App Making of Chan Record 1991

7/27/2019 App Making of Chan Record 1991

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f i i ! J t { t l i J f ~ P J T ~ ~ 1 7 {}tftlillJ19911 f5 f l 31B 3Hr

THE MAKING OF A CHAN RECORD:Reflections on the History of theRecords of Yunmen ~ f ' J J f i ; J {

by Drs APP

I


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THE MAKING OF A CHAN RECORD:Reflections on the History of theRecords of Yunmen

.b y Drs APPI. INTRODUCTIONII. SOURCESIII. FIRST STAGE: NOTES AND NOTE COLLECTIONSIV. SECOND STAGE: EARLY PRINTED EDITIONSV. THIRD STAGE: THE COMPREHENSIVE RECORDSVI. CONCLUSIONVII. TABLES OF TEXTUAL CORRESPONDENCES

1. The Zutangji (952) and the Yunmenlum : ~ c - * r , ~

2. The Stone Inscriptions (959/964) and the Yunmenluj f t t i i $ / i i $ ~ c - * r % ~

3. The Jingde chuandenglu (1004) and the Yunmen1u~ ~ i t : m : ~ c - * r , ~

4. The Linjianlu (1107) and the Yunmenlu~ r d : l ~ c - * r , ~

5. The Zuting shiyuan (1108) and the Yunmen1um ~ ~ c - * r , ~

6. Muan Shanqing's text (before 1108) and the Yunmen1ul l m J t t ~ g j ! P (7) T :f-Are -* r, ~

7. The Chanlin sengbaozhuan (1122) and the Yunmenluf f i f i ! ~ 1 f 1 1 J ; { ! ! J c - * r , ~

8. The Zongmen tongyao (1135) and the Yunmenlu* r , * ! C ~ c - * r , ~ ~

9. The Xukaiguzunsu yuyao (1238) and the Yunmenlu~ . m J r ! l ~ . f E i ~ f t ~ c - * r 9 ~ ~


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2 The Making of a Chan Record TheMaking of a Chan Record 3

I. INTRODUCTION

The study of the lives, teachings, and teachingmethod, etc. o f Chan (= Chinese Zen) masters necessitates socalled primary sources. In the case of Chan masters these oftenconsist of thei r Recorded Sayings' or p ar ts of Chan compend ia .Thanks to Hu Shi and Yanagida Seizan, the sources of early Chanhave been and are being studied with a sharp eye.' However, thesame can no t ye t be said unequivocally of the study of "classical"Chan.' More or less uncritical reliance on these sources for thestudy of classical Chan doctrine is s ti ll the rule rather than theexception. The researcher interested in the doctrinal content ofsuch sources is in a situation no t unl ike t ha t o f a t raveler to a

Chin. yulu, jap. goroku ~ H ~ .2 The magnum opus in this genre is without doubt Yanagida Seizan 's W E H ~ L 1 J ,

Shoki zenshiishisho no kenkyii WWliii*5e.ffU,)-!Vf?e. Kyoto: Hozokan # ; ~ f j ' g , 1967., The term "classical" is being used here to refer to the records of Chan masters from

Mazu ~ m (died 788) until around the tum of the first mil lennium. The time betweenMazu and the year 1004 (date of appearance of the ]ingde-Records of the Transmission oftheLamp i l : 1 ~ H ' ; l f H ~ ) produced many of the most famous masters of the Chan traditionwhose sayings and dialogues are drawn on in the whole subsequent tradi tion and areconstantly referred toeven in today's Chan/Son!Zen monasteries and literatures. The recordsof this period thus deserve to be called "classics" of theChan tradition. The "Golden Age ofChan", i t would seem, dawned only after the end of this classical period, Le. during theSong.

strange land: the less acquainted he is wit h t he l an d, t he e as ie r i tseems to write about it ...

Let us first, i n o rder to i l lustrate the necessity of acritical appraisal of classical Chan sources, briefly look at twoexamples . The f irst is, to my knowledge, so fa r the only bookl ength s tudy of pedagogic s tyle in Chan Buddhism: WilliamPowell's dissertation' on the teach ing devices of Master Dongshan Liangjie.' Powell uses sociolinguistic techniques such asdiscourse analysis for a comparative analysis o f t he pedagog icstyles of the Records of Dongshan' and the Records of Linji.'Powell's primary sources consist of texts whose earliest versionsdate f rom 250 years after Linji's and 763 years after Dongshan'sd ea th .' Wha t can one learn about the teaching methods of a Tangmas ter o n t he bas is o f a late Ming concoction? The task could becompared to t he a tt empt o f a student in the twenty-third centuryto study the teaching methods of St. Francis (1182? - 1226) on the

, Powell, William Frederick, The Record of Tung-shan. An Analysis of PedagogicStyle in Ch'an Buddhism. Ph.D. dissenation, University of California (Berkeley), 1982.

, Dongshan Liangjie (jap. Tozan Ryokai) ifol L1J Jilfff: 807-869. ifiiJU1!liift, jap. T6zan goroku. Taisho shinshii daizokyo * i U J f ~ * l i U . (ed. by

Takakusu ]unjiro j ' ; 1 I j . f i l j } l l f { * ~ ~ et al.). Tokyo: 1924-32, vol . 47, No. 1986B. From nowon this collection will be referred to in abbreviated form by TaishO volume number, andwhen necessary wil l be fol lowed by add it iona l information ( text number for t ex tidentification, page/segment/line for quotes and references).

1 .tJ!iift, jap. Rinzairoku. Taisho vol. 47, No. 1985.I Gp. cit ., pp. 54 ff.


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I t is qui te obvious that addressing such theories asPowell's and Iriya's without a thorough study of textual history

basis of a first "Records of St. Francis" , written in the twent ie thcentury by a Franciscan monk...

The second i llus trat ion comes c loser to the themeof this paper since it concerns the teaching of Master ,Yunmen. Inarticles and lec tures, Prof. Iriya has mentioned three s tages inYunmen's thought which correspond roughly to the young,middle-aged, and old master and are supposedly mirrored in thethree chapters of the Records of Yu nmen" Though thi s v iew hasno t yet been systematically presented, it cal ls for a closer look atthe structure and history of the text. Assuming t ha t one coulddefine and find such s tages in Yunmen' s teaching, one wouldhave to face a va ri et y of questions such as: Are these s tages anaccurate record of historical stages in Yunmen's teaching? Or dothey speak of the edi tors ' view of such s tages? Or do they entirelyoriginate with the editors? And since these three s tages a re notcast in stone one could certa inly also hold, for ins tance, that theRecords of Yu nmen represent the mature teachings of the masterafter his accession ceremony as abbot in 919, Le., after his fifty-fifthyear. Or -why should Chan scholarship be less r adi cal thanbiblical studies?- that they a re not at all records of Yunmen'steaching bu t of his successors' and would-be successors' views.

will hardly yield convincing resul ts . But even if - and justbecause - s uch st ud ie s do not solve many questions, they maymake the quest ione r aware of the type of quest ions tha t a re morelikely to find answers, and of the shaky ground of many assertionsmade on the basis of "classical" Chan sources.

Since most of what we know of classical Chanmasters s tems from "primary" source texts with their particularhistories, the study of the creation and growth of such texts oughtto inform scholarly attempts at ana lysi s of the teach ing of suchmasters. Rather than seeking to directly tackle questions such asthose arising with Iriya's 'three-stage theory', this article presentsan inqui ry into the history of the Records of Yunmen, a textwhich is in many ways typical o f the Recorded Say ings (yu lu ;goroku ~ I f ~ ) genre.

Since inclusion of al l relevant materia ls would byfar exceed the space a llot ted in this journal , I will postpone thelisting and analysis of additional materials worthy of attention(for instance the Longxing fojiao biannian tonglun f!tJf!1JPIj;fJi1Fimff{;,the Biyanlu Jf!.l1i!J.. various Dahui'o materials,the Liandeng huiyaoJfJftmffJ(, the Chanmen niansongji iil''ffili1J{fI!, the Wudenghuiyuan Iimi!lfC and the Korean ]ingde Chuandenglu edition ?Jill}ftff.j{f./Di!J.). A book-length study will also take Yunmen-related

4 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 5

, Iriya, Yoshilaka A ~ ~ j l 1 I j , liko 10 ChOetsu Ic cl!J1!t, p. 29 ff. and p. 82 ff.'0 Dahui Zonggao, jap. Daie S6k6 * ~ * * (1089-1163)


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16 Cf. App, op. cit ., p. 39: "Comparison of the oldest extant version with the Taishotext shows that, apart from the often mistaken punctuation of the Taisho text, the onlyplaces where small differences can be noticed are the colophons, the chapter headings, andin a few instances different characters which are mostlyprinting errors. Though the missingpunctuation of the Taiwan text is to be preferred to the questionable one of the Taisho text,the lattercontains so few other errors that the places where the Taiwan version should beconsulted can be l is ted on less than two lines: YML 549b15, 553c15, 560b13, 561313,562c13, 563a13, 563a19, 565cl7, 568a3, 569c2, 571319, 571c4, 572b29-cl, and 575cI4."

