聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

布水臺集

4 min read

Text ID
KR6q0200
Date
1625–1664
Dynasty
明

Bù shuǐ tái jí 布水臺集

Puddle-Waters Terrace Collection

The thirty-two-juan collected literary works of Mùchén Dàomín 木陳道忞 (1596–1674), shì Hóngjué 弘覺, dharma-heir of Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 and abbot of Tiāntóngsì 天童寺. Prefaced by the major Qīng-transitional scholar-official Qián Qiānyì 錢謙益 (1582–1664) under his lay-Buddhist sobriquet Hǎiyìn dìzǐ Yúshān Qián Qiānyì Pántán 海印弟子虞山錢謙益槃譚. The catalog’s dynasty attribution is 明, though the bulk of Dàomín’s productive life — and the preface’s date — falls in the early Qīng period.

About the work

A thirty-two-juan collected literary works of a Chán master, J26 B181. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

The collection gathers Dàomín’s prose and poetry across decades of teaching-career: formal prefaces, memorial addresses, letters, tomb-inscriptions, monastery records, and extensive poetic output including both classical literary verse and Chán-specific verse-forms (jì 偈, sòng 頌, zàn 贊). The title Bù shuǐ tái 布水臺 (“Puddle-Waters Terrace” or “Cloth-Water Platform”) refers to a specific site (possibly at Tiāntóngsì) that Dàomín associated with his teaching-hermitage practice — the title functions as a self-localisation of his literary voice.

Qián Qiānyì’s preface engages a sustained parallel between Dàomín and Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163), the Southern-Sòng Chán master whose Míng-Southern-Sòng loyalist politics (his opposition to Qín Guì 秦檜 and support for Zhāng Déyuǎn 張德遠 and Zhāng Zǐsháo 張子韶) parallel the crisis of the MíngQīng transitional decade. Qián’s preface reads Dàomín as a Dà-huì-style Chán master of moral-political seriousness, whose bù shuǐ tái jí corpus carries the weight of a dynastic-transition witness. This framing is historically significant: Qián Qiānyì’s own Míng-loyalist-then-Qīng-collaborator biography makes his endorsement of Dàomín’s literary corpus a loaded political act.

Abstract

See Mùchén Dàomín’s person note for full biographical details. The Bù shuǐ tái jí is Dàomín’s principal literary monument, corresponding to — but distinct from — his imperial-court Běi yóu jí KR6q0199 (the record of his 1659 Shùnzhì court journey) and his systematic Chán-sermon corpus Mùchén héshàng yǔlù 木陳和尚語錄 (J26 B182).

Qián Qiānyì (1582–1664), the preface-writer: see his person note. The Hǎiyìn dìzǐ 海印弟子 (“Disciple of the Ocean-Seal”) sobriquet identifies his formal lay-Buddhist commitment. His post-1644 MíngQīng transitional position — as a reluctant Qīng collaborator with continuing Míng-loyalist sympathies — gives his Bù shuǐ tái jí preface its distinctive loaded quality.

Dating: notBefore c. 1625 (start of Dàomín’s mature teaching-period, post-receipt of dharma-transmission from Yuánwù); notAfter 1664 (Qián Qiānyì’s death-year, the preface’s latest possible date). The collection’s material span is thus roughly 40 years of Dàomín’s productive career; its final compilation and printing must fall within 1659–1664 (after the northern journey documented in KR6q0199 and before Qián’s death).

Translations and research

  • Jiang Wu. 2008. Enlightenment in Dispute. Extensive treatment of Dào-mín’s position within the Mìyún-Yuánwù-lineage publishing network.
  • Chan, Wing-tsit. Various studies on early-Qīng scholar-monk literary culture.
  • Chén Yǐn-kè 陳寅恪. 1960. 《柳如是別傳》. Treats Qián Qiānyì’s Buddhist connections, including his relationships with Dào-mín and other Chán masters.
  • No substantial Western-language monographic study located specifically on J26 B181.

Other points of interest

The Bù shuǐ tái jí is significant beyond its literary content as a document of the complex early-Qīng Chán-literatus relations: a Chán master of imperial-court standing (Dàomín), collecting his literary corpus for canonical publication with a preface from the most culturally-eminent scholar-official of his age (Qián Qiānyì). The collection’s inclusion of the Běi yóu jí in a parallel-track volume (KR6q0199) further amplifies its political-religious resonance: taken together, the two works constitute a sustained documentary record of the Dàomín / Shùnzhì episode and its literary reception.

The text also preserves — as Qián’s preface explicitly notes — poetic expressions of Dàomín’s sympathies for the fallen Míng. The late-Míng shùnnán 殉難 (martyrdom) poetic tradition finds unusual expression in this early-Qīng Chán master’s corpus, complicating any simple reading of his Shùnzhì-court relationship as unreserved Qīng collaboration.

Graph View

Backlinks