Bóshān Wúyì dàchán yǔlù jíyào 博山無異大禪語錄集要
Abridged digest (jíyào 集要) of 元來 Wúyì Yuánlái’s extensive yǔlù (KR6q0365; the full 33/35-juan Wúyì Yuánlái chánshī guǎnglù), produced by Yuánlái’s shǒuzuò 首座 成正 Chéngzhèng and preserved in six juan in the Jiāxīng canon (J27 n197, “Bóshān Wúyì dàshī yǔlù jíyào 博山無異大師語錄集要”) — of which the Kanripo source-text provides only the preface and TOC fragment (Xuzangjing X72 no. 1436; the Xuzangjing catalog gives it as 1 juan because only the short framing apparatus, not the body, is preserved in that canon’s stream).
Abstract
The surviving Kanripo material is the preface to the digest, by 元賢 Yǒngjué Yuánxián — self-styled “zhù Fúzhōu Gǔshān Yǒngquán chánsì chuán Cáodòng zhèngzōng shāmén Yuánxián 住福州鼓山湧泉禪寺傳曹洞正宗沙門元賢,” writing at Gǔshān’s Pínshēnzhāi 嚬呻齋 — dated the dēngjié rì 燈節日 (15th of the 1st month) of Chóngzhēn Guǐwèi 癸未 (4 February 1643). Yuánxián’s preface is one of the most compact and pointed late-Míng Cáodòng historical documents: he opens by surveying the decline of Cáodòng (“flourishing in the Táng, declining in the Sòng, apparently revived in the Yuán but actually further declined”), traces the specific Ming-dynasty transmission through Xuětíng Fúyù 雪庭福裕 at Shàolín, through the Xiǎoshān Shūqiān 小山書遷 seat, to Huànxiū Rùngōng 幻休潤公 (whose turning of the Shàolín seat over to jiǎngxí píngchàng 講習評唱 “greatly disappointed expectations”), to 慧經 Yùnkōng Chángzhōng’s disciple Shòuchāng Wúmíng Huìjīng 壽昌無明慧經, and finally to his own dharma-brother Yuánlái at Bóshān.
Yuánxián explains the jíyào: “From the autumn of Rénwǔ 壬午 (1642), on my return to Shígǔ [Gǔshān], at the request of Húnpǔ shàngrén 渾朴上人, I took the liberty of selecting the essentials from the quánlù 全錄 and combining them by category — it reaches only three-tenths of the full record, but is simple and portable, concise and approachable; anyone poring over it can see the great whole.” Yuánxián’s preface further describes his own encounter with Yuánlái after his master 慧經’s death — three years of following Yuánlái, during which he “obtained nothing from the master but was never aware of a single word of Yuánlái’s slipping into qíngshí 情識 (dualistic discrimination)” — and a final meeting at Jiànzhōu’s Guāngxiàosì 光孝寺 where the two dharma-brothers discussed the ritual care of 慧經’s stupa in terms of quintessentially Chán doctrine-play (“I sweep but it is never swept; / I sweep but I have never moved it”).
The preface is thus a key source-document for the Shòuchāng line’s own self-history, composed at its most authoritative point (Yuánxián as the line’s senior spokesperson writing about his dharma-brother’s shortened legacy). The digest proper — not preserved in the Xuzangjing but present in the Jiāxīng — follows an abbacy-by-abbacy structure across its six juan: (1) Bóshān; (2) Dǒngyán; (3) Dàyǎng, Gǔshān, Tiānjiè plus dáwèn; (4) niāngǔ, sònggǔ, zàn, Chán jǐngyǔ; (5) shū, wén, xù, shū; (6) jì.
Date bracket: Yuánlái’s death (1630, after which compilation could begin) through Yuánxián’s preface of 1643.
Translations and research
Treated alongside the Bó-shān cān-chán jǐng-yǔ (X63 n1257) and the full guǎng-lù (X72 n1435, KR6q0365) in Jiang Wu’s Enlightenment in Dispute and related Shòu-chāng / Bó-shān scholarship; no book-length Western-language treatment of the digest specifically.