Of Buddhist Monks in the Eighteenth Century China // Исторический Журнал: Научные Исследования
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10.7256/2454-0609.2019.3.29613 Исторический журнал: научные исследования, 2019 - 3 History magazine - researches Правильная ссылка на статью: Lepneva M. — Life of Wenhai Fuju, Or How the Emperors Upheld the “School Awareness” of Buddhist Monks in the Eighteenth Century China // Исторический журнал: научные исследования. – 2019. – № 3. DOI: 10.7256/2454- 0609.2019.3.29613 URL: https://nbpublish.com/library_read_article.php?id=29613 Life of Wenhai Fuju, Or How the Emperors Upheld the “School Awareness” of Buddhist Monks in the Eighteenth Century China / Жизнь Вэньхай Фуцзюя: к вопросу о роли императоров Китая в поддержании "школьного сознания" буддийских монахов в XVIII веке Лепнева Мария Леонидовна аспирант, Бурятский государственный университет 670000, Россия, г. Улан-Удэ, ул. Смолина, 24а [email protected] Статья из рубрики "Личность в истории" Аннотация. Данная статья обращается к рассмотрению концепции «школьного сознания», которое в предшествующей литературе в основном осмысляется как результат проникновения китайских патриархальных устоев в буддийское сообщество на фоне ослабления государственного контроля в конце эпохи Мин. Особого внимания заслуживает то, что подобные умонастроения в рядах буддийских монахов сохранялись вплоть до конца XVIII века. Одним из заметных носителей «школьного сознания» на позднем этапе его существования стал Вэньхай Фуцзюй (1685-1765), предпринявший ряд шагов для упрочения престижа ветви Цяньхуа школы Винаи китайского буддизма. Для исследования его деятельности в данной работе произведён синтез сведений из различных источников, на основе чего получена целостная, хронологически упорядоченная биография. Анализ полученных результатов показал, что большинство действий Вэньхай Фуцзюя, выражающих его «школьное сознание», производились под влиянием потребностей и возможностей в рамках взаимодействия с императорами Ю нчжэном (1723-1735) и Цяньлуном (1736-1795). Это позволяет заключить, что со стороны официальной власти подобное стремление к закреплению доминирующих позиций конкретной буддийской школы оказалось ожидаемым и одобряемым. А значит, именно воздействие политики императоров могло служить активному поддержанию «генеалогического сознания» монахов в Китае на протяжении XVIII века. Ключевые слова: Китай, религия, буддизм, Ц ин, Ю нчжэн, Цяньлун, В иная, Цяньхуа, Вэньхай Фуцзюй, школьное сознание DOI: 10.7256/2454-0609.2019.3.29613 93 10.7256/2454-0609.2019.3.29613 Исторический журнал: научные исследования, 2019 - 3 Дата направления в редакцию: 29-04-2019 Дата рецензирования: 02-05-2019 Preface The term “school” (zongpai , 宗派) is central to the historical research of Buddhism in the late Ming and Qing China, with “schools” not only being a characteristic of gnoceological activity or cultivation practices of monks, but also a way to describe the organizational aspect of Buddhist community. As a “paradigm and method” of research of Chinese Buddhism, “school” was in the focus of discussion at the Academic Seminar on the Analysis, Interpretation and Reconstruction of the History of East Asian Buddhist Schools, which took place in Beijing on September 1-2, 2018 [11]. At the conference, Professor Zhang Xuesong pointed out that “school” should be interpreted differently when dealing with various historical periods and counties. He particularly stressed that in the Ming-Qing era “schools” were based on “genealogical systems of Dharma transmission, with succession from masters to disciples, and strong patriarchal sense” [26]. Indeed, the “schoolness” (zongpaixing , 宗派性) of Ming-Qing Budhism was brought to light long before, most notably in Yuukei Hasebe’s major article [7, p. 87-109], where he indicated four types of initiatives that reflected the phenomenon he meant to capture by this term, respectively: 1. Compilation of Lamp Records and School Histories; 2. Transformation of public monasteries into hereditary public monasteries (Dharma- transmission monasteries); 3. Compilation of monastery gazetteers to praise the strongholds of schools; 4. Adoption of monastic codes as daily regulations in the monasteries of the same school [7, p. 103]. A closer look at these four aspects reveals that while number 2 and 4 mostly highlight institutional innovation, number 1 and 3 mainly cover the ideological pitch of the relevant text compilers. Accordingly, there is no surprise that “school awareness” (zongpai yishi, 宗派 意識) of such works and their authors later came to be regarded as a separate matter worth researching, while Yuukei Hasebe himself mentioned “school-distinguishing awareness” (fenpai yishi , 分派意識) only once and even that one in the Conclusion of the article [7, p. 108]. In current Chinese scholarship “school awareness” is