Jifei Ruyi's Calligraphy 即非如一 in The San Diego Museum of Art

Copyright by The San Diego Museum of Art

My friend Diana Chou is right now Associate Curator of East Asian Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. She showed me a rare piece of Jifei Ruyi's calligraphy in the SDMA collection. I did a little bit research and documented it here as a note for future research. The image is kindly provided by the San Diego Museum of Art and used here with permission. All rights reserved. 

This is the first poem by the Chinese Chan Monk Jifei Ruyi 即非如一 (1616-1671) in his "Songs for the Twelve Peaks of Mount Huangbo" 詠黃檗十二峰, probably written in Feb. 5, 1661 (seventh day of the first month 孟陬人日) when he was in Japan. The full text is as follows:

寶峰

形山啟自檗山翁

鎮國之名今古通

富貴潑天無取捨

大家都在寶林中

黄檗即非書於伊井

This poem is included in Complete Records of Chan Master Jifei (Jifei chanshi quanlu 即非禪師全錄),Juan 16, compiled and published in 1694.It is also reprinted in Shinsan kōtei Sokuhi zenshū / Hirakubo Akira hen 新纂校訂卽非全集 , ed. by Hirakubo Akira 平久保章編. kyōto-shi: Shibunkaku Shuppan, Heisei 5 [1993]京都市 : 思文閣出版, 平成5 [1993]，第二卷，第893頁，“詠黃檗十二峰”，第一首。

According to Hirakubo Akira, an album entitled "Songs for the Twelve Peaks of Mount Huangbo" (Huangbo shi'erfeng shi 黃檗十二峰詩) is extant and preserved in Kenshoji in Mie 三重縣見性寺. This album includes a painting of Huangbo Monastery in Fuqing, China by Xie Tu'nan 謝圖南 whose name is identical with a Southern Song bureaucrat. The painting is followed by Jifei's preface, his twelve poems, and a postscript by his disciple Xinghe 性合, probably Chinese monk Hualin Xinghe or Xingying 化林性合/偀 according to which the poems could have been composed in 1646 when Jifei was still in China. (See also a Japanese site on Xingying.) It is not clear if this piece of calligraphy in the SDMA collection is related to this album. (Shinsan kōtei Sokuhi zenshū, vol. 1, p. 5.)

A digital version of the text included in the Jiaxing Buddhist Canon 嘉興藏 can be accessed through the CBETA collection.

http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/zh-cn/J38nB425_016

Chinese Buddhist Temple Kek Lok Si 極樂寺 in Penang Malaysia

 I recently came across the history of Kek Lok Si in Penang, Malaysia.  It was actually founded by the Chinese monk Miaolian （Beow Lean, born 1844) 妙蓮 from Gushan Monastery 鼓山湧泉寺 in Fuzhou, Fujian in late 1890s. The most important event is that in 1904 the Qing government bestowed a entire set of the Dragon Canon 龍藏 to the monastery. The canon is still there and mentioned in the monastic gazetteer composed in 1923.

Xi'an Historical Atalas autographed by Shi Nianhai 史念海

I was surprised that a book I interlibrary-loaned from UCLA East Asian Library was autographed by Prof. Shi Nianhai 史念海 （1912-2001）, a renowned historical geographer at Shaanxi Normal University 陕西师范大学, which I just visited during the summer. He signed this copy in 1996 for Prof. I-Shou Wang王益寿 , now emeritus professor at Department of Geography, California State University, Northridge. Apparently Prof. Wang was teaching in Xi'an at that time and donated the book to UCLA upon his retirement.

Presentation on the Obaku Canon in Madrid, Spain

Glad to have a chance to present at a conference in Madrid, Spain about the Obaku Canon in Eurupe.

