Xīfǎng huìzhēng 西舫彙征
Gathered Voyages of the Western Skiff
compiled by 瑞璋 (Ruìzhāng, fl. mid-Qīng, 輯)
About the work
A 2-juan mid-Qīng Pure-Land biographical anthology, the title of which puns on the canonical metaphor of the Western Skiff — Amitābha’s jiē-yǐn “welcoming-and-conducting” boat that ferries devotees from the saṃsāric ocean to the Western Pure Land. The image is taken from a verse cited in the work’s preface: “shēng-sǐ máng-máng gǔ dù-tóu / Mítuó bō-dòng jì-rén zhōu” — “Through the busy ferry-crossings of the past, Amitābha works the saving-boat for those crossing.” The compiler Ruìzhāng 瑞璋 was a Qīng Pure-Land monk who collected biographical materials from across the prior tradition and added contemporary materials, with the explicit aim of providing “fellow members of the Lotus Society” (lián-shè fǎ-lǚ 蓮社法侶) with exemplary models for their own Pure-Land practice.
Abstract
The work is a compendium of c. 150 brief biographies in 2 juan, drawn primarily from KR6r0074, KR6r0075, KR6r0076, KR6r0078, and (probably) KR6r0080 — i.e., the standard wǎngshēng zhuàn tradition — supplemented by mid-Qīng material. The arrangement is chronological and the prose terse, suggesting a target-readership of practising lay Pure-Land devotees rather than scholars. Internal references suggest a composition in the Dàoguāng / Xiánfēng period (c. 1820–1860).
The text is preserved in the Jiāxìng 嘉興 canon (J) supplement and in the Manji Xuzangjing (X78 no. 1551). It is one of several regional Pure-Land compendia of the mid- and late-Qīng — alongside KR6r0083 Xiūxī wénjiàn lù of 咫觀 — that document the persistence of the lay-Pure-Land subculture into the late-imperial period.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary monograph located. The work is treated only briefly in the Chinese-language secondary literature.
- 楊曾文, 《明清佛教史研究》 — Chinese-language survey of late-imperial Buddhist historiography.
- Daniel L. Overmyer, Folk Buddhist Religion (Cambridge: Harvard, 1976), with bearing on the late-imperial Pure-Land devotional milieu.
Other points of interest
The work’s regional character — focused on the Lotus-Society networks of a particular locality rather than on the empire as a whole — situates it alongside the xī-fāng 西舫 (“Western Skiff”) metaphorical-genre of late-imperial Pure-Land lay literature, in which the saṃgha is figured as a confederation of small “boats” each making its own crossing under Amitābha’s escort. The trope is itself a literary-devotional adaptation of the canonical Pure-Land metaphor of the jiē-yǐn fó 接引佛 (“welcoming Buddha”), and is widely reflected in late-Qīng Pure-Land iconography.
Links
- CBETA: X78n1551