聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

大鑑清規

5 min read

Text ID
KR6t0283
Date
1326–1697
Dynasty
元

Dàjiàn qīngguī 大鑑清規

Pure Rules of the Great-Mirror [Master] by 正澄 Qīngzhuō Zhèngchéng / Seisetsu Shōchō (撰), 旨外居士太路 Shigai Koji Tairo (序)

About the work

A single-fascicle monastic pure-rules (清規 qīnggǔi / shingi) text by the Yuán Chan master 正澄 Qīngzhuō Zhèngchéng (Seisetsu Shōchō, 1274–1339), who came to Japan from Fujian in Kareki 1 / 1326 and served successively as abbot of Kenchō-ji, Engaku-ji, Jōchi-ji, Nanzen-ji, and Kenninji. The full title in the Taishō is Daikan zen-shōshingi 大鑑禪小清規 — “Lesser Pure Rules of the Great-Mirror Zen [Master]” — Dàjiàn / Daikan being Seisetsu’s posthumous title bestowed by Emperor Go-En’yū in Eitoku 1 / 1377 (so the title in the Edo-period printing is anachronistic with respect to the original composition, which would have circulated unnamed during Seisetsu’s lifetime).

Abstract

The preface by Shigai Koji Tairo 旨外居士太路, the lay-disciple-patron of the editio princeps, dated Genroku 10 / 1 / 17 (元祿十年龍集丁丑孟春十七日 = 1697-02-22 NS), supplies the only surviving textual history:

“The pure rules of Cathay were originally smelted by Mǎzǔ [Daoyi] and elaborated by Dàxióng [Bǎizhàng Huáihǎi]. Coming to the era of Hèzhào [the Sūryāprabha age of Buddhism — the Sòng], the Senkō Kokushi Eisai was first to introduce them; Dōgen Daikaku followed afterwards. After that, the one who revived what had fallen into disuse was Daikan [Seisetsu] himself — who polished the rules and made them flourish — and Keizan Jōkin’s subsequent rules-codification was also pre-figured by him. The Bai-zhang / Senkō / Dōgen-Daikaku / Keizan codifications are conspicuously preserved in print. Among monastic rules, the Zendō (Meditation Hall) is foremost; all the hundred manners begin there. Now, looking at the Japanese Zen establishment: among the Dōngshàng [Sōtō] some lectures on rules and precepts are sometimes given; the Línjì-house simply observes the seasonal scriptural-recitations. Although the Ming Chan rules-codification has only minimally circulated here, [the Rinzai temples] all pursue ornament and only contrive food and clothing — they grow ever further from learning. … [Seisetsu’s] Pure Rules, after he came to Japan, took up the kihan (rule-statute) at Kenchō-ji and made the Zen rules manifest, edifying the [Japanese] descendants. At the further invitation of Ogasawara Sadamune 小笠原貞宗, military governor of Shinano, he opened Kaizen-ji 開善寺 and reformed [its rules] from scratch. The funerary rituals of all sects today, taking their lead from his rules, are called the Ogasawara-family ritual (小笠原家禮). Reflecting on this, one realises Zen-rules have been obscured by secular ritual.”

Tairo describes the recovery: “Of late, the master at Eyya [毘耶離 = a Buddhist hermitage] has sought Seisetsu’s Pure Rules for many years, and finally obtained three or four manuscript copies. He has collated them without omission and put them to press, then showed them to me, asking me to write a preface.”

The text proper covers:

  • Two-tier incense-rite at the liang-pan (兩班出班拈香之法) — protocols for the east-rank (東班) and west-rank (西班) officers’ ritual incense at the founder-ancestors’ shrine and at the temple-master’s seat.
  • Four-season jubilation-rite at the Tu-di-tang (土地堂) — the local-tutelary-god-shrine rites.
  • Procession protocols for processions (shutsu-han 出班) of paired ranks.
  • Memorial-ritual protocols — zōrei (anniversary), taishō (great-period), shōshō (smaller-period).
  • Funeral-protocol details that became the basis of the famous Ogasawara-ke rei — incense-burning sequence, robe-arrangement, processional foot-placement, all minutely specified.

The dating bracket runs from Seisetsu’s Japanese ministry (Kareki 1 / 1326) to the editio princeps (Genroku 10 / 1697). The recension behind the Taishō is the 1697 collation by the “Master of Eyya” preserved in the Tairo preface.

Translations and research

For Seisetsu’s career and Sino-Japanese monastic-rules transmission, see Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Harvard East Asian Monographs 85, 1981), chs. 3–4; Yifa, The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 2002), for the Chānyuàn qīnggǔi background; Imaeda Aishin 今枝愛真, Chūsei zenshū-shi no kenkyū 中世禅宗史の研究 (Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1970), §IV; T. Griffith Foulk, “Chanyuan qinggui and other ‘rules of purity’ in Chinese Buddhism,” in The Zen Canon (Oxford UP, 2003).

Other points of interest

The Ogasawara-ke rei 小笠原家禮 — the formal etiquette manual of the Ogasawara samurai family, used as the etiquette standard at the Tokugawa shogunal court — derives from Seisetsu’s Kaizen-ji rules, as Tairo’s preface explicitly notes. This is one of the most striking instances of the secular ritual residue of Yuán-imported Chan in Edo-period etiquette: every ritualised greeting, bowing-sequence, and gift-presentation in Edo court protocol can be traced through the Ogasawara family back to the Daikan shingi. The text is therefore studied not only in Buddhist-monastic-rules research but also in Edo-period etiquette and bushidō scholarship.

Graph View

Backlinks