Fófǎ jīntāng biān 佛法金湯編
The Compilation [titled] “Metal-City and Boiling-Moat for the Buddha-Dharma”
compiled by 心泰 (Xīntài / Dàizōng 岱宗, 1327–1415, 編)
About the work
A 16-juan early-Míng (Hóng-wǔ-era) compilation of historical evidence for the imperial and elite-lay support of Buddhism in China, from the Western Zhōu through the end of the Yuán. The work’s title derives from the metaphor of the 金城湯池 jīnchéng tāngchí (“metal-city and boiling-moat” — the impregnable defences of a fortress city) — re-applied to Buddhism: the lay rulers and elite who have, throughout Chinese history, protected and supported the Buddha-Dharma are the jīntāng (defensive bulwark) that has allowed Buddhism to survive in China against periodic anti-Buddhist movements. The work is an apologetic-historical anthology in the same broad genre as the great Tang-period 《廣弘明集》 KR6r0138 Guǎng hóngmíng jí of Dàoxuān, but takes a narrower focus on lay supporters rather than the full Buddhist-Daoist controversial literature. Compiled by the early-Míng monk Xīntài 心泰 (hào Dàizōng 岱宗) of Kuàijī, completed in Hóngwǔ 洪武 24 = 1391, and reprinted with new prefaces by the layman Yú Rǔwéi 俞汝為 in Wànlì 萬曆 28 = 1600. Transmitted in the Xùzàngjīng as X1628.
Prefaces
The preface by the layman Sū Bóhéng 蘇伯衡 of Méishān (dated Hóngwǔ 26.1.戊辰 = early 1393) opens: “The flourishing of the Buddha-Dharma in the central kingdom — until now this has lasted one thousand three hundred and twenty-six years. Although it has been slandered and rejected, its flourishing remains as on the first day. At first I [Bóhéng] did not know the reason for this; I privately suspected that it was because its doctrines are sufficient to move people. Now, on examining this Compilation, I have come to know that it is, rather, because the enlightened sovereigns of every dynasty, together with the worthy ones among the dukes, marquises, ministers, and high officials — none of them failed to revere it, support it, and serve as its outer protectors. Where there is reverence, those who would slander cannot prevail by their mouths. Where there is support, those who would reject cannot prevail by their force.”
A second preface by Qīngjùn 清濬, zuǒ jiǎngjīngshāmén of the Sēnglùsī (Buddhist administration), dated Hóngwǔ 24.7 = autumn 1391, frames the work as a defensive bulwark of the Buddha-Dharma: “The teacher of Dōngshān, Dàizōngchánshī, was concerned that the city of the great Dharma should lose its outer defences, and so composed this. The book is in ten juan, beginning from Zhōu Zhāo-[wáng] and reaching down to Yuán Shùn-[dì], encompassing several hundred persons; he selected those whose words are sufficient to defend the teaching, and gathered [their words] under the name of each person, manifesting [the principle] thereby.” A third preface, also dated 1391, is by another Sēnglùsī official; the late-Míng reprint preface by Yú Rǔwéi is dated 1600.
Abstract
The work is the first sustained Chinese-Buddhist prosopographical work focused on lay-elite supporters rather than on monks, and proceeds chronologically from the Zhōu through the end of the Yuán. For each historical period it lists the emperors, princes, ministers, scholar-officials, and famous literati who supported Buddhism — by patronage, by sūtra-translation sponsorship, by monastery foundation, by personal study, by imperial-edict — and supplies for each person:
- Brief biographical identification (regnal/title, native place, lifedates as known).
- Specific Buddhist deeds — temples founded, edicts promulgated, sūtras translated, monks supported, devotional acts, conversions.
- Quotation of the person’s own pro-Buddhist statements (in prefaces, edicts, poems, letters, monastery dedications) — drawn directly from primary sources.
The work runs from the Zhōu Zhāowáng entry (the legendary date of the Buddha’s birth, conventionally placed in the 24th year of Zhāowáng = ca. 977 BCE in the Chinese-Buddhist tradition), through the Hàn (the An-shih-kao mission, Liú Yīng of Chǔ, etc.), the Three Kingdoms, the Jìn, the SòngQíLiángChén, the Northern dynasties, the Suí, the Tang (with extensive coverage of Wǔzétiān, Xuánzōng, Sùzōng, Dàizōng), the Wǔdài, the Sòng (with major figures including Sū Shì, Huáng Tíngjiān, Wáng Ānshí, Sū Zhé), the LiáoJīn, and the Yuán. The total number of persons treated is in the several hundreds.
The work is the principal source for the study of Buddhist lay support in Chinese history before the Míng, and supplies a historiographic frame for the late-imperial Buddhist self-understanding of its lay-support ecology: the YuánMíngQīng Buddhist apologetic tradition, when arguing for the cultural legitimacy of Buddhism, draws repeatedly on Xīntài’s compendium for its evidence base. The successor work 《居士傳》 KR6r0185 Jūshì zhuàn of Péng Jìqīng 彭際清 (1796), the great Qīng compendium of lay-Buddhist biography, takes Xīntài’s Jīntāng biān as its principal early source.
The 1600 reprint by Tiāntái Xǐngshàngrén 天台惺上人 with the new preface by Yú Rǔwéi brought the work into the late-Míng Buddhist publishing ecosystem and ensured its inclusion in the Jiāxìngzàng edition; the present Xùzàngjīng text descends from this Wànlì reprint.
Translations and research
- 譚世保, 《漢唐佛史探真》(Guǎngzhōu: Zhōng-shān dà-xué chū-bǎn-shè, 1991) — extensive use of the Jīn-tāng biān for Hàn-Tang lay-support history.
- 顧偉康, 《禪淨合一流略》(Táiběi: Dōng-dà tú-shū, 1997) — uses the work’s late entries.
- 釋見曄, 《明末佛教研究》(Táiběi: Fǎ-gǔ wén-huà, 2007) — places the Jīn-tāng biān in the early-Míng / late-Míng Buddhist apologetic context.
- 龍延, 〈《佛法金湯編》研究〉, MA thesis, 中國人民大學, 2008 — the principal modern monographic study.
- Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard, 1993) — context of the late-Míng reprint and the lay-Buddhist apologetic tradition.
Other points of interest
The work’s reception has been particularly important in the late-imperial Buddhist self-historiographical tradition: subsequent compilations like the 《釋氏稽古略》 Shìshì jīgǔ lüè of Juéàn 覺岸 KR6q0035 and the 《釋氏稽古略續集》 KR6q0036 of Huànlún 幻輪 are deeply indebted to Xīntài’s prosopographical-apologetic frame, even when they expand its scope from lay supporters to the full Buddhist historical record.
Links
- CBETA: X87n1628