Yuèjiāng Zhèngyìn chánshī yǔlù 月江正印禪師語錄
Three-juan Yuán yǔlù of Yuèjiāng Zhèngyìn 正印 月江正印 (active c. 1295 – c. 1341), Yángqí-branch Línjì master, 58th abbot of Míngzhōu Āyùwángshān Guǎnglì chánsì 明州阿育王山廣利禪寺, on whom Shùndì bestowed the gold-brocade fǎyī and the title Fóxīn Pǔjiàn 佛心普鑒. Dharma-heir of 淨伏 Hǔyán Jìngfú 虎巖淨伏 (then abbot of Jìngshān Xīngshèng Wànshòu chánsì) — hence dharma-grandson, via Jìngfú, of Xūzhōu Pǔdù 虛舟普度 (KR6q0340). Xuzangjing X71 no. 1409; the CBETA base is the Xuzangjing printing, not Jiāxīng. Compiled over four decades by twenty-one named ménrén 門人 led by 居簡 Jūjiǎn (abbot of Píngjiānglù Tàipíng chánsì), each abbacy record bearing the name of the disciple who transcribed it. Juan 1 gathers seven abbacy records — Chángzhōulù Bìyún chánsì 碧雲禪寺 (from Yuánzhēn 1 / 1295), Sōngjiāng Diànshān chánsì 澱山禪寺, Sōngjiāng Nánchán Xīngguó chánsì 南禪興國禪寺, Diànshān chánsì (second term), Húzhōu Héshān Xuānhuà chánsì 何山宣化禪寺 (from Zhìzhì 2 / 1322), Húzhōu Dàochǎng chánsì 道場禪寺 (from Tiānlì 2 / 1329), and Āyùwángshān Guǎnglì chánsì (from Yuántǒng 1 / 1333). Juan 2 covers niāngǔ, sònggǔ, pǔshuō and fǎyǔ. Juan 3 collects fózǔzàn, zìzàn, jìsòng, and an extensive sequence of tíbá on calligraphic traces (墨蹟) of earlier Chán masters — Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲, Zhēnxiē Qīngliǎo 真歇清了, Biéfēng Yúnwén 別峯雲門, Túdú Zhìcè 塗毒智策, Chījué Dàochōng 癡絕道冲, Yīngān Tánhuá 應菴曇華, Fózhào Déguāng 佛照德光, among others — closing with four postfaces.
Abstract
The compilation was assembled in stages. The earliest dated postface, by Dànhú Qīngmào 澹湖清茂 and the Jìngcí abbot Jìnghǎi 徑海, is from Zhìzhì 2 / 1322; Qīngzhuō Zhèngchéng 清拙正澄 — then still at Jīzúshān 雞足山, before his departure for Japan in 1326 — added a preface in Zhìzhì 3 / 1323, styling himself the master’s “former brother at Jīzúshān” (前雞足山師弟). Língshí Rúzhī 靈石如芝 appended a postface in (latter) Zhìyuán 1 / 1335. The principal preface, by Xiàoyǐn Dàxīn 笑隱大訢 (1284–1344), abbot of Lóngxiángsì 龍翔寺, is dated (latter) Zhìyuán 6 / 1340 and already speaks of the master’s teaching at Āyùwáng as an accomplished fact; it supplies the phrase “Yùwáng Yuèjiāng héshàng yǔlù” 育王月江和尚語錄, under which the work also circulated. The date brackets for the contents are thus 1295 (first installation at Bìyún) through c. 1340; Zhèngyìn himself outlived the compilation into the Zhìzhèng era, when he was summoned to preside over a shuǐlù assembly at Jīnshān. Per his DILA extensive notice (drawing on Zēngjí Xùchuándēnglù 增集續傳燈錄 juan 6 and Wǔdēng quánshū juan 52), he was a native of Liánjiāng 連江 (Fúzhōu), lay surname Liú 劉; tonsured at thirteen under Yuèxī 月溪; received dharma-transmission from Hǔyán Jìngfú at Língyǐn after breaking through on the “dog has no Buddha-nature” 狗子無佛性 huàtóu; served as shìxiāng and zhǎngzàng before his first abbacy; retired late in life to Sōngyuèān 松月菴 (whence his self-style Sōngyuèwēng 松月翁); left a death-verse before bathing, changing robes and expiring; ashes enshrined at Sōngjiāng Zhēnjìng 真淨. No precise lifedates survive in Chinese sources, though Japanese scholarship — extrapolating from surviving bǎojìzhuàng 印可狀 dated Tàidìng 5 / 1328 (Kagawa Prefectural History Museum) and from later mòjì in the Gotoh Museum dated Zhìzhèng 3 / 1343 — conventionally gives 1267 – c. 1350.
The text is a major source for Yángqí-branch teaching in Jiāngnán under the Yuán, and its heavy concentration of tíbá on preserved mòjì makes juan 3 a useful, and sometimes uniquely attested, source for the material culture of Southern-Sòng Chán memorial. The compilation’s transmission to Japan was early and dense: several autograph pieces by Zhèngyìn survive in Japanese temple and museum collections — the 1328 yìnkě now in the Kagawa Prefectural History Museum and the 1343 jìyǔ to Chǔshuāngfēng 楚雙峯 (Gotoh Museum, Important Cultural Property) are the best known — and attest to direct contact with Japanese nyūgensō 入元僧 studying at Āyùwáng during his abbacy.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located in Western-language scholarship; treatments in Chinese and Japanese are scattered across biographical compendia (Zēng-jí Xù-chuándēng-lù juan 6; Wǔ-dēng quán-shū juan 52; Nán-Sòng Yuán-Míng chán-lín sēng-bǎo zhuàn 南宋元明禪林僧寶傳 juan 12; Bǔ-xù gāo-sēng zhuàn 補續高僧傳) and Japanese catalogue-studies of Chán calligraphy in Zen temple collections (e.g., 禪林墨蹟, Bokuseki studies).
Other points of interest
The twenty-one-name compiler list is unusually long even by Yuán-dynasty yǔlù standards; the DILA authority database treats many of these ménrén as knowable only through this one text (see especially 慧忠 A036850, 慧觀 A036851, 可橖 A000225, 具德 A000550, 德粹 A001689, 思敬 A000834, 景行 A001243, 文闡 A000189, 寶生 A001917). 大機 of Húzhōulù Xiǎncí chánsì 顯慈禪寺 heads the editorial line on the third juan. Three of the master’s known dharma-heirs — 文藻 (of Nánzhōu 南洲), 良圭 and 本真 — appear both in the editorial list and in later lamp-transmission records.