MUZIChinese Matrix
Clerics › Religious Figure
Northern Song poet-monk, secular name Zhang Hui, who lived in Suzhou and Hangzhou after taking vows, was a close friend of Su Shi, and wrote Jin Ming Chi, included in the Three Hundred Song Lyrics.
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Zhang Hui (secular name) · Monk Hui · Courtesy name Shili
Zhong Shu, secular name Zhang Hui and courtesy name Shili, appears in song-lyric anthologies as Monk Hui; he was a Northern Song poet-monk whose dates are unknown. He took vows before the Yuanfeng era and afterwards lived around Suzhou and Hangzhou, close to Su Shi; in 1081 Su Shi, writing to Teng Dadao, already knew of his reputation for discipline, and in 1082 Zhong Shu wrote the lyric Jianzi Mulanhua on Li Gongling's Shanyin picture. His lyrics are limpid, and his Jin Ming Chi, opening 'tian kuo yun gao', is in the Three Hundred Song Lyrics under the name Monk Hui.
Songalready a monk and acquainted with Su Shi in the Yuanfeng years (1081–1082 CE attested)
Literature · Lyrics1Zhongshu wrote the lyric to the tune Jianzi mulanhua on Li Gonglin's painting Shanyin Tu in 1082, and in the tenth month of 1097 he wrote the Record of the Luhe Saint Image Cloister.
Zhongshu, born Zhang Hui, courtesy name Shili, was a native of Anzhou (now Anlu in Hubei) who became a monk. In the sixth month of 1089 Su Shi, traveling from the capital to Hangzhou, passed through Suzhou and met Zhongshu, and the two often exchanged poems afterward. A local gazetteer says Su Shi was on very good terms with him and called him Honey Shu.