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天界覺浪盛禪師語錄

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Text ID
KR6q0399
Date
1658–1670
Dynasty
明

Tiānjiè Juélàng Shèng chánshī yǔlù 天界覺浪盛禪師語錄

Recorded Sayings of Tiān-jiè Chán Master Jué-làng Shèng by 道盛 (說), 大成 (等編), 大奇 (等編)

About the work

Twelve-juan yǔlù of the MíngQīng transitional Cáodòng master and 33rd-generation Cáodòng patriarch Juélàng Dàoshèng 道盛 覺浪道盛 (1593–1659), abbot of Tiānjièsì 天界寺 in Nánjīng and of Qīxiásì 棲霞寺 at Shèshān. Co-compiled (děng biān 等編) by his principal dharma-heirs Dàchéng 大成 — who succeeded him at Qīxiá and “erected the stone” (lì shí 立石) for the closing tǎmíng — and Dàqí 大奇 (observed as Chóngxiān Dàqí in the signatory list, indicating the compilation fell during his Chóngxiān Xiǎnxiàosì abbacy), with further input from a long list of “諸山嗣法門人” running to twenty-seven dharma-heirs and four lay jìbié jūshì (recognition-by-acknowledgement lay disciples). Preserved in the Jiāxīng zàng as J25 no. B174. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

This is the smaller of Dàoshèng’s two received collections: the enormous 33-juan Tiānjiè Juélàng Shèng chánshī quánlù KR6q0221 (J34 B311) is the integrated quánlù that supersedes the present compact 12-juan yǔlù and has its own later editorial history. Refer to KR6q0221 for the full-recension data; the present 12-juan item appears to be the initial posthumous edition of strictly “monastic-record” material (shàngtáng, xiǎocān, shìzhòng, pǔshuō, jīyuán, fǎyǔ, sònggǔ, jì, zàn, fóshì, zázhù, 塔銘) — as distinct from the much wider corpus of scholarly writings, interpretive essays, and Confucian–Buddhist syncretic treatises preserved in the quánlù.

The front 序 is the celebrated preface by the late-Míng / early-Qīng literary master Qián Qiānyì 錢謙益 (1582–1664), signing as Hǎiyìn dìzǐ Yúshān Qián Qiānyì 海印弟子虞山錢謙益 (“Sea-Seal disciple Qián Qiānyì of Yúshān”), dated Shùnzhì 15 wùxū, summer 5th month, wàngrì (= 15 June 1658) from the Bàoēnyuàn 報恩院 at Hángchéng. Qián’s preface is among the best-known late-imperial Chán prefaces, opening with the old scholar’s confession of age and indifference to the incessant output of yǔlù — then cracked open by a three-day encounter with Dàoshèng where “the heart and liver felt a sudden cool” (dùn jué xīnfǔ qīngliáng 頓覺心腑清涼). The preface embeds Dàoshèng into the Shòuchāng transmission arc as Hánshān → Shòuchāng Wúmíng → Bóshān → Dàoshèng, and compares the old man’s late-life meeting with Dàoshèng to Shàncái’s meeting with Déyún on the Miàofēng peak.

Abstract

Refer to 道盛 for a full biographical sketch and to KR6q0221 for a full description of the quánlù recension, its expanded editorial apparatus, and its syncretic scholarly materials. The present note focuses on what is distinctive to the 12-juan J25 B174 edition.

Contents. The mùlù at the head of juan 1 orders the 12 juan as follows. Juan 1–4: 上堂 shàngtáng sermons; the opening shàngtáng is dated Wànlì 47 jǐwèi (1619) at Fúzhōu Liánshān Guóhuānsì 福州蓮山國懽寺, Dàoshèng’s very first abbacy at age 27, invited by Lín zōngbó 林宗伯 (the local lǐbù presiding). Juan 5: 小參 xiǎocān. Juan 6: 小參 / 晚參. Juan 7: 示眾 shìzhòng. Juan 8: 普說 / 機緣 pǔshuō / jīyuán. Juan 9: 法語 fǎyǔ. Juan 10: 頌古 / 偈 sònggǔ / jì. Juan 11: 贊 zàn. Juan 12: 佛事 / 雜著 / 塔銘 — closing with the formal 塔銘 tǎmíng by the púsàjiè dìzǐ Liú Yúmó 劉餘謨 (hào Dàyìn jūshì 大印居士) of Wǎnchéng 皖城 (Ānqìng). Liú’s tǎmíng — commissioned after Chén Mínzhāo 陳旻昭, Dàoshèng’s long-term lay-patron, died with his own draft unfinished — is the authoritative biographical document for Dàoshèng, giving the Wànlì 20.12.16 (18 January 1593) birth and Shùnzhì 16.9.7 (22 October 1659) death, age 68 (49 dharma-years), twenty-seven dharma-heirs, four jìbié lay heirs, fifty-plus abbacies, and “over one hundred works” (zhùzuò bǎi yú zhǒng 著作百餘種), all preserved in the quánlù.

