Gāosēng zhāiyào 高僧摘要
Selected Essentials of the Eminent-Monk [Biographies]
edited by 徐昌治 (Xú Chāngzhì / Jìnzhōu 覲周 / Wúyī Dàorén 無依道人, b. 1582 — fl. 1660s, 編輯)
About the work
A 4-juan late-Míng / early-Qīng anthology of Buddhist eminent-monk biographies, compiled by the Jiāxìngfǔ lay-Buddhist editor and publisher Xú Chāngzhì 徐昌治 (hào Wúyī Dàorén 無依道人) of Hǎiyán 海鹽 (Zhèjiāng), and dated by the editor’s own preface to the 9th month of the jiǎwǔ year = 1654 (Shùnzhì 11). The work is not a chronological gāosēng zhuàn in the line of Huìjiǎo 慧皎 / Dàoxuān 道宣 / Zànníng 贊寧 / Rúxīng 如惺, but rather a thematic re-classification of materials drawn from those four prior collections, organised under four cardinal headings: Way (dào 道), Dharma (fǎ 法), Person (pǐn 品), and Transformative Influence (huà 化). Transmitted in the Xùzàngjīng as X1626.
Prefaces
The editor’s preface (dated 甲午歲菊月登高日 = the Chóngyáng festival 9.9 of jiǎwǔ = 19 October 1654) opens with a critique of the inherited gāosēng zhuàn tradition: “I previously published the Fózǔ zhǐnán and the Fǎyuàn xǐngshì: in those, all matters of single-transmission direct-pointing and of dark-and-light gǎnyìng were laid out one by one. As for the gāosēng zhuàn — it is like empty space, whose substance is not [reducible to] the various phenomena, yet does not refuse them their manifestation. But the [extant] zhuàn corpus has both ‘orthodox’ and ‘continued’ branches; the [collections of] Liáng and Míng [periods] together amount to four bundles, all classified into ten rubrics. I was struck by this [scheme] and said: if there is something to lean on, then how can it be ‘beyond comparison’? If there is a fixed pattern and example, how can it be ‘walking alone’? I have, therefore, set aside what was already printed in my earlier compilations, and now arranged [the remainder] into only four juan, calling it Zhāiyào — ‘Selected Essentials.‘” The four-fold classification — dào, fǎ, pǐn, huà — is then explained: each represents a distinct Chán-soteriological dimension of the eminent-monk’s career. A second preface follows, by an unnamed colleague (signed only “yǔ Yún 予曰”) who praises Xú’s reordering as “dividing without confusing, focused without mingling” and compares it to Confucius’s editing of the Shījīng and Lǐjì.
Abstract
The work is structured into four juan, each treating a distinct eminent-monk type:
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Juan 1 — Dào 道 (the Way): monks distinguished by their direct realisation of the cóngshàng one-vehicle position. The selection emphasises Tang-Sòng Chán patriarchal lineage figures and the yǔlù tradition.
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Juan 2 — Fǎ 法 (the Dharma): monks distinguished by their dharma-transmission and pedagogical practice — those who, “though spoken of as continuous and unbroken, do not let through any wind; ancient and modern, they have no gap.”
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Juan 3 — Pǐn 品 (Personal Quality / Bearing): monks distinguished by personal character — “in turning, they are solitary and steep; ten-thousand affairs cease.”
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Juan 4 — Huà 化 (Transformative Influence): monks distinguished by their broad influence and miraculous activity — “neither sun nor moon’s illumination reaches them; neither heaven nor earth’s covering attaches itself.”
The total number of monks treated is approximately two hundred and fifty, with each entry comprising a brief biographical-anecdotal summary drawn directly from the standard gāosēng zhuàn sources (Liáng gāosēng zhuàn, Xù gāosēng zhuàn, Sòng gāosēng zhuàn, DàMíng gāosēng zhuàn) and abridged by Xú into a focused, single-paragraph form. The work makes few independent contributions to historical biography but is typologically significant as the first sustained attempt to apply Chán-style fēnmén 分門 categorisation to the eminent-monk tradition — anticipating later Chán-typological works like the 《五燈嚴統》 Wǔdēng yántǒng.
The work also belongs to Xú Chāngzhì’s larger publishing programme of late-Míng / early-Qīng Buddhist anthologies, which included the 《佛祖指南》 Fózǔ zhǐnán / 《祖庭指南》 Zǔtíng zhǐnán KR6q0048 (1635), the 《法苑醒世》 Fǎyuàn xǐngshì (anti-superstition compilation), and the famous 《破邪集》 Pòxié jí (1639, the major Buddhist anti-Christian apologetic). The Gāosēng zhāiyào is one of his last major compilations.
Translations and research
- 連瑞枝, 《錢謙益的佛教生涯與理念》(Táiběi: Dōng-chū chū-bǎn-shè, 1994) — discusses Xú Chāng-zhì in the wider context of Jiāng-nán late-Míng lay Buddhist publishing.
- 廖肇亨, 〈無依道人徐昌治居士及其佛教著作〉, Zhōng-yāng Yán-jiù-yuàn Wén-zhé suǒ tōng-xùn 16.4 (2006) — the principal modern study of Xú’s life and works.
- Eric Reinders, “Studying the Late-Imperial Buddhist Anti-Christian Polemic,” Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal 18 (1996): 1–18 — context for Xú’s other principal publication, the Pò-xié jí.
- Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008) — places the Gāo-sēng zhāi-yào in the context of Late-Míng / Early-Qīng Buddhist publishing.
Links
- CBETA: X87n1626