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天隱和尚語錄

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Text ID
KR6q0397
Date
1638–1639
Dynasty
明

Tiānyǐn héshàng yǔlù 天隱和尚語錄

Recorded Sayings of Venerable Tiānyǐn by 圓修 (說), 通問 (等編)

About the work

Fifteen-juan yǔlù of the late-Míng Línjì (Yángqí-branch) master Tiānyǐn Yuánxiū 圓修 天隱圓修 (1575–1635), founder of the Qìngshān 磬山 (Yíxīng) sub-branch of Línjì and dharma-heir of Lóngchí Huànyǒu Zhèngchuán 龍池幻有正傳 (1549–1614). Compiled (děngbiān 等編) by his principal dharma-heir Ruò’ān Tōngwèn 通問 箬庵通問 (1604–1655), abbot of Nánjiàn Lǐānsì 南澗理安寺 at Hángzhōu. Preserved in the Jiāxīng zàng as J25 no. B171. The editorial 後序 by Tōngwèn — dated Chóngzhēn 11.12.8 (= 1638/12/8, “Buddha’s Enlightenment Day”) — describes how Yuánxiū’s teaching materials had previously circulated as scattered parcels (磬山集, 散錄, 晚錄, 報恩語錄, 遺錄), and how Tōngwèn was asked by Yuánxiū in life to consolidate them “without adding or subtracting a single word”; the full compilation began in summer Wùyín (1638) at Lǐān, was completed in the winter of the same year, and corrected through spring 1639, yielding the present 15 juan and 412 pages. The front 序 is by the lay disciple Huáng Yùqí 黃毓祺 (of Jiāngshàng, the Yángzǐ estuary), dated Chóngzhēn 癸酉 8 (= August 1633); this preface is a virtuoso catalogue of the master’s “living xuányào” huóxuányào 活玄要 teaching devices drawn from the earlier piecemeal prints. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

Abstract

Author. Yuánxiū, lay surname Mǐn 閔, native of Jīngxī (Yíxīng), was orphaned early and raised by his widowed mother Pānshì. At twenty, struck by a Shǒuléngyán 首楞嚴 lecture on “all sentient beings, failing to recognise the ever-abiding, true mind and its pure luminous nature”, he sought out Huànyǒu Zhèngchuán at Lóngchí shān 龍池山 (whose installation at Lóngchí had been sponsored by the kinsman-patrons Táng Níngān 唐凝庵 the Tàicháng 太常 and Wú Ānjié 吳安節 the Tōngzhèng 通政). Yuánxiū tonsured Wànlì 26 wùxū (1598) at 24; practised on the wú and fùmǔ wèishēng huàtóu; and had his decisive opening in spring 1604 on hearing a donkey’s bray during a 兩載 closed-retreat investigation of the Qiánfēng / Yúnmén “yī lù nièpán mén” 一路涅槃門 case set against the shànzǐ 扇子 episode. Sealed by Huànyǒu in Jīntái in summer 1604 (jiǎchén 甲辰 4.8), he served on the staff of the Wànlì grand imperial patrons at the 1605 wúzhēhuì at Wǔtáishān (presided over by the legal-monk Jìngyuān 靜淵 at imperial dowager command), studied Huáyán at the Báitǎsì with Gǔhuī 古輝, and returned to Lóngchí to serve as chief scribe. At Huànyǒu’s second urging (1608) he accepted the xītáng seat. He received the final transmission verse from the dying Huànyǒu via Mìyún Yuánwù’s courier in 1614, breached his retreat to handle funerary business, then after several years of severe illness, in Wànlì 48 gēngshēn (1620) autumn set out to find his own mountain, settling in the deep valley of Qìngshān 磬山 (south of Jīngxī); cleared the ground himself, survived the ensuing fifty-day snowfall, and over twelve years built Qìngshān into a major Chán centre on patronage from Jīngxī’s Wú 吳 and Cáo 曹 families. Later he took the abbacy of Shàngbóshān Bàoēn Chányuàn 上柏山報恩禪院 in Húzhōu (entered Chóngzhēn 7.8.22 = 13 September 1634) and the Wūzhānshān Fǎjì Chányuàn 烏瞻山法濟禪院. He died Chóngzhēn 8.9.23 (2 November 1635), aged 61. His principal dharma-heirs — the “four pillars” of Qìngshān Línjì — were Línggāo Tōngyù 林臯通豫, Ruò’ān Tōngwèn (the present editor), Yùlín Tōngxiù 玉林通琇 (1614–1675, later preceptor to the Shùnzhì emperor), and Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際.

