Rúgǒng 如珙
Southern-Sòng / early-Yuán Yángqí-branch Línjì master, zì Zǐpú 子璞, hào Héngchuān 橫川. Dàjiàn-下第 21 世 (21st-generation descendant of Huìnéng), dharma-heir of Tiānmù Wénlǐ 天目文禮 (1167–1250) at Tàibǎishān (Tiāntóng). Native of Yǒngjiā 永嘉 (Zhèjiāng), lay surname Lín 林; born in Jiādìng 15 (1222) of the Sòng Níngzōng era; died at Āyùwáng on the 18th of the 3rd month of Zhìyuán 26 (16 April 1289), aged 68. Tonsured at fifteen by his uncle, the monk Zhèngzé 正則 (DILA A022208), received the precepts at Guǎngcíyuàn 廣慈院, and trained early at Língyǐn under Shítián Fǎxūn 石田法薰 and Chījué Dàochōng 癡絕道冲 before attaining awakening at Tàibǎishān under Wénlǐ.
He held three major abbacies — Ruìānfǔ Yàndàngshān Língyán chánsì 靈巖禪寺 (from Xiánchún 4 / 1268, at the request of a píngzhāng guógōng 平章國公), Néngrén chánsì 能仁禪寺 (from Xiánchún 8 / 1272), and Míngzhōu Āyùwángshān Guǎnglì chánsì 阿育王山廣利禪寺 (from Zhìyuán 16 / 1279, by Yuán imperial edict) — whose records form the three main sections of his two-juan yǔlù (KR6q0344). He retired briefly to a Fàngmùliáo 放牧寮 on Yàndàngshān between abbacies. In his 66th year (1287) he composed the tǎmíng that would mark his own stupa at Gǔmàoshān 古鄮山.
The name under which he is best known in Chinese scholarship — including DILA, the Mùqián jí 牧潛集, Bǔxù gāosēng zhuàn juan 12, Zēngjí Xùchuándēnglù juan 4, and Wǔdēng yántǒng juan 21 — is 如珙; the form 行珙 appears on the CBETA Xuzangjing edition of his yǔlù and in some later lamp-records, and DILA treats the two as alternate names of the same person (A007633).
Named dharma-heirs include 妙道 Zhúyuán Miàodào 竺原妙道, 清茂 Gǔlín Qīngmào 古林清茂 (1262–1329; see KR6q0345, KR6q0346), and 覺恩 Duànjiāng Juéēn 斷江覺恩. Through Qīngmào’s dense later transmission to Japanese 入元僧, Rúgǒng’s line — “Héngchuān’s stream” — became the dominant strand of late-Sòng / early-Yuán Yángqí orthodoxy carried into Japanese Zen.