IJ The section on Yunmen isone of the sections which was added when the Pith of theSayings of the Ancient Worthies (Guzunsu yuyao, jap. Kosonshuku goyb i!i#.1ifffffJ();1144) was re-published in 1267 under the new tit le of Record of Sayings of the AncientWorthies (see previous note). See Yanagida, Kosonshuku goroku k6 i ! l # ' 1 J ; j ~ f r ~ ~ " . In:Yanagida Seizan . m m ~ l 1 J , ed., Guzunsu yuyao i!i#.1il$ff!f{ (Song edition), ZengakusOsho I i i* jt i lf series vol. 1. Kyoto: ChUbun shuppansha 1f'::JtIl:lXbl.f, 1973, pp. 281328. Further references are found in Yanagida, Seizan . m m ~ l 1 J , "Zenseki kaidai 1f1filflM". In: Nishitani, Keiji ~ 1 : l - m and Yanagida, Seizan , j g j J m ~ l 1 J eds., ZenkegorokuIItJiffi


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Chapter Part of Records ofYunmen ~ f ' 1 i i < Percent

I Preface ]'f; 0.5%

(27%) Responding to Individual Abilities 25 %

Songs & Verse + = ~ ~ /-m,1;il 1 %

I I Essence of Words from Inside [the Master's] Room ~ q : . ~ l f ~ 24 %

(42%) Statements & Substitute Answers ~ 5 f - f t ~ l f 18 %

Critical Examinations WJm 20 %Record of Pilgrimages ~ j j " 6%

III Testament ili 1 %

(31%) Last Instructions ilMt 0.5 %

Biographical Record 2%

Petition ~ n ' t and Verse 1 ; i l ~ r , = I , ; J l i;p: _P PO 2%-

8 The Making of a Chan RecordThe Structure of the Extan t Records of Yu nmen

9The Making of a ChanRecordHoW accurately might a Chan record such as that of Yunmenportray the teach ing of a master? A closer l ook at t he making ofthese records might yield some insights which also ap pl y t o o th ertex ts o f this genre. Several facts make the Records of Yu nmen aninteresting object of study in this regard:1) It is a text with a history that can be retraced in more detail thanthe majority of classical Chan records.172) Master Yunmen spent a number of years i n t he assembly ofXuefeng Yicun," the Chan mas te r among whose fol lowe rs thefamous Collection from the Hall of the Founders" originated.Since this text appeared just three years after Yunmen's dea th andappears not to have been t ampered with dur ing the Song,'" itforms an important source for comparison in both directions, Le.as a means of judging both the extant Records of Yunmen and the

11 The most important studies about thetextual history of the Records of Yunmen arethe following: Shiina Kayu l t ~ * l i l t , "Ummon karoku to sono shorokubon no keit6

r ' J t ~ J t -f ( / ) f Y ~ * ( / ) ;Mt ".JolUnal ofSolo Siudies I Shugaku kenkyu Jfftf,!.fiJf5f; 24(March 1982), 189-196; Nagai Masashi lk#-J;lcZ. "Ummon no goroku no sei ri tsu nikansuru ichi kasatsu ~ r ' ( / ) ~ l f ~ ( / ) . l i t ~ I : : ' ~ ' " J . , - ~ ~ . " Journal of SolO Siudies IShUgaku kenkyu *.fiJff:; 13 (1971), pp. 111-116; Cen, Xuelii, Yunmen shanzhi ~ f ' 1 L 1 J;t;. Hongkong, 1951; and App, Urs, Facets of the Life and Teaching of Chan MaslerYunmen Wenyan (864-949), Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1989, p. 22 ff.

" lap. Sepp6Gison ~ ~ ~ f F (822-908).19 Chin. Zutangji, jap. SodoshU. kor. Chodang chip -tll'ji!. Kyoto: Chiibun

shuppansha q : . ) C l : 1 : l ~ 1 ' 1974 (Yanagida Seizan . m E B ~ L 1 J ed., Zengaku sosho ~ ~ j i t FseriesvolA).From hereon referred to as ZUlangji.

'" For an assessment of possible changes see Shiina Kayu l t ~ * l i l t , "Sodashu nohensei m ~ ~ ( / ) ~ . l i t . Journal of SOlO Siudies IShugaku kenkyu *.fiJf5f; 21 (1979).


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10 The Making of a Chan RecordZutangji. TheMaking of a Chan Record 11

3) Mas te r Yunmen enjoyed good relat ions to the court of theEmpire of the Southern Han," and two state officials each wrotean inscription, one of which was engraved ten years .and the otherfifteen years after Yunmen's death. These stelae have been studiedby Tokiwa Daij6" and can s ti ll b e seen in Yunmen's monastery

R 2 3 . hnear uyuan In t e northern part of Guangdong province. Thefirst" was written i n the year 959 by Lei Yue 1 I t ~ , an official whowas also the author of the Biographical Record which is

" See Suzuki, Tetsuo ~ * t f 1 4 t , "Ummon Bun'en to Nankan ~ r t ) ( 1 m : t mi!it".Indogaku bukkyogaku kenkyu ffJJft!!PfJ.IX!!frIiIf5e 33.1 (Dec. 1984), pp. 90-95; andHenrik: S ~ e n s e n , "The Life and Times of the Ch'an Master Yiin-men Wen-yen".ACla Or/enlalta 49 (1988). For related information concerning Yunmen's teacherXuefeng see EdwardH. Schafer. TheKingdom ofMin. Rutland / Tokyo: Tuttle, 1954, pp.10, 12, and 95 (text and note). The same author also translated a major source for thehistory of the Southern Han Empire, chapter 65 of the Wulai shi I i (History of theFiveDynasties): "The History of the Southern Han", SilverJubilee Volume of theZinbunKagaku-Kenkyusyo. Kyoto: Jinbun kagaku kenkyusho, 1954, pp. 339-369." Tokiwa, Daijo 1 i t t i : * ~ , Shina bukkyoshiseki kinenshu 3 t j J B 1 9 ~ ~ ~ M i l [ l ~ ~ .

Tokyo: Bukkyo shiseki kenkyQkai ~ ~ ~ M - l i J f ~ 1 f , 1931.2l ~ i w . . This country town is about one bUS-hour west of Shaoguan t m ; ~ which isabout six train-hours north of Guangzhou Il/!{fH." Dahan Shaozhou Yunmenshan Guanglaichanyuan gu Kuangzhen dashi shixingbei

(bing xu) * i ! i t t m f H ~ r ~ l 1 J 7 t * ~ ~ t & ~ ~ * f l i l i J i f 1 ~ H l \ ! (#f1';): "True Nature Stele (withpreface) [for] the Late Great Master Kuangzhen from Guangtai Chan temple on Mt.Yunmen in the GreatHan [Kingdom]'s Shaozhou [district]."

contained in the Records of Yu nmen." The second," written byanother official by the name o f Chen Shouzhong ~ ' i f ' 9 " , wastriggered by the appearance of the dead master in a dream and bythe subsequent month-long worship o f the Yunmen's mummy atthe cap it al Guangzhou . These two inscr ip tions con ta in muchbiographical information bu t only a few examples of Yunmen'steaching. Nevertheless, the virtual certainty of the absence oflater revisions makes them important sources for comparison.4) Fifty-five years after Yunmen's death, in the year 1004, anothermajor source for the teachings of Chan masters was completed:Xuanci Daoyuan 1 ! : ~ i . t i w . ' s ]ingde [Era] Record of the Transmissionof the Lamp." Again, what is and what is not inc luded in thistext's section on Yunmen can throw light both on this source andthe history of the Records of Yu nmen.5) Exceptional if not unique for the records o f pre-Song masters,we have ancient explanatory remarks about certain terms whichoccurred in an early (lost) ver sion o f the Records of Yu nmen.

2l Yunmenshan Guanglai chanyuan Kuangzhen dashi xinglu ~ r ~ l 1 J 7 t * ~ ~ ~ ~ *f l i l i : r r ~ : "Biographical Record of theGreat Master Kuangzhen of the Guangtai Chantempleon Mt. Yunmen". TaishO vol. 47: 575c3 - 576a18.'" Dahan Shaozhou Yunmenshan Dajue chansi Daciyun Kuangzhen hongming dashi

beiming(bing xu) * i ! i t t m f H ~ r ~ l 1 J * : W : ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ ~ * ~ * ~ i 1 i ~ l \ ! ~ (#f1';): "Epitaphon stele (with preface) [for] the Great Master [entitled] Great Cloud of Compassion [and]ImmenseUnderstanding of GenuineTruth from the DajueChan temple on Ml. Yunrnen intheGreatHan [Kingdom's] Shaozhou district.

21 ffttmff!.Jffil


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12 The Making of 8 Chan Record The Making of 8 Chan Record 13

This commentary is included in the Collection of Topics f rom theGarden of the Fou nd er s" (appeared in 1108). Through study ofthis commentary and comparison with the extant text of theRecords of Yunmen, we have t he chance to get quite a detailedimpression of the contents of one lost early version.6) The same tex t cites a preface for a lost version of the Records ofYunmen which dates from 1053.29 This preface, along with thepreface for the extant text," contains important information aboutthe history of our text.7) Due to t he popularity of k6an featuring Yunmen (his are themost numerous in all major k6an collections) we have a numberof texts stemming f rom the f irst hal f of the twelf th century with asubstantial amounts of Yunmen material.8) Final ly , there is a famous tex t whose extant version was editedby the same man" as tha t of the Records of Yunmen: the Recordsof Linji!' This gives us the chance to see some paral le ls andpossibly get some idea of the approach of this key editor.

,. 1ll/fHJJJS. Zokuz6ky6 vol. 113... Zokuz6ky6 vol. 113:26


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14

In the Records of Yu nmen, too, there are passageswhich suggest that note -t ak ing an d subsequent discussion werecommon in monast ic communit ies:

The Making of a Chan Recordt en-day per iod. Of course, what we have of Yunmen _ or rather,of the teachings a t tr ibu ted to him - is extensive compared tosome earl ie r an d contemporary Chan masters . Nevertheless, Oursober calculation shows t ha t what is left of vintage "teachings ofYunmen" must be a highly disti l led brew. But who w ere th ebrewers an d distillers?

The Making of a Chan Record

juice are you looking for in such dried-up bones"15

Don't futilely tramp around in [China's] districts. , You 'reJ 'ust af te rsome big words and waItrovmces.

for some master's mouth to move. And then youpose quest ions about Chan and the ,:vay, , ~ b o u t'upward' and 'downward', "how about... , and whatif ... ", and you note [the words] down in big tomes,stuff them into the bags of skin [that you are],speculate about them. Wherever you go you stickyour heads together in threes and fives a r o ~ n ~ the[ueplace, cite [these words] and murmur: "ThiS IS ~eloquent statement, and that is a spontaneous one,these are words uttered on the basis of events, thoseon the basis of essence - words which i n ~ o r p o r . a t ethe master or mistress of your own house. H a v I ~ gdevoured [such words] you do nothing but talk.m

I . "I have understood the Buddhistour seep, saymg . .l1eaching" You realize that through thiS kmd of. . d' ?I "pilgrimage you'll neverever attaIn rest, ont you ..

Howeve r, we do not even know how t he se veryed Sasaki Ruth- - - - ~ f ~ L : - -:-:. : I < ! ; ' ~ ~ ; ; : ~ Taish6 vol. 47:.501cI4-17. Translat In ,)J Records 0 I nJ I . .. .O"I ;o ;j ( ,

AdS' of Ch'an Master Lin-chi Hui-chao of Chen Prefecture.uller The Recorue aymgsKYOlO; The Institute for Zen Studies f i ! . J t 1 ~ m ? E m . 1975 p. 31.

"Yunmenlu ~ r , ~ T47: 552a7-15.

