遺民僧的「報慈」書寫與清初的民間權力訴求──以繼起弘儲為中心的考察

“Repaying Compassion”Writings by“Loyalist Monks”and Claims to Power in the Early Qing

遺民僧具有重大的社會影響，在中國歷史上僅見於清初。這是因為只有清初遺民僧才形成了有效的群體聯結和可觀的群體規模。遺民僧群體既是明清易代之際特殊環境的產物，也是領袖人物自覺地建構群體認同的成果。弘儲主導的「報慈」書寫就是其中一次關鍵行動。弘儲明亡前已出家，入清後卻表現出鮮明的遺民立場。他自覺到自己的倫理行為已超出舊有傳統，可以推廣為佛門應對時代危機的新型倫理範式，於是將其塑造為「報慈」形象加以傳播。此一形象衍生出宏大的佛儒合一世界觀，建構了能滿足遺民僧佛儒雙重身分的價值體系，推動了群體凝聚力的產生。隨著「報慈」形象廣受尊仰，弘儲被僧團和士林共推為「龍門」，遺民僧也顯現出與清廷抗衡的社會能量。綜觀弘儲發動「報慈」書寫、結集佛門內外的文化力量（包括師門宿敵錢謙益），形成群體效應的過程，可見遺民僧主動干預清初社會文化生活的權力訴求。

The early Qing was the only period in Chinese history in which“loyalist monks”(yimin seng) exercised a major social influence. This was because only at that time did they form both effective internal networks and a community of substantial scale. The loyalist monk community was a product of the extraordinary circumstances of the Ming–Qing transition, but it was also the result of the conscious construction of collective identity by its leading figures. The“Repaying Compassion”(baoci) genre of writing initiated by Hongchu constituted one of the key moments in this process. Hongchu had entered the Buddhist order before the fall of the Ming, yet after the Qing conquest he adopted a clearly defined loyalist stance. He came to believe that his own ethical practice had already gone beyond the bounds of inherited tradition and could be promoted as a new ethical model for the Buddhist community in responding to the crisis of the age. He therefore fashioned and disseminated it in the form of a“repaying compassion”image. This persona in turn generated a grand vision of the unity of Buddhism and Confucianism and articulated a value system capable of accommodating the loyalist monks’dual identity as both monks and Confucian literati, thereby fostering strong group cohesion. As the“repaying compassion”image came to be widely revered, Hongchu was jointly acclaimed by the monastic community and the literati as the“Dragon Gate”(Longmen), and the loyalist monks began to display a form of social power capable of counterbalancing the Qing court. A comprehensive view of the entire process—from Hongchu’s initiation of these writings to his mobilization of cultural forces both within and beyond the Buddhist world (including Qian Qianyi, a long-standing adversary of his lineage), and the resulting collective effect—reveals the loyalist monks’claim to an active role in shaping the social and cultural life of the early Qing.