That story (in "The Hidden Lamp") about Yantou and "Ganji's Family"

[curtstein]

In "The Hidden Lamp: Stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women" edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon, there is a story about Yantou (aka, Ganto, aka 巖頭全豁 828-887) that was contributed to the collection by Angie Boissevain. The title of the chapter containing the story is simply "Ganji's Family" (it starts on p. 59). In the section on sources it simply says "souce unknown. Translated by Thomas Cleary in the Kahawai Journal, 1984."

According to Sandy Boucher's book "Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism", the periodical in question, whose full title is "Kahawai Journal of Women and Zen", was started in 1979 by "Susan Murcott, Deborah Hopkinson, and others in the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu". Boucher wrote in that book (first published in 1988) that "Kahawai still operates at the forefront of this operation" (referring to the general "operation" of "making Zen a truly lay practice, accessible to people with jobs and families").

It's a very interesting story, and one that definitely does touch on the issue of Zen as a lay practice. But I find it a little frustrating that it seems to be impossible to find any proper source for this story, other than "sources" that are removed from the stories' protagonists by 1000+ years.

I think that Yantou is a well enough known, well enough documented, and important enough figure in Zen history that it should be possible to find a source for this story that dates to earlier than 1984. In particular one wonders where Cleary got it from?

[Astus]

Ganzhi (甘贄) has his own entry in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, vol 3, 10.203 (T2076p279b7), but the story with the needle appears almost 200 years later in volume 6 of the Liandeng Huiyao (聯燈會要, X1557p63c1), then elsewhere, like the Xutang Heshang Yulu (虛堂和尚語錄), vol 5 (T2000p1022b7) and the Gaofeng Yuanmiao Chanshi Yulu (高峰原妙禪師語錄), vol 2 (X1400p694c8).

[curtstein]

Thank you Astus! Knowing the characters and the pinyin (甘贄 gān zhì) is especially helpful. According to the Transmission of the Lamp (vol 3), Ganzhi is listed as a Dharma Heir of Nanquan Puyuan.

[curtstein]

Below is the original that Astus referred to, from volume 6 of the Liandeng Huiyao (聯燈會要, X1557p63c1).

X79n1557_p0063c01：池州甘贄行者(凡六)因巖頭在家過夏。一日把針次。
X79n1557_p0063c02：甘於頭前立。頭舉針作劄勢。甘歸欲著衣服禮謝。妻
X79n1557_p0063c03：云。作甚麼。甘云。莫說。妻云。有甚事。也要大家知。甘舉
X79n1557_p0063c04：前話。妻云。從此三十年後。一度飲水一度咽。女子云。
X79n1557_p0063c05：還知盡大地人性命。被豁上座針頭上。劄將去麼。
X79n1557_p0063c06：甘往南泉設粥。請南泉念誦。泉白槌云。為狸奴白牯
X79n1557_p0063c07：念。摩訶般若波羅蜜多。甘拂袖而出。 泉粥罷。問典座。
X79n1557_p0063c08：行者在甚麼處。座云。當時便去了也。泉云。打破鍋子
X79n1557_p0063c09：著。


[So far I know (or think I know) that 甘贄 is Ganzhi (甘 for short); 巖頭 is Yantou; 家 is family (and 在家過夏 is probably "passed the summer with the family"); 一日 is "one day"; 針 is needle; 妻云 is "the wife said", etc.]

[curtstein]

I found one more instance, and this one seems to be the one that Cleary translated and that eventually ended up in "The Hidden Lamp". It's called "Ganzhi's Wife" (甘贄妻), and it is found, as near as I can make out, in a collection of stories about "Excellent Women" (優婆夷志目錄) found in CBETA here: http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index ... 7n1621_001.

