Xué fó kǎo xùn 學佛考訓
Instructional-Investigations for Buddhist Study
A ten-juan early-Qīng encyclopedic compilation for students of Chinese Buddhism, compiled by Liángtíng Jìngtǐng 俍亭淨挺 (1615–1684), the Míng-loyalist-turned-Chán master best known for his prolific literary-Buddhist output. Prefaced by Yán Hàng 嚴沆 of Yǔháng 禹航 on the Buddha’s Birthday (4/8) of Kāngxī 9 = 1670.
About the work
A ten-juan Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia / reference compilation, J34 B295. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
The text gathers HuáFàn yǔ yán jí qí xíng shì 華梵語言及其行事 (“Chinese and Sanskrit language[-items] and their [Buddhist-historical] matters”) from across the three-thousand-year Buddhist canonical-historical tradition (sān gǔ yǐ lái bǎi shì ér shàng 三古以來百世而上 “from the three antiquities forward, across a hundred generations”), organised into ten sections. The explicit purpose: tàn yì jí wēi 探逸集微 (“seeking out the exotic and gathering the subtle”) — Jìngtǐng’s aim was to compile Buddhist-lexical and historical-factual materials that regular Confucian-trained scholars would find inaccessible, assembling them in an organised reference form.
Yán Hàng’s preface frames the work’s purpose: contemporary “Chán students” (chán xué 禪學) are “blind to the green-characters and red-letters” of the Buddhist canon (i.e., the Buddhist-canonical script-traditions), while Confucian-trained scholars who study Chinese classics shǒu qí shī shuō (“adhere to their teachers’ doctrines”) but lack familiarity with Buddhist-canonical source-texts. Jìngtǐng’s ten-juan encyclopedic gathering cuì jīn jī yù 碎金積玉 (“scattered-gold and piled-jade”) aims to provide the missing bridge between the two scholarly traditions.
Abstract
Liángtíng Jìngtǐng 俍亭淨挺 (1615/11/24 – 1684/11/1). Lay name Xú Jìēn 徐繼恩 (alt. Xú Shìchén 徐世臣, Xú Yìtíng 徐逸亭). Hào Liángtíng 俍亭, also Cíyún Liángtíng Jìngtǐng 慈雲俍亭淨挺, Liángtíng dàorén 俍亭道人. Native of Qiántáng 錢塘 (Hángzhōu). Lifedates 1615 – 1684, age 70 (per the tomb-inscription in the Xī hé wén jí 西河文集 juan 9).
Before his Chán practice, Jìngtǐng had been a Confucian scholar and Míng-era aspirant to the civil service. After the 1644 Míng-Qīng collapse he followed the widespread yí mín 遺民 pattern of taking refuge in Buddhist practice. Became a major Chán master in the Míng-Qīng transitional Hángzhōu monastic-publishing community, authoring a substantial corpus of both Buddhist-doctrinal and lay-instructional works.
Preface-writer Yán Hàng 嚴沆: Yǔháng 禹航 (a place-name, somewhere in the Hángzhōu-Sūzhōu region) native and friend of Jìngtǐng.
Dating: notBefore c. 1665 (start of Jìngtǐng’s sustained literary-publishing productivity); notAfter 1670 (Yán Hàng’s preface-date).
Translations and research
- Chan, Wing-tsit. Various studies on early-Qīng Míng-loyalist Buddhism.
- No substantial Western-language monographic study located specifically on J34 B295.
Other points of interest
The Xué fó kǎo xùn exemplifies the late-Míng / early-Qīng Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia-tradition: comprehensive-reference works intended for practitioners seeking systematic orientation in the Buddhist canonical-historical tradition. Parallel works include Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s Zhú chuāng suí bǐ 竹窗隨筆 and the broader lay-Buddhist didactic-compendium genre represented in the Kanripo corpus by Xú Chāngzhì’s Xǐng shì lù KR6q0191.
Jìngtǐng’s bibliophilic orientation (the preface’s comment yú xué wú bù kuī, zhù shū mǎn jiā 于學無不窺，著書滿家 “his learning omits no field, his books fill the house”) reflects the early-Qīng tendency toward scholarly-encyclopedic Chinese Buddhism, responding to Jesuit-intellectual and Confucian-Neo-Confucian challenges through comprehensive doctrinal-philological self-documentation.
Links
- CBETA J34nB295
- Kanseki DB
- Jìngtǐng’s other works: KR6q0219 and subsequent catalog entries.