Púsà jiè tōngshòu qiǎnyí chāo 菩薩戒通受遣疑鈔
Doubt-Removing Compendium on the Universal-Vow Reception of the Bodhisattva Precepts by 覺盛 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal apology for the universal-vow ordination procedure (tōng shòu jiè 通受戒) by Kakujō 覺盛 (1194–1249), composed at Tōshōdai-ji 唐招提寺 in Nan-jīng (Nara, the Southern Capital) on the 11th day of the 11th month of Kangen 4 = 1246 CE. The work directly addresses the doctrinal objections raised against the Kakujō-Eison self-vow ordination reform of Katei 2 (= 1236), and is the definitive medieval Japanese justification of the tōngshòu tradition.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The header bears the unambiguous signature: “Nan-jīng Tōshōdai-ji śramaṇa Kakujō composed” (南京招提寺沙門覺盛撰). The terminal colophon dates the work: “Kangen 4 (= 1246), 11th month 11th day. Tōshōdai-ji śramaṇa Kakujō acknowledged.” Kakujō was then 53 years old. notBefore = 1246, notAfter = 1246 is exact.
The opening of the work sets out the doctrinal thesis: “The three trainings of the Great Vehicle all tread the Middle Way; the Bodhisattva’s eight-fold right path entirely passes beyond extremes. If one takes its meaning with a limited intention, it falls into delusion and is not the true school’s [meaning]. The four-fold and two-truths are clearly like a string of jewels — who would dare contest their principle? The Yogācāra and Vijñāptimātratā are clearly like a hanging mirror — how could one further doubt their text?” Kakujō then narrows to the central topic: “Among these, what I now discuss is the śīla-pāramitā alone. Reading the Bodhisattva-bhūmi carefully, all ten thousand practices flow into the broad ocean of the śīla; the three vehicles, without separation, equally grow their roots-of-goodness in the vinaya.”
Doctrinal content: the work’s central argument is that the three-aggregate-precept self-vow ordination is doctrinally founded in the Yogācārabhūmi’s teaching that “self-receiving from another, both serve as the proper standard of monastic life” (自受從他併爲出家之正軌). Kakujō addresses objections from the standpoint of biéshòu (the traditional three-master / seven-witness ordination — taught in KR6t0048), demonstrating that the tōngshòu alternative is not novel but is grounded in canonical authority.
The closing fascicle warns against the five逆 pañcānantarya (five immediate-retribution offenses), citing the Lotus’s sub-commentary tradition: among the offenses is “to revile any renunciate, whether observing or breaking the precepts, by accusations or curses, by imprisoning, by stripping their robes and forcing them back to lay life, by binding them to labour, by interrupting their resources.” Kakujō warns that the beginners and the foolish who “recite a single school and rest in a single practice, taking this faith-strength as their self-protection, and for the sake of propagating this school destroy all other teachings” — these are themselves at the root of the five-逆 offenses. The veiled critique of contemporary sectarian polemicism (specifically, the anti-Hōnen polemic of Jōkei 貞慶 and Myōe 高辨, and the Nichiren movement that was beginning) is one of the work’s striking contemporary touches.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Paul Groner, Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, discusses the doctrinal background of the tōng-shòu / bié-shòu division.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Kakujō 覺盛 and Bosatsu kai tsūju kengi shō 菩薩戒通受遣疑鈔.
Other points of interest
The work is the principal medieval Japanese doctrinal apology for the self-vow ordination institutional reform of 1236, and as such a foundational document of the Kamakura Vinaya revival. The closing critique of sectarian exclusivism as a form of the pañcānantarya is one of the most striking documents of medieval Japanese ecumenical Buddhism, contrasting sharply with the contemporary anti-Pure Land polemic of Jōkei and Myōe.