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古庭禪師語錄輯略

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Text ID
KR6q0396
Date
1633–1644
Dynasty
明

Gǔtíng chánshī yǔlù jílüè 古庭禪師語錄輯略

Digest of the Recorded Sayings of Chán Patriarch Gǔtíng by 善堅 (說)

About the work

Four-juan abridged anthology of the teachings of the Yúnnán Línjì (Yángqí-branch) revivalist Gǔtíng Shànjiān 善堅 (1414–1493), dharma-heir of Wújì Míngwù 無際明悟 (1383–1446) and founder of the Guīhuà Chánlín 歸化禪林 at Kūnmíng. Preserved in the Jiāxīng zàng as J25 no. B163. The text is a late-Míng re-edition (jílüè 輯略 = “selected digest”) of Gǔtíng’s parent corpus 《山雲水石集》 Shānyún shuǐshí jí, which his direct disciple Yīguàn 一貫 had compiled in Tiānshùn 1 dīngchǒu (1457, preface by the Nánjīng 禮部尚書 Zhāng Huì 張惠 preserved at the end of the prolegomena). Over the ensuing 150-plus years the parent compilation “wandered to the point of half-surviving” (zhuǎnxǐ ruò cún ruò wáng jǐ sānshí nián 轉徒若存若亡幾三十年), and was rescued from the book-basket of the monk Lǎngmù Zhì 朗目智 by the three Táo 陶 brothers of Kuàijī — Táo Dàoníng 陶道凝 (the shuǐbù 水部 Ministry-of-Works official; epithet Zǐláng 紫閬), Táo Zhìguī 陶稚圭, and Táo Shìlíng 陶奭齡 (epithet Shíliáng 石梁) — who “cleared its filth, polished its surface, and renewed its binding” into the present four juan under the abridged title. The Chóngzhēn 6 (1633) preface by Wú Yìngbīn 吳應賓 (Wǎnshū 皖舒; Bìngtáng sǎnrén 病堂散人) of Tóngchéng gives the editorial narrative in full; a second preface by Qián Qǐzhōng 錢啟忠 (Píngshí jūshì 平實居士) describes his chance sight of the edited manuscript at Hǔlín (Hángzhōu) and the decision to have it cut for printing. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

Abstract

Author. Shànjiān, lay surname Dīng 丁, was a native of the southern suburb of Kūnmíng (Yúnnán). At seven he petitioned his parents to leave the household; at ten he entered Wǔhuásì 五華寺 under the monk Zōng 宗上人 as Shànxián 善賢, and at nineteen was renamed Shànjiān 善堅 by Báiyán héshàng 白巖和尚. Under Wúyǐn 無隱 from Xuāndé 5 (1430) he took up the wànfǎ guī yī 萬法歸一 huàtóu; he had an opening on reading the Yuánjué jīng 圓覺經; and in Xuāndé 10 (1435) he moved through Guìzhōu’s Yōngluóshān 擁蘿山 into Sìchuān, where for several years he did not permit his flank to touch the mat (xié bú zhì xí 脅不至席) and attained his great awakening. In Zhèngtǒng 10 (1445) he journeyed to Jīntái 金臺 (Běijīng) to submit his realisation to Wújì Míngwù, who sealed him, gave him the xìnyī and fúzǐ of transmission, and bestowed on him the Chán epithet Gǔtíng 古庭 (“Ancient Courtyard”). In Tiānshùn he headed Fúshān 浮山 in Ānhuī, attracting a large following (it is here that Dàwéi Jìnglún 大巍淨倫, his principal dharma-heir, was yìnkě’d in Tiānshùn 7 guǐwèi = 1463). In his last decades he returned to Kūnmíng and founded the Guīhuà Chánlín, earning the designations Guīhuà Shànjiān and Zhāntán zūnzhě 旃檀尊者. He died on Hóngzhì 6.7.20 (9 September 1493), aged 80, and was traditionally paired with Pánlóng Zǔyuán 盤龍祖源 as the twin reviver of Chán in Míng-dynasty Yúnnán.

