Yìtáng Héshàng yǔlù 義堂和尚語録
Recorded Sayings of Reverend Gidō by 周信 Gidō Shūshin (語); compiled by 中圓 Chūshin (等編)
About the work
A four-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection of 周信 Gidō Shūshin (1325–1388), late-Nanbokuchō / early-Muromachi Japanese Rinzai-Zen master — one of the two preeminent Gozan-literature masters of the period (with his contemporary Zekkai Chūshin 絕海中津). Compiled by his disciple Chūshin 中圓 and others. Listed in Nihon Bukkyō zensho 日佛 vol. 108 p. 317.
Abstract
Gidō Shūshin was a dharma-heir of 夢窓疎石 Musō Soseki and a close adviser to the third Ashikaga Shōgun Yoshimitsu 義滿. Active at Engaku-ji, Nanzen-ji, Kennin-ji, and other Five-Mountain monasteries; abbot of Tōji-in 等持院 and others. The Linji-shū Yōgipài 臨濟宗楊岐派 affiliation is recorded in DILA.
His yulu, in four fascicles, preserves jōdō sermons from his major abbacies, hōgo dharma-talks, encounter-dialogues, and (importantly) a substantial corpus of his Chinese-style verse. Gidō stands as one of the principal Gozan literature poets, his Chinese poetic-prose mastery being recognized as among the highest achievements of the medieval Japanese tradition.
Gidō’s separate works Kūge nichiyō kufū ryakushū 空華日用工夫略集 (a literary diary) and Kūge shū 空華集 (his collected verse and prose) constitute together a major primary source for the Muromachi-period Zen and Gozan-literary tradition, including extensive records of his dialogue with Shōgun Yoshimitsu.
Significance: a major Gozan-literature yulu, central to the late-fourteenth-century Musō-ha lineage and to the Gozan literary establishment.
Translations and research
- No complete English translation located.
- Pollack, David, The Fracture of Meaning (1986) — substantial discussion of Gidō and his diary Kūge nichiyō kufū ryakushū.
- Collcutt, Martin, Five Mountains (1981).
Links
- CBETA: T80n2556