The first intermediaries to whom we must turn ou r

Students of today get nowhere because they base theirunderstanding upon the acknowledgment of names.They inscribe the words of some dead old guy in agreatbig notebook, wrap it up in four or five squaresof cloth, and won't let anyone look at it. 'This is theMysterious Principle,' they aver, and safeguard it withcare. That's all wrong. Blind idiots! What kindof

1. TAKING AND COLLECTING NOTES

a tt en ti on a re th e monks who heard Yunmen's talks an dinstructions an d noted some of them down. These people,certainly most crucial fo r th e q ua li ty o f r ec or di ng , ar eunfortunately barely percept ible in t he f og of history. JUdging bythe following passage in the Records of Linji, note-t aking bydisciples of a master seems to have been common i n Chan circleseven before Yunmen was born:


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16 The Making of a Chan Record17The Making of a ChanRecord

words were noted down, and we will never know how faithfulthis account is to words actually spoken by Yunmen one thousandand some-odd years ago. If we were to judge by the quality of notestaken at lectures by today's best students, we would or should notbe overly optimistic about the possible degree of faithfulness. Onthe other hand, there existed and exist people with astoundingmemories, and we cannot exc lude the possibi li ty o f quasistenographic note taking (see below) either." Even the existence ofsome early alternative sources (which will be examined below) isof l it tle help in this regard; i t may serve, in the best of all cases , toauthenticate one set of notes through another or against another,bu t the relat ion of any kind of notes to actual words is beyond thescope of research.

I f a judgment about the most basic quality of notesremains impossible, we can at least try to gather what informationwe can get about the process of note taking. What do the earliestunrevised sources tell us about the teaching of Yunmen and itsrecording? Each stone inscription features a passage indicatingthat some of Master Yunmen's words were wri tt en d own an d

" Motives of note takers are as difficult to take into account as their thoroughness; Irememberthat, whenparticipating in a two-year seminar (1977-1978) given by the recentlydeceased Prof. Nishitani Keiji i ! ! l ~ * on the Blue CliffRecords IfIIIJil


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18 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 19

Christianity know all too wel l, is no trifling matter.However, the earl ier inscript ion contains one more

piece of information" which may give us a l ead as to the i dent it yof a m an w ho may have been the key figure i n the proc es s o fnote-taking and initial editing:

Among the assembled disciples was Shou Jian whohad the whole time assisted the Master while being inperfect accord with Non-Action" , and thirty-sixmonks in charge of temple affairs includingChangbao the Great Master Jingben,Cl etc., who hadall deeply realized Buddha nature and had indistinguished ways attained to Master [Yunmen]'sessence.

Shou Jian ' i T ~ is none o ther t han the man who ismentioned at the beginning of each of the three chapters of theextant text of the Records of Yu nmen" where we find thefollowing statement: "Collected by [Master Yunmen's] disciple,Recipient of the Purple [Robe] Shou Jian, [entitled] Grand Master

31 Tokiwa, op. cit., p. 114."Wuwei ! ! ! I i ~ .'" Great Master Jingben ~ * j ; : G i I i ~ . : "Great Master" originally was a honorific

appellation of the buddhas and bodhisaltvas; itcame into general use for Chan patriarchsand frequently forms part of honorary and posthumous titlesconferred by imperial courts.The master referred to here is Master YunmenChangbao.

" ~ m l i i ! k T47(l988) 545a14, 553c23, and 567b12.

Ming Shi.,,42 Unfortunately, very l it tle is known about him. Hisname is otherwise not foun d in Chan literature and has thusbecome an object of speculation: Nukariya Kaiten," for example,suspected that Shou Jian's name was mis-rendered and shouldread Shou Xian 'iT'rt - another disciple of Master Yunmen whohas the advantage of having a biography in the Songgaosengzhuan."

The fact that Shou J ian is said to have assisted theMas te r ove r a long period of time certainly m ake s him acandidate both for the note taking and the ini tial editing ofYunmen's records. The absence of his name in the Chan literaturewhich I surveyed cou ld con fi rm rathe r t han d iscr ed it h is rolesince there was, as we will s ee below, a tendency to attributeeditorship to me n with well-known spi ri tual o ff sp ring whocarried on the tradition of the "House of Yunmen" , and not tomonks like Shou Jian who did not produce any known spi ri tualsuccessors. It was (and is) often only through such successors andtheir line o f spi ri tu al h ei rs that a master acquired fame (andpossibly even retroactive Recorded Sayings, as in the classic case of

" r V , I l J ; l ~ * ~ i 1 i J l B , ~ ' i T ~ ~ " This speculation was pointed out by Nagai (op. cit., pp. 111-112); he refers to

Nukariya, Kaiten ~ , m ~ t J t ) t , Zengaku shisoshi Jiii"jf:,f!!1!!!1: Vol. 1. Tokyo, 1923, p.729.

. . Jap. So kosoden *ilii1fJfi!I. Thish6 vol . 50 (No. 2061) 860a4. This biography,incidentally, contains the only reference in the Song gaosengzhuan *ilii1ff1{QJ to MasterYunmen.


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20 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 21Dongshan Liangjie that was mentioned in the introduction).Since this was not the case with Shou Jian, we can unfortunatelynot know more about him than what was just cited above.

Now let us examine later stories about the taking ofnotes in Yunmen' s monas te ry . The fir st is found in the Recordsfrom the (Chan] Forest," a co llec tion of over three hundredanecdotes from the Chan tradition told by Juefan Huihong f l : ~ ~ ~0071-1128), a prolific author in the Linji l ine." According to hi sdisciple Benming who took the notes, Juefan told thefollowing story:

Chan Master Yunju of Foyin had said,When Master Yunmen expounded the Dharma hewaslike a cloud. He decidedly did not like people tonote down his words . Whenever he saw someone[doing this] he scolded him and chased him out [o fthe hall] with the words, "Because your own mouthis not good for anything you come to note down mywords. It is certain that some day you'll sell me!"As to the records oj"Responding to [Individual]

" Linjianlu, jap. Rinkanroku #/lIJi1


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22 The Making of a Chan Record23The Making of a Chan Record

i gnor e the se a spec ts , it strikes us that the monk into whosemouth this story is pu t lived about as long after Yunmen as wedo after Hegel, and that the editor of t he t ext i n which it appearedwas about as far removed from Yunmen as we are from Goethe.In the l ig ht of the controversies surrounding the no tes ofGoethe's assistant Eckermann. - which were published not longafter Goethe's death and purport to be faithful to Goethe's dictayet to this day provoke much discussion about the extent ofEckermann's own contributions - we may rightly guess tha t evenif Benming's story were true we would still face many difficulties.

Since we are already deep in the realm of legends, Imight as well add another story which is included in the famouscollection o f k6an with r elat ed poems and commentaries knownas the "Blue Cli ff Record."" It adds some colorful detail about oneof the note-takers encountered above, namely, Yunmen's discipleXianglin ~ # (also called Yuan it):

[Xianglin] stayed at Yunmen's side for eighteen years;time and again Yunmen would just callout to him,'Attendant Yuan!' As soon as he responded, Yunmenwould say, 'What is it?' At such times, no matter howmuch [Xianglin] spoke to present his understandingand gave play to his spirit, he never reached mutualaccord [with Yunmen]. One day, though, he suddenlysaid, 'I understand.' Yunmen said, 'Why don't yousay something above and beyond this?' Xianglin

n Chin. BiyanJu, jap. Hekiganroku M ' M t ~ Thisho vol. 48, No. 2003, 157a28-b4.

stayed on for another three years." A great part ofthe verbal displays of great function which Yunme.naccorded in his room were designed to make hISattendant Yuan [able to] enter and function anywhere.Whenever Yunmen uttered a word or a phrase, theywere all gathered at attendantYuan's."

Since this story appeared on ly i n 1128, Le. almosttwo centuries post facto, we had better not attribute undue weightto it. Though we are unable to make firm pronouncements

. the I'dentity of the not et ake r(s ) and/or early editor(s),concermngd as though ShOll Jian has a better chance of havingit oes seems

occupied this pos it ion than the monks mentioned in latersources. From the point of view of the faithfulness of the contentof Yunmen's records to his teaching, however, it does not seem tomatter whom we prefer since we cannot judge the quality of theirwork anyway. Let u s now, by comparing early sources with theRecords of Yu nmen, get an impression of how they relate t o t heRecords.

& JC The Blue CliffRecord." Up to here, the translation follows Cleary, Thomas ..,Boulder & London: Shambhala, 1977, p. 111.

" . b 1'1'. Yuten J # ~ ~ HekiganshU leihon M ' . J ~ } E * . Tokyo:The text gIven y w, .\t '1Ii> , thRisOsha JJ.1M, 1963, pp. 91-92, coniains several unimportant dIfferences from eTaisho text.


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24 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 252. YUNMEN'S TEACHINGS IN EARLY SOURCES

Relevant early sources - Le. sources which werewritten within about fifty years of Yunmen's death (949) _ are thefol lowing: 1) the Collection from the Hall of the Founders(Zutangji 1I1'1tJlf) which appeared just three years after 'yunmen 'sdeath, 2) the stone inscriptions of 959 and 964; and 3) the Jingde-Records of the Transmission of the Lamp (Jingde chuandenglu JffffgfiljJfifl) of 1004. Each of these sources exhibits a distinct characterand has its particular value for the study of the ear ly h ist ory o fYunmen's records:

a) The Zutangji t l 1 : ~The Collection from the Hall of the Founders is the

earliest source for Yunmen' s t each ing; i ts s ec tion on Yunmenseems to have escaped later revision altogether. Although theBiographical Record of the Great Master Kuangzhen of theGuangtai Chan temple on Mt. Yu nmen" bears the date of the dayof Yunmen's burial (May 25, 959), its history is unclear and certainbiographical e lements conta ined in i t make i t seem very likelythat later r evision(s) took pla ce." So th e Zutangji has to beregarded as the oldest unaltered source for Yunmen' s teaching.

>-_ll Y u ~ e n s h a n Guangtai chanyan Kuangzhen dashi xinglu ~ r ' U J J ' t ; ! i i l i ~ ~ i i t : *g i l i ' f T ~ (wntten by the author of the steleof 959, Lei Yue i f ~ ) : T47.575c3-576aI8.

56 See App, op. cit ., p. 225

That the section on Yunmen was i nd eed untouched by la te reditors is suggested by its content : the biography has featuresunlike any later one; it neither mentions Yunmen's earlierteacher Daozong of Muzhou ~ t H ; g l l l t " , g i l i nor Yunmen's death.However, i t does note tha t Yunmen was awarded the t it le "GreatMaster Kuangzhen" by the ruler of Southern Han.57 The authorsof the Zutangji seem not to have rece ived the news of Yunmen'sdeath at the time of completi on of their text - a fact wh ich mayconfirm Yanagida's view that the wri ting of this text started muchearlier than 952" or alternatively, that the news o f this eventtraveled slowly.

