重編諸天傳

Chóngbiān zhūtiān zhuàn 重編諸天傳

Re-Edited Biographies of the Various [Buddhist] Devas

written by 行霆 (Xíngtíng / Jìngān 鏡庵, fl. 1130–1180, 述)

About the work

A 2-juan Southern-Sòng compendium of biographical and iconographical material on the various Buddhist devas, yakṣas, nāgas, and other supernatural protectors (zhū-tiān 諸天) who appear in Mahāyāna ritual and gōng-tiān 供天 (“offering-to-the-devas”) liturgy. Compiled by the Tiāntái-school chuán-jiào shā-mén Jìng-ān Xíng-tíng 鏡庵行霆 of Wū-xū 烏戍 (in modern Tóng-xiāng 桐鄉, Zhèjiāng), and dated by the author’s own colophon to 乾道癸巳仲秋之晦 = last day of the 8th month of Qián-dào 9 = ca. October 1173. The work is, as its title indicates, a re-edition of an earlier zhū-tiān compilation (referred to in the prefaces as the work of Zhāng-nán-shī 鄣南師), which in Xíng-tíng’s view had become unsatisfactory: the work “still followed the old [arrangement] in places”, and “people regarded this as a defect.” Transmitted in the Xù-zàng-jīng as X1658.

Prefaces

The prefatorial apparatus comprises two pieces:

1. 諸天傳序 (preface), by Tiāntái jiào-guān shā-mén Fèng-guī 釋奉規 (“Fèng-guī, śramaṇa transmitting the Tiāntái doctrines and contemplations”), dated 乾道癸巳一陽前十日 = 11 days before the winter solstice of Qián-dào 9 = early December 1173. Fèng-guī’s preface frames the work in the context of the Sòng-period gōng-tiān liturgical-ritual development:

   “[Since] Śākyamuni descended into the world, those whose past praṇidhāna and caryā matched [his] concealed their reality and took skilful expedient form, manifesting as deva-spirits — compassionately and with overawing grace, both rejecting and embracing, guarding the citizens of the realm and aiding the Supreme Teaching, with merit assisting wisdom, helping the Speaker and the Hearer. As to their order of position, this should be discussed by appeal to the jì [traces / specific manifestations]. The Tiāntái Bǎi-lù 百錄, depending on the Guāng-míng-jīng ‘Spirits and Demons Chapter,’ arranged them in detail. From the time when Cí-yún [= Sòng monk Zūn-shì 遵式, 964–1032] composed the [gōng-tiān] confession-rite, the establishment of the gōng-tiān offerings had ad hoc shifts. The Běi-Chán [school monk] […] was the first to dispute it, and disputatious discussions about it have not ceased to the present day. Zhāng-nán-shī wished to correct this and compiled a zhū-tiān biography, but in places he still followed the old arrangement; people regarded this as a defect.”

2. The author’s own colophon (preserved at the end of the table of contents), by 烏戍釋行霆 (“Xíngtíng of Wūxū”), explaining the genesis of the work in his own friendship-circle: during the Shàoxīng era (1131–1162) he had become abbot of the Wūxū tǎyuàn Jìngān monastery; Tínglǎo 霆老 (his colleague) had emerged to head Bǎogé 寶閣; Jùyuán 具元 was likewise present; and at the Kǎopán Shuānghuái Liánshè Huìān 考槃雙槐蓮社晦菴 the various fāngshì gathered to yìshǐ (forget the world) in mutual studies, frequently raising the issue of the proper zhūtiān arrangement.

Abstract

The work supplies, in two juan, systematic biographical-iconographical entries on the principal Buddhist devas and protectors invoked in Mahāyāna ritual:

1. The Catur-mahārāja (Four Heavenly Kings) — Vaiśravaṇa, Virūpākṣa, Virūḍhaka, and Dhṛtarāṣṭra — with their respective directional, attributive, and iconographical conventions.
2. The Brahmā and Indra of the standard Mahāyāna pantheon, with their textual loci.
3. The Twenty-Eight Devas (Èr-shí-bā tiān 二十八天) of the gōng-tiān liturgy, drawn from the Suvarṇaprabhāsa-uttama-sūtra (Jīn-guāng-míng jīng) and related sources.
4. Subsidiary protectors: yakṣas, nāgas, gandharvas, and the various Buddhist astral and territorial spirits.

For each entry, Xíngtíng supplies (a) the deva’s name(s) in Sanskrit-transcription Chinese and in translation; (b) the scriptural locus for the figure’s identification; (c) the iconographical convention (image-form, attributes, directional placement); (d) the proper liturgical position in the gōngtiān ritual; and (e) the biographical-narrative materials drawn from canonical sources illustrating the deva’s past commitments to the protection of the Dharma.

The work is the principal Sòng-period scholastic-iconographical reference for the Buddhist deva-pantheon in its East-Asian Mahāyāna transformation, and was the immediate point of reference for subsequent gōngtiān manuals through the YuánMíngQīng. It is also a key document of the mid-12th-century Tiāntái-school’s renewal of Buddhist liturgical scholarship, in dialogue with the institutional reforms of Cíyún Zūnshì and the Northern-Sòng Tiāntái revival.

Translations and research

• 池田魯參, 《詳解天台四教儀》(Tōkyō: Kōrosha, 1984) — context of Sòng Tiāntái scholasticism in which the Chóng-biān zhū-tiān zhuàn is situated.
• Daniel Stevenson, “Protocols of Power: Tz’u-yün Tsun-shih (964–1032) and T’ien-t’ai Lay Buddhist Ritual in the Sung,” in P. Gregory and D. Getz, eds., Buddhism in the Sung (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1999): 340–408 — context of the gōng-tiān liturgy that the present work serves.
• 林子青, 《菩薩戒》(Běijīng: Zhōng-guó wén-huà chū-bǎn, 1989) — broader context for zhū-tiān worship in Chinese Buddhism.
• 山口光円, 《天台浄土教史》(Kyōto: Hōzō-kan, 1967) — Sòng Tiāntái Pure-Land syncretism.

Other points of interest

The work is one of the few extant systematic Sòng-period iconographical references for the Buddhist deva-pantheon, and as such is an indispensable resource for the study of Sòng-period Buddhist visual culture (especially the iconographical conventions of the Èrshíbā tiān paintings and statuary that became standard in late-imperial Chinese monastic art).

Links

• CBETA: X88n1658