Chao news client Bao Zhicheng
"Jingshan Tea Banquet" is a kind of lobby tea party when Jingshan Wanshou Temple in Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province receives distinguished guests, which is a unique solemn traditional tea banquet etiquette and custom of greeting guests with tea, and is the survival of ancient Chinese tea banquet customs. The Jingshan Tea Banquet originated in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and the "Yuhang County Chronicles" has an entry for the "Buddha Offering Tea" of Faqin, the founder of Jingshan Temple in the Tang Dynasty. It flourished in the Song and Yuan dynasties, and later spread to Japan, becoming the source of the Japanese tea ceremony, and playing a role as a bridge and link for Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. In 2011, the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" was included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage items. In 2022, the project "Traditional Chinese Tea-making Techniques and Related Customs" was officially inscribed on UNESCO's new Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" is one of them.
Venerable Jiexing (4th from left) presided over the Jingshan Tea Banquet inheritance display activity
The origin of the name "Jingshan Tea Banquet".
In recent years, it has received great attention from the Zen tea culture circles at home and abroad, especially the local tea culture scholars, and has carried out multidisciplinary research. In fact, from the perspective of academic propositions, the widely watched "Jingshan Tea Banquet" can be said to be a "true pseudo-proposition". Although in the Song and Yuan dynasties, there was indeed a similar tea ceremony and tea ceremony in the Jiangnan Zen Temple, when the Zen Monastery Dharma Meeting, internal management, Tanyue response and Zen monks sitting in meditation, offering to the Buddha, and living, all participated in the tea ceremony, but in the historical documents, there has never been a "Jingshan Tea Banquet" these four words. In 2009, in the process of presiding over the drafting of the text of the national "intangible cultural heritage" project, the author sorted out the relevant literature records and research results, went to Jingshan Temple and the surrounding villages and towns for field research, and interviewed the monk Zhengwen (84 years old) who became a monk in Jingshan Temple in his early years and later returned to the world from Lingyin Temple, and Yu Qingyuan (81 years old, deceased), a scholar of literature and history in Jingshan Town, etc., all of whom had only heard of the "Jingshan Tea Banquet", but had never seen or participated in the tea party activities held by the monks.
After the reform and opening up, the Rinzai sect of Japan came to Jingshan to pay homage to the ancestral garden and perform the tea ceremony, and the local literature, history and Buddhism appeared in the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" is the source of the Japanese tea ceremony. This statement has been quoted by experts and scholars and passed down from monk to layman, and then it has become an academic proposition. Mr. Zhuang Wanfang, a famous contemporary tea scientist and the late professor of the Department of Tea Science of Zhejiang University, published the article "Jingshan Tea Banquet and Japanese Tea Ceremony" in the 10th issue of Agricultural History Research in 1983, which can be said to be the earliest academic article to quote or give this proposition. Subsequently, when discussing this issue, some scholars have followed this concept in their research, such as Han Xixian's "Japanese Tea Ceremony and Jingshan Temple", Ding Yishou's "Japanese Tea Ceremony Grass Creation and the Relationship between Chinese and Japanese Zen Schools", Sun Ji's "Chinese Tea Culture and Japanese Tea Ceremony", etc., all of which have followed this concept, and have been successively listed as "intangible cultural heritage" projects in Yuhang and Zhejiang, which have entered the field of vision of intangible cultural heritage protection work of the cultural authorities, and have been recognized by the higher authorities, academics and society. In the past 10 years, the local relevant departments and experts have adopted the name "Jingshan Tea Banquet" in the process of "intangible cultural heritage" declaration, original form research, tea art creation and painter creation.
Korean tea people have a Zen tea exchange at Gyeongsan Temple
The origin and program of the "Jingshan Tea Banquet".