Textual layers. The book as transmitted is a triply-stratified object: (i) the underlying Tiānshùn anthology compiled by Yīguàn in 1457, preserving Gǔtíng’s sermons, letters, niānsòng 拈頌 and jìsòng 偈頌; (ii) the Wànlì preserver Lǎngmù Zhì 朗目智 of Fúdù 浮渡 (the monk whose book-basket held the vanishing manuscript until the 1630s); (iii) the 1633 Kuàijī re-edition by the three Táo brothers — Dàoníng 道凝 the sponsor, Zhìguī 稚圭 the editor, and Shìlíng 石梁 (the famous Chóngzhēn-era scholar Táo Shìlíng 陶奭齡, 1571–1640, younger brother of Zhōuwàng 周望) the senior literary redactor who “trimmed the tangled and corrected the errors” (shān qí fánluàn, zhèng qí miùé 刪其繁亂正其謬訛). The Chóngzhēn preface by Wú Yìngbīn (1565–1634) — 萬曆 26 (1598) jìnshì, major Tóngchéng literatus and longtime lay patron of Fúdù / Huáyán Buddhism — frames the project as the recovery of a “Línjì parched-meditation” lineage through the Yúnnán ancestor; the second, undated preface by Qián Qǐzhōng (Píngshí jūshì 平實居士) gives the Hángzhōu meeting where the manuscript was first circulated for printing; the surviving 1457 Zhāng Huì preface anchors the authentic Tiānshùn stratum. The mùlù 目錄 at the head of juan 1 lays out the redaction’s structure explicitly.

Contents. Juan 1: three Chóngzhēn-era prefaces (Wú Yìngbīn 1633; Qián Qǐzhōng undated; Zhāng Huì 1457) → 行腳 (xíngjiǎo, the autobiographical account of Gǔtíng’s cānxué pilgrimage from Hángzhōu at sixteen through Yōngluóshān, Shǔ, and Jīntái, in Gǔtíng’s own first-person voice) → 法語 (fǎyǔ, dharma-instructions) → 為四眾說戒 (wèi sìzhòng shuō jiè, precept-sermons for the four assemblies) → 心要 (xīnyào, essentials of mind) → 三昧玄章 (sānmèi xuánzhāng, arcane samādhi stanzas) → 警徒 / 訓徒 (jǐngtú / xùntú, admonitions to disciples). Juan 2: the shuō 說 category — 三昧禪定, 華嚴幻住略跡 (an autobiographical gloss on his Huáyán affiliation), 華嚴大意 (the essential of Huáyán), 示一宗頭陀, 無字直說 (a direct explication of Zhàozhōu’s wú huàtóu), 火爐頭話 (stove-side talks), 牛首日錄 (Niúshǒu rìlù, the Niúshǒu diary). Juan 3: 論 (lùn, the single major treatise 知見證性 zhījiàn zhèngxìng on cognitive–noetic realisation of the nature); 書 (shū, letters, including the moving Bài mǔ 拜母 to his mother and correspondence with his elder brother the monk Gǔsōng 古松); 跋 (bá, the colophon to Yúngǔ 雲谷’s calligraphy of the Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn); 頌 / 拈頌 (sòng / niānsòng, verses on classical cases). Juan 4: 偈贊 (jìzàn) including the Dàogǎn wén bìng jì 道感文并偈 for his teacher Wújì, the Gǔzhuó lǎozǔ zhēnzàn 古拙老祖真讚 for Wújì’s own teacher Gǔzhuó Jùn 古拙峻, and encomia on Śākyamuni-emerging-from-the-mountain, Dàbēi 大悲 bodhisattva, the Yúlán 魚籃 and Luóhàn 羅漢 sets; 歌 (gē, the Liǎoyī gē 了一歌, Pídài gē 皮袋歌, and Zhēnlè gē 真樂歌 didactic songs); and 詩 (shī), concluded by Gǔtíng’s rendition of the ten-frame Mùniú tú 牧牛圖 with verses for each stage (Rù shān xún niú, Huāngxī jiàn jì, Jiàn niú bì huò, Dé niú yù zhì, Mù niú shòu cè, Qí niú guī jiā, Wàng niú cún rén, Rén niú jù wàng, Fǎn běn chéng yuán, Rù chán chuí shǒu) and a concluding dharma-exhortation Zhǔ Wùxīn chánkè 囑悟心禪客.

