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普明禪師牧牛圖頌

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Text ID
KR6q0163
Date
1662–1662
Dynasty
清

Pǔmíng chánshī mùniú tú sòng 普明禪師牧牛圖頌

Chán Master Pǔmíng’s Ox-Herding Pictures with Verses

The Jiāxīng-Canon 嘉興藏 witness (J23 B128) of the early-Qīng compilation of the Pǔmíng ox-herding tradition. The same Kāngxī-1 (1662) compilation is also preserved in the Xùzàngjīng as X64 n1271 KR6q0161; the present Jiāxīng witness is a slightly more compact recension missing Jùchè Jìxiān’s 巨徹寂暹 harmonizing set and his separate Báiniú tú sòng 白牛圖頌.

About the work

A one-juan Chán anthology preserving Pǔmíng’s 普明 ten-stage ox-herding cycle together with thirteen harmonizing-verse sets by late-Míng / early-Qīng Chán masters and lay practitioners. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The compilation was finalised and engraved by the monk Rú Niàn 如念 in the seventh month of Kāngxī 1 (1662) at the Bōrětáng 般若堂 at Pǔmíngsì 普明寺, following the lay patron Yán Dàcān 嚴大參’s re-founding of the monastery; Yán’s 臨濟正宗三十二世 preface anchors the work within the Línjì orthodox lineage.

Catalog-vs-external discrepancy. The Kanripo catalog meta lists the dynasty as 明 (Ming); however, the work is precisely dated to 康熙元年 (Kāngxī 1 = 1662) by Rú Niàn’s own compiler-signature (Kāngxī yuán nián mèngqiū yuè rì yù Bōrětáng Rú Niàn kōng shí 康熙元年孟秋月　日寓般若堂如念空識), placing the received compilation unambiguously in the early Qīng. Followed here.

The body of the text contains: (a) Pǔmíng’s 原頌 (yuán sòng) in ten stages — Wèi mù 未牧, Chū tiáo 初調, Shòu zhì 受制, Huí shǒu 回首, Xún fú 馴伏, Wú’ài 無礙, Rèn yùn 任運, Xiāng wàng 相忘, Dú zhào 獨照, Shuāng mǐn 雙泯; (b) thirteen sets of ten harmonizing verses keyed to Pǔmíng’s stage-names, contributed by Wéngǔ 聞谷 (Zhēnjì Guǎngyìn 真寂廣印), Tiānyǐn 天隱 (Bào’ēn Yuánxiū 報恩圓修), Pòshān 破山 (Dōngtǎ Hǎimíng 東塔海明), Wànrú Tōngwéi 萬如通微, Fúshí Tōngxián 浮石通賢, Yùlín Tōngxiù 玉林通琇, Ruòān Tōngwèn 箬菴通問, Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際, Xuánwēi Miàoyòng 玄微妙用 (Tóngyuèān 桐月菴), Xiāngchuáng Míng Hǎi 香幢明海 (Yīzhǐān 一指菴), Yán Dàcān 嚴大參 (zài hé and sān hé — two sets), Bǒ dàorén Rú Niàn 跛道人如念, Wúyī dàorén Xú Chāngzhì 無依道人徐昌治, and Mùgōng dàorén Xiàng Zhēnběn 牧公道人項真本 (the last not listed in the ToC but included in the body).

Abstract

The Jiāxīng Canon 嘉興藏 (Jiāxīng dà zàng jīng 嘉興大藏經), compiled across the MíngQīng transition and centred on the Chán monastic-publishing network, preserves this compilation in volume 23, as work B128. The text is essentially a parallel witness to X64 n1271 in the Xùzàngjīng KR6q0161, derived from the same Kāngxī-1 (1662) publication by Rú Niàn at Pǔmíngsì. Small textual differences between the two witnesses — the J23 version’s slightly reduced contributor roster, and textual variants at the level of individual characters — reflect the ordinary transmissional differences between parallel recensions of a recently-printed Chán anthology as it circulated through the monastic-publishing circuits of the early-Qīng southeast. The Jiāxīng version preserves pictorial notations (marked by <img:> at each stage-heading in the source) indicating that the original engraving was an illustrated block-print with one picture per stage.

Dating: notBefore / notAfter both 1662, per the compiler’s dated colophon. Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s 雲棲袾宏 1609 preface — preserved in X64 n1271 — is here replaced at the head of the compilation by Yán Dàcān’s 1662-contemporaneous preface alone; the J23 recension therefore lacks the earlier Wànlì-period preservation stratum.

For the doctrinal and historical context of the Pǔmíng ox-herding tradition, including the late-Míng / early-Qīng LínjìYángqí masters who contributed harmonizing verses, see the parallel entry KR6q0161.

Translations and research

  • Same secondary-literature situation as KR6q0161; no substantial secondary literature located specifically on J23 B128.
  • Welter, Albert. 2006. Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism. Oxford. Background on Línjì-Yángqí lineage politics across the Míng-Qīng transition.

Other points of interest

The survival of the 1662 Pǔmíngsì compilation in two major Buddhist canonical collections — the Jiāxīng Canon as J23 B128 and the Xùzàngjīng as X64 n1271 — is itself evidence of the compilation’s significance within the early-Qīng Chán monastic-publishing world. The two witnesses differ in their contributor rosters (X64 n1271 expanded with Jùchè Jìxiān) and in their prefatory material (X64 n1271 prepends Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s 1609 preface), suggesting that even within the narrow window between initial printing (1662) and canonical inclusion, the compilation was being actively supplemented and re-edited.

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