Let us now have a closer look at the Zutangjimaterials about Yunmen (see Table 1 i n the last sect ion of thisarticle): of a total of about fifty Zutangji l ines, e ight are devoted tobiographical events, twenty-seven to poems and songs, and onlyabout fifteen to instructions and dialogues. The differences of itsbiography and verse sections to the extant Records of Yu nmen arevery prominent . Though the teaching section exhibits mores im ilar i ty, one thi rd of the fifteen lines of teach ing is not foundin the Records. This means tha t eighty percent of the Zutangjimaterials are either substantially different or not found at all i n

" Thisevent tookplace in 938, eleven years before Yunmen died." Cf. Yanagida, Seizan - t 9 P H l ~ U J . Sod6shii sakuin vol. 3 ~ . l l 1 i t ~ ~ 5 I T I J J t . Kyoto:

Kyoto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyiisho, 1984, pp. 1584 ff.; see also Demieville, Paul,"Le recueil de la salle des patriarches." T'oung-pao 56(1970), pp. 262 - 286.


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the extant Records. However, if one regards only the materialwhich represents Yunmen's teaching in interaction with otherpeople, one finds that the t en lines which have paral lels in theextant Records are surprisingly similar.

Looking at his mixed bag of information we notehow much the authors of the Zutangji emphasized poems andsongs (which make up more than hal f of the Zutangji materialson Yunmen and may indeed, as Yanagida contends, represent theearliest stratum of this text"). Furthermore, i t seems as thoughthe fragments of Yunmen's teaching (as opposed to the poemsand songs) con ta ined in this text cou ld be a good sample of thekind of notes that monks were carrying around in their bags andsharing with fellow pilgrims around the f ir ep lace . Thecomparatively small differences between those instruction anddialogue items, and the materials that are found in the extantRecords, could indicate that there was a common earlier sourceand that transmission happened in writing rather than by word ofmouth. However, in view of the sparsity of teaching materialincluded (of which one third has no correspondence in the extantRecords) we do better not to draw any conclusions in this regard.The absence of any sizable instruction in the Zutangji materialscould suggest that around the time of Yunmen's death (when theZutangji was being wri tt en ) n o n ot es of Yunmen's longerDharma talks - if such existed at all at that point in time - had

59 Yanagida,ibid.

yet made their way to the Fujian region.The second column of Table 1 shows tha t the

Zutangji materials with parallels in the Records are now foundmore or less evenly distributed ove r all t hre e chapters of thepresent text: three items (8, 9 and 11) in the f irst chapter and oneitem (4) in its appendix, two items (3 and 6) in the second chapter,and two items (12 and 13) in the third chapter. However, thedifferences and the passages which are not found in the Recordsare of equal interest. These anecdotes in the Zutangji may havebeen floating around among people who had known Yunmen asa disciple of Xuefeng, during his subsequent pilgrimage, or inGuangdong at the Lingshu or Yunmen monasteries. It is possiblethat some of them represent episodes which happened whileYunmen was still on Mt. Xuefeng and remained unknown toYunmen's later disciples at Mt. Yunmen. But it is equally possiblethat they were weeded out by later editors of the Records.

At any rate, the Zutangji material about Yunmen isof great importance for the ear ly his tory of Yunmen's records;both i ts parallels and it s di ff erences to the extant Records ofYunmen ind icate a degree of independence which is unmatchedin other ear ly sources . The Zutangji is the only ear ly sou rcewhich contains a substantial amount of i tems of teaching which


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28 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 29are not found in the extant Records of Yu nmen." I ts mater ia l _and, to a lesser degree, that of the s to ne i ns cri pt io ns - mayconst itute the only unretouched traces left of ear ly notes. Allother early sources exhibit such close similarity to or dependenceon parts of t he Records of Yunmen that they are hardly suitablefor a reconstruction of the early history of these records. 61 Thoughi t is remarkable t ha t so much material is included about a manwho was at the t ime of writing still alive but l iving far away inChina's deep Sou th, we c anno t bu t r egr et th at the Zutangjiauthors d id not include more of the teachings of this man whowas to become more widely known than the ir common teacherXuefeng YIcun ~ ~ R f f .

b) The Stone Inscriptions It'tl:li.l\!/li.l\!itThe examples of Yunmen's teaching contained in

the two stone inscr ip tions (see Table 2 at the end of this article)show t ha t mos t o f the mas te r' s d ic ta which were engraved ins tone found their way into the f irst chapter or the biographicalsec tions of the thi rd chapter of the Records of Yu nmen - or theother way around. Only teaching items 7 and 10 and biographical

. . As wil l be seen below, the stone inscriptions and the Iingde chuandengJu containonly two non-biographical items each (items 7 and IO of Table 2 and items 18 and 24 ofTable 3) which arenot found in the Records of Yunmen.

61 Later sources, however, include more materials notfound in the Records of Yunmen;such items will be listed and analysed at a later point

i tem 12 of Table 2 are not found in the Records. There is no tracein the stone inscr ip tions of chapter two of the Records nor o f thesections of chapter three which are not of biographical character."

The rather close correspondence of the doctrinalfragments of the two s tone inscriptions and the Records ofYu nmen should come as no sur pri se: the author of the secondinscr ip tion was, to judge f rom the overa ll s imilar ity and oftenidentical wording, certainly familiar with the first one, and notetakers or early editors of the Records of Yunmen were alsounl ikely to ignore the only two inscr ip tions erected in honor oftheir master. But why are so few instances (and only short ones) ofthe master's teaching c it ed? F ive of fourteen i tems are ofprimarily biographical content," and only nine short i tems are leftas samples of three decades of continual teaching. Obviously , tojudge f rom the overa ll content , the glori fica tion of the rulers ofNan-Han was jus t as important an object ive as the promotion ofknowledge about Master Yunmen. 64

What kind of note or anecdote mater ia l concerningYunmen's teaching stood to the autho rs ' d isposi ti on? The re a reonly two short exchanges that are not mentioned in the Recordsbu t figure in one o r bot h stone inscription(s). These two short

. . See App, op. cit. pp. 226-228 for a discussion of the biographical informationcontained in the stone inscriptions.

.. Items 1,2, 12, 13, and 14.

..


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30 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 31dialogues an d the first part of item 6 (which is n ot f ou nd intheRecords bu t is interestingly enough included in the ZutangjOma y belong to stories that were intentionally n o t i nc lu de d b y theeditors of the early Records. Or were they dropped during a latereditorial pass? On e more d is cr ep an cy w hi ch m er i ts a tt en t io nconcerns the conversation between the Emperor a n d Y u nm e n" which happens no t to be mentioned at all in the s e co n d s t on einscription. Did this encounter take place as noted in the earlierinscription or as portrayed in the Records of Yu nmen?

Unfortunately these inscriptions are no t of muchhelp in answering ou r questions and clarifying the state of affairsconcerning the collection of notes an d s tories which served as thebas ic mater ia ls in the making of the Records of Yu nmen. An dsince most materia ls conta ined in the las t early source which wil lbe exam ine d in this s ec tio n, t he Jingde-Records o f theTransmission o f the Lamp, s ee m a lr ea dy to be based on at h or o ug h ly ed it ed version (or versions) o f so me parts of theRecords of Yu nmen, they will n ot s he d m uc h m or e light on theearliest part of the history of Yunmen's records.

. .See item 5 af Table 2.

c) The lingde-Records of the Transmission of the Lamp

Th e editor of th e Jingde-Records (Jingdechuandenglu) must already have been in possession of a sizablecollection of notes, bu t these notes were essentially limited tomater ia ls con ta ined in the f ir st chapter o f the present Records.The only exceptions are a dia logue which is found in somewhatdifferent form in chapter 3 of the extant Records of Yu nmen" an dt wo s ho rt exchanges which are n ot f ou nd in the Records. Thecontents of the Yunmen section of the Jingde chuandenglusuggests tha t it s editor ha d qui te a voluminous se t of notes athand, which must have included large p ar ts o r the whol e of thefirst chapter of the extant Records of Yu nmen. Most differencesbetween these two texts a re of the k ind an editor w o u ld p r od u ce(slightly different wording, sometimes an added particle or anintroductory phrase, etc.). However, a few missing items (items 18an d 24 of Table 3), and discrepancies of content (e.g. item 29 ori tem 37), suggest that the Jingde chuandenglu author could haveha d a manuscript or set of notes which was a l it tle different fromthe first chapter of the extant Records.

It is of course possible that the editor of the Jingdechuandenglu ha d additional materials at hand, b ut o ur evidencemakes this rather unlikely: of forty-one non-biographical items

.. Item 19 afTable 3.


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32 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 33quoted, all bu t four are now found in the same part of the fi rstchapter of the Records of Yu nmen. Of the remaining four , one isn o t i n cl ud ed in the extant Records of Yu nmen, two are versesfound at the en d o f it s first chapt er, a nd only one exchangeresembles a passage found in the p r e se n t t h ir d chapter. On thewhole the dif ferences are not very significant; they could, forinstance, also be du e to the editing efforts of those wh o laterproduced the printed versions of the Records of Yunmen or thoseof the Jingde-Records. Rather, the similarity of content is str iking:th e f o ur t een i n st r uct io n s which together form a bo ut e ig ht ypercent of the Yunmen-material in the Jingde chuandenglu showo nl y s li gh t differences of style, a nd a bo ut hal f of the d ia loguesfeatured in the Jingde-Records are identical or almost identicalwith those of the first chapter of the Records of Yu nmen.

Whi le the content shows striking similarity, thesame cannot be s aid o f the s equence in which the mater ia l ispresented. A look at the second an d third columns of Table 3shows tha t the Jingde material is quite ou t of step with the firstchapter of the Records of Yu nmen - a fact which may be du e tothe edi to r of e ithe r text. One notes tha t the Yunmen mate rial s inthe Jingde chuandenglu show a sequence in t un e w it h the modeof instruction: after the biographical part we have an introductorye xc ha ng e a t th e occasion of his accession to the abbotship,followed by fourteen instructions of considerable length an da bo ut t wo dozen shorter anecdotes rounded off by a final verse.

We do not know in which form th e editor of th e Jingdechuandenglu possessed th e Yunmen materials; bu t theirar r an g emen t w i th i n the Jingde chuandenglu w ou ld s ee m tospeak more of the Jingde editor' s wil l to a clear structure t ha n o fthe order of the materials he ha d a t his disposition.