Dating. notBefore 1633 (Chóngzhēn 6 guǐyǒu 8.1 gēngwǔ = the Wú Yìngbīn preface date, which explicitly describes the just-completed Táo-brothers redaction). notAfter 1644 (fall of the Míng, the latest defensible terminus for the imprint’s initial circulation as Jiāxīngzàng copy-text). The autobiographical xíngjiǎo and dharma materials themselves span ca. 1435–1493, but the received recension is a Chóngzhēn product. A notable internal marker: the running folio header of juan 2–3 reads 曹溪一滴卷之二 / 之三 古庭禪師語錄 — a recycled block-title from the neighbouring 《曹溪一滴》 Cáoxī yīdī (KR6q0195, J25 B164) by Gǔtíng’s heir Dàwéi Jìnglún, an artefact of the Jiāxīng canon’s common block-cutting.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language secondary literature on Gǔtíng Shànjiān located. For the Yúnnán Míng Chán context in which Shànjiān and Pánlóng Zǔyuán are the twin foundational figures, see Hóu Chōng 侯沖, Yúnnán yǔ Bā-Shǔ fójiào yánjiū lùn-gǎo 雲南與巴蜀佛教研究論稿 (Beijing: 宗教文化出版社, 2006). For the Fú-shān / Fú-dù (浮山 / 浮渡) Huáyán-Chán milieu that Shànjiān transmitted to the Wàn-lì generation via Lǎng-mù Zhì and thence to the Tóngchéng circle (Wú Yìngbīn, Fāng Yǐ-zhì 方以智), see Timothy Brook, Praying for Power (Harvard, 1993) and Jennifer Eichman, A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship (Brill, 2016). The primary biographical sources are Bǔ-xù gāo-sēng zhuàn 補續高僧傳 juan 15, Wǔ-dēng huì-yuán xù-lüè 五燈會元續略 juan 1 & 3, Wǔ-dēng yán-tǒng 五燈嚴統 juan 23, and the Cáo-xī yī-dī (J25 B164) compiled by his principal heir Dàwéi Jìnglún 大巍淨倫.

Other points of interest

  • The opening 行腳 autobiography is an exceptionally rich mid-Míng first-person cānxué narrative, dated internally by the Yōngluóshān encounter (1435) and the Jīntái visit to Wújì (1445). It records Gǔtíng’s three great vows of 1430 (to fall to the nàrakā hells should he break training), the collapse into a roadside dàdìng 大定 mistaken by passers-by for a dead monk, and the abrupt shattering of his huàtóu on reading the “mǎzǔ yǔ Bǎizhàng yěyāzǐ” 馬祖與百丈野鴨子 case. This text is accordingly a significant source for the social and psychological history of 15th-century Chán practice.
  • The three-brother Kuàijī editorial team behind the 1633 redaction includes Táo Shìlíng 陶奭齡 (Shíliáng, 1571–1640), the brother of Táo Wànglíng 陶望齡 (1562–1609) and a key figure in the late-Míng Yángmíng-left revival at Shàoxìng. The Chán recovery of Gǔtíng’s text is thus a case-study in the late-Míng convergence of liángzhī Confucian and Línjì Chán circles.
  • The closing Mùniú tú sòng 牧牛圖頌 (juan 4) follows the Pǔmíng 普明 ten-frame scheme rather than the Kuòān 廓庵 version. Together with the comparable sequence in Xìngchōng’s yǔlù (KR6q0395) and later Wúhuàn materials, it documents the mid- to late-Míng vogue for mùniú contemplative programmes.
  • The text is internally aware of the parallel Yúnnán Pánlóng tradition: Qián Qǐzhōng’s preface explicitly pairs Gǔtíng with Pánlóng Zǔyuán as geographically and temporally contemporary masters whose transmissions are linked.

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