聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

壽昌無明和尚語錄

8 min read

Text ID
KR6q0398
Date
1637–1638
Dynasty
明

Shòuchāng Wúmíng héshàng yǔlù 壽昌無明和尚語錄

Recorded Sayings of Venerable Wú-míng of Shòu-chāng by 慧經 (說), 元來 (集)

About the work

Two-juan yǔlù of Wúmíng Huìjīng 慧經 無明慧經 (1548–1618) — the Xīnchéng 新城 (Fǔzhōu, Jiāngxī) ancestor-reviver of the late-Míng Cáodòng 曹洞 tradition and the master for whom the Shòuchāng 壽昌 lineage is named — compiled (jí 集) by his principal dharma-heir Wúyì Yuánlái 元來 無異元來 (1575–1630), abbot of Bóshān 博山. Preserved in the Jiāxīng zàng as J25 no. B173. This is the earlier and smaller of the two extant recensions: a second, four-juan edition edited by Huìjīng’s junior dharma-heir Yǒngjué Yuánxián 永覺元賢 (1578–1657) survives as the Wúmíng Huìjīng chánshī yǔlù (KR6q0362; X72 n1432). The front 序 is by the lay disciple Huáng Duānbó 黃端伯 (1585–1645, Chóngzhēn 1 jìnshì, later martyred as a Míng loyalist at Nánjīng in 1645) of Xījiāng 西江 (= Jiāngxī), dated Chóngzhēn 10.5.16 (= 8 June 1637); juan 2 closes with a block-cutting colophon recording that Huáng Duānbó “contributed his salary for the reverent cutting” (juǎnfèng jìng kè 捐俸敬刻), proofread by the 廣照 disciple Yùqí 愈奇, cut at the Jízhàoān 寂照菴 on Jìngshān 徑山 in Chóngzhēn 10.11 (= December 1637). Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

Abstract

Author. The biographical spine of the text is the closing 新城壽昌無明經禪師塔銘 — the formal stūpa-epitaph by Hánshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), dated “Míng Wànlì 48, gēngshēn, 孟夏月朔旦” (= 1 May 1620), two years after Huìjīng’s death. Hánshān’s account (composed at Kuāngshān 匡山 / Lúshān from a draft xíngzhuàng supplied by Huìjīng’s disciples) is the primary source for all later Cáodòng biographies of Huìjīng and need not be re-summarised here — refer to 慧經 for a full biographical digest. What is distinctive to the present text is the additional tí Wúmíng héshàng zhēnzàn bìng yǐn 題無明和尚真贊并引 that immediately precedes the 塔銘: Hánshān records that in bǐngchén = Wànlì 44 (1616) he summered at Kuāngshān when a “wánshí 頑石” disciple of Huìjīng arrived from Shòuchāng and described the master’s rùshì jīyuán 入室機緣. Moved by the report — “today I am fortunate to see the Master’s stature as a ritual-model (diǎnxíng 典刑) for the way pointing upward” — Hánshān composed the portrait-encomium. That this pre-mortem encomium is embedded in the yǔlù alongside the post-mortem 塔銘 is a measure of Huìjīng’s standing in the late-Wàn-lì Buddhist world: at sixty-nine he was already, for Hánshān, the evident living heir of the Cáodòng line.

Textual and institutional frame. Huáng Duānbó’s front 序 (1637) places the received text within the late-Wàn-lì-Chóngzhēn narrative of Chán revival. “Since Zhèngdé (1506–1521) and Jiājìng (1522–1566) of our Míng, the Chán way had been cut off. Our master, borne by compassionate-vow power, responded to the world of the Jambu continent; from Lǐnshān 廩山 he first awakened, and his dharma was finally sealed at Wǔtáishān.” Huáng notes that Huìjīng was called the Shòuchāng gǔfó 壽昌古佛 “Ancient Buddha of Shòuchāng” by the broader community, that his four-hundred-plus disciples (láigōng, mìgōng, xiángōng 來公謐公賢公 = Yuánlái, Yuánmì, Yuánxián) received personal chūshì charges, and that the presently-dominant Línjì abbots of the Chóngzhēn era — Yúnmén (Zhànrán Yuánchéng), Huángbò (Mìyún Yuánwù), Jìngshān, Tiāntóng — “all arose having heard the wind of Shòuchāng” (wén Shòuchāng zhī fēng ér qǐ 聞壽昌之風而起).

