Míngsēng zhuàn chāo 名僧傳抄
Excerpts from the Lives of Famous Monks
original 30-juan compendium by 寶唱 (Bǎochàng, fl. ca. 495–528, 撰); the present excerpt-anthology produced by the Japanese Kegon master 宗性 (Sōshō, 1202–1278) at Tōdai-ji 東大寺 in 1235
About the work
The Míngsēng zhuàn 名僧傳 of the Liáng monk 寶唱 was originally a 30-juan collection of biographies of “famous monks” — c. 425 lives in the original, completed at Xīn’ānsì 新安寺 between 510 and 519 — that served as one of 慧皎’s principal sources for KR6r0052 Gāosēng zhuàn. 慧皎 famously criticised the work in his preface for confusing fame with eminence (míng 名 ≠ gāo 高); the Gāosēng zhuàn was conceived in deliberate methodological opposition to it. The full Míngsēng zhuàn did not survive into the Sòng-canonical tradition and is lost in its complete form. What survives is the present 1-juan excerpt-anthology (抄) compiled by the Japanese Kegon (Huáyán) master Sōshō 宗性 (1202–1278) at Tōdai-ji 東大寺 in 嘉禎 Karoku / Katei 1 (1235), preserving abbreviated extracts from c. 36 of the original biographies plus a partial table of contents.
Abstract
The text opens with the surviving mù-lù 目錄 of the original 30-juan Míngsēng zhuàn, listing the categorical organisation of the parent work — translators, exegetes, meditators, vinaya masters, gǎn-tōng thaumaturges, self-immolators, sūtra-chanters, hymnodists, etc. — i.e., a category-scheme essentially the same as the one 慧皎 would adopt for KR6r0052. This mù-lù is the principal evidence for the original structure of the Míngsēng zhuàn and is the basis of all modern reconstruction of 寶唱’s lost work. The 36-or-so abbreviated lives that follow are biographies of figures from the Eastern Jìn and the Liú-Sòng — among them Guṇabhadra 求那跋陀 (Qí-huán-sì), Dào-ān 道安 (Cháng’ān), Tán-yì 曇翼 (Cháng-shā-sì in Jiāng-líng), Fǎ-yù 法遇, Sēng-héng 僧行 (Shàng-yú Chéng-shān-sì) — selected from the original on principles internal to Sōshō’s own scholastic concerns at Tōdai-ji.
The work is preserved exclusively in the Japanese tradition, in a manuscript copied at Tōdai-ji 東大寺 in Katei 嘉禎 1 (1235) by Sōshō and transmitted within the Kegon scholastic library. It was unknown to the Chinese tradition through the Sòng-Yuán-Míng-Qīng period, and was first printed only in the Manji Xuzangjing (X77 no. 1523). The Manji editors based their text directly on the Tōdai-ji manuscript, which remains the unique witness.
The provenance of the chāo in Japanese Kegon scholasticism is itself revealing: Sōshō was one of the great bibliographic scholars of Kamakura-period Tōdai-ji, the compiler of multiple works of synthesis on the Avataṃsaka tradition and Huá-yán doctrine. His interest in 寶唱’s lost compendium reflects a Kamakura-period Japanese-Buddhist scholarly programme of recovering early-Chinese-Buddhist documentary materials no longer current in Sòng China.
The catalog meta records only 寶唱 (the author of the parent work) as the chēng 撰; per the manuscript provenance the actual abridger is Sōshō 宗性 of Tōdai-ji (DILA A009188), and his role is best annotated in the frontmatter as “(抄)” — abridger.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- 諏訪義純 (Suwa Gijun), 《中國中世佛教史研究》 (Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1988) — chapter on the Míngsēng zhuàn and its reconstruction from the Sōshō chāo.
- 牧田諦亮 (Makita Tairyō), 〈名僧傳抄について〉, Tōhō gakuhō 京都, various — the principal source-critical article.
- 興膳宏 (Kōzen Hiroshi), 〈梁・寶唱「名僧傳」の意義〉, in Tōhōgaku ronshū.
- John Kieschnick, The Eminent Monk (Honolulu, 1997) — discusses the relationship between the Míngsēng zhuàn and KR6r0052.
Other points of interest
寶唱’s Míngsēng zhuàn and 慧皎’s Gāosēng zhuàn together represent the two main editorial paradigms of early-medieval Chinese Buddhist hagiography: the míng paradigm (inclusive, biographies of all who were known) and the gāo paradigm (selective, biographies only of those judged morally / spiritually eminent). The success of the gāo paradigm — its replication in KR6r0053, KR6r0054, KR6r0055 — has obscured the prior centrality of the míng approach, which the present chāo helps to recover. The work is also a witness to the Japanese tradition’s preservation of Chinese Buddhist documents lost on the continent: a recurring theme in the Manji Xuzangjing supplementary canon.
Links
- CBETA: X77n1523