Since the Tang Dynasty Jingshan Temple opened the mountain ancestor Faqin Zen Master planted tea to offer to the Buddha, the Jingshan tea banquet began to take shape. According to the record of "Yuhang County Chronicle", Jingshan "opened the mountain ancestor Qinshi once planted several tea trees and collected them for the Buddha". At that time, one of the main methods of practice for Zen monks was zazen, which required a pure heart and few desires, a secluded environment. The key to meditation and meditation is to regulate food, sleep, body, pranayama, mind, tea to refresh the mind, clear eyes and mind, etc., which just meets the special needs of Zen monks. The wind of drinking tea first spread among Zen monks, and then spread in the society under the vigorous advocacy of the tea saint Lu Yu, the high monk Jiaoran and others. When Lu Yu inspected the tea affairs in the south of the Yangtze River, he wrote the "Book of Tea" in seclusion at the eastern foot of Jingshan Mountain, and there are still traces of "Lu Yuquan" in Jingshan (in Shuangxi Village, Jingshan Town, Hangzhou).
The Jingshan Tea Banquet, as a general invitation to the Dharma and the ritual rules of the monk's hall, was strictly regulated in the Song and Yuan dynasties and included in the "Zen Garden Qing Rules". The solemnity of the ceremonial atmosphere and the complexity of the procedures and rituals have reached the point of incomparability, and they have the supreme character of the Buddhist tea ceremony and the classic style of tea art customs.
According to the records of the "Zen Garden Qing Rules" and the Japanese "Tea Ceremony Sutra", the Jingshan Tea Banquet, as one of the Chinese Zen sects, is a compulsory course and basic skill for every Zen monk to practice in the Jiangnan Zen temple. In the process of inheriting the lineage of the Rinzai sect, the ritual forms, procedures and rituals of the Jingshan tea banquet, as well as the prestige of the tea hall and the tea art techniques, were passed down by word of mouth and from generation to generation through the life of the monks: the tea banquet and tea props were passed down and spread as a transmission of the Dharma.
Venerable Jiexing shows the process of the Jingshan Tea Banquet
Jingshan Tea Banquet, also known as "Tea Party" and "Tea Ceremony", was commonly known as "decoction" in the Song Dynasty, reflecting that the tea drinking method has transitioned from the cooking method of the Tang Dynasty to the decoction method. The tea banquet in the Zen temple is set up for the banquet because of the time, the event, the person, and the guest, and there are many names, and the place, the number of people, and the size and scale are different. According to the records of the "Qing Rules of the Zen Garden", the tea banquet is basically divided into two categories, one is the various tea parties held by the monks in the Zen temple for rituals, duties, festivals, receptions, talks, etc. Volumes 5 and 6 of the "Qing Rules of the Zen Garden" record the names of "Tangtou Decoction", "Monk's Hall Decoction", "Governor's Head Tea", "Entering the Liao Lap Decoction", "Zhongzhong Special Decoction", "Zhongzhong Special Honorable Elder Decoction", "Dharma Dependents and Disciples Specially Serving Tangtou Decoction" and so on. At that time, the practice of the Zen monastery, the life of the monks, the handover of entertainment, and even the daily life of the Zen monks all participated in the tea ceremony and tea ceremony. In the first and sixth volumes of the "Zen Flower Qing Rules", the problems and etiquette that should be paid attention to in the links of "going to tea soup" and burning incense, placing food, and thanking tea are also recorded. This kind of tea party is mostly held in meditation halls, guest halls, and squatters. The second is the lobby tea party held when receiving courtiers, dignitaries, honorable guests, lords, celebrities, Tanyue (donors) and other distinguished guests, which is usually called the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" that is not held by non-guests. Its scale and program are different from the tea party inside the Zen temple, and the guests are secular scholars, and there are main monks and laymen sitting together during the banquet.
