Fǎmén chúguǐ 法門鋤宄
Hoeing Out the Brigands from the Dharma Gate
written by 淨符 (Jìngfú / Wèizhōng 位中, fl. mid-17th c., 著)
About the work
A 1-juan early-Qīng Cáo-dòng-school polemical work by Jìngfú 淨符 (號 Wèizhōng 位中 / Báiyán Wèizhōng 白巖位中) — a Cáodòng monk of the Shíyǔ Míngfāng 石雨明方 (1593–1648) dharma-line, abbot of Báiyán Zūnshèngsì 白巖尊聖寺 in Qiántáng. Per DILA, the work is dated to Kāngxī 6 = 1667 by Jìngfú himself; an additional preface attributes a further enlargement to a Japanese reprint of Genroku 元祿 3 (庚午 = 1690), prepared as a companion volume to the Japanese editor’s own 《五家辨正》 Wǔjiā biànzhèng.
Abstract
The title Fǎmén chúguǐ — “hoeing out the brigands from the Dharma gate” — explicitly frames the work as a polemical clean-up of the contemporary Chán scene. The reprint preface compares the targets of the work to “Liángshàng jūnzǐ” 梁上君子 (“gentlemen on the rafters” — i.e., thieves) and praises Jìngfú for “leaving them no foothold” — even at the cost of relegating the Yándēng 嚴燈 and Chándēng 禪燈 compilations to mere “sea-mirage cities.”
The polemic is principally directed against:
- Bogus lineage-claims — figures who appropriate Chán transmission without genuine dharma-succession;
- The Línjì-side appropriation of Cáodòng materials — Jìngfú, as a Cáodòng partisan, defends the integrity of his own line against figures who treat the Cáodòng revival as derivative from Línjì transmissions (cf. the contrary argument in KR6r0110 Chándēng shìpǔ).
- Specific historical revisions — including a critical re-reading of the canonical Mǎzǔ–Yàoshān 藥山 transmission narrative.
The work circulates alongside Jìngfú’s larger 《祖燈大統》 Zǔdēng dàtǒng (98 juan + 2-juan index, completed Kāngxī 11 = 1672) and his Zōngmén niāngǔ huìjí 宗門拈古彙集 (45 juan, X1296, X66) as part of the same Cáo-dòng-side polemical-historiographical project.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The work is a representative document of the early-Qīng Cáodòng / Línjì lineage controversy — a controversy in which both sides produced mutually contradictory tabular lineage-genealogies, each with implicit doctrinal commitments. Jìngfú’s Fǎmén chúguǐ is one of the principal Cáo-dòng-side documents.
Links
- CBETA: X86n1604