Wújùn héshàng zòuduì yǔlù 無準和尚奏對語錄
Master Wújùn’s Court-Interview Record — a one-juan supplementary yǔlù of Wújùn Shīfàn 師範 無準師範 (1178–1249) preserving his imperial audiences with Lǐzōng 理宗 and the Grand Dowager Gōngshèng Rénliè 恭聖仁烈皇太后, together with the xíngzhuàng 行狀 by an anonymous disciple. Compiled by his attendants 了南 Liǎonán and 了垠 Liǎoyín. Full title in the heading: Jìngshān Wújùn héshàng rùnèi yǐnduì shēngzuò yǔlù 徑山無準和尚入內引對陞座語錄.
About the work
One-juan yǔlù in Xuzangjing X70 n1383. It supplements the main Wújùn Shīfàn chánshī yǔlù (KR6q0315) by preserving (a) the records of Wújùn’s court audiences at the Xiūzhèng diàn 修政殿 and the Jīyán diàn 几筵殿 of the Gōngshèng Rénliè Empress-Dowager on Shàodìng 6.7.15 (22 August 1233) — three months after the Jìngshān fire of the fourth month of the same year — and (b) a long xíngzhuàng 行狀 by an anonymous disciple who had “attended the master’s seat” at Jìngshān. A closing note records that “the old blocks have grown worn and blurred; [we have] commissioned craftsmen to re-cut them, placed at the Jīngāng chányuàn at Guīshān 龜山金剛禪院.”
Abstract
The audience record opens with the standard imperial protocol — Wújùn holding the incense, the dū-zhī tài-wèi Zhāng Yán-qìng 張延慶 leading the introductions — and then has Wújùn deliver in zòu 奏 form a self-introduction as “a lowly patch-robed monk born in Western Shǔ, wandering the rivers and lakes for forty years now, undistinguished in the Way, and always privately ashamed,” followed by an account of the Jìng-shān fire of the fourth month (hǔ-lù 回祿) in which the entire compound was consumed. He credits the two imperial grants (100 dù-dié ordination-certificates immediately, and 50 more subsequently) for making the rebuilding possible. The audience then turns to doctrinal teaching framed around the Tang Vinaya master Dào-xuān 道宣’s dialogue with the god Wéi-tuó 韋陀 about the original destruction of Jeta-grove — Wújùn using that precedent to map Lǐzōng’s patronage onto the original Southern-Tiān-wáng vow-force that prompted the original cycle of destruction and rebuilding. The afternoon audience at the Empress-Dowager’s funerary hall is a conventional shēng-zuò with stock question-answer exchanges. After the session Wújùn is granted the golden-ribbon saṃghāṭī robe; the honorific title Fó-jiàn chánshī 佛鑑禪師 is then conferred.
The xíngzhuàng that follows is the fullest narrative of Wújùn’s career, organised as a continuous biographical essay. Highlights beyond the standard accounts include: his decisive awakening under Pòān at Xīhuá Xiùfēng 西華秀峰 (the wǒ dù jī “my belly is hungry” exchange about responding to the dinner-board); his three years’ service assisting Pòān as opening abbot of Guǎnghuì 廣惠 (the monastery built on land donated by Yuēzhāi Zhāng Zī 約齋張鎡); his decision to keep only Yuánwù Kèqín 圓悟克勤’s calligraphy and Mìān 密庵’s fǎyǔ (refusing Pòān’s transmission-robe and portrait); the abbacy at Qīngliáng and the subsequent translation through Jiāoshān, Xuědòu, Āyùwáng, and finally Jìngshān; the great fire prefigured in a dream of “twenty-one shining pearls” (the fire broke out on the twenty-first day of the fourth month); the multi-stage rebuilding with patronage from the Jīnghú zhìshǐ Méng Gǒng 孟珙 (d. 1246), the prefectures of Sībō 思播 in Shǔ, and from Japan (海外日本) — a concrete reference to the donations that accompanied the contact with his Japanese disciples 圓爾 Enni Ben’en 圓爾辨圓 and others. On the day of Wújùn’s death (Chúnyòu 9.3.18), seated at dawn, he wrote his final verse — “Coming I was empty-handed, / going I am stripped bare; / if you want to ask for something solid, / the stone bridge of Tiāntái is there” — and expired “in the space of a moment.” His pagoda was raised at the Yuánzhào 圓照 sub-compound on the fourth of the fourth month.
The author of the xíngzhuàng acknowledges the model of Fúshān Yuánjiàn 浮山圓鑑’s biography by Xiǎoyíng 曉瑩 and of Shímén Yúnān 石門雲菴’s by Jìyīn 寂音 (Huìhóng 慧洪) — placing this xíngzhuàng in the continuing tradition of personal-memoir xíngzhuàng within Southern-Sòng Chán literature. The closing note about a re-cutting of worn blocks at Guīshān Jīngāng chányuàn indicates that the text had some circulation history before the recension preserved in Xuzangjing.
Translations and research
No complete English translation located. The zòu-duì record is a standard source for the institutional history of Chán-court relations under Lǐzōng; it is discussed in T. Griffith Foulk’s work on Sòng monasticism and in Jinhua Chen’s studies of monastic-imperial patronage. For the Jìng-shān rebuilding and its Japanese connections, see also the literature on Enni Ben’en and the origins of Tōfuku-ji.