Conference: When the Himalaya Meets with Alps: International Forum on Buddhist Art & Buddhism's Transmission to Europe

Title: Finding the First Chinese Tripitaka in Europe: The 1872 Iwakura Mission in Britain and the Mystery of Ōbaku Canon in the India Office Library

Abstract: Although the creation of the Chinese Buddhist canon is a well-known event in East Asian cultural sphere, little is known about when and how Westerners became interested in this great textual tradition. As far as I know, the first Chinese Buddhist canon in Europe was a version of Northern Ming Canon which was reprinted in the main section of the Jiaxing canon and later in the Obaku canon in 1673 in Japan because of the promotion of the Jiaxing canon by the Chinese monk Yinyuan Longqi (1592-1673), the founder of the Japanese Obaku Zen tradition. In the late nineteenth century, Max Müller (1823-1900), the early pioneer in comparative religion, started a massive translation project of “Sacred Books of the East.” For this project, a request for Buddhist books was sent to Japan and the Japanese ambassador Iwakura Tomomi (1825-1883), the court noble who initiated the Meiji Restoration, responded with a delivery of an entire set of the Obaku edition to the Indian Office Library in London. (This set of the canon is still housed in London) Sinologist Samuel Beal (1825-1889) and Max Müller’s Japanese student Nanjō Bunyū (1849-1927) translated its entire catalogue into English in 1876 and 1883 respectively. In an attempt to rediscover the first Chinese canon in the West, my paper will investigate various historical events leading to the arrival of this canon in Europe and how Western interests in Eastern religions brought the canon to Britain through diplomatic maneuvers.

Reviews of Spreading Buddha's Word in East Asia

So far, our book has received two positive reviews. Thanks the reviewers for their work.

Courtney Bruntz. Review of Wu, Jiang; Chia, Lucille, eds., Spreading Buddha's Word in East Asia: The Formation and Transformation of the Chinese Buddhist Canon. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. July, 2016.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=46783

Chun-fang Yu. Review of Wu, Jiang; Chia, Lucille, eds., Spreading Buddha's Word in East Asia: The Formation and Transformation of the Chinese Buddhist Canon.J Am Acad Relig (2016) 84 (2): 574-578.
doi: 10.1093/jaarel/lfw020
First published online: April 3, 2016
URL: http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/84/2/574.extract

Dongming Temple 東明寺 in Zhejiang

Last May (2015), during the conference on Jingshan Canon in Hangzhou, I visited the rebuilt Dongming monastery 東明寺 which is not far away from Jingshan. It is a very important monastery in the early and late Ming Buddhism. Legend says the Jianwen emperor 建文帝 of the Ming did not die during the bloody war his uncle Yongle launched. Instead, He fled Nanjing and hid in Dongming monastery as a monk. There is still an old tree he planted. The temple structure was destroyed by the Japanese bombing during the war. A huge controversy broke out during the late Ming about the identities of several early Ming monk along Dongming Huichan's 東明慧旵 line of transmission: Haizhou Ci 海舟慈, Baofeng Xuan 寶峰瑄, I have discussions about this dispute in my Enlightenment in Dispute (Oxford 2008, p. 38, 304) and will write more in future blogs.

Tanaka Chisei's New Book on Obaku Manpukuji's Annual Ritual Routine and Monastic Ceremonies 田中智誠 著: 黄檗山の十二ヶ月

I am honored to receive from Tanaka Chisei 田中智誠 Osho three copies of his new book on Obaku Annual Ritual Routine and Monastic Ceremonies, entitled Ōbakusan no jūnikagetsu: Manpukuji no nenchū gyōji to hinami otomo sono setsurei to sesshoku 黄檗山の十二ヶ月 : 萬福寺の年中行事と日次御供、その節令と節食. It comes with a personal note in beautiful handwriting. I will deposit one copy in our library. Thank you, Tanaka san.

Here is the full bibliographical information in worldcat:

黄檗山の十二ヶ月 : 萬福寺の年中行事と日次御供、その節令と節食 /

Ōbakusan no jūnikagetsu : Manpukuji no nenchū gyōji to hinami otomo sono setsurei to sesshoku.

Author: 田中智誠 著 田中 智誠 ; ; chisei tanaka

Publisher: 東林派下梅嶺禅師湖東三ヶ道場黄檗宗鳳翔山正瑞禅寺, higashiōmi : tōrinha kabaireizenji kotō sanke dōjō ōbakushū hōshōsan seizuizendera

Permanent Link:

http://universityofarizona.worldcat.org/oclc/951752955