永明道蹟

Yǒngmíng dàojì 永明道蹟

Traces of the Way of the Yǒng-míng Master (i.e., Yǒng-míng Yán-shòu)

compiled by 大壑 (Dàhè / Yuánjīn 元津, 1576–1627, 輯)

About the work

A 1-juan late-Míng votive biographical compilation on Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽 (904–975) — the great SòngWúYuè Buddhist master of the Fǎyǎn 法眼 line, principal Chán-Pure-Land synthesist of the Five-Dynasties / early-Sòng era, and conventional 6th-generation descendant of the Fǎyǎn lineage. The compiler is Dàhè 大壑 (字 Yuánjīn 元津 / Xuánjīn 玄津; 1576–1627), a late-Míng monk of the Xuělàng Hóngēn 雪浪洪恩 line, abbot of Jìngcísì 淨慈寺 in Hángzhōu — the very monastery at which Yǒngmíng Yánshòu had served as senior abbot and where he was buried.

The colophon dates the work to Wànlì 34 / 9 (霜降日) 萬曆歲次丙午秋九月霜降日 = 23 October 1606 at GǔHáng Jìngcísì 古杭淨慈寺. The dating is therefore precisely fixed at 1606. Transmitted in Xùzàngjīng X86 No. 1599.

Abstract

The work is a localised hagiographical compilation assembled from the sources at Jìngcísì itself — Yánshòu’s stele inscriptions, the surviving fragments of his epigraphical record, and the in-house monastery oral tradition — supplementing the canonical Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳 and Jǐngdé chuándēnglù 景德傳燈錄 biographies with site-specific anecdotal material (the “dàojì” 道蹟 of the title — the “traces of the way” preserved at the site).

The work documents Yánshòu in his dual identity:

1. As Fǎ-yǎn-line Chán master, dharma-heir of Tiāntái Désháo 天台德韶 (891–972) — through whom the Fǎyǎn lineage is transmitted into the Sòng;
2. As Pure-Land master and Chán-Pure-Land synthesist — author of the 《萬善同歸集》 Wànshàn tóngguī jí (T2017) and 《宗鏡錄》 Zōngjìnglù (T2016, 100 juan), the great theoretical syntheses of Chán with the doctrinal schools and with Pure-Land devotion;
3. As abbot of Jìngcísì — where his daily devotional regimen (108 daily Pure-Land observances; the “rooster-tiger 雞虎 zànshù” iconography) and his concrete charitable practices (the fàngshēng 放生 / animal-release pond funded by WúYuè King Qián Hóngchù 錢弘俶) are remembered.

The author’s late-Míng compilation is part of the Wàn-lì-era revival of Chán-Pure-Land synthesis under figures like Yúnqī Zhūhóng (1535–1615), and is a deliberate retrieval of Yánshòu as the canonical Sòng precedent for that synthesis. The closing material of the work includes a section on fàngshēng practice, with the famous Chán-master Dèng Yǐnfēng 鄧隱峰 anecdote (the bodhisattva-renunciation-of-archery story) used to ground the late-Míng monastic-lay devotional commitment to non-killing.

Translations and research

• Albert Welter, The Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds: A Study of Yongming Yanshou and the Wanshan Tonggui Ji (New York: Peter Lang, 1993) — the principal Western-language monograph on Yán-shòu and the Chán-Pure-Land synthesis.
• Albert Welter, Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
• Heng-ching Shih, The Syncretism of Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism (New York: Peter Lang, 1992).
• 釋恆清, The Syncretism of Ch’an and Pure Land Buddhism and related Chinese-language studies on Yán-shòu.
• 阿部肇一 Sōryō shūmatsushi no kenkyū (Tōkyō, 1963).

Other points of interest

The work is one of the principal late-Míng documentary witnesses to the Sòng-period Yánshòu hagiographical tradition preserved at Jìngcísì. Many of the anecdotes it preserves are not in the canonical Sòng biographies, and the compilation is therefore a major source for the localised Hángzhōu Yánshòu tradition as it survived into the late Míng.

Links

• CBETA: X86n1599