Yùzhì Shìjiā Móuní fó zàn 御製釋迦牟尼佛讚
Imperially Composed: Encomium to Śākyamuni Buddha by 太宗朱棣 (御製)
About the work
A single-juan brief verse-encomium addressed to Śākyamuni Buddha 釋迦牟尼佛, imperially composed by the Yǒng-lè emperor 永樂帝 (Míng Tài-zōng / Chéng-zǔ, Zhū Dì 朱棣, 1360–1424, r. 1402–1424). The work celebrates the Buddha’s transcendent body, the uṣṇīṣa radiance, and the universal-yet-microcosmic nature of his presence (one drop containing all waters, one bubble containing the whole sea, Mount Sumeru in a mustard-seed). Companion to KR6s0066 (Mañjuśrī encomium); both preserved in the Fó-jiào-zàng 佛教藏 (= Jiā-xīng-zàng), this one at G83 no. 2075.
Prefaces
The text has no separate preface; it opens directly with the verse:
如來勝相徧十方 具足萬行顯微妙 頂髻圓光無不照 無量無礙性恒存 譬如大海納百川 一滴徧涵諸水味 又如海水起諸泡 一泡中含一海體 須彌微塵納芥子 一毫徧攝於大千
(The Tathāgata’s victorious mark pervades the ten directions / Complete with the ten-thousand practices, manifesting subtle wonder. / The crown-topknot’s perfect light illumines without any dark; / Immeasurable, unobstructed, his nature ever-abides. / Compared to the great sea receiving the hundred rivers — / One drop pervasively contains all the water-flavors. / Again like the sea-water raising the various bubbles — / Within one bubble is contained one sea-substance. / Mount Sumeru’s fine-dust contained in a mustard-seed — / One hairtip pervasively gathers the great chiliocosm.)
[The encomium continues for several more verse-lines.]
Abstract
Authorship and date: imperially composed by the Yǒnglè emperor during his reign 1402–1424. notBefore = 1402, notAfter = 1424. Catalog dynasty 明.
The work is the companion to KR6s0066 in the Fó-jiào-zàng preservation. Its doctrinal content invokes the canonical Mahāyāna interpenetration imagery — the one-drop-in-all-waters / one-bubble-in-the-sea / Mount-Sumeru-in-a-mustard-seed metaphors — drawn principally from the Avataṃsaka-sūtra’s Rúlái xìng-qǐ pǐn 如來性起品 and the Vimalakīrti-sūtra’s Bù-sī-yì pǐn 不思議品. This places the work within the Avataṃsaka–Vimalakīrti hybrid doctrinal register characteristic of pre-modern Chinese-Buddhist devotional poetry.
The Yǒng-lè-emperor’s choice of these canonical metaphors — emphasizing the universal-microcosmic interpenetration — reflects the Míng imperial-court Buddhist aesthetic of locating the Buddha not in a distant Pure Land but in the dense and interconnected reality of the immediate present. This cosmological-aesthetic positioning is one of the principal late-medieval Chinese Buddhist doctrinal-aesthetic frameworks.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. See KR6s0063 for general Yǒng-lè-imperial-Buddhism references.
Other points of interest
The interpenetration-imagery is one of the most-quoted aspects of late-medieval Chinese Buddhist devotional poetry. Its canonical roots in the Avataṃsaka and Vimalakīrti sutras connect the Yǒng-lè emperor’s imperial-devotional composition to the Huá-yán doctrinal tradition that had been the primary Chinese-Buddhist intellectual framework since the Tang.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry for the imperial author)
- CBETA: G083n2075
- Author: Yǒnglè emperor Zhū Dì 朱棣 (1360–1424, r. 1402–1424)
- Companion encomium: KR6s0066 Yùzhì Wénshū zàn
- Companion Yǒnglè imperial Buddhist works: KR6s0063–KR6s0065
- Doctrinal sources: Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Rúlái xìng-qǐ pǐn); Vimalakīrti-sūtra (Bù-sī-yì pǐn)