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絕餘編

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Text ID
KR6q0205
Date
1630–1642
Dynasty
明

Jué yú biān 絕餘編

Collection of Terminal Remnants

A four-juan mid-career miscellany by Ǒuyì Zhìxù 蕅益智旭 (1599–1655). Self-prefaced in the mid-summer of Chóngzhēn rénwǔ 崇禎壬午 = Chóngzhēn 15 = 1642 at the Tiěfóguāntáng 鐵佛觀堂 of Wúxīng 吳興. The title Jué yú 絕餘 (“Terminating-Remainders”) expresses Zhìxù’s self-reflection on his continuing literary production despite his earlier vows of renunciation.

About the work

A four-juan miscellany of doctrinal and personal writings, J28 B216. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

Zhìxù’s self-preface explains the title: after five years of difficulty (jīng kùn héng 經困衡) from gēng-wǔ 1630 to jiǎ-xū 1634, compounded by a friend’s betrayal in autumn 1635, he had resolved to “hide in the ten-thousand mountains’ depths and willingly die alongside wild beasts.” A serious illness while travelling compelled him to stay at Jiǔhuáshān 九華山, where, through prayer to Kṣitigarbha (Dìzàng 地藏), he received a spiritual directive to resume his scriptural-reading and commentarial writing. Hence: after having once burned his pen and ink-stone in a vow of literary renunciation, he would henceforth “no longer treat literary-textual prajñā as an enemy.”

Zhìxù’s characteristic philosophical-rhetorical move: wén zì xìng kōng, xìng kōng jí shì shí xiàng 文字性空，性空即是實相 (“The nature of literary-text is empty; emptiness itself is the mark-of-reality”) — therefore renunciation of literary-text and continuation of literary-text are both, finally, the same practice. The title Jué yú (“Terminating-Remainders”) captures this dialectical position: the “remainders” of literary writing that persist after the original renunciation.

Structure of the four juan:

  • Juan 1: Yuàn wén 願文 (vow-texts, six compositions) — Zhìxù’s formal vow-texts for various Buddhist practices.
  • Juans 2–4: Shū 書 (letters), Lùn 論 (discussions), Shuō 說 (explanations), and related prose compositions addressed to specific individuals or topics.

Abstract

See 智旭’s person note for full biographical details. The Jué yú biān is one of Zhìxù’s mid-career doctrinal miscellanies, containing important vow-texts and letters from his most productive period. The editor Yuánguǒ 圓果 was one of Zhìxù’s disciples who compiled the master’s scattered compositions into the present collected form.

Dating: notBefore c. 1630 (the specific period of the “five years of difficulty” narrative, 1630–1634, which the preface cites as the biographical background); notAfter 1642 (the preface-date, Chóngzhēn rénwǔ zhòng xià Ǒuyì dàorén Zhìxù shū yú Wúxīng zhī Tiěfóguāntáng 崇禎壬午仲夏藕益道人智旭書於吳興之鐵佛觀堂).

Translations and research

  • Shèngyán 聖嚴. 1975. 《明末佛教研究》. Standard treatment of Zhìxù’s corpus.
  • No substantial Western-language monographic study located specifically on J28 B216.

Other points of interest

The Jué yú biān’s title and self-preface reflect a characteristic late-Míng Buddhist authorial gesture: the repeated enactment of literary renunciation-and-return, framed through the dialectic of emptiness and reality. Zhìxù’s specific biographical crisis (1630–1635), resolved through a Kṣitigarbha-mediated spiritual revelation at Jiǔhuáshān, establishes the collection as a personal-doctrinal record of recovery from despair.

The Tiěfóguāntáng 鐵佛觀堂 (“Iron-Buddha Contemplation Hall”) at Wúxīng 吳興 (modern Húzhōu 湖州 in northern Zhèjiāng) was Zhìxù’s residence in mid-1642; this is one of the specific localities — alongside Běi Tiānmù 北天目, Wēnlíng 溫陵 (Quánzhōu 泉州), and Jiǔhuáshān — that Zhìxù used as a teaching-and-writing base across his mature career.

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