Contents. Juan 上 (shàng), compiled by Yuánlái, opens with 師初住峨峰上堂 (Huìjīng’s first shàngtáng on taking the abbacy of Éfēng 峨峰 in Wànlì 26 wùxū = 1598, aged 51) and then proceeds through an extended sequence of shàngtáng, xiǎocān 小參, and shìzhòng 示眾 sermons from the Éfēng and Shòuchāng 壽昌 years. It closes with the Niànfó fǎyào 念佛法要 (Huìjīng’s programmatic statement on Chán-Pure-Land shuāngxiū), the autobiographical Pínáng gē 皮囊歌 (the “Skin-Bag Song”, composed at a Hénán provincial office), and the Qīxún zìqìng wén 七旬自慶文 (self-congratulation on reaching seventy, Wànlì 45 = 1617 — Huìjīng’s last extended prose, set down the year before his death). Juan 下 (xià) comprises 峨峰問答 Éfēng wèndá (over sixty pages of Q&A recorded at Éfēng, including a celebrated interrogation of the “Línjì fófǎ wúduōzǐ” 臨濟佛法無多子 case by which Huìjīng probed Ruìfēng at Wǔtáishān), then 拈古 (niāngǔ) and 頌古 (sònggǔ), and finally the two Hánshān pieces — the 1616 真贊 and the 1620 塔銘 — which close the volume.

Dating. notBefore 1637 (Chóngzhēn 10.5.16, the Huáng Duānbó preface date and the earliest date at which the present compiled recension exists). notAfter 1638 (carried over into early 1638 by the November 1637 block-cutting colophon at Jìngshān Jìzhàoān). The teaching materials date from ca. 1598 (Éfēng installation) to early 1618 (Huìjīng’s last instructions on Wànlì 46.1 before his death on 1618.1.17 = 11 February 1618, a Gregorian window not directly noted in the catalog which gives only “明”). The Hánshān 真贊 is dated internally to 1616; the 塔銘 to 1620. Yuánlái’s editorial labour is undated but must have preceded the 1637 block-cutting; Yuánlái himself died in 1630, so the compiled yǔlù as such was almost certainly in a finished state before 1630 and simply awaited patron-funded printing under Huáng Duānbó.

Translations and research

For the broader Shòuchāng Cáo-dòng revival, see Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chán Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford, 2008), esp. ch. 2 on the Shòu-chāng / Bó-shān line and its distinctive relation to the parallel Mì-yún Línjì revival; Wu Jiang 吳疆, 〈壽昌派禪宗的興起〉, in Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 中華佛學學報 25 (2012). For Huìjīng’s biography see Shěng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò fójiào yánjiū 明末佛教研究 (Taipei: Dōng-chū, 1987), pp. 142ff.; for the Niàn-fó fǎ-yào and its place in the late-Míng Chán-Pure-Land synthesis, see the overview in Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Zhuhong and the Late Ming Synthesis (Columbia, 1981). The Hán-shān 塔銘 is translated and discussed in Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing (Penn State, 1979). For Yuán-lái as editor and his relationship to Huìjīng’s teachings, see Timothy Brook, Praying for Power (Harvard, 1993), and Zhang Dewei, A Fragile Revival: Chinese Buddhism under the Political Shadow, 1522–1620 (Hamburg, 2020).

Other points of interest

  • The text is the earlier and shorter of Huìjīng’s two surviving yǔlù. The later four-juan Wúmíng Huìjīng chánshī yǔlù (KR6q0362) edited by Yuánxián expands significantly on the present compilation and is the version more commonly cited in later Cáodòng literature; but the present Yuánlái recension preserves the first-generation editorial voice of Huìjīng’s principal dharma-heir and has priority in every textual respect.
  • Sponsor Huáng Duānbó 黃端伯 (1585–1645) was himself a native of Xīnchéng (the same place as Huìjīng), and identifies as Huìjīng’s lay disciple. He would later serve as the Nánjīng Lǐbù zhǔshì 禮部主事 and, refusing to transfer his loyalty in the 1645 Qīng capture of Nánjīng, be executed by Dòr-gon’s lieutenants — the subject of a celebrated chénchén 忠臣 hagiography. His funding of the 1637 imprint thus marks a significant node in the Míng-loyalist / Cáo-dòng-patronage network.
  • The Hánshān Déqīng 塔銘 here preserved is the canonical 1620 version, of which several textual states circulate (Hánshān’s own 《憨山大師夢遊集》 preserves it in a slightly different phrasing). Collators should prefer the present Jiāxīng text as representing the early block-cut witness.
  • The 念佛法要 (juan 上) is among the earliest datable statements from a Cáodòng master prescribing niànfó as fully compatible with cānchán 參禪; together with Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s roughly contemporary programme, it is a principal primary source for the late-Míng chánjìng shuāngxiū synthesis.
  • The 皮囊歌 is a rare first-person autobiographical didactic song from a late-Míng master, composed at a non-monastic setting (yù Hénán gōngshǔ zuò 寓河南公署作) and recalling Hánshān’s comparable autobiographical verse.

Graph View

Backlinks