Ā mí tuó jīng lüè jì 阿彌陀經略記
The Abridged Notes on the Amitābha Sūtra (Jp. Amidakyō ryakki) by 源信 (Genshin / Eshin Sōzu, 撰)
About the work
The Āmítuó jīng lüè jì — Jp. Amidakyō ryakki — is a brief 1-fascicle commentary on the [[KR6f0082|Fóshuō āmítuó jīng]] 佛說阿彌陀經 (T366, Kumārajīva’s translation of the Smaller Sukhāvatīvyūha) by 源信 Genshin 源信 (942 – 1017), the central figure of early-medieval Japanese Tendai 天台 Pure Land. The work was composed at the request of a court patron, “the warder of the imperial guard, the Fujiwara general” (親衞藤將軍), who had retired to a mountain retreat and devoted himself to the nenbutsu, and who asked Genshin for an exposition more accessible than the Tendai master Zhīyǐ’s Amidakyō gisho — “the Tendai gisho is too abridged in its text to understand easily; please expand its meaning at length, drawing also on your own intent.”
Prefaces
The work opens with Genshin’s own preface: 「夫阿彌陀經者。度生死海之舟楫。至清涼池之輪轘也。其文約略。其義含弘。籠五岳於一簣之山。宗四海於寸波之上 …」 — “Now the Amitābha Sūtra is the raft for crossing the sea of birth-and-death, the vehicle for reaching the cool pond [of nirvāṇa]. Its words are abridged, its meaning capacious — it cages the Five Sacred Peaks in a single basket of earth, and rules the Four Seas from upon an inch of wave.” A first-person datable colophon follows the preface and signs the work precisely: 「長和三年甲寅暮九日。叡山沙門源信叙」 — “Chōwa 3 / jiǎ-yín / late ninth-month day: prefaced by the Mt. Hiei monk Genshin”, i.e. autumn of 1014, when Genshin was about 73.
Abstract
The work was composed at Genshin’s Eshin-in 惠心院 retreat on Mt. Hiei in 長和 3 (1014), three years before his death in 1017. The patron mentioned in the preface — “the warder of the imperial guard, the Fujiwara general” (親衞藤將軍) — is not securely identified, but the patronage profile fits the contemporary Fujiwara military aristocracy retiring from court office and turning to Pure Land devotion.
The structure is announced at the head of the body: 「將釋此經。略用三門。一述大意。二明題目。三分文解釋」 — “In commenting on this sūtra I shall use, in brief, three gates: (i) statement of the general purport; (ii) elucidation of the title; (iii) division of the text and exposition.” The commentarial method is recognizably Tendai-derived, parallel to that of Zhīyǐ’s [[KR6f0073|Guānwúliángshòufó jīng shū]] and to Genshin’s other doctrinal works, but with the apparatus made deliberately accessible. The work is significantly shorter than the major Chinese commentaries on the Amitābha Sūtra (e.g. Yuánzhào’s [[KR6f0077|Fóshuō āmítuó jīng yì shū]] of 1075) and is best classified as a devotional-exegetical aid for lay use rather than as a scholastic monograph.
In Japanese tradition the Ryakki is treated as the companion piece to Genshin’s much more famous Ōjō yōshū 往生要集 (T2682, completed 985) — the Ōjō yōshū providing the systematic doctrinal foundation, the Ryakki the lemma-by-lemma working through of the central scriptural text of the Pure Land devotional cult that the Ōjō yōshū recommends.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Andrews, Allan A. The Teachings Essential for Rebirth: A Study of Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū (Sophia University, 1973) — foundational English study of Genshin’s Pure Land thought.
- Rhodes, Robert F. Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017) — most recent comprehensive treatment in English.
- 速水侑 Hayami Tasuku and other standard Japanese studies of Genshin in the Eshin Sōzu zenshū 惠心僧都全集.
Other points of interest
The dated colophon “長和三年甲寅暮九日” makes the Ryakki one of the most securely dated of Genshin’s commentarial works and is therefore of substantial value for periodizing his late-career corpus.