Jùshě Lùn Běnyì Chāo 倶舍論本義抄
Notes on the Original Meaning of the Abhidharmakośa by 宗性 (撰)
About the work
The Jùshě Lùn Běnyì Chāo 倶舍論本義抄 (Jp. Kusharon hongi-shō; CBETA T63n2249) is a forty-eight-fascicle Japanese Kegon-school 華嚴宗 Abhidharma compilation by Sōshō 宗性 (宗性, 1202–1278) of Tōdai-ji 東大寺 in Nara. It is the largest single Japanese scholastic work on Xuánzàng’s Āpídámó Jùshě Lùn 阿毘達磨俱舍論 (KR6l0023, T1558 — Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya). Structured as a sequence of mondō 問答 (“problems”) rather than running commentary, each fascicle takes one fascicle of the parent Kośa and works through several dozen disputed points raised by the principal Tang commentators Puguang 普光 (普光; Jùshě lùn jì KR6l0034), Fabao 法寶 (法寶; Jùshě lùn shū KR6l0035), and the Zhèng-lǐ lùn 正理論 (KR6l0031) of Saṃghabhadra 眾賢. The work is the principal native Japanese contribution to the Nara-Kamakura Kośa commentarial tradition.
Prefaces
The received text carries no formal preface but ends with a substantial colophon dated Bun’ei 2 (文永二年, 1265), the 5th day of the 8th lunar month, written at the Jūrin-in 十輪院 of Kaijūsen-ji 海住山寺 in Yamashiro. The colophon reports that Sōshō finished a fair copy in the previous summer of the same year (begun on the 19th of the 5th month) and completed the compilation seventy-five days later. He records his motive — to dedicate the merit of “seventy-some problems on the new-and-old large and small [Abhidharma] records” to the Pure Land and the Maitreya-yet-to-come — and signs as “Hossōshū’s terminal disciple, the hōin gondaisōzu Sōshō, age 64, monastic seniority 53” (右筆華嚴宗末葉法印權大僧都宗性，年齡六十四夏臘五十三).
Abstract
Sōshō was the foremost Kegon-school Abhidharma scholar of thirteenth-century Japan and a representative figure of the Tōdai-ji exegetical revival of the Kamakura period. The work demonstrates close mastery of the entire received Tang Kośa apparatus: Puguang 普光’s Jì 記 and Fabao 法寶’s Shū 疏, with Yuanhui 圓暉’s Sòngshū 頌疏 (KR6l0036) and Saṃghabhadra’s Nyāyānusāra (KR6l0031) cited as control texts. The format throughout is uniform: each problem (問) is posed in a single sentence; a two-sided argument (兩方) lays out the prima-facie positions; the resolution (答) cites the relevant Tang masters by name and adjudicates. Topics range across the entire Abhidharma curriculum — the structure of the eight chapters of the Kośa, the disputed identity of the verse-text (頌本) versus the prose auto-commentary, the doctrine of the four 對法 senses of Abhidharma, the polemic against the Vaibhāṣika position on non-defiled ignorance (不染無知), the nature of latent afflictions (隨眠), and the doctrinal architecture of the path.
Sōshō entered Tōdai-ji as a child, studied under the Sanron and Hossō masters of the Sonshō-in 尊勝院 lineage, and was appointed bettō (chief abbot) of Tōdai-ji at the recommendation of the retired Emperor Go-Saga 後嵯峨. He is also the author of an autograph encyclopedic kojikari (Sōshō shōnin shutsuyō shū 宗性上人出要集), the Maitreya Tushita seekers’ meditation manual and a large body of preserved manuscripts that constitute one of the most important documentary archives for Kamakura-period scholastic Buddhism. His doctrinal allegiance was Kegon, but, like his contemporary and successor Gyōnen 凝然 (凝然, his disciple), he wrote authoritatively across the full Nara hassū 八宗 curriculum, of which Kośa-Abhidharma was a required component. The colophon’s self-designation as “Kegon-shū’s terminal disciple” is conventional self-deprecation rather than evidence of sectarian distance from Abhidharma.
The date bracket for composition is set by Sōshō’s productive period (notBefore 1247, when he was a senior Tōdaiji scholar) and the colophon date (notAfter 1265, the recorded completion).
Translations and research
- Hiraoka Jōkai 平岡定海. Tōdaiji Sōshō shōnin no kenkyū narabini shiryō 東大寺宗性上人之研究並史料 (“Studies and Documents on the Tōdai-ji Sōshō shōnin”). 3 vols. Tōkyō: Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkōkai, 1958–1960. The standard biographical and bibliographical study, with reproductions of holograph material.
- Tomimura Takafumi 富村孝文. “Sōshō Kusharon hongi-shō ni mieru Tōdaiji Kushū no gakutō” 宗性『俱舍論本義抄』に見える東大寺倶舎宗の学統. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度學佛敎學研究 51.2 (2003): 670–673. On the Tōdai-ji Kushū lineage as it appears in the text.
- The work has not been translated into a Western language. The CBETA editing (T63n2249, ed. Taishō vol. 63, pp. 1–805) is the standard text.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal witnesses to the so-called Nara rokushū 南都六宗 Kushū 倶舍宗 — the formally classified “Abhidharma-school” of medieval Nara — and is contemporaneous with the parallel Hossō-school Jùshě commentary tradition centered at Kōfuku-ji 興福寺. Together with the Shǐyào chāo of 湛慧 (KR6l0025) and the Fǎyì of Kaidō 快道 (KR6l0026), it forms the core of the surviving Japanese Kośa apparatus.