Jiaoran

Life

Jiaoran entered religious life in childhood and studied the Classics, histories, and other branches of learning in his youth. He studied at Mount Zhushan in Huzhou and lived at Miaoxi Temple with Lu Yu, becoming his close friend. One account places his entry into religious life at Changan Temple in Jiangning, Runzhou, around the third year of the Tianbao era (744), and his ordination at Fuyesi in Changzhou in the seventh year; his ordination is also placed at the Lingyin ordination platform in Hangzhou, under the Vinaya master Shouzhi, also written Shouzhen.

In the later Tianbao years he traveled among famous mountains and, after the An Lushan Rebellion, settled in Huzhou, where he exchanged poems and prose with local officials, visiting scholar-officials, and Jiangnan recluses and literary men. His circle included Liu Changqing, Li Jilan, Lu Yu, Zhu Juchuan, Yan Bojun, Lingche, Liu Yuxi, Meng Jiao, Lu Changyuan, and Wei Yingwu; exchanges of poems and prose are specifically associated with Lu Yu, Lingche, Meng Jiao, Lu Changyuan, and Wei Yingwu.

During the eighth through twelfth years of the Dali era (773–777), Yan Zhenqing, then governor of Huzhou, assembled thirty-two writers, including Jiaoran, to compile the rhyme-reference work 《韻海鏡源》. A network of as many as ninety-five poets formed around Yan and Jiaoran, and their collaborative poems were collected as 《吳興集》 in ten juan; another tradition gives the collection as twenty juan. Influenced by Shouzhen, Jiaoran drew on the Vinaya, Tiantai, Esoteric, Northern Chan, and Southern Chan traditions, and from the later Dali period increasingly favored Southern Chan; in middle age he visited many Chan assemblies and formed a religious friendship with Yuanhao and Lingche.

At the beginning of the Zhenyuan era he lived at Dongxi Cottage and considered abandoning poetry in favor of Chan, eventually withdrawing to Zhufeng after composing a farewell to his writing materials. In the fifth year of Zhenyuan (789), in the fifth month, Li Hong, a former chief censor who had been appointed governor of Wuxing, discussed Buddhist doctrine and 《詩式》 with him; encouraged by Li, Jiaoran had his disciple bring out the draft of the work.

Literary career and poetics

Jiaoran’s prose was elegant, his poetry was highly reputed, and he was skilled in regulated verse as well as in the theory of poetry. He was called a “great vessel of the Buddhist community” and was ranked among the two foremost monk-literati of the medieval period. His poetry was paired with that of Qingjiang as the “Two Qings of Kuaiji,” and he was also ranked with Lingche and Daobiao.

Works

His collected writings included 《晝上人集》 in ten juan, also known as 《皎然集》 and 《杼山集》; Yu Di compiled it in the eighth year of Zhenyuan, and it survives. His treatise on poetry, 《詩式》, comprises five juan, was completed in the fifth year of Zhenyuan (789), and survives; 《詩議》, also called 《詩評》, comprised three juan, of which one survives.

Other works included 《儒釋交游傳》, 《內典類聚》 in forty juan, 《號呶子》 in ten juan, and the one-piece 《茶訣》; all are now lost. Seven juan of his poetry are preserved in 《全唐詩》, which also includes twenty-two poems composed collaboratively with others; 《全唐詩續拾》 adds two more.

Death and legacy

Jiaoran died at a mountain monastery during the Zhenyuan era; Zhufeng is also given as his late residence and place of death. In the first month of the eighth year of Zhenyuan, the imperial government ordered his collected writings copied into the palace library, and a further tradition says that after his death Emperor Dezong sent an envoy to obtain his surviving writings. Later critics placed his poetry above that of the Tang monks, while another judgment found him expert in poetic technique but considered his own poetry unequal to it.