Jīngāngdǐng yújiā zhōng fā Anòuduōluó sānmiǎo sānpútíxīn lùn mìshì 金剛頂瑜伽中發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心論祕釋
An Esoteric Exposition of the Treatise on the Generation of the Mind of Unsurpassed Right and Perfect Awakening within the Vajraśekhara-yoga by 覺鑁 (Juébàn / Kakuban, 撰)
About the work
A one-fascicle Esoteric (mìshì 祕釋) commentary by 覺鑁 (Kakuban, 1095–1144), founder of the Shingi Shingon 新義真言 sub-school, on KR6o0070 Jīngāngdǐng yújiā zhōng fā Anòuduōluó sānmiǎo sānpútíxīn lùn 金剛頂瑜伽中發阿耨多羅三藐三菩提心論 (T32n1665), the Bodhicitta-utpāda Treatise attributed to Nāgārjuna 龍猛 and translated by 不空 (Bùkōng / Amoghavajra, 705–774). Preserved in Taishō vol. 70 (no. 2291). The Japanese title is Kongōchō yuga-chū hatsu-anokutara-sanmyaku-sanbodaishin-ron hishaku.
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface; it opens directly by parsing the long title of the parent treatise into “total” and “particular” senses, in a characteristic kemmitsu (顯密) Esoteric-hermeneutical analysis: “今解此一題有總別二意。就總ノ義之中略有十之十。十各有十。乃至無盡” — “In explicating this single title there are two meanings, the total and the particular. In the total sense, in summary there are ten times ten; each ten contains ten; and so on without exhaustion.” The work then proceeds through ten gateways (門) of analysis on the title, beginning with 教 (teaching) and 理 (principle), then 行 / 果, 人法, 理智, 定慧, 因果, etc. — the standard ten-pair analytic of Shingon scholastic hermeneutics. The signature attribution to Kakuban is recorded in the manuscript transmission rather than in the body of the text.
Abstract
The Mìshì is a key witness to Kakuban’s mature Shingon doctrinal synthesis. The parent Bodhicitta-utpāda Treatise — usually called Bodaishin-ron in Japanese — is the foundational Shingon scriptural authority for the doctrine of fā pútíxīn (the generation of the awakening-mind), and Kakuban’s mìshì applies to it the maximally-developed kemmitsu hermeneutic of the Mount Kōya / Negoro-ji school. The work demonstrates Kakuban’s characteristic synthetic move: the doctrine of bodhicitta is shown to integrate within itself the entire structure of the Esoteric path, with each conceptual pair (教/理, 行/果, etc.) instantiating one of the standard Shingon dialectical oppositions.
The work belongs to the period after Kakuban’s founding of the Daidenpō-in 大傳法院 at Mount Kōya in 1132 and before his death at Negoro-ji in 1144. Composition window c. 1115–1144 (his full scholarly maturity).
Translations and research
- van der Veere, Henny. A Study into the Thought of Kōgyō Daishi Kakuban. Leiden: Hotei, 2000. — The principal Western-language study of Kakuban’s thought; treats the Bodaishin-ron commentaries in detail.
- Inaya Yūsen 稲谷裕宣. Kakuban no kenkyū 覺鑁の研究. Kōyasan: Kōyasan Daigaku, 1969.
- Kushida Ryōkō 櫛田良洪. Shingon mikkyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū 真言密教成立過程の研究. Tokyo: Sankibō, 1964.
Other points of interest
The Mìshì and the parallel Sīchāo by Saisen KR6o0073 together constitute the principal late-Heian Shingon scholastic engagement with the Bodaishin-ron and define the framework within which subsequent Shingon Esoteric bodhicitta-doctrine developed. Eisai’s KR6o0074 Kōketsu — composed from a Tendai-Esoteric (Taimitsu) perspective — and Anchō’s KR6o0075 Kenmon — written from the Sanmon-Tendai perspective — both engage with Kakuban’s reading by name.