Yùzhì liánhuá xīnlún huíwén jìsòng 御製蓮華心輪迴文偈頌
Imperially Composed: Verse-Encomia in Palindrome-Style on the Lotus-Heart-Wheel by 太宗趙炅 (撰)
About the work
A twenty-five-juan imperially composed Buddhist verse-encomium collection, by Sòng Tài-zōng 太宗 (Zhào Jiǒng 趙炅, 939–997, r. 976–997). The work consists of huí-wén jì-sòng 迴文偈頌 — palindrome-style Buddhist verse-encomia — structured around the lotus-heart-wheel (lián-huá xīn-lún 蓮華心輪) imagery, with each verse readable forward and backward in the huí-wén convention. Each verse is followed by an extensive interlinear gloss (in small-character commentary) explaining the doctrinal content, source-attributions, and huí-wén technical analysis. The work is preserved in the Goryeo Tripiṭaka at K1258. The byline is implicit: “Yù-zhì” 御製 = imperially-composed. The work is one of four imperially-composed Buddhist works by Tài-zōng that are preserved in the Korean canon (the others being KR6s0058, KR6s0059, KR6s0060).
Prefaces
The text opens with an interlinear-glossed verse-style preface. In paraphrase:
“I have heard” 朕聞 — (zhèn means “I”; the high-and-great honored-prevailing virtue, only one person’s appellation. Although it is not eye-witnessed the gold-countenance, yet from the ear is transmitted the precious gāthā — therefore “I have heard.“)
“The Tathāgata’s wonderful Dharma — its principle is deep” 如來妙法理深也 — (Continuing the bhūtatathatā’s real Way, coming and forming right awakening — therefore called Tathāgata. The wonderful Dharma is the able-explication-teaching. The deep principle is the manifest meaning. Marking the able-explication’s wonderful Dharma, opening the middle Way’s dark subtlety. Like the lotus-flower clarifying the leaving-of-defilement principle: fruit and root both emerge from the water, the teaching and the conduct both open and bloom.)
“It cannot be lightly weighed” 不可輕易而銓量 — (The wonderful Dharma is high and deep, the secret-essential hard to fathom; the ten-thousand images contained in one character, a thousand instructions in one word. Like the udumbara hard to encounter, exceedingly rare — not what the śrāvaka’s small wisdom can lightly weigh.)
[The verse-encomium continues through interlinear-glossed segments treating the Lotus Sūtra’s key doctrinal categories.]
Abstract
Authorship and date: Sòng Tàizōng 太宗 (Zhào Jiǒng, second emperor of the Sòng dynasty, r. 976–997 CE) was the first major Sòng imperial Buddhist patron and the principal sponsor of the imperial Kāibǎo canon-printing project (始於 Kāibǎo 4 = 971, 始竣於 Tàipíngxìngguó 8 = 983). Beyond his canonical patronage, Tàizōng personally composed a substantial body of Buddhist devotional verse, of which this work is one of four collections preserved in the Korean canon (the others being KR6s0058 Mìzàng quán, KR6s0059 Xiāoyáo yǒng, KR6s0060 Yuánshí).
The work was composed during Tàizōng’s mid-to-late reign — likely after the completion of the Kāibǎo canon (983) and before his death (997). notBefore = 980 (a defensible terminus post quem); notAfter = 997 (Tàizōng’s death). Catalog dynasty 宋.
The huíwén jìsòng genre is a literary-virtuosity exercise: each verse is constructed to be readable forward (standard Chinese order) and backward (reversed character-order), with both readings yielding meaningful Buddhist doctrinal content. The form is associated in earlier Chinese literary history with Sū Huì 蘇蕙 of the Late-Qín (4th c., creator of the famous Xuánjī tú 璇璣圖 huíwén poem); Tàizōng’s adaptation of the form to Buddhist devotional content makes the work one of the principal literary-Buddhist hybrid compositions of the Northern Sòng court.
The interlinear-gloss apparatus is itself substantial — drawing on the canonical Lotus, Avataṃsaka, Mahāparinirvāṇa, Prajñāpāramitā, and Sūtra of the Lotus-Treasury Heart-Wheel (Lián-huá xīn-lún 蓮華心輪 — the eponymous source-text, otherwise unattested) traditions. The work was therefore a substantial scholastic-poetic undertaking, presumably with court-monastic editorial assistance even though the byline is imperial.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. See:
- Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism (Oxford, 2006) — context for Northern-Sòng imperial Buddhism.
- Hé Méi 何梅, Lì-dài hàn-wén dà-zàng-jīng mù-lù xīn-kǎo (Zōng-jiào-wén-huà, 2014) — context for Tài-zōng’s role in the Kāibǎo canon.
- Yáng Zēng-wén 楊曾文, Sòng-Yuán chán-zōng shǐ 宋元禪宗史 — Tài-zōng’s Buddhist imperial patronage.
Other points of interest
The four imperially-composed works of Tài-zōng preserved in the Korean canon (KR6s0057–KR6s0060, with an additional fifth at KR6s0061) constitute the single most substantial body of imperially-composed Buddhist literature in pre-modern Chinese history — quantitatively exceeding the imperial Buddhist outputs of any other Chinese sovereign before or since. Their preservation in the Goryeo Tripiṭaka (rather than in any extant Chinese canonical line) reflects the special transmission of the Northern-Sòng imperial-edition canon to Goryeo and the subsequent loss of the Chinese transmission.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry for the imperial author)
- CBETA: K35n1258
- Author: Sòng Tàizōng 太宗 (Zhào Jiǒng 趙炅, 939–997, r. 976–997)
- Companion imperially-composed works: KR6s0058 Mìzàng quán, KR6s0059 Xiāoyáo yǒng, KR6s0060 Yuánshí, KR6s0061 (preface only)
- Genre prototype: Sū Huì’s 蘇蕙 Xuánjī tú 璇璣圖 huíwén poetry