According to the records of the "Zen Garden Qing Rules" and the tea ceremony classics, the basic procedures of the Jingshan Tea Banquet are different from the simple and complex, and the tea party in the lobby generally includes the tea list, the tea drum, the tea banquet, the guest of honor, the Buddha incense, the salute seat, the decoction of tea, the tea and the tea, the discussion head, the tea and other links or procedures, which are carried out in strict accordance with the style of the temple rituals. At the tea party, the guests and hosts all follow the rules of the temple jungle and the rituals, rigorous and orderly, solemn and harmonious, peaceful and pleasant, and the guests' speech and behavior need to abide by the rules of Buddhism, not casual. The "Zen Monastery Qing Rules" has strict rules for every behavior and action of tea guests, and details the matters to be paid attention to. For example, the cross-hand salute "must cover the sleeves with a partial shirt, do not show the wrist, hot that is, the forked hand is outside, cold is the forked hand inside, press the left shirt sleeve with the right big finger, and press the right shirt sleeve with the second left finger." Again, when the crowd is seated, "they must sit in peace, sit upright, do not discard their shoes, do not make a noise in the chair, and do not lean back against the chair." When lifting the lamp, it is necessary to "hold it in the chest, do not let go of the approach, and do not go too high, if the top and bottom look at each other, the same and equal, it is wonderful." And so on and so forth. In particular, the etiquette between monks and laymen, such as the interrogation (like greetings) such as forking hands and making gestures, is detailed and has strict rules on the circumstances under which monks perform a big show, make a prostration, or simply ask questions. From the words "according to the time", "such as the law", "soft language", "goose walking", "solemn", "bowing" and so on, you can know the degree of strictness.
The Jingshan Tea Banquet has formed a unique style and style of ritual in the practice of passing down from generation to generation. The first is to follow the law according to the time. Sency tea soup, each according to the season; The hall shall be dignified and shall be in accordance with the law. The second is the main bow to the guest village. Treat carefully and bow down to inquire; Listen to the drums, please go, and the ceremony must be solemn. The third is elegance and harmony. Ge Gao Pinyi, quaint and pure; The number of courtesies is heavy, and it should not be slow and easy. Fourth, Zen tea is one. The Buddha gate is high, and the Zen temple is clear; The monk's family style, the monks and the lay are harmonious. In the whole process, throughout the Southern Song Dynasty Jingshan Temple abbot Dahui Zonggao Zen Master's "look at the words of Zen", in the tea banquet, between the master and apprentice, the guest and the host with the form of "talk head" Q&A, witty Zen language, wisdom and light, cleansing the soul.
The Jingshan Tea Banquet is generally hosted in the Mingyue Hall of Jingshan Temple. Mingyue Hall was originally the place where Dahui Zonggao retired in his later years, "Miaoxi Nunnery", the windows are bright, the green trees are shaded, the green mountains and white clouds are close in front of you, the breeze and the moon are bright, and the poetry is full. In addition, the monks participate in meditation and offer tea to the Buddha, or the internal tea party between the monks and monks is often carried out in the "meditation hall" or "dormitory" according to the time and event, and the informal hospitality tea banquet is sometimes held in the "guest hall" and "tea pavilion".
The inheritance and contemporary revival of the "Jingshan Tea Banquet".
The lineage of the Jingshan Tea Banquet is the legal system of the patriarchs and abbots of Jingshan Temple. Since the opening of the first generation - Dajue Faqin Zen Master (714-792), Jingshan Temple has been passed down from the seventh generation of Guangdeng Weizhan, which has been inherited by masters and apprentices. Later, it was changed to the ten-party inheritance of non-master and apprentice, from the first generation of ancestor Yin Changwu to the hundredth generation of Bo Zhou Huiluo, all generations of ancestors can be examined. The Jingshan Tea Banquet was passed down in accordance with the abbot system of the temple, and spread to the Rinzai Monastery through the practice of the disciples of Jingshan.
