季總徹禪師語錄

Jìzǒng Chè chánshī yǔlù 季總徹禪師語錄

Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Jì-zǒng Chè by 徹 (說, 尼), 超祥 (記錄)

About the work

Four-juan yǔlù of Jìzǒng Chè 徹 季總徹 / 繼總 (1606–1678), nun (ní 尼). Her formal fǎhuì 法諱 per the internal prefaces is Jìzǒng 繼總 (“Continuing-All”) — also written in alternative forms as 季總 in the Jiāxīng catalog-header; hào Bǎochí 寶持 (“Treasure-Preservation”). The catalog’s “徹” Chè (?) may be an auxiliary fǎhuì or a variant — the text’s internal attributions are consistent with Bǎochí Jìzǒng 寶持繼總 as her standard-scholarly name. The second surviving Qīng-era female Chán yǔlù in the Jiāxīng Canon (following KR6q0428 Qíyuán Xínggāng), and one of the very few extant complete female Chán yǔlù in any Chinese Buddhist canon. Lay surname Liú 劉, of Húguǎng Héngzhōufǔ 湖廣衡州府 (modern Héngyáng, Húnán). Double-transmission: first trained under and sealed by Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際 (a Mìyún Yuánwù dharma-heir at Húnán Nányuè 南嶽) c. 1638; second-transmission received from Wànrú Tōngwēi 萬如通微 (another Mìyún heir, cf. KR6q0404) at Lóngchíshān 龍池山 c. 1651 as senior-lineage confirmation after Shāncí’s death. Compiled by dharma-disciple Chāoxiáng 超祥 超祥. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Printed as Jiāxīng Canon J28 B211.

Abstract

Author. Jìzǒng Chè / Bǎochí Jìzǒng was born 萬曆 34 丙午 8.18 夜 (= ~18 September 1606 Western) in Húguǎng Héngzhōufǔ (Húnán). Father Liú Shànzhǎng 劉善長 dreamed on the eve of her conception of an old monk seeking lodging; mother Sòngshì 宋氏 subsequently conceived; the pregnancy reportedly lasted 12 months with three “singing” fetal sounds; at birth the room was suffused with white light. Vegetarian from infancy; loved both Confucian classics and Buddhist sutras. Pressed by family into marriage to a Chén 陳 official whose post sent them to Guǎngxī; the husband died violently (“yǔn yú fēimìng 殞於非命”) during his term. Jìzǒng filed a formal “báijiǎn 白簡” official accusation and secured legal vengeance; thereupon abandoned her lay life and turned to Buddhism.

Initial practice (c. 1630s). Built a small hermitage (“zào ān xiū xiàng 造菴脩像”) for private devotion; began studying Chán under Hǎitiān lǎoshī 海天老師. Via Hǎitiān’s copy of Shāncí’s 《南嶽禪燈錄》 Nányuè chándēng lù, sought out Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際 (Mìyún Yuánwù heir) at Yānxiáfēng 煙霞峰 on Héngshān. Shāncí set her the “yīkǒu qì bù lái 一口氣不來” huàtóu. Intensive 7-day bìguān at home; first partial opening on reading the “bǎinián sānwàn liùqiān rì 百年三萬六千日” verse. Two years of cānjiū; further 49-day retreat with a thunder-storm awakening (“hū rán dāi qù sānsì shí, bù jiàn yǒu shēnxīn qìjiè. Ǒu wén léi, xùn rú zài wǎngluó zhōng tiàochū xiāngsì 忽然呆去三四時不見有身心器界偶聞雷迅如在網羅中跳出相似”). Shāncí approved. Age 34 (= 1639, per the xíngshí’s “shí nián sānshísì suì 時年三十四歲”): formal tonsure and full precepts from Shāncí. Subsequent multi-year training through exchanges with Shāncí Wúxué dàshī 無學大師 (a dharma-brother of Shāncí).

Post-Shān-cí transmission-tour (1650–52). After Shāncí’s death at Nányuánsì 南元寺, brought his relics back to Héngshān for burial. 庚寅 6.8 (= 1650 lunar 6): left Héngshān, traveled Hànkǒu → Jīnlíng → Zhènjiāng Hèlínsì 鎮江鶴林寺 (1651 lunar 4) to meet Mùyún Tōngmén 通門 (cf. KR6q0406); then to Jiáshān 夾山 to meet Ruòān Tōngwèn 箬菴通問; then Qìngshān and Hang-zhōu accompanying Ruòān for three months. Finally (c. 1651–52) to Lóngchíshān 龍池山 to meet her 本師 本師 Wànrú Tōngwēi 萬如通微 — received full Chán-transmission, swept the tomb of Mi-yun’s teacher Huànyǒu lǎoshīwēng 幻老師翁, received zǔyī 祖衣.