Contents. The 總目 at the head of juan 1 orders the 15 juan as follows. Juan 1: 湖州府上柏山報恩禪院語錄 — the entry-liturgy, fódiàn, fāngzhàng, and shàngtáng records for Yuánxiū’s installation at Bàoēn on Chóngzhēn 7.8.22 (1634). Juan 2: 湖州烏瞻山法濟禪院語錄 — the parallel Fǎjì abbacy records at Wūzhānshān. Juan 3–5: 荊溪磬山語錄 in three parts — the heart of the corpus, drawn from Yuánxiū’s twenty-year residence at Qìngshān. Juan 6: 拈古 niāngǔ. Juan 7: 舉古 / 別古 jǔgǔ / biégǔ. Juan 8: 徵古 / 代古 zhēnggǔ / dàigǔ. Juan 9: 頌古 sònggǔ. Juan 10: further 頌古 + 機緣 jīyuán encounter-dialogues. Juan 11: 普說 / 復問 pǔshuō / fùwèn (extended dharma-discourses + follow-up question-and-answer sessions). Juan 12: 書 / 法語 correspondence + dharma-instructions. Juan 13: 法語 / 偈頌. Juan 14: 歌 / 詩 didactic songs and occasional verse. Juan 15: 雜著 / 讚 / 佛事 / 行由 — colophons and prefaces (e.g. the Tí Chuánzǐ héshàng jīyuán jí 題船子和尚機緣集 and the Jíān shuō 極菴說), encomia (a remarkable Guānyīn cycle including Báiyī dàshì zàn and Sānshíèr yìngshēn dàshì xiàngzàn), funerary rituals, and the author’s first-person autobiographical 行由 xíngyóu (recorded Chóngzhēn 4 xīnwèi 9.9 = 1631 at Qìngshān at the community’s request). The 總目 further notes a 林或問 Lín huòwèn “separately cut and in circulation” — not included in the present 15 juan.

Dating. notBefore 1638 (Tōngwèn’s editorial compilation commenced summer Wùyín at Lǐān). notAfter 1639 (Tōngwèn’s 後序 is dated Chóngzhēn 11.12.8 = 8 December 1638 / early Jan 1639, with final corrections through spring; this is the finalised, as-printed recension). Individual materials span Yuánxiū’s teaching career ca. 1620–1635, with the autobiographical xíngyóu fixed at 1631.9.9. The Huáng Yùqí front 序, explicitly dated Chóngzhēn 癸酉 = 1633.8, refers to the earlier piecemeal print fascicles (Qìngshān jí, Sǎnlù, Wǎnlù, etc.) and was incorporated by Tōngwèn into the 1638 consolidated edition.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language monograph on Yuánxiū located. The Qìng-shān Línjì branch is covered in Jiang Wu 姜炘, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chán Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford UP, 2008), esp. ch. 3 on the Huànyǒu–Mìyún / Huànyǒu–Tiānyǐn double transmission and its role in the late-Míng Línjì revival. On Yuánxiū’s principal dharma-heir Yùlín Tōngxiù 玉林通琇 and his ties to the early Qīng court, see Xu Dongfeng, Friendship and Hospitality: The Jesuit-Chinese Encounter in Late Ming and Early Qing (SUNY, 2021) [context only]. For the broader network — Huányǒu, Mìyún, Tiānyǐn, Hànyuè Fǎzàng — see Liào Zhào-hēng 廖肇亨, Zhōng-biān, shī-chán, mèng-xì: Míng-mò Qīng-chū Fójiào wén-huà lùn-shù de chéng-xíng yǔ kāi-zhǎn 中邊‧詩禪‧夢戲：明末清初佛教文化論述的呈現與開展 (Taipei: Yúnchén, 2008). For Yuánxiū’s patronage network, see Wú Jiāng 吳疆, 《17世紀中國禪宗的復興》 (Shàng-hǎi: Zhōng-xī, 2013, Chinese tr. of Jiang Wu 2008). The Qìng-shān site and its textual corpus are surveyed in Zhāng Pèi-fēng 張培鋒 et al., 《磬山禪寺志》 (2009).

Other points of interest

  • The front 序 by Huáng Yùqí 黃毓祺 (1579–1649) — later a Míng-loyalist resister martyred in 1649 under the Qīng for organising an anti-Qīng rising at Jiāngyīn — pre-dates Yuánxiū’s death and was written while the Qìngshān materials were still circulating as loose fascicles. Huáng Yùqí’s inclusion here signals Yuánxiū’s deep integration into the Chángzhōu loyalist-literati circle whose Chán and military networks would shape the Jiāngnán resistance of the 1640s.
  • The autobiographical 行由 is an unusually circumstantial late-Míng Chán vita, naming practice-dates, the full cast of teachers (Huànyǒu, Gǔhuī, Wénzhāi 文齋 at Néngrénsì, Miàofēng 妙峰 at Tǎyuànsì, Yúnsōng 雲松 at Tiānjièsì, Huànyě lǎorén 幻也老人 at Tiānníngsì), and the crucial role of his mother’s acquiescence in his 1598 tonsure. The Kūnlún 崑崙 critic’s characterisation of early-Qīng Chán autobiographies as dependent on Gāofēng / Zhōngfēng templates should be tested against this richer, earlier specimen.
  • Tōngwèn’s 後序 preserves Yuánxiū’s own parting bon mot — when Tōngwèn protested that he could handle the editorial work, Yuánxiū retorted: “If the master’s words are to be circulated I shall be able to add or subtract them.” (Héshàng ruò yǒu yǔ liúxíng, mǒujiǎ biàn kě zēngsǔn dé 和尚若有語流行某甲便可增損得). The editor then pledges on pain of the avīci hell “not to touch a single stroke” of the master’s words — an unusually forthright statement of editorial ethics.
  • The text is one of the principal primary sources for the Huànyǒu lineage’s Wànlì imperial network, especially the 1605 wúzhēhuì at Wǔtáishān and its relations with the Wànlì Empress-Dowager’s 塔院寺 circle.

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