Jingshan Zen Temple held the Jingshan Tea Banquet to inherit the apprenticeship ceremony
With the prosperity of the Rinzai sect and the inheritance of the Dharma system, the Jingshan tea banquet was widely spread to the Zen monasteries in the Jiangnan region and even in the north, such as the "eating tea" of the monks of Zhaozhou, which can be described as the monk tradition and Zen method of the Rinzai sect inherited by Jingshan Temple. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Rinzai sect flourished in the Jiangnan region, occupying almost half of the jungle of Buddhism, and sometimes there was a saying that "children and grandchildren are all over the world". Its department is mostly the Jingshan Dahui faction, and the history records that "the sect is greatly revitalized in Linji, to the great wisdom and the prosperity of the southeast Zen gate, so the crown is not at the same time, so its descendants are the most extensive". The southern region is rich in famous tea, and most of them are in famous mountains and ancient temples, which creates conditions for Zen and tea to form a bond through the ages.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Jingshan tea affairs were rarely recorded in history, but in the Hangzhou monasteries around Jingshan, tea banquets were still circulating. For example, "Li'an Temple, once a month, tea". In the famous Hupao Temple in Daci Mountain, Hangzhou, there are many examples of similar records in the travelogues and poems of literati in the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as: Yu Hong's "Mr. Rhyme of the Second Dongpo of the Tiger Run Temple" "Pour the snow milk and tender, wrap the spring buds with the crotch"; Jiang Guoding's "Mr. Rhyme of the Second Dongpo of the Tiger Running Temple" "Hutong Dizhan Boiled Tea Taste"; Jiang Tangwang "Mr. Rhyme of the Second Dongpo of the Tiger Running Temple" "The crab eye is cooked to the best quality, and the dragon group grinds to produce a special recipe; I know that I don't reduce Lu Tongxing, and I take the bottle and taste it slowly"; Sun Renjun's "Rhyme of Mr. Dongpo of the Tiger Running Temple" "Stay idle and stay with the monk, and try the new taste of the dragon group with the snow"; Chen Can's "Tongweng Town Tour Tiger Run Temple" "Mountain monks make tea offerings, and count Ou Diling Mansion"; Wu Sheng's "Tiger Run Temple with Mr. Dongpo Rhyme", "Lose and increase the good taste of the mountain, and a pot of jade milk is renewed"; Xu Tongshan's "Tour of Daci Mountain Tiger Running Temple" "Group tea test tea, gall floating fragrance".
During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, with the fall of Jingshan Temple, the Jingshan Tea Banquet was almost lost in its birthplace, but the surrounding monks and villages have been endless, but they are becoming more and more simplistic, secular, and life-oriented. The Jingshan Tea Banquet has an important impact on the formation of the "tea party" that originated in Shanghai in modern times, and has an important impact on the survival of folk tea drinking etiquette and customs in Hangzhou, and its folklore value is very prominent.
Jingshan Tea Banquet (Folk Version) Experience Space
The Jingshan tea banquet has been lost in Jingshan for a long time. For nearly 20 years, people of insight in Jingshan Temple and Zhejiang's tea industry have been trying to restore this ancient tea drinking ritual. In 2011, as a national intangible cultural heritage project, the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" was created by the author after in-depth research and investigation, based on the tea etiquette of Zong Zhen's "Zen Garden Qing Rules", drawing on Japanese tea ceremony and popular tea art elements, and taking cultural and creative design as the concept and method. Its basic process includes a tea list, a tea drum, incense in front of the Buddha, a tea offering to the Buddha, a tea line, a tea talk, a lecture on tea, and a ring of the hall bell, etc., which more completely reproduces the form of tea ceremony in the Qing Dynasty rules of the Song Dynasty. Asking questions with tea ginseng is the essence and core of the Jingshan tea banquet, and the program is designed to ask and answer the question and answer between the guest and the host or the master and apprentice in the form of "reference head". With the joint efforts of the local government, experts, scholars and Zen tea lovers, the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" was finally restored and displayed in front of the world. In July 2019, the China International Tea Culture Research Association awarded Hangzhou Yuhang the three honors of "China Jingshan Zen Tea Cultural Park", "China-Japan-Korea Zen Tea Cultural Center" and "Source of Chinese Matcha", providing a brand and platform for the inheritance and development of Jingshan Zen tea culture.