notably discussed with respect to Vinaya school (Lv zong , 律宗). Relevant articles, such as [25],[33],[34], examine particular writings of Vinaya patriarchs, showing how they sought superiority for their respective “schools” and refuted competing cases. Nevertheless, little is said about the stimuli that 94 10.7256/2454-0609.2019.3.29613 Исторический журнал: научные исследования, 2019 - 3 spurred these claims and clashes. In this respect, Yuukei Hasebe’s logic in 1991 and Professor Wang Song’s rhetoric at the aforementioned Conference in 2018 are in essence equivalent, stating that the development of Ming-Qing hereditary-oriented “schools” was a result of a diffusion of patriarchal schemes from the general society into the Buddhist community, which occurred progressively as the state control over clergy got lax in late Ming. These presentation of the prior findings being made, it becomes clear that the actual motifs for putting “school awareness” into practice still remain a blank spot. In other words, if indeed from the late Ming on, the successive patriarchs of proliferating “schools” were all tainted by partisan thinking and therefore highly “school aware”, why only a few turned into passionate promoters and protectors of their lineages? For example, in the aforementioned Vinaya school, its earlier eminent and prolific patriarchs of the late Ming and transition into Qing period, such as Sanmei Jiguang and Jianyue Duti, are not known to have taken much action to promote their “school”, while since the Kangxi generation of Ding-an Deji and Y ijie Shuyu on and into Yongzheng and Qianlong periods a frenzy to cultivate “school-awareness” is evident among Vinaya patriarchs. This paper makes the argument that, at least in the second and third quarter of the eighteenth century (Yongzheng and first half of Qianlong reign) the rise of practical activities to articulate the virtues and foster a high status for particular branches of Vinaya school was induced by the monk-emperor interaction. Here the figure of Wenhai Fuju 文海福 聚, the 7th patriarch of Qianhua school, a branch of the overall Vinaya school, is chosen as the focus of research, as he showed the most ample array of such activities. The first section of the paper gives a brief review of the Ming-Qing Vinaya revival and the role of Qianhua school and Wenhai Fuju within it. The second section provides a chronology of events concerning Wenhai Fuju and the monastery he headed during his abbotship term. The third part discusses the observations that were made by means of establishing this chronology, outlining the connection between the practical “school awareness” of Wenhai Fuju and his interactions with the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors. Qianhua branch of Vinaya school and its patriarch Wenhai Fuju The Vinaya school (Lv zong , 律宗) discussed here is what Yuukei Hasebe refers to as “the school of patriarch Gu” (guzu pai, 古祖派), meaning the stock of lineages that sprang from Guxin Ruxin 古心如馨 (1541–1615), who actively propagated Vinaya in Jiangnan region 江南 during the Wanli reign (1573-1620) and was summoned to the capital for an official vows transmission ceremony in 1615. Among the immediate disciples of Guxin Ruxin, the most prominent and prolific were Sanmei Jiguang 三昧寂光 (1580-1645) and Jianyue Duti 見月讀體 (1601-1679), who were respectively the first and second Vinaya abbots of Longchang monastery at Mt Baohua 寶華山 near Nanjing. Not surprisingly, both of them had a number of disciples that spread their teaching elsewhere in China, forming a Qianhua school, or the school of Thousand Flowers (Qianhua pai, 千华派) within the greater Vinaya school, named so after the society of practitioners established by Sanmei Jiguang at Mt Baohua with reference to the relevant image in sutras. Another consequence produced by the eminence of Sanmei and his disciple Jianyue was that the monks of the next generation started to conceptualize the sequence of these renowned Vinaya masters as a particular lineage endowed with special virtues. An interesting insight in such historiographic exercises by Y ijie Shuyu 宜潔書玉 (1645-1722), a Dharma heir of Jianyue, can be found in an relevant article [14]. Remarkably, Jianyue’s students were on peak of their activities as abbots during the Buddhism-engaging Kangxi reign, with the 95 10.7256/2454-0609.2019.3.29613 Исторический журнал: научные исследования, 2019 - 3 Kangxi emperor even visiting and renaming the Mt Baohua monastery from Longchang 隆昌寺 into Huiju 慧居寺. The proliferation of Vinaya school descending from Guxin Ruxin is well-described in the works of Yuukei Hasebe [8; 9, p. 231-48; 10, p. 113-39] and Shi Shengkai [25]. All of these papers demonstrate the dominance of Qianhua school, with its main branch staying on Mt Baohua and subbranches spreading to other areas of Jiangnan as well as outer regions such