Huāyánzōng xiāngxūn chāo 華嚴宗香薫抄
Kegon-School Compendium of Incense Fragrance by 宗性 (撰)
About the work
A seven-fascicle Kegon scholastic compendium compiled by Sōshō 宗性 (1202–1278), the dominant Tōdaiji Kegon scholastic of the mid-13th century. The work is organised as a sequence of questions (wèn-tí 問題) on contested points of Avataṃsaka exegesis — drawn from the canonical commentaries of Fa-zang 法藏 (the Tàn-xuán jì 探玄記 KR6a0009, the Wǔ jiào zhāng 華嚴五教章 KR6a0011) and from his Tang and Korean successors. The title xiāng-xūn 香薰 (“perfumed by fragrance”) signals the work’s function as a Yuima-e debate-preparation manual: the doctrinal questions are “perfumed” through the citation and harmonisation of the prior commentarial tradition, in preparation for the lecture-disputation setting.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The terminal colophon — uniquely autobiographical for a medieval Japanese Buddhist compilation — opens “At the Sonshō-in 尊勝院 [of Tōdaiji], using the sixth fascicle of the Tànxuán jì as supplementary material, the prescribed thirty-lectures-of-the-customary were given. The doctrinal-disputations that emerged on that occasion I have here recorded, partly to dispel the doubts of later students, partly to revitalise the Buddhadharma of our school. As my own understanding allowed, I have copied from texts and explained; relying on my foolish thinking, I have answered the questions as best my short talent could — and my sense of shame is great.”
The colophon then takes an unexpectedly personal turn: “Furthermore, last year on the fourth day of the eighth month, the page-boy Rikimei-maru 力命丸 (lit. ‘Strength-Life Pill’), who shared my lodging since infancy, unexpectedly suffered a calamity, sustained a wound, and lost his life. Whatever merit I have generated since then I have dedicated to him; and the diligence with which I have studied this Avataṃsaka-sūtra has been particularly aimed at his rebirth in the Tuṣita Palace. May we again meet, in the gathering of Maitreya’s descent, in the place where the entrustment occurred at the Cock’s-Foot Mountain; may we, at the three assemblies thought-by-thought, share the karmic bond of seeing the Buddha and hearing the Dharma; and in life after life become each other’s good-friends and guides.” The colophon is signed: “The amanuensis: the last-branch [monk] of the Kegon school, former Acting Sōjō (僧正) — Sōshō. Age 75; in his 63rd monastic summer (= 63rd year of monastic standing).”
Sōshō (1202–1278; DILA A000577; Wikidata Q3511699) was 75 years old in 1276 (1276 − 1202 + 1 = 75; the page-boy’s death “last year” = 1275). The composition is therefore precisely dated: notBefore = 1276, notAfter = 1276. The work is unique in the medieval Japanese Buddhist canon for its explicit dedication of scholastic merit to the rebirth of a beloved page-boy — a window onto the personal devotional life of one of the most senior Tōdaiji clerics of his generation.
Doctrinal content: the questions treat substantive points on the seven assemblies of the Avataṃsaka — for example: “In Fa-zang’s view, who is the teaching-master of the second assembly — Vairocana himself, or which Buddha?”; “Should there be an entry-into-samādhi section before the second assembly?”; “Did Pure-Cool Master [= Chéng-guān, fifth Kegon patriarch] explain the second assembly as preceded by an entry-into-samādhi or by a teaching-first sequence?”; “Is the Nominalist Chapter expression ‘extinction-cessation enlightenment-tree first newly attained buddhahood’ to be understood as Vairocana’s, or in some other way?” The work is therefore a model of late-13th-century Tōdaiji Kegon disputation-preparation.
Translations and research
- Hiraoka Jōkai 平岡定海, Tōdaiji Sōshō shōnin no kenkyū narabini shiryō 東大寺宗性上人の研究並史料 (Tokyo, 1958–1960) — the standard Japanese biographical study of Sōshō, with substantial discussion of the present work.
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Sōshō 宗性 and Kegon-shū kōkun shō 華嚴宗香薫抄.
Other points of interest
The work’s autobiographical dedication — explicitly transferring the merit of seven fascicles of Kegon doctrinal study to the Tuṣita rebirth of the deceased page-boy Rikimei-maru — is one of the most personally-disclosed passages in the entire medieval Japanese Buddhist canon. It is a unique witness to Sōshō’s individual Maitreya-devotion, to the gozenni (page-boy) custom in Tōdaiji’s senior-monk households, and to the personal Buddhist response to bereavement in the 13th-century Japanese sectarian establishment.