Dàjué Chánshī yǔlù 大覺禪師語録
Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Daikaku by 道隆 Lánxī Dàolóng / Rankei Dōryū (語); compiled by 圓顯 Enken (編)
About the work
A three-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection of 道隆 Lánxī Dàolóng (Jp. Rankei Dōryū, 1213–1278), the Sòng-Chinese Línjì master who emigrated to Japan in 1246 and founded Kenchō-ji 建長寺 in Kamakura — the first major Chinese-master-led Zen institution in Japan. Posthumous title Daikaku Zenji 大覺禪師 (“Great-Awakened Zen Master”) — the first such title bestowed in Japan.
Prefaces
The opening preface, dated 大宋景定三年二月望日 (“Sòng Jǐngdìng 3 = 1262, 2nd month, full-moon day”), is by Fǎzhào 法照 of Shàngtiānzhú Guǎngdà línggǎn guānyīn jiàosì 上天竺廣大靈感觀音教寺 in Hángzhōu — a major Tiāntái-school master of the late-Southern-Sòng. The preface narrates Dàolóng’s awakening: “Lánxī Dàolóng went forth from Shǔ (Sìchuān) and travelled south. Reaching the Sūtái Shuāngtǎ Sūzhōu Twin-Stūpas, he met the Wúmíng Huìxìng *(*無明慧性 ) Zen Master in his cell. Hearing the Dōngshān ox-passing-through-the-window-lattice kōan, he had an awakening; thereupon he knew that Sōngyuán (松源 — the Línjì-school progenitor whose lineage is here traced) had broken the cracked-cooking-pot and bequeathed it. Some ten years later, he sailed to Japan — almost as if by a pre-existing vow — and so greatly stirred the school’s wind.” The preface concludes with verse-couplets praising the Japanese-Chinese transmission: “Cold cliffs and dark valleys — face-to-face, spring returns; this earth and country — each rut converges.”
Abstract
Content: the standard three-fascicle Chinese-style yulu: jōdō sermons (preserved with date-tags of his Kenchō-ji and Jōraku-ji abbacies; the earliest dated jōdō is at the founding entry to Jōraku-ji 常樂寺 in Hōji 2 / Bōshin = 1248, winter 12th month — Dàolóng’s first Japanese abbacy), shōsan informal assemblies, hōgo dharma-talks for individual disciples, encounter-dialogues, and verses. The work title-page reads: 日本國相模州常樂禪寺蘭溪和尙語録 / 侍者圓顯智光編 (“Recorded Sayings of Reverend Rankei of Jōraku Zen Temple, Sagami Province, Japan; compiled by the attendant Enken Chikō”).
Significance: the foundational textual monument of the Daikaku-ha 大覺派 — one of the 24 transmission-lines of Japanese Rinzai-Zen — and a primary documentary witness to the introduction of pure Línjì-school Chán to Japan. The preface by the Tiāntái master Fǎzhào represents an important late-Sòng Chinese imperial-school endorsement of Dàolóng’s Japanese mission.
Translations and research
- No complete English translation located.
- Collcutt, Martin, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan, Harvard University Press, 1981.
- Pollack, David, The Fracture of Meaning (1986).
- Dumoulin, Heinrich, Zen Buddhism, vol. 2: Japan, pp. 28–30.
Links
- CBETA: T80n2547
- DILA Buddhist Person Authority: A001960 (道隆)