Dà guāngmíng zàng 大光明藏
The Treasury of Great Luminosity
compiled by 寶曇 (Bǎotán / Júzhōu lǎorén, 1129–1197, 述)
About the work
A 3-juan Southern-Sòng Línjì-school compendium of biographies of the Chán dharma-transmission lineage from the Seven Buddhas of the Past through the Indian patriarchs, the early Chinese Chán patriarchs, the Wǔjiā 五家 (“five houses”), and forward to Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163), the great Línjì reformer who was Bǎotán’s master. The title is taken from the Chán technical term dàguāngmíng zàng (“treasury of great luminosity”) — the all-encompassing dharma-treasury of the awakened mind that is transmitted through the lineage.
Abstract
The 3 juan are organised chronologically:
- Juan 1: the Seven Buddhas of the Past (Vipaśyin and successors) and the Indian patriarchs Mahākāśyapa through Bodhidharma — the lineage parallel to that of KR6r0051 Fù-fǎ-zàng yīn-yuán zhuàn but extended forward beyond Siṃha-bhikṣu to Bodhidharma in line with Chán-school orthodoxy;
- Juan 2: the Chinese Chán patriarchs from Bodhidharma through to the founders of the Wǔjiā — Dòngshān 洞山, Cáoshān 曹山, Línjì 臨濟, Yúnmén 雲門, Fǎyǎn 法眼, Wěiyǎng 溈仰 — and the early Sòng abbacy lines;
- Juan 3: the principal Northern-Sòng / early-Southern-Sòng Línjì masters down to Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163) and his immediate dharma-heirs.
Bǎotán’s compilation is in the dēngshǐ 燈史 (“lamp-history”) tradition founded by KR6q0001 Jǐngdé chuándēng lù and continued in the Wǔdēng huìyuán 五燈會元, but is significantly more compact and selective than those, focusing on the lineage-essential figures rather than aiming at exhaustive coverage. The biographies are written in a literary register substantially more polished than the Jǐngdé chuándēng lù prose, reflecting Bǎotán’s literary training (he was a member of the chief minister Shǐ Hào’s 史浩 literary circle at Sìmíng / Níngbō) and his association with the Júzhōu retreat that Shǐ Hào built for him.
The work is one of the principal Línjì-school articulations of orthodoxy in the late-Southern-Sòng — a period when the Línjì school was aggressively asserting its centrality against the rival Cáodòng establishment. The closing of the lineage with Dàhuì Zōnggǎo is itself a polemical move: it identifies Dàhuì’s huàtóu / kànhuà methodology as the authoritative continuation of the Buddha’s transmission, against the rival Cáodòng mòzhào 默照 (“silent illumination”) of Hóngzhì Zhèngjué 宏智正覺 (1091–1157).
The text was preserved in the Línjì-school manuscript tradition and printed in the Jiāxìng 嘉興 canon (J), then incorporated into the Manji Xuzangjing (X79 no. 1563). The composition window 1170–1197 reflects Bǎotán’s mature compositional period, with the latter date being his death.
Translations and research
- Albert Welter, The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2008) — discusses the late-Southern-Sòng Línjì historiographical project.
- Morten Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008) — extensive treatment of the Línjì–Cáo-dòng polemic of which Bǎo-tán’s Dà guāng-míng zàng is one document.
- Steven Heine, Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
- 阿部肇一, 《中國禪宗史の研究》 (Tokyo: Seishin shobō, 1963) — chapter on the late-Southern-Sòng Línjì establishment.
Other points of interest
The connection of 寶曇 to chief minister Shǐ Hào 史浩 (1106–1194) — a major political figure of the early Southern Sòng under Xiàozōng 孝宗 — places the Dà guāngmíng zàng in the literati-clerical milieu of the Sìmíng / Níngbō establishment, where Línjì abbots and senior officials shared a common literary culture and ritual register. The work should be read alongside the Júzhōu wénjí 橘洲文集 (Bǎotán’s collected literary works) as a documentation of this milieu.
Links
- CBETA: X79n1563