Jìng tǔ sān bù jīng yīn yì jí 淨土三部經音義集
Collected Pronunciations and Meanings of the Three Pure Land Sūtras (Jp. Jōdo sanbukyō ongishū) by 信瑞 (Shinzui / Kyōsaibō, 纂)
About the work
The Jìngtǔ sānbù jīng yīnyì jí — Jp. Jōdo sanbukyō ongishū — in 4 fascicles is the first comprehensive Japanese yīnyì 音義 (pronunciation-and-gloss) commentary devoted specifically to the Three Pure Land Sūtras: the [[KR6f0060|Wúliángshòu jīng]] 無量壽經 (T360, Kāng Sēngkǎi’s translation), the [[KR6f0071|Guānwúliángshòufó jīng]] 觀無量壽佛經 (T365), and the [[KR6f0082|Fóshuō āmítuó jīng]] 佛說阿彌陀經 (T366, Kumārajīva’s translation). It supplies for each lemma in the three sūtras the pronunciation (反切 or 直音), the semantic gloss, the textual locus, and where possible the Sanskrit etymon and citation-history in earlier commentary, lexicon, and standard reference literature.
Prefaces
The author’s preface, which opens the work, includes the signature 「沙門信瑞纂」 — “Compiled by the monk Shinzui.” The preface frames the rationale: 「如來說法。必藉文字。若無文字。實相焉襢。其文字者。月氏梵天所制。原始垂則 …」 — “The Tathāgata’s preaching must take its support from writing; were there no writing, how could ultimate reality be manifest? Now writing was instituted by Brahmā of the Yuèzhī country [i.e. in India], setting the original norm…” The preface is undated in the surviving recension; the conventional dating to Hōji 2 = 1248 rests on standard Jōdoshū bibliographic tradition.
Abstract
The compilation is conventionally dated to Hōji 2 (1248) by Shinzui (Kyōsaibō 敬西房, ? – 1279), a second-generation 法然 Hōnen monryū figure of the 隆寛 Ryūkan / 信空 Shinkū (Chōrakuji-gi / Hakuga-bō) lineage rather than the Chinzei main line. A recent study (菊地達也 Kikuchi 2017, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 65/2) on the textual recension proposes a slightly earlier date (1237) for an antecedent draft; the 1248 dating remains standard for the received recension.
Methodologically the Ongishū draws on a wide range of earlier yīnyì and lexicographic literature — including the Yīqiè jīng yīn yì 一切經音義 of 玄應 Xuányìng and 慧琳 Huìlín, the Shuōwén jiězì 說文解字 (KR1j0018), Yùpiān 玉篇 (KR1j0022), Báihǔ tōng 白虎通 (KR3j0023), Lúnyǔ 論語 (Confucian Analects), the Jìnshū 晉書 (KR2a0015), and so on — and is one of the principal sources for the medieval Japanese textual reception of the Three Pure Land Sūtras. The work’s citations of the Wúliángshòu jīng’s textual variants and of glosses no longer extant in continental sources make it a significant philological resource.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- 菊地達也 Kikuchi Tatsuya. 「信瑞纂『浄土三部経音義集』の書誌的整理」, Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度學佛教學研究 65/2 (2017), pp. 634–. (Bibliographic study of the recension.)
- Standard Jōdo-shū reference: Shinsan Jōdo-shū dai-jiten 新纂浄土宗大辞典 s.v. 淨土三部經音義集.
Other points of interest
The Ongishū shares a documentary network with Shinzui’s other principal work, the Kokutani Shōnin den 黑谷上人傳 (a Hōnen biography presented to the regent Hōjō Tokiyori in 1262); both works belong to Shinzui’s project of consolidating the early Hōnen monryū textual and biographical record outside the Chinzei mainline. The internally-cited “佛得二十五年。推此今年五十五” arithmetic curiosity at the end of fascicle 1 — where Shinzui works through the relative dating of Confucius and the Buddha using the Liang dynasty hagiographic chronology — is a small but instructive specimen of medieval Japanese chronological scholarship.