Púsà jiè tōngbié èrshòu chāo 菩薩戒通別二受鈔
Compendium on the Two-Fold Universal and Separate Reception of the Bodhisattva Precepts by 覺盛 (製)
About the work
A single-fascicle systematic treatment of the universal-vow and separate-master ordination procedures by Kakujō 覺盛 (1194–1249), composed at Tōshōdai-ji on the 9th month of Katei 4 = 1238 CE — exactly two years after the inaugural jisei jukai of Katei 2 (1236) at the same temple. The work is the earliest of Kakujō’s three Bodhisattva-precept treatises in the Taishō canon (predating both KR6t0049 and KR6t0050) and is his most systematic doctrinal statement of the relationship between the two ordination procedures.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The header bears the signature “Nan-dō Tōshōdai-ji Kakujō produced” (南都唐招提寺覺盛製). The terminal colophon is precise: “Katei 4 (= 1238), wù-xū, 9th month, day. Śramaṇa Kakujō.” Kakujō was then 45 years old. notBefore = 1238, notAfter = 1238 is exact.
A second colophon — by the 1395 printer Kenshō 賢盛 — provides extraordinary publishing context: “Ancient and modern, the worthy masters’ compositions on this disputation are countless. Without an exhaustive Master Kakujō treatment, the title’s two-receiving universal-and-separate two-gate text is concise and the meaning is abundant. As if the receiver of the precepts immediately entered the buddha-realm, the awakening of the way being in the mind. Looking only to this canon. But regretting that since its arrival in Fusang [= Japan], the earlier worthies have engraved blocks but not given it full propagation. Now my disciple Kenshō has opened the printing, with the prayer that this Vinaya-school propagation will lead to the upward repayment of the threefold gracious-debt and the downward salvation of the six-realm suffering beings. Ōei 2 (= 1395), 9th month, 4th day. Yamato Tōshōdai-ji resident, junior bhikṣu Kenshō respectfully recorded.” A further colophon by Tanmaki Genku 憺眞元空 dates the Hōei 5 (= 1708) Sanuki Reishi-ritsu-ji collation.
Doctrinal content: the work opens with the framing question: “Question: The universal and separate receptions — what are their procedures?” The answer: “First, the universal [reception]: by means of the three-aggregate karman, the seizing-vinaya-gestures, the seizing-goodness, and the benefitting [others] are received simultaneously, in totality. Therefore it is called universal. Next, the separate [reception]: by means of the single-statement-three-karman and the like, only the seven-fold vinaya-gestures (= the bhikṣu, bhikṣuṇī, śrāmaṇera, śrāmaṇerī, śikṣamāṇā, upāsaka, upāsikā vow-types) are received separately, and the other two are not received. Therefore it is called separate.”
Kakujō then quotes the Púsà jiè běn shū 菩薩戒本疏 of Zhìyǎn 寂 (= Wǒnch’ǔk 圓測, the Silla Yogācāra master at Tang Cí’ēn): “The procedure of receiving-vinaya-precepts has two: (1) total reception together with the other two; (2) separate reception from the other two. The total-reception procedure is the same for the seven types (七衆) — all are conferred under the three-aggregate-precepts karman in one statement. Therefore the Bodhisattva-bhūmi (地持) reception-procedure follows this. If the separate reception, the seven types’ procedure differs: the two lay-types receive the five precepts; the renunciate-types receive full ordination by means of the single-statement-three-karman, from the ten witnesses procedure. The text says: ‘together with the other two’ refers to seizing-goodness and benefitting-beings — the two [aggregates beyond seizing-vinaya-gestures] — united reception means three-aggregate-precepts together-received; separated from the other two means excepting the seizing-goodness and benefitting-beings two.”
The work then develops a complete doctrinal exposition of the relationship between the two procedures, addressing each major objection in turn. Kakujō’s conclusion: “Even if there is no good master available, by following the universal-vow procedure one can either self-vow or receive from another — according to circumstances, this is to establish the seven-fold saṃgha-jewel and the long-abiding of the Buddha-dharma.” This is the definitive medieval Japanese doctrinal statement of the legitimacy of self-vow ordination.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Kakujō 覺盛 and Bosatsu kai tsū-betsu nijū shō 菩薩戒通別二受鈔.
Other points of interest
The 1395 Ōei reprint by Kenshō of Tōshōdai-ji is the second-earliest dated Japanese printed Buddhist work in the Taishō canon and a unique witness to the late-Muromachi Tōshōdai-ji printing tradition. The text’s institutional impact — sustaining the self-vow ordination tradition through the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods — makes it one of the foundational documents of medieval Japanese institutional Buddhism.