Chuánfǎ zhèngzōng dìngzǔ tú 傳法正宗定祖圖
Diagram Establishing the Patriarchs of the Orthodox Transmission of the Dharma
compiled by 契嵩 (Qìsōng, 1007–1072, 編)
About the work
A 1-juan diagrammatic-prosopographical work by the Northern-Sòng Chán polemicist 契嵩 Qìsōng, transmitted in Taishō 51 as T2079. The Dìngzǔ tú is the second of three coordinated lineage-historical compilations Qìsōng submitted to Sòng Rénzōng 仁宗 in Zhìpíng 治平 1 (1064), together with KR6r0100 Chuánfǎ zhèngzōng jì (9 juan, T2078) and the Chuánfǎ zhèngzōng lùn (KR6r0102, T2080). It is the graphic / tabular counterpart of the Jì: where the Jì presents the Bodhidharma-lineage as a discursive biographical chronicle, the Dìngzǔ tú presents the same lineage as a fixed succession-table establishing who counts as a patriarch and in what order, with prose explanation of how the table was compiled and why rival schemata are wrong.
Abstract
Qìsōng’s preface (printed at the head of juan 1) frames the work as a response to imperial action. The court had recently issued a Zǔshī chuánfǎ shòuyī tú 祖師傳法授衣圖 (“Diagram of the Patriarchs Transmitting the Dharma and Robe”) and circulated it to the empire. Qìsōng reports that even Buddhist students had been unable to make full sense of the imperial diagram, and that he is offering this companion work to annotate the table with a defensible account of which patriarchs are included, why, and on what evidence.
The body of the text reconstructs the 28-patriarch Indian lineage (Mahākāśyapa to Bodhidharma) and the 6-patriarch Chinese lineage (Bodhidharma to Huì-néng), with Qì-sōng’s editorial argument running on three fronts:
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Against the Fù-fǎ-zàng yīn-yuán zhuàn (KR6r0051 Fù-fǎ-zàng yīn-yuán zhuàn, T2058), which closes the Indian lineage at Siṃha-bhikṣu with the line “the lamp of the dharma is extinguished.” Qì-sōng reads this as the editorial invention of the Northern Wèi monk Tán-yào 曇曜 (fl. mid-5th c.), arguing that Tán-yào produced his text in haste during the persecution of Buddhism, lost his draft in the mountains, and resurrected it years later, with predictable transmissional damage. Qì-sōng’s preferred lineage instead splices forward from Siṃha through to Bodhidharma as the 28th Indian patriarch.
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Citing Táng documentary witnesses to the 28-patriarch scheme. The text quotes Péi Xiū 裴休 (字 Gōngměi, zì 公美) — Huì-chāng-era 會昌 chief minister and Buddhist patron — citing his Guīfēng Mìshī chuánfǎ bēi 圭峯密師傳法碑 (the stele for Zōngmì 宗密) for the 28-patriarch sequence, and Liú Xù 劉昫 (字 Yàoyuǎn, zì 耀遠) — compiler of the Jiù Tángshū 舊唐書 — for the Shénxiù zhuàn version of the Bodhidharma transmission.
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Citing the witness of “Jiàn-nuó” 犍那 — a Western-region monk active in Tiān-bǎo 天寶 — who is reported to have given the 河南尹 Lǐ Cháng 李常 a 27-Indian-plus-1-Chinese reckoning (Mahākāśyapa to Prajñātāra plus Bodhidharma as the first Chinese patriarch).
The work therefore functions as a canonical-tabular reference standing alongside the Jì: the Jì tells the lineage story; the Tú fixes the table.
The text was incorporated into the printed canon through the standard Sòng-Yuán-Míng-Korean recensions (the Taishō print is from the Sòng Qìshā 磧砂 edition per the CANWWW note) and into the Taishō (T2079).
Translations and research
- Elizabeth Morrison, The Power of Patriarchs: Qisong and Lineage in Chinese Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 2010) — the principal Western-language treatment, which discusses the Dìng-zǔ tú alongside the Chuán-fǎ zhèng-zōng jì as components of Qì-sōng’s coordinated 1064 imperial submission.
- Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
- Stuart H. Young, Conceiving the Indian Buddhist Patriarchs in China (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2015) — extended treatment of Qì-sōng’s reading of the Indian patriarchs.
Other points of interest
The Dìng-zǔ tú’s critique of KR6r0051 Fù-fǎ-zàng yīn-yuán zhuàn and Tán-yào 曇曜 is a classic instance of a Sòng-Buddhist polemic against a canonical text inherited from Northern Wèi. Qì-sōng’s argument — that Tán-yào composed the Fù-fǎ-zàng zhuàn under conditions of persecution and that its closure at Siṃha-bhikṣu reflects accident rather than doctrine — is one of the most influential Sòng arguments for the provisionality of canonical texts in service of a higher lineage-historical truth.
Links
- CBETA: T51n2079