The Yunmen mate rials inc lude d in the Jingdechuandenglu thus reflect a s tage in the making of the Records ofYu nmen where extensive sets of written notes were already inexistence w hi ch c ou ld be q uo te d w o rd for w ord o r s om ew ha tedited an d arranged to suit the stylistic preferences of the editor. Is ur mi se t h at a bo ut fifty yea rs a fter the dea th of Yunmen suchextensive notes must have existed for a good p ar t o f the teachings- especially the longer in st ruct ions - whi ch are no w containedin the firs t chapter of the Records of Yu nmen. But the re is in th istext no trace of any mater ia ls from the second chapter an d only asingle three-line episode from the beginning of the t h ir d c h ap t erof the Records of Yu nmen. Since it is extremely unlikely that theeditor of the Jingde chuandenglu would intentionally fail toutilize such large amounts of Yunmen-related materials if he ha dthem at his d is po sa l, w e must conclude that the notes ormanuscripts available to him were probably limited to materialswhich were to become the source of par ts or the whole of the firstchapter of the extant Records of Yu nmen.


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34 The Making of a Chan Record TheMaking of a Chan Record 35

IV. SECOND STAGE:

EARLY PRINTED EDITIONS

In this second sta ge of the making of Mast erYunmen's Records we move into a new dimension, namely, thatof the printed medium with all its advantages of production anddistribution. Although we cannot be sure when the first printededition of the Records appeared, i t is l ikely that this happened inthe fi rs t hal f o f the e leventh cen tury , i.e. l ess than one hundredyears after Master Yunmen's death . Al though this is quiteexceptional for Cha n records of this period, it does no tautomatically mean tha t the Records of Yunmen are moretrustworthy than other s. The basic quest ions of the qua li ty andextent of the initial notes and of their transmission are notaffected by events at this second stage and must, as shown above,be left open because of the lack of conclusive evidence.

With the move into the new medium, however,our chances of getting information about the contents of thevarious Records of Yu nmen are improving. Although the ear lyprinted editions we know of are all lost, we have access toinformation about them through the following sources:

1) a preface dated 1053 which is quoted in the Collection of Topicsfrom the Garden of the Founders commentary (Zuting shiyuan);"2) the body of the Zuting shiyuan commentary (completed in1108); and3) the pre face to the extan t ver sion of the Extended Records ofYunmen, dated 1076.

1. THE FIRST PRINTED EDITIONAvailable information about an early printed

edition of the Records of Yunmen stems exclusively from onesource, namely, a passage included in the Collection of Topicsfrom the Garden of the Founders ( Zu ti ng shiyuan) by MuanShanqing." The f irst chapter of this text which was completed inthe year 1108 contai ns, as will b e seen below, much valuableinformation about early edi tions of the Records of Yunmen. Inaddit ion to a discuss ion of a fair number of terms which occurredin the then available Records of Yunmen," Muan included apreface which appears to have belonged to the second printededition of the Records of Yunmen. We have nothing more thanMuan's word for information on the earliest printed versions ofthe Records and had better keep in mind that what we are dealing


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36 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 37with here is information given by one ed itor about the work ofone of his predecessors.

Muan introduces the q uo te o f th e oldest knownpreface by referring to "the Records of Yu nmen reedited by ChanMaster [Tianyi Yi]huai which are rather different from the edit ionpresently available"'" an d then cites the preface" which is heret ranslated in i ts entirety:

The Master [Tianyi Yihuai)'s" preface says:"The Great Master [Yunmen)'s [monastic] name was Wenyan.He succeeded to Chan Master Xuefeng [Yi]cun. After havingfirst, on the order of Prince Liu7l of Guang, resided at the Lingshu[monastery] in Shaozhou, " he later moved to l ive on [Mt. ]

70 Zuting shiyuanmJ}!.?1i, Zokuziilcyii vol. 113: 26


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38 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 39measures to fulfIll this cherished wish of mine.

This summer, when staying at Qiupu," I found a littletime to open and read this text while instructing the community.Then I took the brush to cor rect i t by condens ing fIlIIJ. andsupplementing ~ I ! l l , and I succeeded in making a new edition. [Bythis] I aspire to make those who apply themselves to the gate ofsagehood get without fail to the innermost Hall [of Chan], and toprevent those who tread the Great Path from gett ing lost in amultitude of road-forks.

I am ashamed to be so little versed in the art of writingand to have produced such poor writing [as this preface]; I simplywrote down facts to introduce the history [ofthis edition] and canonly hope that accomplished writers will not judge me too harshlybecause of this verbose preface.Written on the fifteenth day of the fifth month of the fifth year ofHuangyou.!i!1t (1053) at the Jingde Chan monastery in Qiupu t'cim

f ! ; ~ ~ ~ by theDharma-transmittingmonk [Tianyi] Yihuai ~ . ~ .

The "Tianyi edition" of 1053 for which this prefacewas written is unfortunately lost, and all we can know about itscontent stems f rom the p re fa ce translated above and from someadditional r ema rk s d is pe rs ed in Muan's Zuting shiyuancommentary. It thus seems" tha t Tianyi had in 1053 already for al on g t ime intended to make a n ew edition of the Records ofYu nmen on the basis of an o ld er p ri nt ed edition. We can thus

n Qiupu [Jingde] t'cim is a place in the southwestern part of the Guichi district Jt7t!!~ of Anhui province. As mentioned at the end of this preface, Master Yihuai stayed at theJingde f ! ; ~ temple.

" Fora different rendering and different conclusions see App, op. cit., p.29 ff.

conclude that the ear lies t printed edition must have appearedbefore 1050, Le. within the first century after Yunmen's death, an dthat l ianyi 's edition was the second printed edi tion of the Recordsof Yu nmen.

Con ce rn ing the c on te nt o f this earliest printededi tion we have t o r el y entirely on the information furnished byMuan in the cited preface to the Tianyi edition of 1053. This oldestedition is said to have contained:1) formal instructions l:1it;"2) [teachings] based on old [sayings or events] .1:1;" and3) statements with substitute [answers] j:;ft ...This is the first explici t reference to materials whi ch a re t od ayfound i n t he s econd chapter o f t he Records of Yunmen. We haveseen that the Jingde-Records of the Transmission of the Lamp of1004 cited nothing at all of the second chapter and only abou tthree lines of the thi rd chapter of the extant Records of Yunmen.Now if we a re t o trust Tianyi's preface as quoted by Muan we willconclude tha t the earliest printed edit ion of the Records of

" Most fonnal instructions are found in chapter 1 (YunmenJu 544c25-553blO) of theextant Records of Yunmen; the second part of chapter 2 (YunmenJu 561c5-567b5) alsocontains instructions starting with shang tang ...tog, but they mostly contain substituteanswers andare probably notto be taken into consideration here.

" Such teachings now fonn the first section of chapter 2 (Yunmenlu 553c24-561c4).. Suchstatements are now collected in the secondsection of chapter 2 (Yunmenlu 561

567b5)


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40 The Making of a Chan Record TheMaking of a Chan Record 41Yunmen must have consisted of large parts (or the whole) ofchapters one and two of the extant Records of Yunmen bu t that itmost probably did not yet include any of the materials which nowmake up its third chapter."

Unfortunately we have no way of knowing howmuch mate ri al was included in each section; i f we j udge byTianyi's words " conden si ng and suppl emen ti ng " we mustassume that in some cases there was less and in some morematerial than in the also non-extant edition of TIanyi. We also donot know on what basis TIanyi concluded tha t some accounts ofencounters etc. were mistaken and what standards he employedin his efforts at correction. He must have been familiar with theYunmen-materials included in the ]ingde-Records of theTransmission of the Lamp of 1004, but since almost all of thosematerials stem from the first chapter of the extant Records ofYu nmen, he must have had additional materials related to thesecond chapter. But what materials did he possess? Did he own ora t l eas t have access to a set or several sets of notes taken byYunmen's disciples? I f so, why d id he not mention this? Lack ofevidence compe ls us to leave these quest ions unanswered; thuswe have also no way of knowing how different this earliestprinted edition of the Records of Yunmen was from the nextprinted edition which appeared in the yea r 1053.

r7 My analysis of Muan's commentary (see below) will confmn that this was also thecase with theedition(s) which were at Muan'sown disposal.

2. THE TIANYI EDITION OF 1053There is not much to say about this edition; most of

what we know about it stems from its preface which was citedabove. We can assume that significant additions to materialscontained in the earliest p ri nte d e dition w ould have b ee nmentioned in TIanyi's preface; thus the con tent of h is edition isl ikely to have been more or less congruent with tha t of theearliest edition.

But we have some additional information aboutthis text in the form of a few references to and remarksconcerning the Tiany i- ed it io n i n Muan' s Zuting shiyuancommentary. Muan thought very highly of it and ends manycorrections and criticisms of another printed text with the words:"See the ancient text by Tianyi". He also refers no less than eighttimes to i t in o rder to support his own judgment. " We can thusinfer that the content of the tex t which Muan commented uponand that of Tianyi's edi ti on of 1053 were also more or lesscongruent. Let us thus see what we can find out about Muan's textand the materials available to him.3. MUAN SHANQING'S TEXTS

Muan Shanq ing's comment ar y on ano th er l os tedi tion of the Records of Yu nmen no t only provides a runningcommentary on cer ta in express ions in the tex t he used bu t also

.. See below.


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42 The Making of 8 Chan Record The Making of 8 Chan Record 43includes a number of references to older editions he ha d at hand.These older editions include:1) The Tianyi edition of 1053 (referred to as "Old Text of Tianyi" 7(1til;;$:, the "Text of Reverend [TIanyi Yi]huai" m ~ ~ ; ; $ : , or simply"the old text" iI;;$:. The only mention" of an "Old Record ofYunmen ~ r ' i l j g ( may refer to this edition, or to the earl iestprinted edition.2) The "Record of Yunmen's Correspondence to Abilities" ~ r n t - t l lW to which some poems are said to have been appended. Thisappears congruent with the first chapter of the extant Records ofYunmen.

3) The unnamed text which Muan used for his commentary.Muan refers to it in great detail, indicating plate number, segment,and l ine number." Since he often points ou t imperfections suchas omitted characters (which he proceeds to supply in thecommentary) we can assume th at this text was not edi ted byMuan but was only used by him as a basis for hi s commentary.Could i t be that the text in quest ion was the oldes t printed edi tionof the Records of Yu nmen?

Scru tiny of all i tems of Muan's commentary" (see.. Zokuz6ky6 vol. 113:3dll... Mentioned in Zokuz6ky6 vol. 1136c5." See Table 4... See App , op. c it ., p. 241-245 for more detai led observa tions on information

contained in Muan's commentaryand their correspondence to the Records of Yunmen.

