Shìjiā Rúlái yìnghuà lù 釋迦如來應化錄
Record of the Responsive Manifestations of the Tathāgata Śākyamuni
compiled by 寶成 (Bǎochéng, fl. 1486, 編集)
About the work
A two-juan illustrated life of the Buddha, compiled by the Míng monk 寶成 (Bǎochéng) and dated by his colophon to 1486 (Míng Chénghuà 成化 22). The work belongs to the late-Míng vogue for illustrated Buddhist hagiographies for popular and lay-devotional use: each of the more than two hundred episodes of the Buddha’s life is rendered in a short prose narrative paired with a woodblock illustration. The text became the basis for several later derivative works, most notably the Shìshì yuánliú 釋氏源流 of 寶成’s near-contemporary 釋寶成 (often the same Bǎochéng under a slightly different attribution).
Abstract
寶成 is identified in the colophon as a monk of the Wǔtáishān 五臺山 region, working under imperial patronage in the late-fifteenth-century Míng court. The 1486 dating is given in the text and is secure. The work draws on the Buddha-biography material assembled in 僧祐’s KR6r0025, 道宣’s KR6r0026, the various Buddha-life sūtras, and the earlier illustrated hagiographies, condensing them into a sequence of devotional vignettes.
The structure is episodic: each episode is given a four-character title, a short prose narration of perhaps twenty to one hundred characters, and (in the woodblock-print transmission) a full-page illustration. Episodes range from canonical events (the conception, the four signs, the enlightenment, the parinirvāṇa) to popular jātaka and miracle tales. The combination of brief text and full illustration made the work a popular devotional resource throughout the Míng and Qīng, and woodblock copies are found in collections worldwide.
The work is closely related to — perhaps the textual basis for — the Shìshì yuánliú yìnghuà shìjì 釋氏源流應化事蹟, a famous illustrated Buddha-life that circulated widely in the late Míng and Qīng. Modern art-historical scholarship has used both works as principal Chinese sources for the iconography of the Buddha-life cycle.
Translations and research
- Wen-shing Lucia Chou, “Picturing the Buddha’s Life: The Illustrated Sutras of the Late Ming,” in Buddhist Art (various venues) — uses the Shìshì yuánliú / KR6r0030 as principal source.
- Patricia Berger, Empire of Emptiness: Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China (Honolulu: UH Press, 2003) — places this kind of illustrated hagiography in its political context.
Links
- CBETA: X75n1511