Pútíxīn lùn jiànwén 菩提心論見聞
Notes from What Was Seen and Heard on the Treatise on the Awakening-Mind by 安超 (Ānchāo / Anchō, 記)
About the work
A four-fascicle medieval Japanese Tendai Sanmon-school comparative jiànwén 見聞 (“notes from what was seen and heard”) on KR6o0070 Jīngāngdǐng yújiā zhōng fā pútíxīn lùn (T32n1665), the Bodhicitta-utpāda Treatise attributed to Nāgārjuna in 不空 (Amoghavajra)‘s Tang translation. Composed by 安超 (Anchō), a Tendai Sanmon scholar of uncertain dates (active conventionally c. 1250–1389). Preserved in Taishō vol. 70 (no. 2294). The Japanese title is Bodaishin-ron kenmon.
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface. It opens directly with a tabular three-school comparison of the doctrine of “outsiders and two-vehicle adherents” (外道二乘) — the relevant exegetical question being whether the Bodaishin-ron’s opening criticism of “outsiders and two-vehicle adherents” refers to (a) provisional-teaching Buddhas, (b) the Tendai-Kegon-Hossō-Sanron three-vehicle scheme, or (c) some other taxonomy. Anchō displays the three principal Japanese views side by side:
外道二乘
東寺 一義云 外道ハ權敎佛果。二乘ハ天台華嚴一乘法相三論三乘
三井 一義云 外道ハ如常。二乘ハ小乘與三乘也
山門 一義云 外道二乘如常。義釋云。外道有二種一外外道二内外道
“On ‘outsiders and two-vehicle adherents’: Tōji (Kogi Shingon main-line) holds that ‘outsiders’ are Buddhas of the provisional teaching and ‘two-vehicle’ refers to the Tendai/Kegon one-vehicle/Hossō/Sanron three-vehicle schemata. Mii (Onjō-ji / Jimon Tendai) holds that ‘outsiders’ is as commonly understood and ‘two-vehicle’ refers to Hīnayāna together with the three-vehicle scheme. Sanmon (Hieizan Tendai) holds that ‘outsiders and two-vehicle’ are as commonly understood; the Yīshì commentary says: ‘There are two kinds of outsider — outer-outer and inner-outer.‘” The work proceeds in this tri-columnar format throughout, juxtaposing the Tōji, Mii, and Sanmon readings of each contested point in the Bodaishin-ron.
A late copy-colophon records “康應改元己巳九月二日於上野國深巣苗島賜花藏寺本師御本爲令法久住書寫了” — “Copied for the long-abiding of the Dharma on the 2nd day of the 9th month of Kōō 1 (1389) at Kekajō-ji 花藏寺 in Mioshima, Fukase, Ueno-no-kuni, from the master’s gohon” — by 定智 Jōchi. A second colophon dated Kan’ei 8 (寛永八年, 1631) records the manuscript’s transmission to Tenkai Daisōjō 天海大僧正 (1536–1643) at the Hieizan Saitō Keikō-in 西塔溪廣院.
Abstract
The Kenmon is a unique witness to medieval Japanese Esoteric school-comparative exegesis. Its tri-columnar method — laying out the Tōji, Mii, and Sanmon readings of each lemma — is structurally distinct from the unschool single-perspective commentaries that constitute the bulk of medieval Japanese Esoteric scholastic literature (KR6o0072 Kakuban, KR6o0073 Saisen, KR6o0074 Eisai). Anchō does take a Sanmon-Tendai position when adjudicating contested points (he cites the Yīshì — the Mahāvairocanasūtra commentary by Subhakarasimha / Yixing, the foundational kemmitsu text of all three Japanese Esoteric schools — as the Sanmon authority), but he records the rival readings in full and with attribution.
The work also engages with Kakuban 覺鑁 by name: a passage at the end of juǎn 3 cites “大日ノ要義抄第三覺範作” (note: “覺範” is a textual variant for 覺鑁) on the dating of Yixing and Amoghavajra, addressing the question of whether the historical Yixing (Kaiyuan 15 = 727 demise, aged 45) could have read the Bodaishin-ron commentaries — a chronological problem internal to the Esoteric tradition’s self-conception.
Composition window: c. 1250–1389. The lower bound is fixed by the citation of Kakuban (d. 1144) but absence of citation of post-Kakuban Shingi-Shingon literature; the upper bound by the Kōō 1 (1389) copy-colophon.
Translations and research
- Mizukami Bunji 水上文義. Taimitsu shisō no kenkyū 台密思想の研究. Tokyo: Sankibō, 2007. — Treats medieval Sanmon Esoteric scholastic literature in its institutional context.
Other points of interest
The tri-columnar Tōji/Mii/Sanmon comparison format is one of the most distinctive medieval Japanese Esoteric scholastic genres but is poorly represented in the surviving canonical literature; the Kenmon is among the most extensive and best-preserved instances. As a documentary record of inter-school doctrinal differences in the late-Kamakura and Nanboku-chō periods, it is consequently invaluable. The transmission to Tenkai Daisōjō in 1631 brought the work into the early-Edo Hieizan editorial campaigns that produced the Edo Tendai zensho and prepared the textual base used by the Taishō editors.