Pi-yen-lu Chin. (Jap., Hekigan-roku), lit. “Blue-green Cliff Record”; with the Wu-men-kuan, one of the most important of the great kōan collections of Ch’an (Zen) literature and also the oldest. It was composed in its present form in the first half of the 12th century by the Chinese Ch’an (Zen) master Yuan-wu K’o ch’in (Jap., Engo Kokugon). It is based on a collection of a hundred kōans collected approximately a century earlier by the Ch’an master Hsueh-tou Ch’ung-hsien (Jap., Setchō Jūken) and provided by him with incidental commentary and “praises” (ju). These praises, poems in classical Chinese verse form, are not only the most renowned of their genre in Ch’an (Zen) literature, but also are among the greatest of Buddhist-inspired products of the Chinese poetic tradition. Taking Hsueh-tou’s text as a basic structure, Yuan-wu added the following components to the text: introductions (Jap., suiji), which direct the attention of the reader to the essence of the kōan; commentaries or incidental remarks (jakugo) on the kōan; explanations (Jap., hyōshō) of the kōan; commentaries and explanations of the “praise.” Because the text has so many different layers, the Pi-yen-lu is one of the most complex texts of Ch’an (Zen) literature. (An English translation is Cleary & Cleary 1978.)
Because of this complexity and the literary refinement of the text, many Zen masters have a higher regard for the Wu-men-kuan, which is simpler in form, since in their opinion it gets more directly and less figuratively “to the point.” The danger posed by the literary beauty of the “Blue-green Cliff Record” was already seen by the Ch’an master Ta-hui Tsung-kao (Jap., Daie Sōkō), a student and dharma successor (hassu) of Yuan-wu. When he saw that his students had the tendency to get involved in the qualities of the verbatim text rather than attend to the immediate experience that is its true content, he had all available copies of the Pi-yen-lu collected and burned. With all respect for the great work of his master, he was more concerned for the survival of the latter’s dharma teaching than for that of his writings.
Fortunately for posterity, however, the greater part of this precious text was preserved in a few, though not entirely complete, copies. From these, the Ch’an layman Chang Ming-yuan was able, in the 14th century, to reconstruct the full text with the exception of a few passages.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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