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布水臺集

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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 Míng-Qīng 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 Míng-Qīng 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

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

  • 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.

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