Shèngjiàntáng shùgǔ 聖箭堂述古
Narrating the Ancients from the Sacred-Arrow Hall by 道霈 (述)
About the work
One-juan collection of commented Chán gōngàn 公案 and dicta, composed by the early-Qīng Cáodòng master Wèilín Dàopèi 道霈 (1615–1702) during his abbacy at Gǔshān Yǒngquán chánsì 鼓山湧泉禪寺 in Fújiàn, and dated in Dàopèi’s own preface to the second month of Jǐhài = spring 1659 (Shùnzhì 16). Xùzàngjīng X73 no. 1455. The Shèngjiàn táng 聖箭堂 (“Sacred-Arrow Hall”) was a preaching hall at Gǔshān; its name derives from the famous Shànhuì yījiàn shè shuāngdiāo 善會一箭射雙鵰 motif of Chán encounter-dialogue.
Abstract
The title, as Dàopèi explains in his preface, means “that which I say from the seat of the Sacred-Arrow Hall, narrating the words of the Buddhas and patriarchs from the past.” The shù 述 (“narration / account”) is not comprehensive — “the words of the Buddhas and patriarchs are as high as mountains and as deep as the seas; what is narrated here is only what has happened to meet my own sight.” What Dàopèi includes is selective by four criteria:
- events usually mundane but which previous expositors have left unexplained (shìjī xúncháng ér wèijīng zhǐdiǎnzhě 事蹟尋常而未經指點者);
- passages of principle penetrating enough to genuinely aid the mind-ground (lǐzhì jīngshēn ér yǒubì xìngdìzhě 理致精深而有裨性地者);
- sayings that acupuncture the defects of the Latter Dharma in the right vital point (zhēnbiǎn mòfǎ zhī bì ér shēnzhōng kěnqǐngzhě 針砭末法之弊而深中肯綮者);
- records of practitioners of severe, clean-lived discipline whose deathbed signs were extraordinary (lǚjiàn yánmíng ér línzhōng tèyìzhě 履踐嚴明而臨終特異者).
Each entry is followed by an evaluative píng 評 in Dàopèi’s voice. Entries are arranged not by chronological sequence of their subjects but by the order in which Dàopèi himself “obtained” them (jí yǐ suǒdézhě wéi xiānhòu 即以所得者為先後).
The volume opens with Hóngzhì Zhèngjué’s 宏智正覺 (1091–1157) Sēngtáng jì 僧堂記 for Tiāntóngsì, covering the Jiàn-yán-era (Tiāntóng 天童道場) reconstruction, and proceeds through commented selections from figures including Zhàozhōu 趙州, Yúnmén 雲門, Dòngshān 洞山, Mǎzǔ 馬祖, down through mid-to-late-Míng masters. It closes with an extensive treatment of the anonymous Xīxīn míng 息心銘 (“Inscription on Quieting the Mind”), which Dàopèi initially took to be by a monk whose name was forgotten (sēng wángmíng 僧亡名) but later — via Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅’s colophon — identified as actually “the monk whose name was Wángmíng” (sēng míng wángmíng — i.e. a former Liáng zuǒbǔquē Zōng Dài 宗殆 who, on the Liáng collapse, resigned his family name and took the monastic name Wángmíng). The work thus combines gōngàn commentary, textual-critical observation, and Cáodòng doctrinal teaching on the zhuǎnshí chéngzhì 轉識成智 transformation.
Dating. Both notBefore and notAfter = 1659 per Dàopèi’s dated preface.
Other points of interest
The text is an early example of Qīng-era Chán “criticism” — systematic reasoning about transmitted gōngàn, not merely a recorded-sayings transcript — and serves as a companion piece to Dàopèi’s doctrinal work (the Huáyánjīng shūlùn zuǎnyào) in showing the range of his writing. Dàopèi explicitly states the volume was printed at the behest of “two or three fellow-minded friends” (èrsān tóngzhì) who contributed funds.
Translations and research
No substantial English-language translation located. Dào-pèi’s broader œuvre is discussed in Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford, 2008); see also the Gǔ-shān studies of Chen Yunü 陳玉女 and the work of Yang Zhaohua and Xu Jiayin on South-Eastern Cáo-dòng revival.