Karmic Perplexities: Assessing an Intergenerational Blood-Copy of the Huayan Sutra

The now defunct Bantang Monastery located near Suzhou once housed a blood-copy of the Huayan Sutra by the renowned Yuan dynasty monk Shanji善繼 (1286-1357). A highly esteemed artifact of the Wu region cultural heritage, this Dharma treasure (fabao 法寶) was venerated through the pilgrimage and patronage of local literati from the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) on through to the Republican Era (1911-1949). In fact, the work has survived the ravages of war and revolution and is now housed at the Xiyuan Monastery in Suzhou.

     Though this artifact was most likely copied out by the monk Shanji through the arduous act of collecting his own blood and mixing it with ink, he was not thought to have done it alone. To the contrary, late Ming literati argued that Shanji was a reincarnation of the eminent monk Yongming Yanshou永明延壽 (904-975), the purported progenitor of this project. It was not, however, completed until after Yongming’s second reincarnation as the great early Ming statesman Song Lian宋濂 (1310-1381; Wenxian), a prolific writer of Buddhist texts. Song Lian’s reincarnation was verified by one of his mother’s dreams, which he recounts in the preface and praise verses in black ink that he wrote for the text. Despite the lack of blood, these writings were venerated as an intrinsic part of this intergenerational blood-copy.

    The karmic connections between these three successive generations so elevated the stature of this blood-copy that its existence became a rationale for new blood-writing projects. Yet despite the literati acceptance of this intergenerational effort, the historical work of determining who was a reincarnation of whom became a heated topic in many a literati preface and postface, a number of which adopted a uniquely Buddhist method of historical proof premised on assessments of reincarnation, karmic connections, dream encounters, and personal realization.

     To flesh out the historical modes of argumentation, this project will analyze commemorative prefaces and postfaces by late Ming through Republican Era literati, originally published in their own collected writings (wenji 文集). Some were later published in the late Ming monk Zhuhong’s祩宏 (1535-1615) compilation, The Honorable Song Wenxian’s Record of Protecting the Dharma which was added to the Jiaxing Canon (JB110). The Republican Era works analyzed here were either published in Buddhist periodicals or were handwritten attachments to the blood-copy itself.

      The following presents a sampling of the arguments put forth either to support or challenge the karmic connections between Yongming, Shanji, and Song Lian. According to the Huizhou native Xie Bi 謝陛 (1547-1615), the quality of Shanji’s calligraphy and Song Lian’s verses substantiated their karmic connection to Yongming:

Whether discussing the vigorous quality of the brush strokes or the even and clear width of the vertical columns, from start to finish one does not see the slightest negligence. And moreover, the blood’s luminosity is like that of polished gems, gradually transforming into golden rays. If he were not a later reincarnation of master Yongming, then how could it be like this? Mr. Wenxian’s preface shines light on this undertaking, his praise verses explain the doctrine, and his writing is of a high standard. If he were not a later reincarnation of master Yongming, then how could it be like this?

Xie Bi also claimed that the succession was linear: Yongming to Shanji, Shanji to Song Lian. This prompted a rebuttal from Qian Qianyi who argued that Shanji and Song Lian  met, thus Shanji and Song Lian could only be Yongming’s nirmāṇakāya bodies.

     The wealthy Huizhou literatus Wang Daokun汪道昆 (1525-1593), who briefly possessed the Shanji blood-copy, also wrote about reincarnation. He showed this blood-copy to the monk Yanggong who asserted that his own blood-copying practice was more spiritually liberative. The  preface said:

As for the monk-copyist (Shanji), isn’t it that he was the previous reincarnation of Song Lian? In using this to repay the Buddha’s kindness, perhaps there is [still] some small attachment. As to Yanggong . . .  he copied out the Huayan Sutra three times in its entirety. Is it perhaps that this [karmic] result was free from all attachment?  [This exceeds] what anyone knows. [Having reached the level of] ‘with but a moment’s realization of true suchness, one immediately realizes Buddhahood’ Yanggong looked down upon Song Lian as nothing more than dregs and dirt. . . 

    Despite his claim that Yongming’s copy of the Huayan Sutra was a blood relic (血利), in a separate postface, the lay Buddhist Yu Chunxi虞淳熙 (1553-1621) posed this difficult question:

 As for the monk Yongming, since he is the nirmanakaya body of Amitābha, what reason could he have for copying the Huayan [Sutra] and leaving one chapter unfinished and then reincarnating in the Song household and becoming a great Confucian to finish it? As for the body and blood of Yongming and Song Lian, there is not an iota of connection between them, nor do their hands and wrists turn with the same calligraphic strokes . . .

This uncomfortable question of how a Confucian statesman might be venerated for his work finishing a Buddhist monk’s project was again raised circa 1900 by a Mr. Yi Han 易凾 who argued that Shanji’s precept cultivation was so pure that the karmic circumstances were his alone (獨締勝因). His student, the Suzhou native Wu Yinpei吳蔭培responded to this controversy by assessing the karmic connections (前因後果) in his 1913 postface, but departed fromlate Ming criteria, by searching for clues in biographical and chronological records, and in the end, decided that because Shanji was linked to the Confucian Song Lian, his profile was raised and he was not relegated to the dustbin of history.

    Through an analysis of these and other primary sources, this project will draw out the modes of assessing reincarnation and karmic connections so that we can better understand how these concepts functioned within the contexts of elite literati Buddhist belief and engagement with venerated artifacts like this very unique intergenerational blood-copy of the Huayan Sutra.