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唐招提寺戒壇別受戒式

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Text ID
KR6t0048
Date
1200–1698
Dynasty
日本

Táng zhāotísì jiètán bié shòujièshì 唐招提寺戒壇別受戒式

Tōshōdai-ji Separate Ordination Ceremony by 惠光 (撰)

About the work

A single-fascicle Tōshōdai-ji ordination ceremony manual by Ekō 惠光, codifying the bié shòu-jiè 別受戒 (separate-ordination) ceremony at the Tōshōdai-ji 唐招提寺 ordination platform. The “separate ordination” is distinguished from the tōng shòu-jiè 通受戒 (universal-ordination by self-vow that Kakujō 覺盛 (KR6t0049 and ff. author) established at Tōshōdai-ji in 1236): it is the traditional Vinaya ordination procedure following the prātimokṣa and the three-master / seven-witness pattern, as transmitted by Jianzhen 鑑真.

Abstract

Authorship and dating: The terminal colophon dates the surviving copy: “Genroku 11 (= 1698), 9th month, 11th day, copied.” The author Ekō 惠光 is not the 5th-Dynasty Ekō (DILA A014213) or the Edo Sōtō-Zen Ekō (DILA A038401); he is a separate Tōshōdai-ji Vinaya monk for whom no securely-attested dates are preserved. The work’s title — distinguishing the bié (separate) from the tōng (universal) ordination, the latter established by Kakujō in 1236 — places the work after the Kamakura Vinaya revival. notBefore = 1200, notAfter = 1698 is conservative.

Doctrinal-procedural content: the work is structured in fifteen sections: (1) internal inviting before the reception; (2) bell-ringing and gathering of the saṃgha; (3) the formal inviting of the masters; (4) the master-and-disciple ascending the platform; (5) the lecture on the Sūtra of Bequeathed Teachings; (6) the teaching on the arising of precept-causes; (7) the candidate’s exit from the platform; (8) the appointment of the teaching-instruction master; (9) the exit-from-the-assembly inquiry; (10) the single-public-statement entry-into-the-assembly procedure; (11) the formal teaching and request for the precepts; (12) the assembly-facing inquiry; (13) the formal-bestowal-of-the-precept procedure; (14) the brief explanation of precept-characteristics; (15) the exit-from-the-boundary line-up.

The work concludes with detailed administrative procedures: the recording of the ordinands’ names (the kōmyō 交名 register, on which both “real names” and “secular names” are listed but only the real names and ordination-numbers are recited in the ceremony), the dating of the ceremony, and the Genroku 11 (1698) transmission note.

The text is one of the few medieval Japanese Buddhist canonical works preserved exclusively at Tōshōdai-ji and represents the post-Kakujō biéshòu tradition that continued to be transmitted at the Jianzhen-lineage monastery in parallel with the new tōngshòu (self-vow) ordination.

Translations and research

  • No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
  • The text is treated briefly in the standard Japanese Tōshōdai-ji engi and Vinaya-school institutional studies.

Other points of interest

The text is unique among Japanese Buddhist canonical works for its preservation of the traditional (bié, three-master-seven-witness) ordination procedure at Tōshōdai-ji alongside the canonical preservation of Kakujō’s contemporary tōng (self-vow) procedures (KR6t0049–KR6t0051). Together they document the bipartite character of the post-Kakujō Tōshōdai-ji Vinaya tradition: the temple maintained both procedures simultaneously, depending on the ritual context.

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