Tiāntāi jiǔzǔ zhuàn 天台九祖傳
Lives of the Nine Patriarchs of the Tiāntāi [School]
compiled by 士衡 (Shìhéng / Yúnjiān shāmén, fl. late 12th – early 13th c., 編)
About the work
A 1-juan compendium of biographies of the nine patriarchs of the Tiāntāi school, composed by Shìhéng of Yúnjiān (modern Sōngjiāng) and prefaced by the author in Jiādìng 嘉定 1 (1208). The work is the canonical Tiāntāi-school self-presentation of its lineage and a key document in the late-Sòng Tiāntāi consolidation of patriarchal identity. The “nine patriarchs” form a fixed Tiāntāi-school order:
(1) Lóngshù 龍樹 (Nāgārjuna, 2nd–3rd c. CE), the foundational Indian Mādhyamika master, retroactively designated First Patriarch by the school on the basis of Tiāntāi’s grounding in the Madhyamaka-kārikā and the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra (大智度論);
(2) Huìwén 慧文 (fl. mid-6th c.), the obscure North-Chinese master who is said to have transmitted the yīxīn sānguān 一心三觀 (“threefold contemplation in a single mind”) doctrine to Huìsī;
(3) Huìsī 慧思 (515–577) of Nányuè 南嶽, the founder-figure of the meditative tradition that Zhìyǐ would systematise;
(4) Zhìyǐ 智顗 (538–597) of Tiāntāishān 天台山, the school’s de facto founder and the author of the Móhē zhǐguān 摩訶止觀, the Fǎhuá xuányì 法華玄義, and the Fǎhuá wénjù 法華文句 — the “three great works” of Tiāntāi;
(5) Guàndǐng 灌頂 (561–632), Zhìyǐ’s senior disciple and the editor of his master’s lectures into the surviving Móhē zhǐguān and other works;
(6–7) Zhìwēi 智威 and Huìwēi 慧威 — early-Táng successors;
(8) Xuánlǎng 玄朗 (673–754), the early-Táng patriarch known as Zuǒxī 左溪;
(9) Zhànrán 湛然 (711–782), the great mid-Táng Tiāntāi reformer and author of the Móhē zhǐguān fǔxíng zhuànhóng jué 摩訶止觀輔行傳弘決 KR5b0011 (the principal Táng commentary on Zhìyǐ’s Móhē zhǐguān).
Abstract
Shìhéng’s preface (序) acknowledges the existence of a longer tradition of Tiāntāi historical writing — including KR6r0070 / KR6r0071 / KR6r0072-type collections of Lotus-cult biographies and the canonical Sòng gāosēng zhuàn lives of Tiāntāi figures — and presents his own work as a focused compilation of the patriarchal lineage specifically, replacing the diffuse and uneven prior coverage with a coherent single-juan jiǔzǔ zhuàn. The biographies are concise, drawing on the Sòng gāosēng zhuàn, on the Tiāntāi zǔshī shànzhī tradition of school-internal patriarchal-legend, and on the temple-records of Tiāntāishān and Guóqīngsì 國清寺.
The work was prepared in the context of the late-Southern-Sòng Tiāntāi Sìmíng 四明 / Shānjiā 山家 establishment’s articulation of itself against the rival Shānwài 山外 sub-tradition and against the then-rising Línjì Chán; the firm articulation of “nine patriarchs from Nāgārjuna” gave the school an Indian-rooted lineage parallel to (and arguably more ancient than) the Chán Bodhidharma-lineage. The work has remained the canonical Tiāntāi lineage-document since.
The text was incorporated into the printed canon through the standard Sòng-Yuán-Míng-Korean recensions and into the Taishō (T2069). The transmission is uniform across recensions; minor variants are confined to nomenclature in the patriarchal titles.
Translations and research
- Linda Penkower, “T’ien-t’ai during the T’ang Dynasty: Chan-jan and the Sinification of Buddhism” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1993) — extensive treatment of Zhàn-rán and the lineage-formation that culminated in KR6r0068.
- 安藤俊雄 (Andō Toshio), 《天台学：根本思想とその展開》 (Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1968) — chapter on the Tiāntāi lineage tradition.
- 池田魯參 (Ikeda Rosan), 〈《天台九祖伝》の成立〉, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū — Japanese-language source-critical article.
- 王雷泉, 《天台宗九祖傳的歷史地位》, in 《佛學研究》, various — Chinese-language secondary scholarship.
Other points of interest
The patriarchal lineage of KR6r0068 should be distinguished from the Tiāntāi seventeen patriarch scheme later articulated in KR6r0118 Fózǔ tǒngjì of Zhìpán 志磐 (mid-13th c.), which extends the lineage forward through Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 and the Sòng masters. KR6r0068 gives the closed nine-patriarch scheme; KR6r0118 gives the open seventeen-patriarch scheme. The two co-exist within the Sòng Tiāntāi tradition.
Links
- CBETA: T51n2069