Editorial position. The signatory apparatus of the stele specifies 大成 at Qīxiá as the erecting editor and lists by seat some twenty-seven dharma-heirs including 大然 at Qīngyuán, 大璸 at Hǔpáo, 大存 and 大浩 at Shòuchāng, 大智 at Lǐnshān, 大奇 at Chóngxiān, 大聞 at Tiānmù, 大健 at Hóngjì, 大璽 at Tiānjiè, and 大麟 at Bàoēn — a snapshot of the Shòuchāng Cáodòng network’s institutional footprint in the 1660s. The layman subscribers — Lǐ Chánggēng 李長庚, Chén Dānzhōng 陳丹衷, Líng Shìsháo 凌世韶, Máo Dàfǔ 毛大斧 — are the jìbié jūshì from the tǎmíng list, signalling how fully the text was embedded in the surviving Míng-loyalist literati network.

Dating. notBefore 1658 (Qián Qiānyì’s preface is dated 15 June 1658; the compiled yǔlù was already effectively assembled when Dàoshèng was shown the preface the year before his death). notAfter 1670 (a conservative terminus: the stele-signatures show 大奇 at Chóngxiān — Dàqí’s abbacy at Chóngxiān Xiǎnxiào occupied the early-to-mid Kāngxī years before his 1678 death — and the imprint belongs to the first wave of Jiāxīng-canon posthumous Chán yǔlù for the Shòuchāng circle). The core teaching material spans 1619 (the Guóhuān inaugural shàngtáng) through 1659 (Dàoshèng’s last shàngtáng on his 66th birthday, quoted in the tǎmíng with its fǎjiè bù róng wú zìwěi 法界不容吾自委 yǔyú zhīyǔ 語), making the compilation’s horizon of provenance a full forty-year teaching career. The later expanded quánlù (KR6q0221) supersedes the present text in scope but not in priority.

Translations and research

Dào-shèng is an extensively studied figure, unusual for a 17th-century Chán master. Standard starting points: Xiè Míng-yáng 謝明陽, Míng yí-mín de Zhuāng-zǐ dìng-wèi lùn-tí 明遺民的莊子定位論題 (Taipei: NTU, 2001), ch. 4 (Dào-shèng’s Zhuāng-zǐ tí-zhèng 莊子提正); Liào Zhào-hēng 廖肇亨, 《忠義菩提：晚明清初空門遺民及其節義論述探析》 (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2013), sustained treatment of Dào-shèng as the Shòu-chāng Cáo-dòng master of the Míng-loyalist resistance; Xiè Jīn-lán 謝金蘭, Jué-làng Dào-shèng yánjiū 覺浪道盛研究 (Taipei: Wénjīn, 2010). In English: Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute (Oxford, 2008), esp. ch. 7 on the Cáo-dòng side of the 17th-century debates; Thomas Michael, Zhuangzi and the Problem of Nothingness (SUNY, 2015) [Dào-shèng’s Zhuāng-zǐ exegesis]; Jennifer Eichman, A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship (Brill, 2016). For Dào-shèng’s relationship with Qián Qiān-yì and the Hán-shān / Bó-shān network, Li Guotong 李國彤, 《錢謙益與明末清初佛教》 (Bēijīng: Zhōnghuá, 2018).

Other points of interest

  • Qián Qiānyì’s preface is the single most-cited late-imperial preface on a Chán yǔlù. Its inclusion in the present J25 B174 compilation (rather than only in the later quánlù) is a key dating marker: the 1658 preface was already incorporated in the block-cutting process before Dàoshèng’s death in autumn 1659, placing the initial editorial work in Dàoshèng’s lifetime.
  • The closing 塔銘 by Liú Yúmó is exceptionally detailed, recording Dàoshèng’s full xínglǚ, his imprisonment in 1647 on the charge of a banned “Yuán dào lùn” 原道論 and his year-plus confinement (during which he wrote the Jīngāng commentaries), his complex relationships with the Línjì masters Mìyún Yuánwù (at Jīnsù) and Fèiyǐn Tōngróng 費隱通容, and the Hánshān / Shòuchāng / Bóshān inheritance. For Dàoshèng’s role in the 《嚴統》-Zhuàndēng zhèngzōng defence of Cáodòng lineage claims against Fèiyǐn Tōngróng’s Wǔdēng yántǒng 五燈嚴統 (1653), the tǎmíng is the best primary source.
  • The 初會語 (the Wànlì 47 Guóhuān inaugural 上堂) is significant as Chinese Buddhism’s oldest datable surviving shàngtáng record from a 27-year-old fǎzǔ sūn (dharma-grandson) of Shòuchāng — fixing a baseline for Cáodòng revival lineage succession two decades before the Qīng conquest.
  • Dàoshèng is unusually syncretic: the stele remarks that his teaching drew freely on “Yì, Xiàng, Shī, Shū, down to LǎoZhuāng and the hundred schools” (Yìxiàng shīshū nǎizhì LǎoZhuāng zhūzǐ bǎijiā 易象詩書乃至老莊諸子百家) and that “only our Master has, since Yáojiāng (Wáng Yángmíng), spoken Chán in Confucian categories” (zì Yáojiāng chàngxué yǐhòu … dú wǒshī yīrén ér yǐ 自姚江倡學以後……獨我師一人而巳). This is the principal source-text for the notion of Dàoshèng as the 17th-century Chán voice of the sānjiào héyī ideal, continuous with the late-Míng left-Wáng tradition.

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