Guān jīng yì zhuō yí qiǎo dá yán hé chāo 觀經義拙疑巧答研覈鈔
The Investigative Notes [Showing How] Clumsy Doubts Get Clever Answers Concerning the Meaning of the Guānjīng (Jp. Kangyō-gisetsugi kōtō kenkakushō) by 顯意 (Kenni, 述)
About the work
This 1-fascicle work is the third piece in the Saizan-vs.-Kuhonji polemical exchange preserved in Taishō volume 57 as the single entry No. 2208. It is a rejoinder by 顯意 Kenni (1239 – 1304) to the answers offered by 證忍 Shōnin in KR6f0079 Kangyō-gi kemmon gutōshō (1285), which were themselves responses to Kenni’s own KR6f0078 Jōdo gitan (1283). The title’s pointed phrasing — “the clumsy doubts and clever answers” — sets up Kenni’s argument that Shōnin’s “clever” replies in fact rest on clumsy misreadings of Shàndǎo’s [[KR6f0076|Guānjīng shū]].
Prefaces
The header identifies the author: 「釋顯意述」 — “Composed by the monk Kenni.” The work has no formal preface; each section opens with a 「難云」 (“the difficulty says”) lemma quoting (or paraphrasing) Shōnin’s reply, followed by Kenni’s counter-argument. There is no internal colophon date.
Abstract
The work cannot be precisely dated from the text itself, but the terminus a quo is clearly Shōnin’s reply of Kōan 8 = 1285 (KR6f0079) and the terminus ad quem is Kenni’s death in 1304. The bracket 1285 – 1304 adopted here covers Kenni’s late polemical period.
Doctrinally Kenni focuses on points where Shōnin’s defence of the Chinzei reading appears, in Kenni’s view, to elide the Tendai-style ekayāna 一乘 framing of the Guānjīng that the Saizan-Fukakusa line takes to underwrite Shàndǎo’s Xuányìfēn. Representative loci include the question whether birth in the Pure Land is intrinsically Mahāyāna or whether one may seek birth as a śrāvaka (“豈言此人求淨土故即大乘也”) and how the famous “頓教一乘海” passage in Shàndǎo is to be reconciled with the Guānjīng’s seemingly triyāna terminology. The systematic structure — Shōnin’s answer cited, then “studied closely” (研覈) and shown to be inadequate — gives the work an unusually transparent record of Kamakura Pure Land scholastic argumentation.
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
Together with KR6f0078 and KR6f0079, this work forms the triplet T2208A / B / C documenting the Saizan-Fukakusa vs. Kuhonji-ryū polemic. The unit is also a key auxiliary source for the reception of Shàndǎo’s Guānjīng shū in thirteenth-century Japan.