The important thing about this one is that it is the only one I've seen so far that mentions Samantabhadra. According to the story, Ganji, his wife, and his daughter all "cultivate Samantabhadra's Vows" (I think that is what 修普賢願 means). According to the "Hidden Lamp" version, "The workman Ganji practiced the vow of Samantabhadra. He, his wife, and his daughter all mastered the Way." In the version linked to above, this is: "甘贄行者。修普賢願。同妻一女皆辦道。" That last sentence is more than a little mysterious to me, and if I didn't already have the "Hidden Lamp" version (and google translate) I would have a great deal of trouble making any sense of it.

[Astus]

I found one more instance, and this one seems to be the one that Cleary translated and that eventually ended up in "The Hidden Lamp". It's called "Ganzhi's Wife" (甘贄妻), and it is found, as near as I can make out, in a collection of stories about "Excellent Women" (優婆夷志目錄) found in CBETA here: http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/index ... 7n1621_001.

Great catch, it's the right version. The title of the collection Youpoyi Zhi (優婆夷志) means Record of Upasikas, compiled by Yuanxin (圓信) and Guo Ningzhi (郭凝之) around 1644-1647 (according to Hongyu Wu).

[curtstein]

Thanks for the additional information Astus! I would never have been able to work out all of that with my very rudimentary Chinese!!

[curtstein]

So I dug a little further and have found a 2013 PhD thesis by Hongyu Wu (now an associate professor at Ohio Northern University) on "Leading the Good Life: Peng Shaosheng’s Biographical Narratives and Instructions for Buddhist Laywomen in High Qing China (1683-1796)". Here's a link to it: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/12215045.pdf

Therein she states (in footnote 2 on page 2) that the "You po yi zhi (Biographies of Upāsikā), XZJ 148, compiled by Guo Ningzhi (d.u.) around 1644-1647" was the very first ever "known biographical collection of Chinese Buddhist laywomen" - and that no other such collection is known to have been made for another 140 years or so when the Shan nüren zhuan (Biographies of Good Women) came out. Her thesis is on the Shan nüren zhuan, which she describes like this:

"Compiled in the eighteenth century by the Buddhist layman Peng Shaosheng (1740-1796), the collection includes the life stories of 148 Buddhist laywomen. With the source(s) of each life story noted by the compiler at the end of each entry, we know that these life accounts were drawn from a wide range of narratives stretching from the Eastern Jin (318- 420) to the Qianlong era of the Qing dynasty (1736-1796). These narratives were previously found scattered throughout such Buddhist biographical compendia as ......"

Two major differences between the earlier collection by Guo Ningzhi (from which the story of Ganzhi's Family comes) and the later collection by Peng Shaosheng are (1) Guo Ningzhi only wrote about Zen lay women, whereas Peng Shaosheng collected stories about Buddhist lay women generally, and (2) Peng Shaosheng seems to have provided a lot more detail about the original sources of the stories he collected.

[curtstein]

I know this topic has been dormant for a while, but I just now realized that in the original source for this story there is also a long comment by 憨山, whom I think is probably Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清, 1546–1623). Here is the full comment in the original Chinese (I am working on a rough translation - but it is going very slowly):

(憨山評云。前件眫招。古德已拈了。却又道。奯公悟及女子。非獨勝如父母。盡大地人性命。總被奯公一針剳將去。古德與麼告報。呌做軟皮條禪。何以故。但見針頭利。不見剳頭尖。我若同時生按過。雖然針師有眼。能令鈍漢出血。乃舀第二扚惡水。悉變為上藥醍醐。也祇當得死馬醫。假饒行者可可地。鑄就銅筋。鍊成銕骨。風縫不通。針剳不入。直把八萬四千毛孔。斬齊頓放面前。看渠向甚處下手。何以故。但見針頭尖。不見剳頭利。是見且從。還識頂門這竅那。二八佳人倦繡遲。紫荊花外囀黃鸝。誰憐結角關心事。都付停針不語時。唱云。綿針密剳。七穿八穴。不知沉痛。洎合屈殺)

And here is a link to source that this is from:
https://tripitaka.cbeta.org/mobile/inde ... 7n1621_001