Jìng tǔ yí duān 淨土疑端
The Doubt-Points on Pure Land [Doctrine] (Jp. Jōdo gitan) by 顯意 (Kenni, 述)
About the work
The Jìngtǔ yí duān — Jp. Jōdo gitan — in 4 fascicles is a polemical treatise by the Saizan-Fukakusa systematizer 顯意 Kenni (1239 – 1304) cataloguing 120 doubt-points against the Chinzei 鎮西 reading of Shàndǎo’s [[KR6f0076|Guānjīng shū]] 觀經疏 — in particular its first section, the Xuányìfēn 玄義分. The work is structured as a numbered list of 疑端 (“doubt-points”), each anchored in a lemma from Shàndǎo’s text, on which the Chinzei interpretation is challenged and the Saizan-Fukakusa reading proposed.
Prefaces
The colophon at the end of fascicle 4 reads, in part: 「此釋一部四卷。淨教之樞鍵也。但以ハ文義幽隱意趣源玄。淺智疑端不可稱擧。今且略出一百二十條。可謂九牛之一毛矣 … 時也寶歷癸未春三月日。西郊隱士顯意謹記」 — “These four fascicles of commentary are the very pivot of the Pure Land teaching. Yet because the text and meaning are profound and the intent abyssal, the doubt-points of a shallow understanding cannot be exhaustively enumerated; for now I have abridged them to one hundred and twenty items — a mere single hair of nine bulls. … Dated Hōreki [sic] guǐwèi, spring, third month: Ken’i, hermit of the western suburbs, respectfully records.” A follow-up colophon adds: 「癸未冬日顯意珍重」 — “Ken’i values this, on a winter day of the guǐwèi year.” The era-name 寶歷 (“Hōreki”) given in the colophon is anachronistic — Hōreki is an Edo-period nengō (1751 – 1764) postdating Kenni — and is almost certainly a scribal corruption of an earlier era-name; the cyclical year 癸未 within Kenni’s lifetime is Kōan 6 = 1283, which fits Kenni’s mature period. The work is accordingly bracketed to 1283.
A separate printer’s colophon dates the surviving xylograph: 「時正保乙酉曆舞射吉辰。願主三陽員外小比丘愚翁」 — Shōhō 2 = 1645, by the patron-printer Sanyō Inyō Shōhikku Gu’ō.
Abstract
The work belongs to the polemical exchange between the Saizan-Fukakusa 西山深草派 line of Jōdoshū (法然 Hōnen → 證空 Shōkū → 立信 Risshin → Kenni) and the Chinzei 鎮西 line (法然 Hōnen → 辨長 Benchō → 良忠 Ryōchū) that dominated Kamakura-period Pure Land doctrinal debate. Kenni’s strategy is to attach each doubt-point to a specific phrase from Shàndǎo and to show that the Chinzei reading either misconstrues the syntax or imports an alien doctrinal frame (typically a Tendai-style ekayāna gloss is preferred). The 120-item list became one of the standard reference grids for the subsequent debate: KR6f0079 Kangyō-gi kemmon gutōshō by 證忍 Shōnin (1285) is structured as a counter-list of answers, and KR6f0080 Kangyō-gisetsugi kōtō kenkakushō, also by Kenni, takes up the rebuttal of Shōnin’s answers.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- Ken’i Shōnin zenshū 顯意上人全集 (ed. 稲田廣演 Inada Hiroen, 2003), Jōdo-shū Seizan-Fukakusa-ha Shūmu-sho — collected works edition.
Other points of interest
The trio T2208A Jōdo gitan (Kenni, 1283) — T2208B Kangyō-gi kemmon gutōshō (Shōnin, 1285) — T2208C Kangyō-gisetsugi kōtō kenkakushō (Kenni) constitutes one of the best-documented sustained polemical exchanges in Kamakura-period Japanese Buddhism. Despite the polemical heat, the three works pool a remarkable density of citation from Shàndǎo’s Guānjīng shū and the Sòng Tiāntái commentarial tradition, making them important auxiliary sources for the reception history of KR6f0076.