Sōngyuán Chóngyuè chánshī yǔlù 松源崇嶽禪師語錄
Sayings-Record of Chán Master Sōngyuán Chóngyuè — a two-juan Southern-Sòng yǔlù of Sōngyuán Chóngyuè 崇岳 松源崇嶽 (1132 – Jiātài 2.8.4 / 29 August 1202), senior dharma-heir of 咸傑 Mì’ān Xiánjié 密菴咸傑 (1118–1186) and in his day the pre-eminent Yángqí-branch Línjì master south of the Yangtze. The byline names six 參學 (“students-in-training”) as recorders: 善開 Shànkāi (掩室 / 金山善開), 光睦 Guāngmù (香山光睦), 普巖 Pǔyán (運菴普巖, 1156–1226), 師肇 Shīzhào, 道巖 Dàoyán (雲巢道巖), and 了能 Liǎonéng — the first three of whom went on to become Sōngyuán’s own dharma-heirs.
About the work
Two-juan Southern-Sòng Chán yǔlù in Xuzangjing X70 n1377. The table of contents lays out the organization: three prefaces, then juan 1 with six successive abbacy records (Chéngzhào 澂照 禪院 in Píngjiāng fǔ, Guāngxiào 光孝 at Jūnshān in Jiāngyīn jūn, Shíjì 實際 on Yěfù shān in Wúwéi jūn, Jiànfú 薦福 in Ráozhōu, Zhìdù 智度 on Xiāngshān in Míngzhōu, and Yúnyǎn 雲巖 on Hǔqiū shān in Píngjiāng fǔ) followed in juan 2 by the Língyǐn 靈隱 abbacy record, the kāishān record for Xiǎnqīn Bàocí 顯親報慈 禪寺, bǐngfú pǔshuō 秉拂普說, fǎyǔ 法語, sònggǔ 頌古, zàn on buddhas and patriarchs, jìsòng 偈頌, the tǎmíng 塔銘 (pagoda inscription), and a bá (colophon). The preface-proper by Qiáo Lìngxiàn 譙令憲 (Huíān 回菴), dated Jiātài 3.10 (October 1203), frames the work against the familiar Chán topos that the awakened intention lies not in words, yet great masters have always spoken, and that Sōngyuán — heir to the “Yángqí true pulse” via Mì’ān — was the exemplar of his age. A second preface by the Huánglóngshān abbot Qìngrú 慶如, dated Jiātài 3 chónyáng (9 October 1203), describes the editorial history: Sōngyuán’s heir Huìzú 惠足 collected and arranged the sayings, which were then edited down into a single compilation at Huánglóngshān. The 後序 by Mèng Yóu 孟猷 of Jíjùn (20 December 1203) adds personal reminiscences. The printing history is preserved in two further colophons: a Yuán-era bá by Qīngmào 清茂 of Jīnlíng Fèngtái (Tàidìng 3, 1326) records that the original blocks stored at the Jiùfēngān 鷲峰菴 beneath Língyǐn were lost to fire in the Zhìyuán era and that he re-cut them to preserve the text; Japanese postfaces by Shīdiǎn 師點 (Genroku 3, 1690) and Yǐnshān 隱山 (Kansei 13, 1801) record successive Japanese re-cuttings after the Hanazono dian-lao old edition was destroyed by fire in the Tenmei period.
Abstract
The yǔlù is the primary source for Sōngyuán’s biography and is prefaced / concluded by unusually rich paratexts. The master’s life survives in the tǎmíng of juan 2, composed by the elderly Lù Yóu 陸游 (1125–1210) at the request of Xiāngshān Guāngmù’s attendant Dàofū 道敷 four years after the stupa was erected. According to the inscription, Sōngyuán (surname Wú 吳, of Chǔzhōu Lóngquán 處州龍泉) took the five precepts at Dàmíngsì aged twenty-three, studied successively with Língshí Miào 靈石玅, Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲, Jiāngshān Yìng’ān Tánhuá 應菴曇華, Mù’ān Ānyǒng 木菴安永 of Qiányuánsì on Gǔshān 鼓山, Fúzhōu, and several others; after receiving formal ordination at the Báilián jīngshè 白蓮精舍 by West Lake in Lóngxīng 2 (1164), he travelled throughout JiāngZhè before his decisive awakening in a rùshì interview under Mì’ān at Língyǐn. He was installed by Mì’ān as head seat at Língyǐn and then occupied seven successive abbacies before being summoned to Língyǐn by imperial decree in Qìngyuán 3 (1197). He stepped down after six years into retirement at the Dōngān 東庵, where a slight illness carried him off; his parting verse (“Coming with nowhere to come from, / going with nowhere to go; / in a turn of the mystic barrier, / even buddhas and patriarchs are at a loss”) is recorded in the inscription. He died in cross-legged meditation on 嘉泰 2.8.4 (29 August 1202), aged seventy-one by shì count, with forty xià (summer retreats, i.e. forty years since ordination); his remains were interred in a pagoda on Běigāofēng 北高峰. A printing error at this point in the received text — the pagoda inscription as transmitted in CBETA reads 嘉定二年 (Jiādìng 2 = 1209) rather than the correct 嘉泰二年 (Jiātài 2 = 1202); Lù Yóu’s own internal chronology (得年七十有一, 坐夏四十, plus the dating of the three prefaces to Jiātài 3 / 1203 within a year of the master’s death) rules out 1209. The DILA authority file (A001037) gives the correct date.
Sōngyuán’s principal dharma-heirs noted in the inscription include 善開 Yúnjū Shànkāi 雲居善開 and 光睦 Xiāngshān Guāngmù 香山光睦, both named among his recorders here. The line that in later Japanese historiography became known as the 松源派 Sōngyuán pài descended chiefly through 普巖 Yùn’ān Pǔyán 運菴普巖 (1156–1226) → Xūtáng Zhìyú 虛堂智愚 (1185–1269) → Nānpo Jōmyō 南浦紹明 (1235–1308), and became the dominant current of later Japanese Rinzai via the Ōtōkan 応燈関 lineage — a point of considerable importance for Japanese Zen historians and reflected in Yǐnshān’s 1801 Kansei postface, which characterizes the Sōngyuán teaching as the “poison of our country” (毒吾國也) on account of its weight within Japanese Zen.
Translations and research
No complete English translation of the yǔlù located. The yǔlù and the 松源派 more broadly are discussed in Western-language scholarship on Japanese Rinzai lineages — notably Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, vol. 2: Japan (1990, tr. Heisig & Knitter), and in studies of Xūtáng Zhìyú and Nānpo Jōmyō — but not as the primary subject of a dedicated monograph. In Japanese: several modern kundoku / shōkai of Sōngyuán’s gosan extracts circulate in Rinzai-shū internal publications, and the zenmon hōhen tradition gives 松源 a substantial entry.
Other points of interest
The apophatic formula kāikǒu bù zài shétou shàng 開口不在舌頭上 (“when you open your mouth, [the mystery] is not on the tongue”) — inherited by Sōngyuán from Mù’ān Ānyǒng and quoted repeatedly in the prefaces and tǎmíng — is one of the signature phrases of the 松源派 and reappears in the kōan collections that descended from it, including Xūtáng’s yǔlù and, in Japan, the Shinchi Kakushin / Myōan Eisai line and the Musō-ha spin-offs.