchì; b. 1216), at the Inner-Vow Hall (Nèiyuàntáng 內願堂) of Yŏn’gok-sa 鷰谷寺, dated by the author’s own preface to the eleventh month of Zhìyuán 30 = 1293.
About the work
A three-juan Chán apologetic compilation, X64 n1276. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The text is organised into three “gates” (mén 門), one per juan, each gathering a numbered sequence of quoted passages from classical Chán and doctrinal sources (both Chinese and Korean), with the author’s introductory remarks and occasional interlinear glosses:
- Juan 1: Chán jiào duì biàn mén 禪教對辨門 (Gate of Contrasting Chán and the Doctrinal Teachings), 25 articles.
- Juan 2: Zhū jiǎng guī fú mén 諸講歸伏門 (Gate of the Submission of the Various Doctrinal Teachers [to Chán]), 25 articles.
- Juan 3: Jūn chén chóng xìn mén 君臣崇信門 (Gate of the Reverent Faith of Sovereigns and Ministers), 39 articles.
The rhetorical plan is set out explicitly in the preface: the three kinds of misuse of the Chán–doctrinal distinction are (1) confusion (hùn làm 混濫) — addressed by the first gate, which distinguishes Chán from doctrinal teaching; (2) slander (huǐ bàng 毀謗) — addressed by the second gate, which assembles historical cases of doctrinal teachers being “converted and submitting” to Chán; and (3) circulation (liútōng 流通) among elites — addressed by the third gate, which catalogues royal and ministerial patronage of Chán across the Chinese and Korean historical record.
Ch’ŏnch’aek cites classical Chinese Chán authorities — the Běnshēng jīng 本生經, Dà Fàn tiānwáng wèn fó jué yí jīng 大梵天王問佛決疑經, Bōrě duō luó 般若多羅 (Prajñātāra), the Zhèng zōng jì 正宗記 by Qisong 契嵩, the Chuán dēng lù 傳燈錄, the Pǔ dēng lù 普燈錄, the Zǔ mén kān zhèng lù 祖門刊正錄, Yánshòu’s 延壽 Chánshī lù, Dà-zhū Huìhǎi 大珠惠海, Xuán-jué 玄覺, Guīfēng Zōngmì 圭峰宗密, and many others — alongside distinctively Korean 海東 Sŏn sources unavailable in Chinese canonical anthologies, notably the Hǎidōng qī dài lù 海東七代錄 (Records of the Seven Generations of Korea), the Wúrǎn guóshī xíngzhuàng 無染國師行狀 (Biographical Record of National Preceptor Muyeom), the Wúrǎn guóshī wú shé tǔ lùn 無染國師無舌土論 (Muyeom’s Treatise on the Tongueless Land), and testimonies from Sŏn masters Fànrì 梵日 (Pŏmil) of Kulsansa and Chéngguān 澄觀 of Chongbongsa. This preservation of otherwise-lost Korean Sŏn material is the text’s primary scholarly value.
Abstract
Ch’ŏnch’aek (Chin. Tiānchì; b. 1216, death year unrecorded; DILA A000142), with the honorific title Zhēnjìng dà chánshī 真靜大禪師 (Chinjŏng taesŏnsa, “Great Chán Master of True Quietude”). Lay surname Sin 申; alternate lay names Sin Kŭkchŏng 申克貞, Sin Mongch’a 申蒙且, Sin Ch’ŏn’in 申天因. Active at the Inner-Vow Hall (Naewŏndang 內願堂) at Yŏn’gok-sa 鷰谷寺; the author’s preface-signature reads Hǎidōng shāmén Nèiyuàn-táng Zhēnjìng dà chánshī Tiānchì Méngdàn xù 海東沙門內願堂真靜大禪師天頙蒙旦序 (“Preface by Tiānchì (alt. Méngdàn), Great Chán Master of True Quietude of the Inner-Vow Hall, śramaṇa of Korea”). Minimal further biographical information is preserved beyond the single reference in the text itself and the brief postface.
Dating bracket: notBefore 1293 (author’s own preface dated Zhìyuán 30 / eleventh month); notAfter 1294 (postface by the Goryeo senior official Lǐ Hùn 李混 dated Zhìyuán 31 / third month / 甲午 = 1294). The received compilation was thus completed within the transition from Zhìyuán 30 to Zhìyuán 31, a four-to-five-month window. The extant woodblock edition used as base for X64 n1276 is a later Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty reprint made in the 辛卯 year of Jiājìng 10 (1531) at the 鐵窟 (Ch’ŏlgul) hermitage of Jiri-san (智異山) in Chinju (晉州), Gyeongsang Province (慶尚道), published by 園興寺 (Wŏnhŭng-sa). The text is thus a late-13th-century Goryeo composition preserved only in a 16th-century Korean reprint.
The postface is by Lǐ Hùn 李混 (Kor. Yi Hon, 1252–1312), a senior Goryeo civil official — 奉翊大夫副知密直司事國學大司成文翰學士承旨 (“Grand Master of Reverent Assistance, Vice-Director of the Privy Council, Grand Master of the National Academy, Scholar-Advisor of the Wénhàn Academy”) — writing under the lay Buddhist sobriquet Méng’ān jūshì 蒙菴居士. Lǐ Hùn frames the work as addressing the bitterness between Chán practitioners and doctrinal teachers of his day, comparing misguided doctrinalists to “Hánlú chasing clods” (Hánlú zhú kuài 韓獹逐塊 — a proverbial Chán image of chasing symbols rather than grasping the essence) against the “lion biting the person” (shīzǐ yǎo rén 師子咬人) of true Chán insight.
Translations and research
- Heo Heung-sik 許興植. Various studies on Goryeo Sŏn Buddhism, including the Chán mén bǎo zàng lù as a central source.
- Robert Buswell. Multiple studies on Korean Sŏn history (see esp. The Korean Approach to Zen and Tracing Back the Radiance). Cites the text as a primary Goryeo Sŏn source.
- Korean-language translation: 《禪門寶藏錄 譯注》 — modern annotated Korean edition (referenced in the DILA authority record).
- Ch’oe Py’ŏnghŏn 최병헌. Studies on Goryeo Buddhism, including this text’s role in Sŏn self-definition.
Other points of interest
The Chán mén bǎo zàng lù is the single most important Goryeo Sŏn apologetic text to survive, and as such one of the core sources for the history of Korean Buddhism in the thirteenth century — a period of intense Mongol-Yuán political pressure and corresponding institutional transformation of the Sangha. The text’s preservation in the Xùzàngjīng via its 1531 Korean reprint means it has circulated within the East Asian Buddhist canonical tradition since the early-modern period, but its distinctively Korean contents — particularly the Hǎidōng qī dài lù extracts and the quotations from Muyeom’s Wú shé tǔ lùn — make it irreplaceable for reconstructing Korean Sŏn doctrinal history. The Hǎidōng qī dài lù itself is otherwise lost, surviving only through Ch’ŏnch’aek’s citations here.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Authority: A000142 (天頙), A000143 follows
- Kanseki DB