Shìmén zhèngtǒng 釋門正統
Orthodox Lineage of the Gate of the Śākyans
compiled by 宗鑑 (Zōngjiàn, fl. early 13th c., 集) of the Tiāntái 天台 school
About the work
A Southern Sòng Tiāntái 天台 universal history in eight juan, compiled by the Tiāntái monk 宗鑑 (Zōngjiàn) and dated by his preface to 1237 (Sòng Jiāxī 嘉熙 1). The work is among the foundational documents of the Sòng-period Tiāntái historiographical project, and is the immediate predecessor and model for 志磐’s much larger and more ambitious Fózǔ tǒngjì (KR6r0012) of three decades later.
Abstract
宗鑑 was a Southern Sòng Tiāntái monk associated with monasteries in the Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō) region. The preface to the Shìmén zhèngtǒng, dated 1237, lays out the work’s aim: to establish the Tiāntái lineage as the zhèngtǒng 正統 (“legitimate succession”) of Chinese Buddhism, modelled on the Confucian zhèngtǒng debates of the Northern Sòng, in which the Buddhist analogue is the patriarchal succession from Śākyamuni through the Indian patriarchs to the Tiāntái founders 慧文, 慧思, 智顗, and onwards.
The structure of the work is a hybrid of biographical (lièzhuàn 列傳) and annalistic (biānnián 編年) forms, with biographies of the Tiāntái patriarchs and major doctrinal figures, supplemented by chronological tables. 宗鑑 explicitly responds to the implicit claims of 惠洪 (Huìhóng)‘s Línjiān lù 林間錄 and the Chán lamp-record tradition, which had been positioning the Chán patriarchate as the orthodox succession; the Shìmén zhèngtǒng counters by re-centring the Tiāntái line.
The work was incomplete at 宗鑑’s death and survives in the form transmitted in the Xuzangjing (X75 no. 1513), which may not represent the full final version. 志磐’s Fózǔ tǒngjì was, in part, a project to complete and supersede the Shìmén zhèngtǒng.
Translations and research
- Schmidt-Glintzer, Die Identität der buddhistischen Schulen (Wiesbaden, 1982) — discusses the Shìmén zhèngtǒng as a key text in the Sòng Tiāntái-Chán polemical landscape.
- Linda Penkower, “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia, 1993) — uses KR6r0018 for late Tiāntái lineage history.
- No complete Western-language translation located.
Links
- CBETA: X75n1513