Jí shāmén bùyīng bàisú děng shì 集沙門不應拜俗等事
Compilation of the Matter that Buddhist Monks Should Not Bow to the Lay World
compiled by 彥悰 (Yàncóng / Cí’ēn Yàncóng, fl. late 7th c., 纂錄)
About the work
A 6-juan early-Tang documentary anthology on the recurring imperial-Buddhist controversy over whether Buddhist monks should perform secular obeisance (拜俗 bàisú) — i.e., whether they should prostrate before the emperor, the imperial princes, and (in some formulations) their living parents. The compilation was prepared by Yàncóng 彥悰 of the Dà Cí’ēnsì 大慈恩寺 in Cháng’ān (the Xuán-zàng-school disciple), in the wake of the Tang Gāozōng 高宗 court’s renewal of the question in Lóngshuò 龍朔 2 = 662 (the Lóngshuò bàisú zhī yì 龍朔拜俗之議). The dating bracket is therefore 662 – 700. Transmitted in Taishō 52 as T2108.
The preface is by Tàiyuán Wáng Yǐnkè 太原王隱客 (字 Shàowēi 少微).
Prefaces
The preface frames the work in the canonical Sino-Buddhist comparative-rhetorical mode: “If the cock-and-rooster [primordial chaos] arose as one, and the dragon-sage opened the three [primal forms] — they flew the Xīfú [Fúxī] hexagrams and surpassed the shéng [primal cords]; they floated the Xuānyuán [Yellow Emperor] script and exceeded the [carved] qì [contracts] …” — using the canonical Confucian primordial-historiographical vocabulary to set up the Buddhist-Confucian comparative discussion.
Abstract
The 6 juan assemble the principal documentary record of the 三次拜俗爭 (“three rounds of the bàisú controversy”):
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The Eastern-Jìn round — Huìyuǎn’s 慧遠 Shāmén bù jìng wángzhě lùn 沙門不敬王者論 (KR6r0137 Hóngmíng jí j. 5; ca. 405) — the foundational Buddhist defence of monastic non-prostration before the ruler. Yàncóng reproduces the text and its surrounding documentary record (the imperial decree by Huán Xuán 桓玄 demanding monastic prostration, and the various Buddhist responses).
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The Tang Tàizōng round — the Zhēnguān 5 貞觀五年 (631) imperial decree under Tàizōng on monastic obeisance, with the various Buddhist responses including those of KR6r0142 Pòxié lùn (Fǎlín, 622) and KR6r0143 Biànzhèng lùn (Fǎlín, 626).
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The Tang Gāozōng round — the Lóngshuò 2 (662) imperial decree under Gāozōng renewing the demand for monastic prostration before the empress dowager and the heir apparent (in addition to the emperor) — with the comprehensive documentary record of the controversy that resulted. This includes the memorials by 200+ senior Buddhist monks opposing the decree, the secular-official memorials on both sides of the question, the imperial decision (the decree was withdrawn, after a short-lived imposition), and the subsequent Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 reaffirmation.
The work is the principal documentary anthology of the entire Buddhist-imperial controversy over monastic obeisance — one of the most theoretically significant of the recurring tensions between the Chinese imperial-Confucian framework and the Indian-Buddhist conception of monastic transcendence-of-the-state. It is the principal source for Huìyuǎn’s classical Buddhist position in its later Tang reception.
Translations and research
- Leon Hurvitz, “‘Render unto Caesar’ in Early Chinese Buddhism: Hui-yüan’s Treatise on the Exemption of the Buddhist Clergy from the Requirements of Civil Etiquette,” Sino-Indian Studies 5/3–4 (1957) — the classic English-language treatment of the foundational Huì-yuǎn argument and its Tang reception.
- Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China — the principal English-language treatment of the early-medieval phase.
- Stanley Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang — the principal English-language treatment of the Tang phase.
- 牧田諦亮, 中國佛教史研究 — 沙門不應拜俗 studies (in various volumes of his Bukkyō shigaku ronshū).
Other points of interest
The Tang Gāo-zōng / Wǔ Zé-tiān controversy preserved in the work is one of the most documentarily-rich episodes of pre-modern Chinese church-state relations — precisely because Yàn-cóng’s compilation preserved the full memorial-and-counter-memorial record. It is the principal documentary base for the modern scholarly understanding of how the Buddhist saṅgha successfully resisted the imperial demand for institutional submission to the secular order — at least in the legal-textual record, even where political reality was more complicated.
Links
- CBETA: T52n2108