Jingshan tea banquet hall is set up quaint, the program is standardized, the main bow to the guest village, the etiquette is prepared, according to the time and the law, harmonious and harmonious, rich in connotation, embodies the perfect combination of the rules and etiquette of the Zen temple and the tea art, and has a unique style of high and ancient character and elegance, which can be called the classic style of Chinese Zen tea culture. Jingshan Tea Banquet has a long historical value and rich cultural connotation, with tea on the Tao, Zen tea taste, embodies the spiritual character of Chinese Zen tea culture, enriches and enhances the connotation of Chinese tea culture, and has academic research value.
The historical relationship between the "Jingshan Tea Banquet" and the "Japanese Tea Ceremony".
The "Jingshan Tea Banquet" was completely transplanted to the Japanese Zen Monastery along with the "Zen Garden Qing Gui" along with the interaction between Chinese and Japanese Zen monks in the Song and Yuan dynasties, which had a profound impact on Japanese culture. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Chinese and Japanese Zen monks went back and forth to seek Dharma and preach the Tao, which was the second climax in the history of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges after the Sui and Tang dynasties "sent Tang envoys". Among them, Jingshan Temple is not only a frontier town, but also an academic commanding height, playing a very important role. The eminent monks of Jingshan Temple, represented by the Wuzhun Normal School, not only played a mainstay role in the exchanges between Sino-Japanese Buddhism (mainly Zen Buddhism and Rinzai Buddhism), but also made unparalleled contributions to the entire Song-Japanese relations and cultural exchanges. In the Southern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the Jingshan Tea Banquet was transplanted to Japan along with the Zen Monastery Qinggui along with the close exchanges between Zen monks and the propagation of the Dharma between China and Japan, and gradually evolved and developed into the "Japanese Tea Ceremony" on this basis.
Venerable Jiexing held a Sino-Japanese tea cultural exchange activity
In the Song and Yuan dynasties, in addition to the Soto sect through Dogen and other Zen sects successively spread to Japan in the east, the Rinzai sect opened a sect in the process of spreading to Japan, melons and gourds extended, in the Kamakura, Muromachi shogunate period appeared in 20 of the 24 schools of Zen Buddhism out of Rinzai, to the 14 schools of Zen Buddhism formed in modern times, in addition to the "Thousand Light School" founded by the teacher of the Huanglong School of Xu'an Huaichang, the other 13 schools are from the Jingshan Rinzai Zen Yang Qi School. During the reign of the Japanese shogunate, Zen Buddhism flourished, which profoundly influenced the formation and style characteristics of Japanese national culture in modern times, and left the historical memory and cultural imprint of the Zen monks of Jingshan in the Song and Yuan dynasties in many fields such as the spirit of bushido, national character, philosophy, aesthetics, literature, calligraphy and painting, architecture, gardening, pottery, food, tea ceremony, etc. Jingzanji Temple is the birthplace of Zen Buddhism in Japan, and is the ancestral garden of the Zen Buddhism system in Japan, which has an unparalleled influence on the development of Zen Buddhism in Japan. Japan's Tofukuji Temple, Daitokuji Temple, Myoshinji Temple, Kennin Temple and other Rinzai temples of the Jingshan School are still holding the tea banquet festival "Four Heads Tea Ceremony" once a year (or several times) to commemorate the founding patriarch, called the "Kaishan Festival", which can be called the living fossil of the Jingshan Tea Banquet. Therefore, both Chinese and Japanese Zen tea circles unanimously agree that Jingshan is the "source of the Japanese tea ceremony".
Zen tea has the same origin, and Zen culture and tea culture blend with each other and complement each other. Jingshan Tea Banquet has a long history, a long history, rich in connotation, clear and high artistic conception, standardized procedures, carrying rich and precious history, culture, art, folk customs, science, technology and other information, with Zen culture, tea culture, ritual culture and poetry, calligraphy and painting, crafts, fine arts, gardens, architecture and other aspects of value, the study of Jingshan Tea Banquet, to inherit traditional culture, the development of cultural tourism, promote foreign exchanges, have important practical significance and international influence.
(The author is a librarian of Zhejiang Provincial Research Institute of Culture and History, and a researcher of Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Culture and Tourism Development)
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