Héngchuān Xínggǒng chánshī yǔlù 橫川行珙禪師語錄
Two-juan yǔlù of Héngchuān Rúgǒng / Xínggǒng 如珙 橫川如珙 / 橫川行珙 (zì Zǐpú 子璞; 1222 – 18 March 1289), Yángqí-branch Línjì master of the late Southern Sòng / early Yuán transition, compiled by his disciple 本光 Běnguāng, abbot of Yàndàngshān Luóhàn chánsì 鴈蕩山羅漢禪寺. The CBETA Xuzangjing edition (X71 no. 1411) carries the name 行珙 on its title-slip, but the standard form in Yuán and later Chinese sources is 如珙 — the DILA person authority lists both as names of the same person (A007633). The text organizes itself by three abbacies, each giving its name to a “record” in juan 1: the Língyán lù 靈巖錄 (from his first installation at Ruìānfǔ Yàndàngshān Língyán chánsì 瑞安府鴈蕩山靈巖禪寺 on the 28th of the 9th month of Xiánchún 4 / 1268), the Néngrén lù 能仁錄 (from Xiánchún 8 / 1272), and the Yùwáng lù 育王錄 (from his imperial appointment to Míngzhōu Āyùwángshān Guǎnglì chánsì in Zhìyuán 16 / 1279). Juan 2 gathers shìzhōng jǔgǔ 室中舉古, niāngǔ, sònggǔ, zàn, and a long sequence of jìsòng — closing with a self-composed tǎjì and tǎmíng (“病叟今年六十六…”) written in his 66th year (1287) and identifying Gǔmàoshān 古鄮山 (the temple-mountain of Āyùwáng) as his chosen burial site.
Abstract
The collection is framed by the master’s own short self-preface dated the winter of Wùzǐ (1288) — placed only months before his death on the 18th of the 3rd month of Zhìyuán 26 (16 April 1289) — which describes it as gathered by “countless disciples” 河沙數禪人 集余語, a formula reinforced by Běnguāng’s editorial byline on juan 1. Rúgǒng was a native of Yǒngjiā 永嘉 (Zhèjiāng), lay surname Lín 林; he was tonsured at fifteen by his paternal uncle, the monk Zhèngzé 正則, and trained early at Língyǐn under Shítián Fǎxūn 石田法薰 and Chījué Dàochōng 癡絕道冲 before finding his teacher Tiānmù Wénlǐ 天目文禮 (1167–1250) at Tàibǎishān (Tiāntóng), where Wénlǐ was abbot as the “9th Yángqí generation.” Rúgǒng’s opening incense-lighting at Língyán offered formal thanks to Wénlǐ — “Dūhuángyá 督黃牙 at Tàibǎishān, citing the Nánshān bamboo-shoots and East Sea cuttlefish,” — and set the terms of his abbacy’s engagement with the Bìyán lù tradition in Jiāngnán. His first installation in 1268 was at the request of a píngzhāng guógōng 平章國公 (the tǎjì in the Mùqián jí 牧潛集 juan 3 identifies the patron); his second at Néngrén came from the same Southern-Sòng court network; his final, Āyùwáng appointment came by Yuán imperial edict in 1279, two years after the Mongol takeover of Jiāngnán, and made him one of the first old Sòng-trained Chán masters to occupy a major coastal monastery under the new regime. The Bǔxù gāosēng zhuàn 補續高僧傳 juan 12 and Zēngjí Xùchuándēnglù juan 4 preserve the principal biographical notices; the Mùqián jí tǎjì is the earliest and most authoritative source. Named dharma-heirs include the three pillars of early-Yuán Jiāngnán Chán: 妙道 Zhúyuán Miàodào 竺原妙道, 清茂 Gǔlín Qīngmào 古林清茂 (see KR6q0345, KR6q0346), and 覺恩 Duànjiāng Juéēn 斷江覺恩; through them — and especially through Qīngmào’s extensive Japanese following and through Qīngmào’s and Miàodào’s continued transmissions into the Yuán hierarchy — Rúgǒng’s line became the dominant strand of late-Sòng-into-Yuán Yángqí orthodoxy in Zhèjiāng and abroad.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located in Western-language scholarship. Chinese and Japanese coverage concentrates on his lineage (especially via Qīng-mào) in histories of Zen-Buddhist transmission to Japan, where several of his dharma-grandchildren through Qīng-mào — among them Yuán-dynasty monks received at Japanese temples — carried his teaching forward; a partial Japanese secondary literature therefore attaches to him indirectly through Wǔ-shān bungaku 五山文學 / Wǔ-shān Chán transmission studies. The Mù-qián jí tǎ-jì by Nǎi-xián 迺賢 / his circle is the standard biographical source in Chinese.
Other points of interest
The self-composed closing tǎmíng — “Heaven produces one cavity, / it will hold my withered bones; / bones rot and turn to earth, / and the earth can generate things; / I shape a gourd / and hang it on Zhàozhōu’s wall…” — is an unusual case of a Chán master drafting his own stupa inscription within his yǔlù, and was later cited in the Mùqián jí tǎjì as authority for the actual stupa at Gǔmàoshān.