Línjiān lù 林間錄
Records [Compiled] in the Forest [Hermitage]
compiled by 慧洪 (Huìhóng / Juéfàn 覺範, 1071–1128, 集)
About the work
A 2-juan compendium of Chán anecdotes, monastic biographical notes, and yǔlù fragments assembled over roughly a decade by the celebrated Northern-Sòng LínjìHuánglóng monk Juéfàn Huìhóng 覺範慧洪 (1071–1128). The work is the earliest of Huìhóng’s major prose compilations and the foundational document of his wénzì chán 文字禪 (“literary Chán”) project — the position that the textual recording, philological correction, and literary cultivation of Chán materials is itself a legitimate Chán practice. The work was edited and put into final form by Huìhóng’s disciple Běnmíng 本明; the preface (dated Dàguān 大觀 1.11.1 = December 1107) is by the Northern-Sòng poet Xiè Yì 謝逸 (1068–1113) of Línchuān. Transmitted in the Xùzàngjīng as X1624.
Prefaces
Xiè Yì’s preface (Hóng Juéfàn Línjiān lù xù) opens: “Hóng Juéfàn obtained the zìzài samādhi from the Old Man of Yúnān [= Zhēnjìng Kèwén 真淨克文]. Therefore he is able to play in the field of brush and ink: his sighs and clearings of the throat all become composition. Whenever he meets the elders of the forest [hermitages], chatting and laughing in pure conversation, [the topics] are nothing other than the high practice of the venerable elders, the lost teachings of the cónglín monasteries, the subtle meaning of the various Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the surplus discourse of the worthy scholar-officials. Whenever he obtained a single matter, he recorded it on the spot. Over the course of nearly ten years, he obtained more than three hundred matters. His attendant in this travel was the upper-Person Běnmíng, who was outwardly simple but inwardly quick and acute. In his leisure-hours of seated meditation, he took the recorded matters and divided them into upper and lower fascicles, naming the [collection] Línjiān lù — ‘Records [from the conversations] in the Forest [hermitages].‘” The preface concludes with the comparison of Huìhóng’s literary-thought combination to the Eastern-Jìn pair Yuè Guǎng 樂廣 (the spoken-word stylist) and Pān Yuè 潘岳 (the literary stylist), of whom contemporaries said that neither could have produced a YuèPān composition without the other — Huìhóng combining both gifts in a single person.
Abstract
The work consists of roughly three hundred and twenty unnumbered entries, arranged not chronologically or topically but in the order of conversation and recollection — Huìhóng’s preface remarks: “Because the records have a temporal sequence [of recording], they are not arranged ancient-to-modern in their presentation. They were obtained in conversation and laughter, not laboured composition.” Each entry is generally short (a paragraph to a page), and treats one of the following subject matters:
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Chán-master anecdotes: previously unrecorded yǔlù fragments, gōngàn exchanges, and biographical episodes of Northern-Sòng masters — particularly those in Huìhóng’s own LínjìHuánglóng lineage but also Cáodòng masters and earlier Tang figures. Many entries supply biographical details unavailable in the standard gāosēng zhuàn tradition.
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Textual-philological notes: corrections to Chán yǔlù texts, identifications of misattributions, restorations of garbled phrases. These notes are the textual-critical kernel of Huìhóng’s wénzì chán programme.
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Buddhist-literati conversation: reports of conversations between Chán masters and the great Northern-Sòng literati — Sū Shì 蘇軾, Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅, Zhāng Shāngyīng 張商英, Chén Guàn 陳瓘 — many of whom were Huìhóng’s personal friends and patrons.
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Buddhist literary criticism: discussions of Buddhist verse, géyán, and prose, often shading into Huìhóng’s distinctive prosodic-aesthetic Chán theology.
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Anecdotal hagiography: numinous events in the lives of Northern-Sòng monks, omens, premonitions, and mystical experiences.
The work is the most important Northern-Sòng documentary record of the Chán cónglín milieu outside of the formal yǔlù and dēnglù literatures, and the principal source for the Chán-literati interface that defined Northern-Sòng Buddhist culture. It is widely cited in subsequent Chán historiography (the 《嘉泰普燈錄》 Jiātài pǔdēng lù, the 《五燈會元》 Wǔdēng huìyuán, and the great SòngYuán Chán anthologies all draw on it), and remained in continuous transmission through the SòngYuánMíng. A supplementary volume, 《林間錄後集》 KR6r0158 Línjiān lù hòují (X1625), gathers Huìhóng’s later eulogies, zàn, and miscellaneous prose; the two together represent his complete Línjiān corpus.
Translations and research
- George Albert Keyworth, “Transmitting the Lamp of Learning in Classical Chán Buddhism: Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) and Literary Chan,” PhD diss., Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 2001 — the principal Western-language monograph on Huì-hóng, drawing extensively on the Lín-jiān lù.
- George Keyworth, “Buddhist Eclecticism and Chinese Literature: A Study of Huihong’s Lin-jian lu,” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 24 (2002): 91–128.
- 周裕鍇, 《宋代詩學通論》(Chéngdū: Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 1997) — major treatment of Huì-hóng’s poetics, with extensive use of the Lín-jiān lù.
- 周裕鍇, 〈惠洪文字禪論〉, Zhōng-guó wén-huà 17 (2000): 192–218 — the principal modern theoretical study.
- 釋果鏡, 《惠洪覺範及其文學研究》, MA thesis, 國立政治大學, 2001.
- 釋慧通, 〈慧洪覺範〈林間錄〉之研究〉, MA thesis, 玄奘大學, 2008 — focused study of the Lín-jiān lù.
- Robert Gimello, “Mārga and Culture: Learning, Letters, and Liberation in Northern Sung Ch’an,” in R. Buswell and R. Gimello, eds., Paths to Liberation (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1992): 371–437 — landmark essay on the wénzì chán phenomenon.
Other points of interest
The Línjiān lù together with Huìhóng’s poetic collection 《石門文字禪》 Shímén wénzì chán (30 juan) and the 《禪林僧寶傳》 Chánlín sēngbǎo zhuàn KR6q0136 (30 juan) form the core of his three-fold authorial-Chán synthesis: anecdotal-philological compendium, lyric-prose collection, and biographical compendium — collectively the most comprehensive single-author monastic literary corpus of the Northern Sòng.
Links
- CBETA: X87n1624