Yǒngpíng Yuán Héshàng sònggǔ 永平元和尚頌古
Verses on Old Cases by the First Patriarch of Eihei[-ji] by 道元 Dōgen (語)
About the work
A single-fascicle collection of approximately 90 verses on classical Chán kōan (sònggǔ 頌古) by 道元 Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Japanese Sōtō-Zen school. The work is preserved as fascicle 9 of the Eihei kōroku 永平広録 (Dōgen’s recorded sayings, separate from KR6t0288 Shōbōgenzō) and is included in the Taishō as a standalone text. Composed at various points during Dōgen’s career at Kōshō-ji and Eihei-ji, roughly 1235–1253. The standard arrangement in the Taishō recension follows the Eihei kōroku canonical sequence.
Abstract
The text consists of about ninety verses, each on a specific kōan-encounter from the Sòng Chán tradition. The kōan-roster is heavily weighted toward the Cáodòng-school sources Dōgen had inherited from his Sòng master Rújìng 如淨 (1163–1228), but ranges across the Five Houses. The table of contents (the mokuroku 目錄 at the head of the fascicle) lists each verse by its kōan-title, in clusters by school and master. Selected highlights:
- World-Honoured One’s Wondrous Mind Entrusted 世尊妙心付屬 (Buddha to Mahākāśyapa).
- The First Patriarch’s Nine Years of Wall-Gazing 初祖九年面壁 (Bodhidharma).
- Mahāsattva-Sage Pearl-Bright-Mirror 尊者寶珠明鑑 (Mahāsattva-king).
- Three-Strikes Three-Winnowings of Da-man 大滿三撃三簸 (Hung-jen).
- The Sixth Patriarch’s Wind-Flag-Mind-Moving 六祖風幡心動.
- Zhàozhōu’s Cypress-Tree-in-the-Courtyard 趙州庭前柏樹.
- Tóu-zi’s Ten-Bodies Tamed 投子十身調御.
- Dòngshān’s Buddha-Above-the-Self 洞山佛向上事.
- Línjì’s Awakening from Huángbò’s Stick 臨濟悟黄檗棒.
- Mǎzǔ “no Mind no Buddha” 馬祖非心非佛.
- Bǎizhàng’s “What about now?” 百丈如今.
- Yúnyán’s Sweeping-Broom-Standing-Up 雲嚴竪起掃箒.
- Yúnmén’s Sun-and-Moon 雲門日面月面.
- Tiāntóng’s Whole-Body-Like-a-Mouth 天童渾身似口 (Rújìng’s master).
- Línjì’s “Three Mysterious Three Essential” 臨濟三玄三要.
- Yǎngshān’s “High Place High Level” 仰山高處高平.
- Cáoshān’s Five Ranks — but Dōgen’s sònggǔ on the Five Ranks is more critical than celebratory, reflecting his own move toward shūshō ichi-nyo and away from the Five Ranks dialectical scheme.
Each verse is in four lines of seven characters (七言絶句), occasionally five-character (五言絶句), in compressed Sino-Japanese kanbun. The verses are characteristic Dōgen — extraordinarily dense, often turning on a deliberate misparsing of the kōan-phrase that opens a new ontological reading.
The dating bracket runs from Dōgen’s earliest sònggǔ (probably composed at Kōshō-ji c. 1235 onwards) through to his death (1253). The Taishō recension is the standard Edo-period printing from the Eihei-ji block-prints.
The work is the principal source for Dōgen’s kōan exegesis in poetic form, as the Shōbōgenzō is the principal source in prose-essay form, and the Eihei shingi in monastic-rules form. Reading the three together — Shōbōgenzō + Sònggǔ + Shingi — provides the most comprehensive view of Dōgen’s overall teaching project.
Translations and research
The complete Eihei kōroku including the sòng-gǔ fascicle has been translated by Taigen Dan Leighton and Shōhaku Okumura, Dōgen’s Extensive Record: A Translation of the Eihei Kōroku (Wisdom, 2010) — the standard English translation. Earlier partial translations in Kazuaki Tanahashi (ed.), Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dōgen (North Point Press, 1985).
For Dōgen’s kōan exegesis, see Steven Heine, Dōgen and the Kōan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shōbōgenzō Texts (SUNY Press, 1994); Heine, Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2014). For the relation between Dōgen’s verse-treatments and the classical Bìyán-lù / Cóng-róng-lù commentaries, see Heine 1994.
Other points of interest
The Eihei Gen Oshō juko is one of the principal kōan-anthologies used in Sōtō-Zen monastic training, alongside the great Cáodòng-school anthology Cóngrónglù 從容録 (Wansong’s commentary on Tiāntóng’s hundred-cases) which Dōgen himself studied. The two together — Cóngrónglù on the Sòng side, Dōgen’s sònggǔ on the Japanese side — constitute the principal kōan-resource of the Sōtō tradition, paralleling the Bìyánlù / Kaiankoku-go pairing for the Rinzai.
Links
- CBETA online
- Related: KR6t0286, KR6t0287, KR6t0288, KR6t0290 (Dōgen’s other major works)