Juéhǎi Héshàng yǔlù 絶海和尚語録
Recorded Sayings of Reverend Zekkai by 中津 Zekkai Chūshin (語), 俊承 Shunshō et al. (編)
About the work
A two-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection of 中津 Zekkai Chūshin (1336–1405), Gozan Rinzai-Zen master and pre-eminent Gozan-bungaku poet of the late-Nanbokuchō / early-Muromachi period. Edited by his small-disciple (xiǎoshī 小師) Shunshō 俊承 and others. The text gathers Zekkai’s jōdō sermons and jìsòng exchanges from his four successive abbacies — Erin-ji 惠林寺 in Kai (entered Kōryaku 2 / 1380-10-08), Tōji-in, Shōkoku-ji 相國寺, and Tenryū-ji 天龍寺 — and includes a Ming-court preface by Shì Dàolián 釋道聯 of Jìngcísì 淨慈寺 in Hangzhou dated Yongle 1 / 12 (癸未冬十有二月旣望 = 1404-01-08 NS).
Abstract
Zekkai Chūshin was the most accomplished China-trained Zen master of his generation. After early training under 妙葩 Shun’oku Myōha in the 夢窓疎石 Musō-line, he travelled to Ming China at Ōan 1 / Hongwu 1 (1368) and remained for a decade, studying under Jìtán Zōnglè 宗泐 (1318–1391), Qīngyuǎn 清遠, Shùzhōng Wúwén 恕中無慍 (1309–1386), and Mùān Wéncōng 穆菴文聰 — the four masters Daolian’s preface enumerates. The preface itself records that “in winter Yongle 1 (1403) the shamon Tongmon — possibly Dōmon 等聞 — together with the abbot of Tenryū-ji, Mitsugen Chū 密堅中, came on an embassy to the Ming court; on their return they passed by my temple and presented me with the four-sittings recorded sayings of their master Reverend Zekkai, requesting a preface.” This pre-print circulation of a Japanese Zen master’s yǔlù at the Ming Buddhist establishment was itself unusual.
Daolian’s preface frames the work in striking polemical terms: foreign masters, he says, had been criticised in China for “sticking to glossy explanations and unable to cut through to the root-of-life of the practitioner in the manner of Línjì, Déshān, Yúnmén, or Zhàozhōu” — but Zekkai’s recorded sayings, he now sees, refute that prejudice. He situates Zekkai as the “fifth-generation marrow-grandson of Wúzhǔn” (無準五世的骨孫 — i.e. of 師範 Wúzhǔn Shīfàn through Wúxué Zǔyuán, Tōzan Tanshō, and the Musō line) and as “the one who could shatter Línjì’s and Déshān’s nostrils to bits.”
Fascicle 1 records the Erin-ji and Tōji-in abbacies; fascicle 2 the Shōkoku-ji and Tenryū-ji abbacies, plus nenkō memorial-rites, fa-yǔ, jisàn, sònggǔ, and a jìsòng section. Of particular note is the nenkō for Mussō Soseki 夢窓正覺心宗普濟玄猷國師 — explicit testimony to the Musō-line affiliation — and a fa-yǔ address to the Hongwu emperor commemorating Zekkai’s audience at Nanjing.
The dating bracket reflects Erin-ji entry (Kōryaku 2 = 1380) on the low side and Zekkai’s death (1405) on the high side; the printed recension is the Tokugawa-period block-print on which the Taishō text depends.
Translations and research
For Zekkai’s career, China-journey, and literary corpus see: Tamamura Takeji 玉村竹二, Gozan zenrin shūha-zu 五山禅林宗派図 (Heirakuji shoten, 1985); Asakura Hisashi 朝倉尚, Gozan-bungaku no chiri-teki tenkai 五山文学の地理的展開 (Kyūko shoin, 2007); David Pollack, The Fracture of Meaning: Japan’s Synthesis of China from the Eighth through the Eighteenth Centuries (Princeton, 1986), with discussion of Zekkai’s Sinophone poetry. The principal modern critical edition of Zekkai’s verse is in Gozan-bungaku zenshū 五山文学全集, vol. 1; the recorded sayings have not been separately critically edited.
Other points of interest
The Daolian preface is one of two Ming court endorsements that appear in the Japanese Zen section of the Taishō — the other being 妙葩 Shun’oku Myōha’s recorded sayings (KR6t0266, Yao Guangxiao preface). Together they document a brief window of Sino-Japanese Zen literary exchange under the Yongle reign, before the Ashikaga–Ming relationship cooled. Zekkai’s Shōkenkō 蕉堅藁 (a separate kanshi collection, not included in this recorded sayings) is the single most-anthologised body of Japanese Sinophone verse from the Five-Mountain era.
Links
- CBETA online
- Wikipedia (ja): 絶海中津 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/絶海中津
- Related: KR6t0266 (Shun’oku Myōha’s recorded sayings)