How do Buddhist masters prepare for their impending passing? The three calligraphy works considered in this paper respond to the theme of “dying with intention” by providing visual, sensorial, and temporal perspectives. Rooted in the rich death and memory cultures of the Chan or Zen Buddhist tradition, they demonstrate how dying is made manifest in an embodied and liminal process of writing calligraphy in anticipation of one’s last moments. I take as my subject three “final calligraphies”—respectively titled Final Verse for Dharma Heirs, Final Dharma Instruction for the Nun Gen’yō, and Death Verse—all brushed by the Zen master Yinyuan Longqi (Jpn. Ingen Ryūki) (1592–1673) within the last three days of his life in the fourth month of 1673. I use the phrase “final calligraphies” to refer to calligraphy works of the “deathbed verse” (literally “bequeathed verses”; Ch. Yiji; Jpn. Yuige) theme that are intentionally composed for the disciples and friends when a Buddhist master senses that death is imminent.
Rooted in earlier Buddhist practices, such as the Buddha’s departing teachings recorded in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the composition of death verses evolved into a formalized monastic custom in China by the Song dynasty (960–1279), and was transmitted to Japan along with Zen Buddhism. This paper departs from previous studies that tend to examine Zen Buddhist deathbed verses from hagiographical perspectives, that is, as sacred expressions of the master’s enlightenment, or to understand them through a modern, Romantic lens as spontaneous, “iconoclastic” acts that depart from pre-established cultural norms. Joining recent discourses in sensory religion and social art history, this paper shifts attention to the calligraphic medium of deathbed verses, and explores how the visual, sensorial, and temporal aspects of the final calligraphy function as embodied traces that exist in the liminal phase of dying.
My paper will begin with a brief introduction of the biographical background of Yinyuan, the writer of the three deathbed calligraphies. Born in southeastern coastal China, Yinyuan was an abbot of a Linji-sect Chan Buddhist temple in Fujian before arriving in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1654. Invited by Chinese emigrant monastics already active in Japan, he traveled with disciples and artisans and later established the Ōbaku sect of Zen, named after his home monastery in China. Joining Sōtō and Rinzai, Ōbaku became one of Japan’s three major Zen sects. Yinyuan gained widespread influence among both monastics and lay followers, attracting adherents from the Chinese expatriate community and Japanese society alike. Emperor Go-Mizunoo (r. 1611–1629), who practiced Zen after abdicating, became Yinyuan’s grand-disciple and honored him with an imperial title (ki-gō), recognizing him as a “Teacher of the Realm” (Kokushi). Yinyuan’s passing at eighty-one marked a pivotal moment in the history of the Ōbaku lineage.
I will then move on to providing a close examination of the three calligraphic works. Each of the three pieces exhibits a distinct calligraphic style, reflecting variations that evoke aspects of Yinyuan’s character as well as revealing his calligraphic practices against the waning physical conditions as his life draws to a close. This paper analyzes both the poetic rhetoric of the verses and the stylistic features of the calligraphy in a chronological order, and brings in earlier calligraphic works of Yinyuan for comparison.
Yinyuan’s first calligraphy, Final Verse for Dharma Heirs, dates to the first day of the fourth month of 1673 and was brushed two days prior to his death. Among the three works, this piece exhibits the densest and most saturated ink, with reinforcement of strokes at the beginning of each line. Despite his declining physical state, Yinyuan maintained a style of forceful brushwork throughout the piece. The composition is executed with rigorous and disciplined strokes, maintaining a sense of structural integrity. The second piece, Final Dharma Instruction for the Nun Gen’yō, exhibits a fluid and rounded style, with boldly abbreviated character forms that do not adhere rigidly to conventional calligraphic techniques. Finally, the Death Verse, written on the third day of the fourth month, exhibits the most pronounced dry brushwork. The brushstrokes appear to graze the surface of the paper, while still demonstrating a desire or need for calligraphic decorum and formal conventions.
As the art historian Gregory Levine has pointed out, Chan/Zen death-verse calligraphy as a genre seems to lack a codified style, yet works marked by graphic disintegration form a unique expressive “system.” To orthodox calligraphy, this seems to be a fragile “non-system,” aligning with Romanticized notions of Zen as anti-traditional. Yet their power, argues Levine, stems from the tension between form and collapse. Seen in this light, and in comparison with Yinyuan’s earlier works, all three final calligraphies reveal not disregard for convention but a perseverance in its fulfillment, exposing the tension between bodily limits and intentionality when approaching death.
I will finally bring in the Records of the Last Days of Ōbaku Masters (Ōbaku matsugo jijitsu), a text composed by Yinyuan’s disciples that meticulously detailed his dialogic exchanges, physical preparations, and contexts of calligraphic actions in the final days of the master’s life. Together with the three final calligraphies, the account demonstrates that the master’s final acts are curated, witnessed, and textualized by the community, exposing how intentionality of dying operates beyond individual agency but ventures into communal memorialization, where the master’s presence is sustained beyond corporeal limits.
“Deathbed verses” in the Chan or Zen Buddhist tradition are deliberate acts of composing poetry, performed by a master in preparation for their imminent passing. They reflect a ceremonial and intentional engagement with mortality. Deathbed verses have been traditionally understood as sacred expressions of enlightenment or transcendent spontaneity. This paper shifts attention to their calligraphic medium, and explores how visual, sensory, and temporal dimensions materialize as embodied traces within dying’s liminality. I focus on three final calligraphies by a seventeenth-century Chinese Ōbaku Zen master in Japan—brushed in his last three days. I analyze divergences in poetic rhetoric and stylistic features, and examine them alongside the master’s earlier calligraphies and disciples’ account of his final moments. Combining art historical analysis with sensory religion approaches, this paper demonstrates how intentional dying is both performed and memorialized through brush traces of the dying master.