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景川和尚語録

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Text ID
KR6t0275
Date
1500–1758
Dynasty
日本

Jǐngchuān Héshàng yǔlù 景川和尚語録

Recorded Sayings of Reverend Keisen by 宗隆 Keisen Sōryū (語), 慈眼 Jigen (序)

About the work

A two-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection of 宗隆 Keisen Sōryū (1425–1500), one of the four principal dharma-heirs (Shihatsu 四派) of 宗深 Sekkō Sōshin and founder of the Ryūsen-ha 龍泉派 sub-lineage of Myōshin-ji 妙心寺. Posthumous title Honnyo Jisshō Zenji 本如實性禪師 — hence the work’s title. The compilation is a late-Edo recovery (1758 editio princeps) of materials Keisen’s contemporaries had not committed to print.

Abstract

The principal preface by the remote dharma-grandson Jigen 慈眼, dated Hōreki 8 / 3 / 1 (寶暦八年戊寅三月朔日 = 1758-04-08 NS), explicitly addresses the textual problem: “Our patriarch Keisen led the assembly in fifteen successive Dharma-gatherings (應世主法前後一十五會). His students were not at all diligent. The records scattered everywhere and could not be recovered whole. Although thirteen Dharma-gatherings survive, only the Daitoku-ji language is fully present; the rest are not without lacunae. … From the xíngzhuàng 行状 biography of Keisen composed by 宗休 Honkō Kokushi we know that when Hosokawa Masamoto held the manjudō memorial-rite for his mother through to the seven-times and great-anniversary rites, he had Keisen ascend the seat and preach — but those words are not in the present record. Others can be inferred similarly.”

Jigen further records the chain of recovery: Tōshuku Jōkō 東叔丈公 first compiled what could be found; Mōzan Jo-rō 蒙山恕老 took up the work and laboured day and night until the bindings began to fray, then died; Inko Enkō 此山淵公 of the present mountain finally completed it by collating multiple manuscript sources — the editio princeps dated 1758. Hence the bracket: composition through Keisen’s death (1500) at the low end; editio princeps (1758) at the high end.

The two-fascicle table of contents in the printed edition is unusually full: Fasc. 1 上: opening sermons at Yamato Dairyū-zan Kōun-ji 興雲寺, Kyōchō Ryūhō-san Daitoku-ji 大徳寺, Kyōchō Hōzan Myōshin-ji 妙心寺, re-installed at Myōshin-ji (saijū 再住), Bishū Seiryū-zan Zuisen-ji 瑞泉寺, and several smaller temples. Fasc. 2 下: fa-yǔ, nenkō, jisàn, sònggǔ, jìsòng, and a closing appendix.

Significance: Keisen’s recorded sayings are one of the principal source-bases for the Ryūsen-ha sub-lineage of Myōshin-ji and for the post-Ōnin Myōshin-ji reconstitution generally. Jigen’s preface is also a valuable witness to the mid-Edo project of recovering the Sekkō / Shihatsu generation’s yulu, parallel to the KR6t0276 (Gokei Sōton) and KR6t0277 (Tōyō Eichō) recoveries.

Translations and research

No substantial Western-language secondary literature located. For the Ryūsen-ha sub-line, see Tamamura Takeji 玉村竹二, Gozan zenrin shūha-zu 五山禅林宗派図 (Heirakuji shoten, 1985); Ogisu Jundō 荻須純道, Myōshinji-shi 妙心寺史 (Myōshinji honjo, 1975).

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