Table 4) allows us to draw the following conclusions about thecontents of the text which he commented on: Muan' s text had a preface which was different from that of 1053and that of 1076.93 The rest of Muan 's f irst chapter" is likely to have been almostident ical to tha t of the extan t Records of Yu nmen. The i tems ofMuan's commentary appear in exact ly the same sequence as inthe first chapter of the extant text, and there is a natural rhythm (afew items per page) which indicates that no major part of the tex twas missing. At the end of this text's first chapter, however, therewere some verses that are now located at the end of the thirdchapter of the Records of Yu nmen. The second chapter of Muan's text" corresponds quite closely tothe second section of today's second chapter, and Muan's "[Words]f rom ins ide the [Master's] Room"" is with some differencescongruent with the first section of today 's second chapter . Thusthese two sections correspond, though differently arranged, to theentire second chapter of the extant Records of Yu nmen. At the very end of Muan's text ther e was a smal l amoun t o fdifferent material, probably of biographical content.

.. Entries from Zokuz6ky6 vol. 113: 2a9 to 3al5 (fust 24 items)" Muan calls the whole fust chapter (including preface and verses) "FirstPart of the

Records ofYunmen" ~ r , j g ( L ... Muan terms this section "Second Partof the Recordsof Yunrnen" ~ r ' j g ( r ... Muan names this section 'Inside theRoom" ~ q : . .


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44 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 45 Apart from poems at the end, the re is only a relat ively sma lltrace of the third chapter of the extant Records of Yu nmen." Thei tems are so few and scattered that i t is l ike ly tha t Muan's textcontained only small fragments of today's third chapter. Muan's precise references to the woodblock edition' he usedallow the reconstruction of the approximate format of his text (seeTable 6): a minimum of sixty-six lines were carved on each plate(three segments with min. 22 lines), and one plate containedapproximately as much text as one th ird o f a Tai sh6 page. If weassume that it included a preface and a text of the length of today 'sfirst and s econd chapt er s we arrive at a total n umbe r ofapproximately sixty-eight plates. Muan's commentary appears to have exer ted a deep influenceon l at er edi to rs of the Records of Yu nmen s ince the extant textfollows Muan's corrections most of the time.

Let us at this point briefly recapitulate the two firststages in the making of the Records of Yu nmen: in the first s tagewe were dealing with notes and early manuscr ip ts o f hazydimensions and content; with the exception of some Zutangjianecdotes they correspond for the most part to the extant record'sf irst chapter , which forms no more than 27% of the whole extanttext . In the second stage (early printed editions) we found quite

. , SeeTable5. i tems 8al. 8a3-4 ,9al7-l8, 9bl7, lOb13, and lObl6

detailed evidence for materials that now form most of the extan trecord's first and second chapters, that is, about seventy percent ofthe extant Records of Yu nmen." In spite of editorial work on theseearly printed texts it appears likely that their content showed nomajor d ivergences. In the thi rd stage, which we approach now,the third and last chapter of the extant text - of which onlyminute traces were found at ea rli er s tages - enters fully into thepicture.

. . The flfSt chapter contains about 27%, the secondabout 42% of the extant Records ofYunmen.


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v. THIRD STAGE:

THE COMPREHENSIVE RECORDS.

1. THE SUXIE EDITION OF 1076

Muan finished writing his commenta ry in 1108,an d it is surprising, to say the least , that he d oe s no t make anymention of the Su Xie edition of 1076. Since this latter edit ion isalso lost we cannot bu t trust Su Xie's preface regarding its content.But since it is possible that this preface was at some later pointtampered with to provide retrospective coverage or justificationfor the inclusion of addi tional materials, we had better makeassertions about t he p re fa ce rather tha n a bo ut the text itrepresents. This preface by Su Xie mentions a variety of additionalmaterials that are now found in the t hi rd chapt er o f t he Recordsof Yu nmen. The relevant portion of this preface reads as follows:

What is t ransmi tted to pos teri ty compr isesResponses to Questioners J t ~ , Records from [theTeacher's] Room Statements and Substitute[Answers] :ft, Critical Examinations WJHf, and theBiographical Record fTU. As many years have passed and[the text] contained errors and differences, I have now

consulted [other texts], corrected [them], and had anunique new edition carved on printing blocks. May it beeternally disseminated, assist in the forging and tempering.. of one's own matter'a> [so that it becomes pure like ?] theclang of the metal [bell] and the sound of the [sounding]stone,'01 and the precipitous world breaks like tiles andmelts away like ice'02

If [you] divide into sects and layout branches youwill not avoid confusion and errors. [Again,] discussingmerits and writing about virtue means already betrayingthe sages of old. [Furthermore,] establishing patterns andsetting up models is.only good for hoodwinking futurestudents. [Now] if you have the eye [of wisdom] on the

.. Qianchui the blacksmith's tongs and hammer. This expression is often foundin connection with religious training (for instance in the prefaces of the Linjilu ~ j j ! f U amof the Biyanlu ~ . U ) . Cf. Mujaku D6chii's comment in Kallo gosen JJiiffli-tli, Kyoto;Chiibun shuppansha c:pJtllijH, 1979. (volume 9 T of the Zengaku s6sho I W - ~ ~ .edited by YanagidaSeizan - W P 1 I I ~ L 1 J ) , p.903.

,a>Benfen *?t. The expression benfen qianchui is for instance also found in the thirdchapter of the Records of Master Mingjue ( ~ : l : I i i G i I i ~ ! U ) . After a monk mentionedMaster Deshan's beating somebody, Mingjue said: "In the manner of pure gold which isrefmed a hundred times, onemust forge and temperone's very own matter." (T47, No.I998,686bI9). Cf. also Paul Demieville's masterly discussion of the meanings of fen ?t inthe Annuaire du College de France 1948-1949, pp. 158-160.

101 Jinsheng er yuzhen - i i ~ f f i i :fW. The sound of the metal [bell) and the vibration ofthe [sounding) stone. Bell and sounding stone produce two of the traditional eight sounds(the others being sounds brought forth by pottery, hides, silk strings, wood, gourds, andbamboo). Orchestral performances startedwith the sound of the bell and ended with that ofthe sounding stone; hence the meaning "beginning and end" which may also playa rolehere.

101 Wajie er bing xiao 1LMffii}j(Wj: literaUy, "tiles break and ice melts": a simileforbreaking through or awakening. Cf. the classic example in case 32 of the Blue Clif fRecords ~ . U Taisho vol. 48: 172a9-10 and another example in the Letters of Dahui*r.;... Taisho vol. 47:919a28.


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48 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 49top of the head, where will you meet Yunmen?"

[Written] on the twenty-fifth day of the third month of thefifty-third [hexagenary] yearduring the Xining reign f f l l ~P'ilOC (1076) by Su Xie, in charge as Vice-legate of Transport of the Regions East and West of the Zhe River withAuthority over Exports l f U ~ j l i i l i J # J T n i I { l ; I j ~ 1 } .

- Responding to Individual Abilities !:ttl: Yunmenlu 545a16-553blO- Records from [the Teacher's] Room Yunmenlu 553c24-56Ic04- Statements and Substitute [Answers] ~ H t : Yunmenlu 561c05-567b05- Critical Examinations l I J j ~ : Yunmenlu 567b16-573b03

Though one cannot say with certainty how muchand wha t s or t of textual material was conta ined in the chaptersthat are mentioned in Su Xie's preface, i t appea rs tha t i t featurednot only the whole or parts of the extant Record's first and secondchapters but also much of the third:

about 500 lines of the Records of Yu nmen's "CriticalExaminations" are found in earlier texts (five in the Zutangji andthree in the Jingde-Records of the Transmission of the Lamp. Inthe case of the Biographical Record, there is no earlier evidence atall. 103 I t hi nk i t quite possible that Su Xie's "collat ion" effortincluded adding these par ts . His text can thus be cal led the f ir st"Comprehensive Record" J 1 ( ~ - a term which is not yet used bySu Xie bu t indeed appears in the title o f the o ldes t extan t and allsubsequent editions of Master Yunmen's records.

The contrast between the content mentioned in thepreface to Su Xie's text and that of earlier versions is striking. Thetext commented on by Muan for instance contained hardlyanyth ing of Records of Yu nmen's third chapter, Le. i ts totalvolume amounted at most to about two thirds of today 's text. Incont ras t, Su Xie's text - if we trust this preface - appears to haveh ad a t least nine tenths of the volume of the extant text. The onlyparts that are included in today's Records but go unmentioned inSu Xie's preface are some poems104 the "Record of Pilgrimages" itt

: n J l ~ , " . the Master's Testament * ~ i j i J l ~ , ' " his "Admonitions" 1I

Yunmenlu 544c26-545a12

Yunmenlu 575c03-576a16

- Su Xie's preface:

- The Biographical Record q T ~ ;

Su Xie's text o f 1076 was thus - if we are to bel ievethis preface -probably the first to include the Biographical Recordand the whole of the "Critical Examinations". Only seven out of

,.. Though its style suggests common authorship with the first stone inscription, itincludes later biographicalelements and has at least undergonea later editorialpass if it wasnot entirely written by a gifted writerfamiliar with thestone inscription of 959.

'04 Thish6 vol. 47 chapter I: 553bll-c16 and chapter 3: 576b19-c29,.. T47: 573b4-575a20'04 T47:575a2I-bll


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50 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 51~ , ' 0 1 and the "Petition" ~ j ! j W f E . " 1 I These parts amount t o l es s thanten percent of today's Yunmenlu and were soon to be added byYuanjue Zongyan , the edi to r of t he v er sio n which was laterreproduced to form the ear lies t extant version of the Records ofYunmen.

2. THE YUANIUE ZONGYAN O O ~ * 1 9 l : EDITION (AROUND1144)

The last line of the Records of Yu nmen's oldestextant complete text which forms part of the Song-text of theRecorded Sayings of the Old Venerables (Guzunsu yuluJ J : ! i ~ ~ ~ m f ~at the Taiwanese Nat ional Central Library 1 E ~ ~ . r r 9 ' : 9 c I l l 1 ! f t E l is:"Collated by Yuanjue Zongyan on Mt. Gu in Fuzhou" {HiiltHltllJlIlJJi:*791t(l!b. The Records' Taisho text features this line not jus t oncebu t at the end o f ea ch chaptee09 Furthermore, at the end ofchapter three, the Taisho tex t adds: "Pr in ting blocks engraved byWang Yi on Mt. Gu in Fuzhou" {&1:E1iiltHltllJ.:EifHIJ.

I t is unfor tuna te tha t Zongyan 's edi tion is nolonger extant. However, the colophons mentioned above indicatethat the oldest extant complete text of the ComprehensiveRecords of Yu nmen is nothing other than a re-publ icat ion of the

'01 T47: 575b12-c2110 T47:576a19-b6,.. T47(1988): 553cl8, 567b7, and 576c28.

