Yúnwò jìtán 雲臥紀譚
Talks of the Cloud-Recliner Recorded
compiled by 曉瑩 (Xiǎoyíng / Yúnwò Xiǎoyíng, fl. 12th c., 錄)
About the work
A 2-juan Southern-Sòng Línjì-school anecdote-anthology, composed by Yúnwò Xiǎoyíng 雲臥曉瑩 — the same author as KR6r0092 Luóhú yělù — at the same Luóhú 羅湖 retreat in Shàoxīng 紹興 25 (1155). The two works are companion volumes: where the Luóhú yělù presents a “wilderness archive” of fragmentary documentary materials, the Yúnwò jìtán presents the same material reorganised as dialogues and discourses centred on the senior Línjì masters Xiǎoyíng had encountered or studied with.
Abstract
The work is structured as a series of dialogue-vignettes — each presenting a senior Chán master in conversation with disciples, lay-visitors, or fellow-monks, with Xiǎoyíng’s editorial framing supplying the historical context. The principal subjects are the late-Northern-Sòng / early-Southern-Sòng Línjì-school masters: Yuánwù Kèqín 圓悟克勤 (1063–1135), Xiǎoyíng’s grand-master through Dàhuì; Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163), Xiǎoyíng’s own master; Hǎiyìng Yīngān Tánhuá 海印應庵曇華 (1103–1163); Ling-quán Zōnggǎo 靈泉宗杲; and other contemporaries.
The dialogue-format is one with deep Chán-school roots — the yǔlù itself originates as a record of master-disciple dialogue — but Xiǎoyíng’s work is notable for its literary polish and for the inclusion of lay-conversation. Many of the dialogues record encounters between Chán masters and visiting Sòng officials or jìnshì-class literati, and these interview-vignettes are an important source for the Sòng Chán-literati interaction that defined the religious-intellectual life of the period.
The text was preserved through Línjì-school manuscript-tradition and printed only in the late Míng. The Manji Xuzangjing (X86 no. 1610) takes the late-Míng print as base text. There is no Sòng-period print, and the work is not included in the canonical Sòng-Yuán-Míng-Korean recensions.
Translations and research
- No substantial English-language complete translation located.
- Albert Welter, The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy (Oxford, 2008) — uses the Yún-wò jì-tán alongside the Luó-hú yě-lù.
- Morten Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen (Honolulu, 2008).
- 西尾賢隆, 《中世禪宗史叢説》 (Tokyo, 1995).
Other points of interest
The two paired Xiǎoyíng works (KR6r0092 and KR6r0093) constitute one of the most extensive personal-archive Chán compendia of the Sòng — together they preserve material on dozens of Linji masters of the 12th century, much of it not available elsewhere. The relative obscurity of the Yúnwò jìtán compared to its more famous companion the Luóhú yělù (which entered the Sìkùquánshū) is largely accidental, reflecting the differential inclusion-decisions of Qīng-period bibliographers rather than any judgment about the works’ content.
Links
- CBETA: X86n1610