Gāosēng zhuàn 高僧傳
Lives of Eminent Monks
compiled by 慧皎 (Huìjiǎo, 497–554, 撰), Liáng-dynasty monk of Jiāxiángsì 嘉祥寺 in Kuàijī
About the work
The first and most influential of the systematic Chinese Buddhist eminent-monks collections, in 14 juan (the last juan being the author’s preface and a postface-letter exchange between Huìjiǎo and the layman Wáng Mànyǐng 王曼穎). It contains roughly 257 principal lives (with c. 274 fùjiàn 附見 supplementary lives) covering Chinese Buddhist masters from the introduction of Buddhism in the late-Hàn (Shè Móténg 攝摩騰, mid-1st c. CE) down to 519 CE, the year of completion. It is the foundational document of Chinese Buddhist hagiography and historiography and the basis for every subsequent gāosēng zhuàn compilation: Dàoxuān’s Xù gāosēng zhuàn KR6r0053, Zànníng’s Sòng gāosēng zhuàn KR6r0054, and Rúxīng’s DàMíng gāosēng zhuàn KR6r0055.
Abstract
The work is organised typologically into ten kē 科 (“categories”), each forming one or more juan: (1) Yìjīng 譯經 (Translators of the Canon, j. 1–3), (2) Yìjiě 義解 (Doctrinal Exegetes, j. 4–8), (3) Shényì 神異 (Thaumaturges, j. 9–10), (4) Xíchán 習禪 (Meditators, j. 11), (5) Mínglǜ 明律 (Vinaya Masters, j. 11), (6) Wángshēn 亡身 (Self-Immolators, j. 12), (7) Sòngjīng 誦經 (Sūtra-Chanters, j. 12), (8) Xīngfú 興福 (Benefactors / Stūpa-builders, j. 13), (9) Jīngshī 經師 (Gāthā-Makers / Hymnologists, j. 13), (10) Chàngdǎo 唱導 (Proselytisers / Liturgical Lecturers, j. 13). Juan 14 contains Huìjiǎo’s own preface (序), a zǒngmù index, and the celebrated correspondence with Wáng Mànyǐng in which Huìjiǎo defends his choice of gāo 高 (“eminent”) rather than míng 名 (“famous”) as the criterion of inclusion — a deliberate criticism of 寶唱’s earlier Míngsēng zhuàn KR6r0062.
Composition is securely dated to Tiānjiān 天監 18 (519) at Jiāxiángsì in Kuàijī. Huìjiǎo drew on a substantial mass of earlier biographical materials — Sēngyòu’s 僧祐 Chū sānzàng jì jí 出三藏記集 (T2145), Yú Xiàojìng’s 虞孝敬 Gāosēng zhuàn (lost), Zhú Fǎjí’s 竺法濟 Gāoyì shāmén zhuàn (lost), and the various míngsēng zhuàn-type compendia of the QíLiáng south, including 寶唱’s — but produced a fundamentally new, prose-narrative work organised by function rather than by chronology or geography. The Tiāntāi master Zhìyǐ 智顗 and the vinaya tradition of Dàoxuān both knew and used the work intensively. The Kǎiyuán-period (730) recension was selected for inclusion in the Táng canon (大正藏 vol. 50) and is the source of the present standard text.
The textual history is complicated. Several pre-Tāng versions diverge in the structure of j. 13–14 (whether 興福 / 經師 / 唱導 are three separate categories or sub-headings within one). The current Taishō text follows the Korean canon (高麗藏); divergent readings are also present in the Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and Gōng editions and in the Jīnzàng / Guǎngshèngsì recension. The Lú Shān fragment recovered from Dunhuang represents an earlier and shorter recension stratum.
Translations and research
- Arthur F. Wright, “Biography and Hagiography: Hui-chiao’s Lives of Eminent Monks,” in Silver Jubilee Volume of the Zinbun-kagaku-kenkyusyo (Kyoto, 1954), 383–432 — the foundational Western-language study, reprinted in his Studies in Chinese Buddhism (1990).
- Robert Shih, Biographies des moines éminents (Kao seng tchouan) de Houei-kiao, Bibliothèque du Muséon 54 (Louvain: Institut orientaliste, 1968) — French translation of juan 1 (translators).
- John Kieschnick, The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1997) — major monographic study covering all four gāosēng zhuàn compendia, with extensive treatment of Huìjiǎo.
- Tang Yongtong 湯用彤, Hàn-Wèi liǎng-Jìn Nán-Běi-cháo fójiào shǐ 漢魏兩晉南北朝佛教史 (1938), passim — uses the Gāosēng zhuàn as the principal narrative source.
- 紀贇 (Jì Yún), 《慧皎《高僧傳》研究》 (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji, 2009) — Chinese-language monograph; the most thorough modern textual and prosopographical study.
Other points of interest
The “ten categories” typology of the Gāosēng zhuàn is decisive for the entire later Chinese tradition: each successor (Dàoxuān, Zànníng, Rúxīng) re-uses Huìjiǎo’s ten kē with only minor adjustments, and the Korean Hǎidōng gāosēng zhuàn KR6r0058 follows the same scheme. Modern Western scholarship treats the work as a Buddhist appropriation of the lièzhuàn 列傳 (“arrayed biographies”) form pioneered by Sīmǎ Qiān, recast around the typological categories of Buddhist sanctity rather than Confucian bureaucratic function.
Links
- CBETA: T50n2059
- Wikipedia: Gaoseng Zhuan