Jíxiū Qìliǎo chánshī shíyí jí 即休契了禪師拾遺集
Gleanings from the Chán Master Jí-xiū Qì-liǎo by 周及 (主集錄)
About the work
A single-juan “gleanings” (shíyí 拾遺) of the Yuán-dynasty Línjì master Jíxiū Qìliǎo 契了 即休契了 (1269–1350+), abbot of the Jīnshān 金山 (Zǐjīn shān 紫金山) monastery in Zhènjiāng 鎮江, collected by his Japanese disciple Zhōu Jí 周及 周及 (Gucho Shūkyū 愚中周及, 1323–1409) before the latter’s return to Japan. The master himself supplied the concluding colophon, dated spring of Zhìzhèng 10 (1350), at age 82. Xùzàngjīng X71 no. 1408.
Abstract
Qìliǎo’s main recorded sayings (the Jīnshān Jíxiū Qìliǎo chánshī yǔlù, X71 no. 1407) were compiled earlier in his career. The present shíyí jí is a supplementary collection that Zhōu Jí, a Japanese monk who had entered the Yuán in 1341 and studied under Qìliǎo at Jīnshān, gathered from his master’s miscellaneous writings — gāthās on images (Śākyamuni, Budai,踏蘆 Bodhidharma, Péi Xiū 裴休, Zhàozhōu’s seven-pound cassock, Zhōngfēng Míngběn, etc.), parting verses for fellow monks, inscriptions on paintings, essays (shuō 說, jì 記), mortuary eulogies (jìwén 祭文), prefaces, stūpa inscriptions, ritual verses for eye-opening ceremonies and inhumations, and the long-form shàngliáng wén 上樑文 for the Buddha Hall at Jīnshān. Qìliǎo’s colophon frames the collection with characteristic self-deprecation: “What the world prizes are gold and pearls; how can my words be worth anything? Yet should someone see these and not dismiss them as pebbles fished from a spring pool, that would be enough” (改寫). Zhōu Jí took the text back to Japan shortly afterward, in 1351, where he founded Butsū-ji 佛通寺 in Aki 安藝 and became a founding figure in the Butsutsū branch of Japanese Rinzai.
The shíyí contains several pieces of considerable importance for Yuán-Japanese Chán history:
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The stūpa inscription for Dàjiàn chánshī Qīngzhuō Zhèngchéng 大鑑禪師清拙正澄 (Seisetsu Shōchō, 1274–1339) — written by Qìliǎo as Zhèngchéng’s fellow-countryman (they were both from Liánjiāng 連江 in Fújiàn) and fellow Línjì-transmission holder. The inscription records Zhèngchéng’s departure from Yuán China in the first month of Tàidìng 3 (1326) in response to the Japanese invitation, his storm-tossed voyage via Korea, his installation at Kenchō-ji 建長寺 in 1327, his successive positions at Jōchi-ji 淨智寺, Enkaku-ji 圓覺寺 (called here Ruìlù Yuánjué 瑞鹿圓覺), Kennin-ji 建仁寺, and Nanzen-ji 南禪寺, his granting of the abbot’s position to his Japanese disciples, his death in the first month of Ryakuō 2 / Engen 4 (1339), and posthumous honorifics from the Ashikaga shoguns (qiándiǎnjiù Ténggōng 前典廐藤公 = Ashikaga Tadayoshi 足利直義). This is one of the fullest Chinese-side sources for Seisetsu’s career in Japan.
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Eulogies for the major mid-Yuán Chán masters: Fórì Pǔzhào chánshī (= Yuánsǒu Xíngduān 元叟行端), who died at age 84 on 4/VIII/Zhìzhèng 1 = 1341; Dúgū 獨孤 (Qìliǎo’s shūxiōng 叔兄); Biéàn 別岸 (d. 3/VI/Zhìzhèng 8 = 1348); Jiāoshān Guì tídiǎn 焦山桂提點 (d. 9/II/Zhìzhèng 9 = 1349); Tánfāng 曇芳 / Guǎngcí Yuánwù chánshī 廣慈圓悟禪師 (d. 28/X/Zhìzhèng 8 = 1348) of Dà Lóngxiáng 大龍翔 monastery (Jīnlíng); and — most prominently — Xiàoyǐn Dàxīn 笑隱大訢 (styled here Xiàowēng 笑翁, d. Zhìzhèng 4 = 1344), the royal-appointed head of Lóngxiáng zhènshān sì whose work helped consolidate Yuán court-Buddhist institutions.
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Records of the 1338–1345 rebuilding of Jīnshān after its Yuán-era fire (the fourth since the monastery’s foundation in the Eastern Jìn Dàníng 大寧 period). Qìliǎo’s prose jì for the Yuányī Ān 圓伊庵 is precisely dated to 4/X/Zhìzhèng 5 (1345), and the Xīzī hǎiyìn chánsì jì documents the family of a Muslim (huíhuí 回回) lay-patron Cángjíshā 藏吉沙 whose father Nàsùládīng 納速剌丁 had served in the Yuán Jiāngxī provincial administration — a valuable trace of Central-Asian Islamic lineages converting to Chán patronage.
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A long gǔfēng “imitating Hànlí” (擬昌黎體): a dàishū 代疏 addressed to the Imperial Preceptor (dìshī 帝師) and Chancellor, petitioning for imperial precedent (citing Liáng Dàbǎo, Táng Huìchāng, Sòng Jiànyán — each time Jīnshān was rebuilt by imperial order after burning down) to rebuild the Jīnshān hall, pagodas, and Buddha images again in 1345–46.
Dating. The text spans roughly the two final decades of Qìliǎo’s life — the earliest firmly datable piece is ca. 1326 (Seisetsu’s departure), the latest is the colophon of 1350. Most of the substantial prose is Zhìzhèng-era (1341–1350). The notBefore/notAfter bracket 1310–1350 represents the plausible span of material originally composed, with compilation itself datable to spring 1350.
Translations and research
No complete English translation located. The Seisetsu Shōchō stūpa inscription has been studied by Japanese Chán-historians (notably Tamamura Takeji 玉村竹二 in his Gozan zenrin shūshi nendaikō studies); Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Harvard, 1981) provides the standard Western-language account of Seisetsu’s Japanese career. On Zhōu Jí / Gucho Shūkyū see the entry in Nihon bukkyō jinmei jiten and the brief account in Martin Collcutt’s work; Butsū-ji’s founding is treated in local histories of Aki / Hiroshima prefecture. YuánChán eulogy culture as a literary form is treated in George Keyworth’s work on Mèngdōng Lǐ and related figures.
No substantial secondary literature located specifically on this shíyí jí.
Other points of interest
The colophon closing “紫金山八十有二老人” (the 82-year-old of Zǐjīn shān) is the source for Qìliǎo’s birth year of 1269 (= 1350 − 81, counted inclusively). His survival into 1350 past age 82 is not otherwise attested in Yuán records.