Hui-deng abbacy (1654–). 順治甲午 2.16 (= 24 March 1654): entered Gūsū Huìdēng Chányuàn 姑蘇慧燈禪院 (Sūzhōu) as first abbacy. The yǔlù also preserves significant material from Zhāoyáng Pǔdùān 朝陽普度菴 (where the xíngshí was delivered to lay-patrons Wáng Shìyù 王試玉 and Wáng Shìyīng 王士英), Kūnshān 昆山, and other Sū-zhōu-area seats.

Later life (1656–1678). The yǔlù covers only through c. 1656 at cutting-time; Bǎochí lived another 22 years until 1678 (per Grant 2009), making her one of the longest-lived mid-seventeenth-century Chán nuns. Later abbacies and activity at Méixī 梅溪 are documented in non-yǔlù sources.

Compositional history. notBefore = 1654 (the 甲午 2.16 Huìdēngyuàn entry). notAfter = 1658 conservatively (the Tán Zhēnmò 譚貞默 front-preface is dated 順治丙申 長至月望 = Shùnzhì 13 / 1656 lunar 11 winter-solstice 15th = December 1656; the second (unsigned) preface refers to Bǎochí as jì fǎxiōng 季法兄 (elder dharma-sister), presumably dating c. 1656. The integrated cutting was c. 1657–58). Tán Zhēnmò’s preface here is one of his cluster of mid-1650s Chán prefaces also attested at KR6q0408 (1658), KR6q0413 (1659), KR6q0414 (1656), KR6q0415 (1657), KR6q0421 (1661).

Contents by juan. (j.1) Front prefaces + 住蘇州慧燈禪院開堂啟 住蘇州慧燈禪院開堂啟 (opening-sermon-petition for the Huìdēng entry of 1654.2.16) + Huìdēng shàngtáng corpus opening. (j.2) shàngtáng continued + 行實 行實 (at Zhāoyáng Pǔdùān, delivered to Wáng Shìyù and Wáng Shìyīng). (j.3–4) fǎyǔ, jìsòng, fóshì (including the héngchí chánrén 恒持禪人 and xīnxuán dàozhě 新玄道者 cremation-prose in the final juan).

Tiyao

Not applicable — this is a Jiā-xīng-canon imprint (J28 B211), not a WYG text. The Tán Zhēnmò 1656 preface and the juan 2 xíngshí provide the principal biographical documentation summarized under Abstract.

Translations and research

• Beata Grant, Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2009). Chapter 6 is dedicated to Bǎo-chí Jì-zǒng (= the present text’s author) — the definitive English-language treatment, based extensively on the present yǔlù. Grant translates and contextualizes the dramatic widowhood-and-vengeance narrative, the Shān-cí / Wàn-rú double-transmission, and the Kūn-shān / Sū-zhōu late-life abbacies.
• Beata Grant, Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003). Selected poems translated.
• Beata Grant, “The Red Cord Untied: Buddhist Nuns in Eighteenth-Century China,” in Buddhist Women across Cultures: Realizations (ed. Karma Lekshe Tsomo; Albany: SUNY Press, 1999). Broader context.
• Chūn-fāng Yü (Chün-fang Yü), Kuan-yin (2001). Context on seventeenth-century female monasticism.
• Dīng Mǐn 丁敏, 《中國佛教比丘尼傳》 (Taipei: Dōng-dà, 1997). Bǎo-chí is treated in the Chinese-language nun-biography section.

