Guān jīng yì xián wèn yú dá chāo 觀經義賢問愚答鈔
The Notes on “the Wise Asks, the Fool Answers” on the Meaning of the Guānjīng (Jp. Kangyō-gi kemmon gutōshō) by 證忍 (Shōnin of Kuhonji-Hokuji, 記)
About the work
This 1-fascicle work is a polemical reply by the Kamakura-period monk 證忍 Shōnin of Kuhonji-Hokuji 郊北九品寺 (probably Chōsai’s Kuhonji in northern Kyoto, head of the Kuhonji-ryū 九品寺流 line of Jōdoshū) to a list of 120 yíduān 疑端 (“doubt-points”) raised against Shàndǎo’s [[KR6f0076|Guānjīng shū]] — namely the 120-item catalogue of KR6f0078 Jōdo gitan by 顯意 Kenni of the Saizan-Fukakusa line. The conceit of the title, “the wise asks, the fool answers”, is self-deprecating; Shōnin presents his own responses as those of the “fool” (愚禿 gutoku) against the “wise” Saizan questioners.
Prefaces
The opening passage frames the polemical setting: 「近曾一人禪客來示云。就和尚觀經疏有百二十條疑端。此乃為破邪顯正也 … 又了阿上人對面云。西山道教上人有百二十疑端。可答之由有縁同侶頻有勸進」 — “Recently a Chan visitor came and said: ‘There are 120 doubt-points concerning the Patriarch’s Guānjīng shū — these are for the breaking of the false and the manifesting of the true.’ … And again 了阿 Ryōa Shōnin said in person: ‘Saizan Dōkyō Shōnin 西山道教上人 has 120 doubt-points; that they are to be answered has been frequently urged on me by colleagues who share the affinity.‘” The colophon dates the work precisely: 「弘安八年乙酉二月十四日誂他人令清書 … 欣淨愚禿證忍在判」 — Kōan 8/2/14 = 1285-03-21.
Abstract
The work is a documentary anchor in the Saizan-Chinzei polemics of the second half of the thirteenth century. Dōkyō Shōnin named in the preface is 顯意 Kenni (whose monastic styling included Dōkyō 道教); the 120 doubt-points he attributes to Kenni are those of KR6f0078 Jōdo gitan (dated 1283), and Shōnin’s reply two years later (1285) shows the polemical exchange in real time. Of the 120 items, Shōnin notes that Kenni’s master-copy bears red and black annotations subdividing them — “48 in red, 16 in black, 56 unmarked” — and that the manuscript transmitted to him through Ryōa lacked these distinctions; Shōnin therefore replies to the full set as it reached him.
The closing passage offers a doctrinally important caution: 「然偏執自義以為正義。恣謗他義而為邪者。其咎不輕。自法愛染故。毀呰他人法。雖持戒行人。不脫地獄苦」 — “But one who, biased toward his own view, takes it for the true and recklessly slanders the doctrine of the other as false: his fault is not light. Through attachment to one’s own dharma he reviles another’s dharma; even a precept-keeper, in such a case, does not escape the suffering of the hells.” Shōnin’s school affiliation is not directly attested; his polemical alignment is against Saizan-Fukakusa but his Kuhonji base suggests the Kuhonji-ryū rather than Chinzei.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
Other points of interest
The triplet T2208A (Kenni, 1283) – T2208B (Shōnin, 1285) – T2208C (Kenni) is preserved together in Taishō volume 57 as a documentary unit, with the three works numbered as a single entry (No. 2208 A / B / C). The unit is one of the principal pieces of evidence for the Kuhonji-ryū as an independent Pure Land lineage interacting with the better-known Seizan and Chinzei lines.