Gǔ zūnsù yǔlù mùlù 古尊宿語錄目錄

Table of Contents for the Sayings of the Ancient Venerable Masters — a one-juan bibliographic table-of-contents for the classical Gǔ zūnsù yǔlù 古尊宿語錄 corpus, compiled by the great Tokugawa-era Japanese Rinzai scholar-monk Mujaku Dōchū 無著道忠 (1653–1744/5). A typical example of Dōchū’s meticulous textual-reference scholarship.

About the work

A one-juan bibliographic table-of-contents for a parent canonical text, X68 n1314. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

The parent text Gǔ zūnsù yǔlù is a substantial Sòng-dynasty compilation of collected-sayings from classical Chán masters — one of the most voluminous reference-works in the Chán corpus. Dōchū’s table-of-contents provides a systematic index for navigating this large canonical collection — exemplary of the textual-philological scholarship that Japanese Tokugawa Rinzai masters applied to the classical Chinese Chán corpus.

Abstract

Mujaku Dōchū 無著道忠 (Sino reading: Wúzhuó Dàozhōng; 1653–1744/5): The single most important philological-scholar of Tokugawa-era Rinzai Zen. Hào Mujaku 無著 (“No-Attachment”); also Shōhyōdō 照冰堂, Hōutō 葆雨堂. Active at the Rinzai monastery Shōkoku-ji 相國寺 in Kyoto.

Dōchū produced an enormous corpus of Chinese-classical Chán reference-works, lexicons, and philological studies — including the Zenrin shōkisen 禪林象器箋 (an encyclopedic dictionary of Chán monastic terminology that remains a standard reference work), multiple yǔlù indexes, and many shorter commentarial and bibliographic pieces.

Dating: notBefore c. 1680 (Dōchū’s mature scholarly productivity begins); notAfter 1744 (his death).

Translations and research

  • Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山 and others. Studies on Japanese Tokugawa Rinzai philology.
  • Bodiford, William. Various studies on Tokugawa Zen.
  • Dōchū’s Zenrin shōkisen has been partly translated and extensively used in Zen-studies scholarship.