Other points of interest

• The dramatic widowhood-and-vengeance narrative. The second (unsigned) preface’s opening statement — “shī shēngyuán NánChǔ, xìng Liú, shì Chén. Chénjūn huàn XīYuè yǔn yú fēimìng. Shī báijiǎn míng yuān, bàochóu xuě hèn; jí qìjiā xuédào 師生緣南楚姓劉適陳陳君宦西粵殞於非命師白簡鳴冤報仇雪恨即棄家學道” — is a remarkable prose datum for the Chinese female-tonsure narrative genre. Bǎochí’s avenging her husband’s violent death before abandoning lay life is a unique biographical motif among preserved seventeenth-century nun-biographies: she does not renounce immediately on widowhood (as Xínggāng at KR6q0428 does) but first obtains legal justice for her husband. This narrative-element places her in a distinctive loyal-widow → Chán-nun trajectory with precedents in Hàn and Táng exemplary-widow literature, and is analyzed by Grant 2009 as a transformation of Confucian widow-loyalty into Chán-renunciation. The preface-writer’s choice to open the text with this sequence signals its importance to Bǎochí’s reception.
• Shāncí Tōngjì as sealing-teacher (c. 1638–50). Jìzǒng’s primary sealing-teacher Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際 — author of the 《南嶽禪燈錄》 南嶽禪燈錄 regional lamp-history of Nányuè — is himself a significant but less-documented mid-Mìyún-line figure. The xíngshí provides extensive direct-quotation exchanges between Jìzǒng and Shāncí over at least a decade of practice, including Shāncí’s jiājiā ménqián huǒbǎzǐ 家家門前火把子 transmission-verse and the xūnfēng nánlái 薰風南來 exchange-sequence. This content is therefore an indirect biographical source for Shāncí himself, whose own separate yǔlù if it survives has not been cataloged in Kanripo.
• Wànrú Tōngwēi as senior-confirmer (c. 1651–52). Bǎochí’s second-transmission from Wànrú Tōngwēi at Lóngchíshān c. 1651–52 — with full-precept-renewal and ancestor-pagoda-sweeping for Huànyǒu — is a specific female-lineage validation pattern: Shāncí’s 1638 sealing (when Shāncí was the junior living Mi-yun heir) was supplemented by Wànrú’s senior-validation (Wànrú being the senior of two Mi-yun heirs still living). The doubled-transmission provided Bǎochí with independent institutional legitimacy that made her later Huìdēng abbacy possible. See Grant 2009 ch. 6 for the full reconstruction.
• Tán Zhēnmò’s cross-gender preface-commitment. Tán Zhēnmò 譚貞默’s 1656 preface for a female Chán master’s yǔlù is a specific cross-gender preface-writing event — Tán having also written for KR6q0414 Yǐnyuán (1656), KR6q0415 Zhàngxuě Tōngzuì (1657), KR6q0411 Sānyí Míngyú (no, that was Mùchén), KR6q0408 Línyě (1658), KR6q0413 Dàxiū Zhū (1659), KR6q0421 Bǎichī (1661). Tán’s willingness to provide preface for a nun’s yǔlù marks him as one of the most gender-inclusive lay-Chán preface-writers of the period, and his preface here frames Bǎochí as the successor to the famous Sòng-era nun-masters Miàozǒng 妙總 (= Wúzhuó Miàozǒng 無著妙總, disciple of Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲) and Miàodào 妙道 of Wēnzhōu Jìngjū — positioning Bǎochí in the classical female-Chán Xiàojìn canon.
• Pair with Xínggāng at KR6q0428. The placement of Bǎochí’s yǔlù (J28 B211) immediately after Xínggāng’s (J28 B210) in the Jiāxīng Canon is editorially significant — the Jiāxīng editors clearly recognized the two as complementary female-lineage volumes. The two masters were contemporaries operating in overlapping Jiāngnán regions (Xínggāng at Húzhōu Fúshī; Bǎochí at Sūzhōu Huìdēng and Húnán Héngyuè), sharing the Mìyún-line grand-heritage. Reading the two yǔlù together constitutes the best-available primary-source base for reconstructing seventeenth-century female Línjì Chán institutional history.

Links

• CBETA
• First sealing-teacher: Shāncí Tōngjì 山茨通際 (Mìyún Yuánwù heir at Húnán Nányuè; separate Kanripo text not cataloged).
• Second-transmission teacher: Wànrú Tōngwēi 萬如通微 (at KR6q0404).
• Fellow female Chán contemporary: Qíyuán Xínggāng 祇園行剛 (at KR6q0428, immediately preceding volume).
• Intermediate encounters: Mùyún Tōngmén (at KR6q0406); Ruòān Tōngwèn 箬菴通問 at Jiáshān.
• Preface-writer: 譚貞默 Tán Zhēnmò (1656-12).
• Definitive secondary literature: Beata Grant, Eminent Nuns (2009), ch. 6.