1144 Zongyan text. Until someone finds counter-evidence, wemust thus assume that Zongyan is the edi tor of tha t lost edition ofthe Records of Yu nmen which became the sole source of all latereditions. There is thus no need to f ur th er emphasi ze theimportance of the role that this man p lay ed i n t he history of theRecords of Yunmen - and other Chan records, for that matter.'1DLet us now have a brief look at this man and his work.

Not very much is known about Yuanjue Zongyan.He was a master of the eighth generat ion of the Yunmen line andl ived fou r Chan generations after the editor of the 1053 text,Tianyi Yihuai. Shiina thinks that Zongyan l ived from 1074 until1146.'" Shiina came to this conclusion based on informationfound in the fifth chapter of the Xuefeng Gazetteer ] ' , 1 ~ i i ! ; . .Scholarly opinion is divided as to when he edited the Records ofYu nmen; Yanagida favors a date around 1120,'u bu t Shiina has

110 See Yanagida, Kosonshuku goroku ko J : ! i ~ 1 i i ~ ! f ~ : ' l t " . In: Yanagida Seizan mffi~ l l J , cd., Guzunsu yuyao i!i#1ifllflJf (Song edition). ed., Zengaku sOsho ~ * : a : i ! Fseries vol. 1. Kyoto: Chfibun shuppansha 9'xtl:\XtH, 1973, pp. 281-328.

'" Shiina, op. cit., p.190111 See" Zenseki kaidai 1 J i ! ~ M m " (Nishitani Keiji " @ ' ~ F , g : m and YanagidaSeizan m

f f i ~ llJ 2 eds., Zcnkegoroku II i J i f * l l f ~ II. Tokyo: Chikuma shob ~ . 1 ! f m : , 1974,p. 475); in Yanagida, Seizan ~ f f i ~ l l J , Rinzairoku J ! t t ; ~ . Tokyo: Daizo shuppansha*iltl:\AA1, 1972 (Butten koza ( L ~ ~ ~ series, volume 30), p.17; and in "Goroku norekishi ~ ! f ~ ( 7 ) J f t 5 e " , ToM gakuM JI(jjfJffl (Kyoto) 57 (1985), p. 576, Yanagidadoesnot furnish anyevidence other than the similarity of the editing of the Records of Yunmenand that of the Records of Linji. Because Zongyan's job on the Records of Linji wasfinished in 1120 when Ma Fangwrotea preface for that text, Yanagida gathers that the jobon the Records of Yunmen was also being done around this time.


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52 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 53good evidence to support the theory that this took place between1143 and 1145, shortly before Zongyan's death.'"

Since Yuanjue Zongyan fathered not only the oldes textant version of the Records of Yu nmen bu t also th at o f theRecords of Linji, a comparison of the s tructure of these two texts isof interest. Both D e m h ~ v i l l e and Yanagida point out1< that i t wasprobably Zongyan who divided the Records of Linji into fiveparts. Although further scrutiny of Zongyan's col la tion of theRecords of Linji (which also takes texts such as the Guzunsu yuluJ : ! i ~ ~ ~ l f i i k and Sijia yulu / Wujia yulu 1 2 Y * ~ l f i i k / . l i * ~ l f i i k intoaccount) is needed, III it seems probable that the Su Xie edition andpossibly older edi tions of the Records of Yu nmen functioned asmodels for the editorial work on the Records of Linji and possiblyother similar Chan records.

To come back to the Records of Yu nmen : It isprobable that Zongyan added most par ts of the Records ofYu nmen which contain biographical information (Biographical

'" Shiina bases this view mainly on evidence found in chapter 4 of the GushanGazetteer ltWiit. There ( : l t ~ I C 1 F 1 i f l f l J * , ~ I 2 Y , 12a-13a) it is said that Zongyan movedto Mt. Gu in the yea r 1143, and tha t in 1145 he moved again to Mt. Xuefeng. Shi inaconcludes that if Zongyan died in 1146 (see note 188) he must have edited the Yunmenguanglu between 1143 and 1145. There is no fum evidence to contradict this argument.

", See Demieville, Paul, Les entretiens de Lin-lsi. Paris: Fayard, 1972, p.12 andYanagida, Seizan . f ! , \ J m ~ L 1 t , Rinzairoku f i J l ~ i i < . Tokyo: Daiw shuppansha *iitl:lX&U,1972 (Butten koza 1 k ~ ~ J M series, volume 30), p. 16 ff.

lIS See for instance Yanagida, Seizan - t 9 P m ~ L 1 t , "Goroku no rekishi ~ l f i i k ( 7 ) J 1 i B e ".ToM gakuM JI.t:n!la (Kyoto) 57 (1985), pp. 558-578.

Record, Record of Pilgrimages , the Master' s Tes tament , his Las tInstructions, and the Petition with the dre am account) andpossible that he contributed a great deal to the rest of the thirdchapter. We do not know what source texts Zongyan used whileedit ing the Records of Yu nmen, but he must at least have hadaccess to Muan' s commentary because in the extant text most o fMuan's suggestions for correction of that text are followed. Onecannot exclude the possibi li ty , however, t ha t such correctionswere already introduced in the Su Xie edition and simply adoptedby Zongyan or were pu t into place during the editing process ofthe Guzunsu yulu.

It is l ik el y t ha t Zongyan had access to othermaterials published in the first half of the twelfth century,particularly the Chanlin sengbaozhuan.... The listing of thecorrespondences of this text's Yunmen section to the Records ofYu nmen (Table 7) shows that the materials now found in the f ir stchapter of the Records a re most similar. Materials now found inboth sections of the Record' s second chapter show some moredifferences bu t are nevertheless similar. The major biographicalsections of the third chapter are represented, bu t i t is remarkablethat only a singl e epis ode i n t he Sengbaozhuan stems f rom theCritical Examination W J ~ $ section o f the t hi rd chap ter - a secti onwhich makes up no less than one fifth of the extant Records ofYunmen! Was the Sengbaozhuan's author no t awa re of these

116 JIi#1iBtft; jap. Zenrin sob6den (published in 1108).


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54 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 55materials, o r d id he choose not to include them?

There is one more source stemming from the firsthal f o f t he twelfth century which ought to provide some hints asto what Yunmen materials could have been available to authorsof that period: the Zongmen tongyao.1l7 This text features famousremarks b y Chan masters and comments about these remarks,and it is to be expected that the sections in the Records of Yu nmenwhich have a similar character (the "Essence o f Words fromI ns id e t he [Master's] Room" ~ ~ ~ f r ~ of chapter two and theRecord of Pilgrimages J k t J J : i I ~ of chapter three) are bestrepresented. Remarkable, apart from the passages not featured inthe Records of Yu nmen, is the near absence in the Zongmentongyao of anything f rom the second part of its second chapter(Statements and Subst itute Answers).1l8

In the part of the Zongmen tongyao which dealsdirectly with Yunmen's sayings, ". the "Critical Examination" 1JJUfsection of the Record's third chapter is rather well represented(eight passages); on the other hand, the Record's first chapter(which usually received most of the attention) is only represented

117 * r ~ > t t ~ ; jap. Shumon toyo. I used a photocopy of the Song edition stored inthe Toyo bunko JIU'FJ'eJ!!' in Tokyo. See Table 8.

lit ~ ~ f U 1 L Only Zongmen tongyao * r ~ > t t ~ 780.4-6/ Yunmenlu ~ r ~ ~ 562a18-20. Incidentally, the situation is notvery different in the Liandenghuiyao m ~ 1 f ~ w h i c hfeatures to my knowledge only two passages from this part (Zdruzokyo 136: 414b14-16and 414c7-8).

11. Zongmen tongyao * r ~ ~ ~ 770-785.

by four passages and one poem. In somewhat later sources whichare no t dealt with in this article (such as the Blue Cliff Records~ and the Chanmen niansongji I W r H t i 1 J ~ ) we find a much moreeven distribution of sayings attributed to Yunmen which are nowfound in the Records of Yu nmen.

Though this additional information does not proveanything concerning Zongyan's editorial activities, it shows thata t le as t some of the materials which (probably) he used forforming the Comprehensive Records of Yu nmen were alsoavailable to other authors whose works appeared before oraround the time when Zongyan was busy with his new edition.

Having said all this, the role o f Zongyan i n theediting process is still far from clear. We can for instance not saywith certainty whether it was him who added the said parts ofchapter three or an earlier editor or whether this was the work ofsome later editor who, for whatever reason, left the Zongyancolophon in place.

But before we come to th e e nd of the story of themaking of the oldest extant edition of theComprehensive Recordsof Yu nmen (Le. that con ta in ed i n t he Guzunsu yulu whichdiffers very little from all subsequent ones) there is one more textthat merits our attention, less because of what it does than becauseof what it does not include.


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56 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 573. THE XUKAI GUZUNSU YUYAO EXCERPTS""

This tex t was publi shed in 1238 by Hushi Shiming~ * B i l i O O f rom Mt. Gu JaW as an addition to the Guzunsu yuyao

i i ~ . m ~ l f ~ . With the significant exception of the Records of Linji,a ll records in thi s supplement give only excerpts of larger bodiesof text. Table 9 shows in detail how this text's portion on Yunmenrelates to the extant Records of Yu nmen.

The t ot al volume which this text devotes toYunmen amounts to approximately 250 Taish6 l ines which isonly about ten percent of the Records of Yu nmen's total volume.Editor Hushi probably included bits and pieces from a bas ic textwhich appears to have contained parts or the whole of the extan tRecords of Yu nmen's first and second chapter plus the "Recordof Pilgrimages" of chapter three . Since the re a re pract ical ly notextual discrepancies and the sequence of Hushi's text is total lycongruent with tha t o f the extant Records of Yunmen, we mayassume that the edi tors of these texts rel ied on an ident ical sourcetext or that one used materials from the other.

But, apart f rom the fact that Hushi's text featuresonly a limited sel ec ti on of Yunmen-materi al s we note animportant difference: Hushi's text shows no trace of thevoluminous first part ("Critical Examinations" !11m> and of the

". ~ ~ i i ~ . m ~ l f ~ . Zokuz6ky6 vol. 118.

last few sections of the Records of Yu nmen's third chapter. Wasthis simply a decision by editor Hushi, or did he have a text whichdid not include the "Crit ical Examinations"? In view of theattitude of the editor towards the first two chapters and the Recordof Pilgrimages, one wou ld expect t ha t h ad he used YuanjueZongyan's text of 1076 , he woul d have included at least somel ines from the Cri tica l Examinations. Shi ina concludes that thee di to r Hush i Shiming must have left ou t the "CriticalExaminations" mater ia l on purpose,m bu t this very purpose

h .?remains unc lear . Did he regard these materia ls as unaut entlc.But rather than speculating about reasons we will never fathom,we could also consider the possibi li ty that these examinationssimply d id not form part of t he Records of Yu nmen that Hushiknew.

