Nányuè dānchuán jì 南嶽單傳記
A Record of the Single-Line Transmission of the Nán-yuè (Línjì) Lineage
presented by 弘儲 (Hóngchǔ / Jìqǐ Tuìwēng 繼起退翁, 1605–1672, 表)
About the work
A 1-juan early-Qīng Línjì lineage-historical essay, presented by Hóngchǔ 弘儲 (字 Jìqǐ 繼起, 號 Tuìwēng 退翁, 1605–1672), the 69th-generation Línjì patriarch in the Nányuè line and dharma-disciple of Sānfēng Hànyuè Fǎzàng 三峯漢月法藏 (1573–1635). The text sets out the chain of transmission specifically through the Nányuè branch (i.e., through Nányuè Huáiràng 南嶽懷讓 → Mǎzǔ → Bǎizhàng → Huángbò → Línjì → Nányuè dharma-line down to the author’s own day), as opposed to the Qīngyuán branch through which the Cáodòng line descends.
The author’s autographic preface (zìxù 自序) and the postscript (biǎohòu xù 表後序) by his disciple Nánqián 南潛 are both undated; on the basis of Hóngchǔ’s lifedates and the maturity of the argument, the work was composed in the post-1644 period, after the author had become a senior abbot. The dating bracket given here is 1647 – 1672 (year of his death). The work is transmitted in Xùzàngjīng X86 No. 1596.
Abstract
The work’s argument is that the Línjì school is the unique heir of the Buddha’s full transmission — a position it defends by showing that the other four traditional Chán “houses” (Wéiyǎng 溈仰, Cáodòng 曹洞, Yúnmén 雲門, Fǎyǎn 法眼) all ultimately depend on figures who passed through the LínjìYángqí transmission. The argument proceeds by case:
- Wéiyǎng: the Fēngxué Yánzhǎo 風穴延沼-line lineage of “the small Śākya reborn” demonstrates Línjì’s containment of Wéiyǎng’s distinctive doctrinal style.
- Yúnmén: Mùzhōu Dàomíng 睦州道明, the head-seat in Huángbò’s 黃檗 assembly when Línjì was still a junior monk, was the figure to whom Yúnmén was first sent and from whom Yúnmén initially received teaching.
- Cáodòng: Fúshān Fǎyuǎn 浮山法遠 of the Fényáng Shànzhāo 汾陽善昭 line transmitted Cáodòng’s zhízhuì 直裰 and pílǚ 皮履 to Tóuzǐ Yìqīng 投子義青 — i.e., the Cáodòng revival from Tóuzǐ onward depends on a Línjì-line transmission.
- Yángqí / Yúnmén composite: Yángqí Fānghuì 楊岐方會 + Báiyún Shǒuduān 白雲守端 inherited both Línjì’s craft and Yúnmén’s strategy; Xuědòu Chóngxiǎn 雪竇重顯 brought Línjì’s editorial cáichéng into Yúnmén materials.
The disciple Nánqián’s postscript explicitly endorses this account (“having identified the metamorphoses, having clarified the identities-and-differences, one is then able to fix the lineage-eye 宗眼”).
The work is one of the principal Sān-fēng-line documents of Línjì self-presentation in the Shùnzhì / Kāngxī period, and stands within the broader Tiāntóng / Sānfēng controversy as a Sān-fēng-side reaffirmation of the priority of the Línjì lineage. It is closely associated with KR6r0105 Zōngtǒng biānnián (whose author Jì Yīn was a dharma-grandchild of Hóngchǔ).
Translations and research
- Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) — discusses Hóng-chǔ and the Sān-fēng-line documentary tradition.
- 連瑞枝, 漢月法藏 (1573–1635) 與晚明三峰宗派的崛起 (Tāipěi: National Tsing Hua thesis, 1993).
Other points of interest
Hóngchǔ presided over a major late-Míng / early-Qīng Línjì monastic establishment at Língyánshān 靈巖山 in Sūzhōu, and was one of the principal monastic loyalists who maintained Sān-fēng-line teaching through the Manchu conquest. The Dānchuán jì, with its insistence on Línjì’s precedence over the other four Chán houses, would be one of the documents implicitly proscribed under the Yōngzhèng emperor’s 1733 ban on Sān-fēng-line texts.
Links
- CBETA: X86n1596