Jìngtǔ wǎngshēng zhuàn 淨土往生傳
Lives of Rebirth into the Pure Land
compiled by 戒珠 (Jièzhū, 985–1077, 敘)
About the work
A 3-juan compilation of wǎngshēng zhuàn — biographies of those reborn in Sukhāvatī, Amitābha’s Western Pure Land — by the Northern-Sòng Tiāntāi-Pure-Land master Jièzhū 戒珠 (985–1077), abbot at Hánshānsì 寒山寺 in Sūzhōu and the principal Sòng successor to the wǎngshēng zhuàn tradition founded by KR6r0074. The text is dated by an internal preface to Jiāyòu 嘉祐 9 (1064). It contains roughly 75 biographies drawn from the Eastern Jìn through the early Sòng — ordered chronologically and divided across the three juan.
Abstract
The work follows and considerably expands the model of KR6r0074: it begins with the patriarchal lineage Huìyuǎn — Tánluán — Dàochuò — Shàndǎo — Shǎokāng and adds substantial coverage of mid-Táng and Five-Dynasties Pure-Land masters omitted from the earlier collection. Of particular value are Jièzhū’s lives of: (i) Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽 (904–975) of WúYuè, the great Pure-Land synthesist (see KR6c0001 Zōngjìng lù); (ii) Sìmíng Zhīlǐ 四明知禮 (960–1028), the Shānjiā Tiāntāi reformer; (iii) Cíyún Zūnshì 慈雲遵式 (964–1032), the great Northern-Sòng Pure-Land liturgist; and (iv) the early Northern-Sòng báiliánshè 白蓮社 lay-Buddhist movement, for which the Jìngtǔ wǎngshēng zhuàn is one of the principal sources.
A distinctive feature of Jièzhū’s editorial approach is his citation of source-documents — postface-colophons to yǎnfú 鹽福 funerary records, bǐjì 筆記 anecdote-collections, temple-inscription texts — rather than merely drawing on the canonical gāosēng zhuàn tradition. This gives the work an unusual documentary depth and makes it a primary source for the Sòng-period Pure-Land establishment in a way that KR6r0074 is not for the Táng. Jièzhū’s prose is also more discursive than the laconic Táng original: each biography opens with brief commentary on the figure’s significance and ends with explicit registration of the rebirth-signs.
The text was incorporated into the printed canon through the Sòng / Yuán / Míng recensions and into the Taishō (T2071). The transmission is uniform; minor variants are confined to nomenclature in the patriarchal titles.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary monograph located. Treated in passing in studies of Northern-Sòng Pure-Land Buddhism.
- 牧田諦亮, Chūgoku Bukkyō shi kenkyū dai-ichi (Tokyo, 1981) — foundational Japanese-language study of the wǎng-shēng zhuàn tradition that includes substantial discussion of Jiè-zhū.
- Daniel A. Getz, “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate,” in Buddhism in the Sung, ed. P. Gregory and D. Getz (Honolulu, 1999), 477–523 — uses the Jìng-tǔ wǎng-shēng zhuàn extensively.
- 黃啟江, 〈戒珠《淨土往生傳》考〉, Hànxué yánjiū (various Chinese-language articles).
Other points of interest
Jièzhū’s Jìngtǔ wǎngshēng zhuàn is the canonical document of the Pure-Land patriarchate: the formal designation of the lineage Huìyuǎn — Tánluán — Dàochuò — Shàndǎo — Chéngyuǎn — Fǎzhào — Shǎokāng — Yánshòu as a sequence of “patriarchs” (zǔ 祖) is articulated here for the first time as a clear school-genealogical scheme, on the model of the Chán zǔshī lineage and the Tiāntāi jiǔzǔ. The Sòng formation of an explicit “Pure-Land school” (jìngtǔzōng 淨土宗) with a fixed patriarchal lineage thus dates from the period and milieu of KR6r0075.
Links
- CBETA: T51n2071