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 SòngYuánMíngQīng 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
- 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