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名公法喜志

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Text ID
KR6r0169
Date
1600–1620
Dynasty
明

Mínggōng fǎxǐ zhì 名公法喜志

Records of the Famous Gentlemen Who Took Joy in the Dharma

compiled by 夏樹芳 (Xià Shùfāng / Màoqīng 茂卿 / Bīnglián Dàorén 冰蓮道人, ca. 1551–1635, 輯)

About the work

A 4-juan late-Míng biographical compendium of lay literati-officials who studied and took joy in Buddhism (fǎxǐ 法喜 — a technical term derived from the Buddhist concept of dharma-prīti, “joy in the Dharma,” one of the two foods of the bodhisattva together with dhyānaprīti), compiled by the Jiāngyīn lay-Buddhist scholar Xià Shùfāng 夏樹芳 (hào Bīnglián Dàorén 冰蓮道人). The work is a prosopographical complement to the more general lay-supporter compilations (like Xīntài’s KR6r0161 Fófǎ jīntāng biān) — focusing specifically on scholar-officials and literati who personally engaged with Chán practice and Buddhist textual study, rather than on imperial patrons or institutional supporters. The work covers approximately two hundred figures from the JìnWèi through the SòngYuán. Transmitted in the Xùzàngjīng as X1649.

Prefaces

The Xùzàng text preserves an unusually rich preface-suite, comprising:

  1. 法喜志序 (Fǎxǐ zhì xù) by Guānhéng 觀衡 of Zǐzhúlín 紫竹林: a Buddhist-monastic preface framing the work as a “great instrument for breaking the false views of the latter age” by demonstrating the lay-elite reception of Buddhism throughout Chinese history. Guānhéng identifies the work’s organising principle: it lists “those of light bright and great who illuminate the eyes and ears of a thousand antiquities.”

  2. 名公法喜志敘 by Chàntí jūshì Zōu Díguāng 羼提居士鄒迪光: a literary-philosophical preface developing the metaphor of gēn 根 (“root”) — that the moral-spiritual character of an individual, like the root of a plant, produces predictable outcomes; that those of “wisdom-root” (huìgēn 慧根) gravitate to Buddhism whatever their nominal Confucian commitments.

  3. 灋喜志敘 (= 法喜志敘) by an unnamed colleague: a dialectical preface defending the work’s inclusion of figures of dubious moral standing (Sòng partisan figures, etc.), arguing that the work’s purpose is karmic-pedagogical rather than morally rigorist.

  4. 灋喜志題辭 by Zhuāngyán jūshì Wú Liàng 莊嚴居士吳亮: a literary appreciation of the work’s shí gōng and karmic significance.

  5. 灋喜志自敘 (the author’s own preface) by Yánlíng Xià Shùfāng 延陵夏樹芳: a manifesto-preface in which Xià explains his methodology — he had read Yùjǐshānrén’s 玉几山人 prior compilation 《物外英豪錄》 Wùwài yīngháo lù and found it variously over-cluttered, sparse, eccentric, or incomplete; he therefore set out to produce a systematic chronological prosopography of Buddhist-engaged literati from the Jìn through the SòngYuán, with each entry comprising a brief biographical-and-doctrinal-engagement sketch.

Abstract

The work proceeds chronologically through the entries, beginning with Eastern Hàn / Three Kingdoms / Western Jìn figures (Dōngfāng Mǎnqiàn 東方曼倩, Liú Gēngshēng 劉更生, Cáo Zǐjiàn 曹子建 — i.e., Cáo Zhí, Yáng Shūzǐ 羊叔子, etc.) — including some figures whose Buddhist credentials are tenuous or anachronistic — and proceeds through the Eastern Jìn (Wáng Màohóng 王茂弘 = Wáng Dǎo, Liú Zhēncháng 劉真常, Táo Shìháng 陶士行 = Táo Kǎn, Xiè Ānshí 謝安石), the Liùcháo, the Tang (with major coverage of Liú Zōngyuán, Lǐ Bái, Wáng Wéi, Bái Jūyì, Hán Yù [the famous case of Hán Yù’s late-life Buddhist softening at Cháozhōu under Dàdiān 大顛], Lǐ Hàn, etc.), the Sòng (with major figures including Sū Shì 蘇軾, Sū Zhé 蘇轍, Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅, Wáng Ānshí 王安石, Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光, Zhāng Shāngyīng 張商英, Lǐ Gāng 李綱, Lǚ Hàowèn 呂浩問, etc.), and the SòngYuán transition figures.

Each entry comprises a brief biographical sketch followed by selected representative material of the figure’s Buddhist engagement — often a famous gōngàn exchange with a Chán master, a key Buddhist-flavoured poem or prose composition, or a biographical anecdote illustrating the figure’s fǎxǐ (joy in Dharma). The entries draw on the standard gāosēng zhuàn and dēnglù (lamp-record) tradition, supplemented by the dynastic histories, the Tàipíng guǎngjì, and the literary-anthological tradition.

The work is the most ambitious late-Míng lay-prosopographical anthology of Chinese Buddhist history, and a major source for the late-Míng / early-Qīng 居士佛教 (lay Buddhist) self-imagination as the legitimate continuation of the great Sòng-period literati-Buddhist synthesis. The work was particularly influential in late-Míng Jiāngnán lay-Buddhist circles and was widely reprinted in the late-Míng / Qīng Buddhist publishing tradition.

Translations and research

  • 釋見曄 [Shì Jiàn-yè], 《明末佛教研究》(Táiběi: Fǎ-gǔ wén-huà, 2007) — extensive treatment of the Fǎ-xǐ zhì in the late-Míng Buddhist publishing context.
  • 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) — uses the Fǎ-xǐ zhì extensively as evidence for late-Míng gentry-Buddhist culture.
  • 蘇美文, 《夏樹芳《法喜志》研究》, MA thesis, 國立中央大學, 2010 — the principal modern monographic study of the work.
  • 廖肇亨, 〈法喜志與晚明居士佛教〉, Han-xué yán-jiù 22.2 (2004): 77–115.
  • Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1981) — context of late-Míng lay-Buddhist publishing.

Other points of interest

The Fǎxǐ zhì was the principal model for Péng Jìqīng’s 彭際清 great Qīng-period 《居士傳》 KR6r0185 Jūshì zhuàn (1796) — Péng explicitly identifies Xià’s earlier compendium as one of his three principal models (alongside Xīntài’s Jīntāng biān and the late-Míng 《居士分燈錄》 Jūshì fēndēng lù), and reproduces a substantial portion of Xià’s biographical sketches in revised form. The genealogical line Jīntāng biān → Fǎxǐ zhì → Jūshì zhuàn therefore constitutes the principal late-imperial Buddhist lay-biographical tradition.

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