Chányuàn méngqiú yáolín 禪苑蒙求瑤林
Introductory Inquiries on the Chán Garden — A Forest of Jade
original 3-juan compendium by 志明 (Bóhūn / Cuòān Zhìmíng, fl. late 12th c., 撰), Jīn-dynasty Cáodòng monk of Sōngshān Shàolínsì; with annotation by the Yuán Cáodòng master 德諫 (Xuětáng Déjiàn, fl. mid-13th c., 注)
About the work
A 3-juan Chán-school analogue of the secular méngqiú 蒙求 (“introductory inquiry”) learning-handbook tradition. The genre originates with Lǐ Hàn 李翰’s mid-Táng Méngqiú (746) — a paired-couplet compendium of historical references designed for novice-memorisation, in which each couplet pairs two figures or events with characteristically symmetric four-character phrases (e.g., Kǒng yán suí yuán / Mèng mǔ duàn jī, “Confucius spoke at Suíyuán / Mencius’s mother cut the cloth”). The form was widely imitated throughout the Sòng for various subject-matter: poetry-history, materia-medica, and (here) the Chán tradition.
Abstract
志明’s Chányuàn méngqiú yáolín extracts from the canonical Chán-historical tradition — primarily KR6q0001 Jǐngdé chuándēng lù and successor dēnglù — its principal lineage-figures and pivotal incidents, and arranges them as paired four-character couplets for memorisation by Chán novices. Each couplet juxtaposes two figures or events from the Chán lineage tradition with structurally parallel phrasings, designed to fix the principal coordinates of the lineage in the novice’s memory.
The original text by 志明 survives in the canon together with the prose annotation (zhù 注) of 德諫, a Yuán Cáodòng dharma-heir of Wànsōng Xíngxiù 萬松行秀 resident at the Mongol-capital monastery Yānjīng Dà Wànshòusì. Déjiàn’s annotation glosses each couplet with prose elaborations identifying the persons, events, and texts referenced. The composite annotated work is the standard form transmitted in the canon. The bracket of dating reflects the two-stage composition: 志明’s original from the late 12th c. (under the Jīn), Déjiàn’s annotation from the mid-13th c. (under the early Yuán).
The work is one of the principal pedagogical documents of the Cáodòng tradition specifically: both 志明 and Déjiàn were Cáodòng masters, the original was composed at Shàolínsì (the Cáodòng establishment), and the work transmits the Cáo-dòng-school presentation of the Chán lineage. The Manji Xuzangjing (X87 no. 1614) preserves the text on the basis of late-Míng / Qīng prints.
Translations and research
- 陳士強, 〈《禪苑蒙求瑤林》並《拾遺》舉隅──禪籍導讀之九〉, Fǎ-yīn 法音 (1989) — the principal Chinese-language introductory study.
- No substantial Western-language secondary monograph located.
- 阿部肇一, 《中國禪宗史の研究》 (Tokyo, 1963).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal canonical witnesses to the Jīn-dynasty Buddhist establishment of the north — i.e., the Buddhist culture of the Jurchen-ruled territory that was institutionally separated from the Southern Sòng south after 1142. The Jīn-Buddhist Cáodòng establishment at Sōngshān Shàolínsì, where 志明 was abbot, was the principal northern Cáodòng centre and the parent-house of the lineage that produced Wànsōng Xíngxiù 萬松行秀 — the great early-Yuán Cáodòng master and Déjiàn’s teacher — in the next generation. The work thus documents a Jīn–Yuán Cáodòng continuity that the Southern-Sòng-centred dēnglù tradition tends to obscure.
Links
- CBETA: X87n1614