Subsequen t edi ti ons o f the Records of Yu nmenbear great s im ilar ity to the oldest extant edi tion; Shiina122 haslisted such editions and inquired into their mutual relationships.For this art icle, however, the s tory ends here with the emergenceof the oldest extant text of the Comprehensive Records ofYunmen.

121 Shiina, op. cit.. p. 195.", Shiina, op. cit


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VI. CONCLUSION

First StageThe three s tages which can be t raced in the making

of the Comprehensive Records of Yu nme n are likely also to bepresent i n the making of various other Chan "Recorded Sayings".The first stage (notes and note collections), undoubtedly the mostcrucial with respect to the faithfulness of reproduction, choice ofmaterials, and overall quality of the records, is in most caseshardly discernible if no t totally lost in historical obscurity.Everything depends on early sources, bu t in most cases suchsources are not available. Even in such an exceptional case as thato fYunmen - where we have some nearly contemporary sourceswhich s ta te that notes were actually taken - we have to face ourinability to assert much more. Not even the ident ity of the notetakers can be known with certainty, and in spite of the existence ofthe nearly contemporary alternative sources which were analyzedabove, we a re left i n the dark as to the ex ten t and quali ty of thenote materials at the time of the master's death. All we canusually say is that some early source material did find its way intothe extant records and some did not. In the case of Yunmen'sRecords almost al l of the traceable non-biographical materia l is

now f ound in the first 27% (chapter I) of the extant text. Whilesuch information may throw some light on the relat ions ofsources to each other i t does not , however, c larify the relat ion ofearly sources to the actual words of the master. So, as in the case ofSocrates, we must in most cases do with the musings andrecollections of disciples e nd owed w ith va rious degre es ofmemory, insight, literary talent, and fantasy . Was (or were) thenote taker(s) and early editor(s) to Yunmen what the evangelistswere to Jesus? Or wha t Plato was to Socrates? Or what Eckermannwas for Goethe and Frauenstadt for Schopenhauer: secretarieswith an eye for detai ls but without the intel lectual capacity tograsp le t alone present their masters' thought nea rl y as well asthey could do it themselves? We do not know, and we probablynever will.

Second StageThe second stage, that of early editions, is difficult

to reconstruct in spi te of a general ly greater amount of availablesources. The main difficulty at this stage lies, apart from the lossof ear ly edi tions, in the lack of knowledge about the editors andthe paucity or non-existence of information about the editorialprocesses which led to such editions. Most of the t ime we have torely on early prefaces which could equal ly have been subject tolater editorial "improvements" and a re thus not above suspicion.


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60 The Making of a ChanRecord The Making of a Chan Record 61In the case of Yunmen's Records we can for this stage fortunatelyrely, in addit ion to such ear ly prefaces, on a commentary to a los tedition. This puts us in the position to notice that early editionsprobably contained a good two-thi rds of the extan t tex t in a moreor less similar order.

But the case of the Records o f Yu nmen isexceptional not only because of this commentary bu t also becauseit was apparently first printed less than one century a fter themaster 's death. This does not necessarily make i t more faithful tothe original teachings of the master, bu t it may have se t somelimits to the creative urges of later editors. With other texts,particularly texts of "sectarian" interest such as the Records ofLinji or the Records of Dongshan, the role of Song and even latereditors acquires an ever greater weight. Of course, even differentvers ions of the texts on which such records were based showsignificant dif ferences . A tel ling and interesting example iscertainly found in the making of the Records of Linji ; it isstriking how much three versions of a supposedly identical textwhich formed one o f i ts majo r source s and s tems from 1004'"differ - and how similar the more souped-up versions are to the

'" I refer of course to the Jingdc-Rccords of the Transmission of the Lamp : J i t ~ ~ ~the versions in quest ion are the Song version (Yanagida, Seizan ~ H l ~ L 1 . J [ed.] ,

Zengaku sosho ~ * i t . vol. 6. Kyoto: Chfibun shuppansha ~ X l f j x t i f , 1976), theDongchansi * ~ ~ version (KeitokuDentoroku Jjt1f.j{(!f.miJ. Kyoto: Zenbunka kenkyfijo

f J i ! . x 1 t . f i J f ~ m , 1990) and the Korean version (Yanagida, op. cit.)

earl iest extant Records of Linji'" whi ch was also edited byZongyan Yuanjue.

Third stageIn the third stage (Comprehensive Records) we are

usual ly so far away from the life and t each ing act iv ity of themasters and so ignorant of what wen t on ear li er in the editingprocess of their records that we can do little more than comparetexts and versions of texts with each other to f ind ou t what waschanged or added dur ing the final editing process of the extantversions. In the case of Yunmen's Records we saw that this las tstep probably involved the addition of almost one third of theextant text and possibly also some rearrangement of parts of thewhole. In the case of o ther text s such as the Records of Linji, thisthird phase involved even more substantial editorial activity.

Textual comparisons make the value of the fewrelatively uncorrupted early sources all the more apparent. Whilefor ear ly Chan we have a t reasur e t rove of information f rom theDunhuang caves, the situation is much less favorable for classical

,>4 This example was partly chosen because oneof these versions of the Jingdc-RecorrJsof the Transmission of the Lamp : l l t ~ ~ ~ ~ , the Dongchansi * ) j f . ~ edition, appearedonly recently (see previous note) and partly because the earliest extant versions of both theRecords ofLinji and thoseof Yunmen were, as mentionedabove, edited by the same man.


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62 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a Chan Record 63Chan since there is, with the exception of the Collection from theHall of the Founders (Zutangji) an d epigraphical sources, littlematerial that di d no t pass through the hands of Song editors.H o we v er , b y comparing what little information we can ge t ou t ofs uc h e ar ly source materials with the "finished product"; we cang ai n at least some limited ins ight into the extent an d quali ty ofeditorial w o rk w hi ch eventually led to the Recorded Sayings thatwe know. The contras t between the Zutangji materials an d latermaterials o n b ot h Yunmen an d Linji are very interesting cases inpoint.

Ultimately, even a totally d oc um en te d a ndt r ans p aren t ed i ti n g process could not so lv e t he more basicquestion of ho w the content of these records corresponds to theactual w or d s t h at the Chan masters spoke. Additionally, there areof course a lso a variety of other aspects which should be takeninto account an d were no t e ve n t ou ch ed upon in this paper. It hi nk h er e for instance of th e idiosyncrasies of linguisticexpression, teaching methods, favorite quotes, manner of dealingw i th s t ud ent s , etc. which sometimes pu t a certain characteristics ta mp o n a master's teaching. Why is it, for instance , that theRecords of Yu nmen bear in their vocabulary an d overall "flavor"s o m uc h resemblance to the Records of Muzhou?w Ho w much oft hi s "flavor" is the work of editors? What differences can beobserved in this respect in a relatively idiosyncratic an d

w ~ t H ~ l f ~ . Zokuzokyo vol.ll9.

uncorrupted source such as t he Zutangji ? What linguistic an dother leads permit a clearer definition of the principles an d extentof editorial work?'"

We still s ta nd a t the beginning of s uc h w or k in thesphere of classical Chan, an d it is to be expected t h at f u rt he rresearch will increase our knowledge of the quality an d extent ofSong edi to rial changes , of the history of the "pr imary" sourcematerials, and by imp li cation of the va lue o f t hese sourc es forresearch on various aspects of classical Chan.

,,. For the detennination of the influence of later editors on such texts much may beexpected from linguistic research. Such research was pioneered by my teacher Prof. Iriyawho has lectured on the Records of Yunmen for almost a decade and who at age eightyretires from the faculty of Hanazono College with the appearance of this journal. To himthis paper is dedicated in gratitude for many unforgettable excursions into the universe ofChineselanguage and thought andfor many hours of unselfish help.


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VII. TABLES OF TEXTUALCORRESPONDENCES

ThliliU: The Zutangji (952) and the Yunmenluw . : ~ t ~ r , ~

~ : The Stone Inscriptions (959/964) and the Yunmenlu1 i $ ~ t ~ r , ~

~ : The Jingde chuandenglu (1004) and theYunmenlu~ ~ { f ~ ~ t ~ r % ~

~ : The Linjianlu (1107) and the Yunmenlu* f : r d ' l ~ t ~ r , ~

Iil!!lU: The Zuting shiyuan (1108) and theYunmenluw . 1 l ! ~ f r i : t ~ r , ~

Table 6. Muan Shanqing's text (before 1108) and theYunmenlu~ J t t ' i ! f 9 l J P (!) T -t-A r t ~ r, ~

IaliliU: The Chanlin sengbaozhuan (1122) and the Yunmenluffi!i*f:-fi!lJt{f t ~ r , ~Ill!:lli


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66 The Making of a Chan Record The Making of a ChanRecord 67

Table 2: Relation of the Teaching Fragments contained in thetwo Stone Inscriptions Jftt1iI\!/1i1\!iii to the Records ofYunmen ~ ~

STELE STELE RECORDS REMARKSOF 959: OF 964: OF(S959) (S964) YUNMENlift-HI\! ~ I \ ! ~ ~ f 1 i f J .111.16- 117.02-03 573b05-1O (I) Yunmen's meeting with Muzhou.112.01 Ch. III Small difference between S959 and(Tokiwa ed. lfi:fJiEifJ S964, but marked differences

' M " ~ 575c15-16 especially in the introductory storyCh. III fiifJ between Yunmenlu and the stone

inscriptions and even between thetwo accounts in the Yunmenlu.

112.04-05 117.05-06 573b22-26 (2) Episode featuring Yunmen andPilgrim. record Xuefeng. Yunmenlu and S964 add aCh.1lI sequel whose content is similar andlfi:fJiEifJ whose answer by Yunmen isidentical. Yunmenlu has "three

pounds of flax" in place of S959 andS964's "two pounds of flax."

112.11 117.12 545b01-02 (3) Identical exchange; only slightlyCh. I, 1f.fJl different introduction (cf. CDL

f W ~ U T51:356c3 whichfeatures a different answer).

112.11-12 118.01 546b03 (4) S959 and Yunmenlu have theCh. I, 1f.fJl same exchange with a slightly

different introduction; S964 showsonly a minor stylistic difference.

112.16- - 553a09 (5) Exchange of Yunmen with the113.02 Ch. I, 1f.fJl emperor about the meaning of Chan.So

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App Making of Chan Record 1991