Tōngshòu bǐqiū chànhuǐ liǎngsì bùtóng jì 通受比丘懺悔兩寺不同記
Record of the Differences between the Two Temples in the Universal-Vow Bhikṣu’s Confession Procedure by 凝然 (述)
About the work
A single-fascicle comparative liturgical record by Gyōnen 凝然 (1240–1321), documenting the differences between the Tōshōdai-ji (the Kakujō line) and Saidai-ji (the Eison line) Vinaya schools in the bhikṣu confession procedure (chàn-huǐ 懺悔 / prātimokṣa-pratideśanā) within the universal-vow tradition. The work is a unique witness to the doctrinal-liturgical bifurcation of the Kamakura Vinaya revival — the two lineages had agreed to the 1236 jisei jukai but had developed parallel sub-traditions in subsequent decades.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The work’s preface narrates the history of the 1236 reform: “Long ago, in the auspicious fortune of Tenpyōshōhō (= 749–757), Jianzhen héshàng far recognised the karmic ripeness of this land, was not deterred by the malarial mists’ damaging clarity, was not afraid of the storm-winds’ sea-tossing trial, crossed the deep blue and arrived here — exalting the true teaching and originating in the vinaya. The months and years gradually wore on, and the dharma-teaching weakened. Now there arose a great being called Daihi Bosatsu, with the personal name Kakujō — his learning penetrated the provisional and the real, his wisdom-mirror shone everywhere; his practice rescued the icchantika, his compassion-water moistened wherever it went. … He constantly grieved at the loosening of the Vinaya-net and at the inverted suspension of the common beings. Therefore, in the autumn of Katei bǐngshēn (= 1236), 9th month, with his companions including Eison 睿尊 and others, by the Mahāyāna three-aggregate precepts, they self-vowed and obtained the precepts. The Vinaya-light of the southern frontiers shone forth once again to the four directions.”
The work then turns to the contemporary state of the two-lineage tradition: “The present black-robed [monks] continue the basic vocation; … All this is the gift of the two masters [Kakujō and Eison].” Gyōnen identifies the moment of doctrinal-liturgical bifurcation: in the years after 1236, the Tōshōdai-ji line (continuing Kakujō’s teaching) and the Saidai-ji line (continuing Eison’s teaching) had developed differing procedures for the prātimokṣa-pratideśanā — the periodic confession that is the central post-ordination Vinaya practice.
The terminal copy-colophon is dated Tenwa 4 (= 1684), middle-spring first-day, by the Iwashimizu bhikṣu [name lost], “copied out following Daihi Bosatsu’s [Kakujō’s] words and phrases.” This is the terminus ante quem of the surviving text.
Gyōnen (1240–1321; DILA A001772) was born nine years before Kakujō’s death (1249) and so personally inherited the late-Kakujō Tōshōdai-ji tradition through his teachers. The work was composed in his mature scholarly career; notBefore = 1280, notAfter = 1321 is conservative.
Doctrinal content: the work details specific verbal-procedural differences between the two temples’ confession procedures. For example: “If one has committed a basic offense and has covertly carried it out, [the offense] of defaming the silent (mò-wàng zhōu-yòng 默妄著用) — the three offenses in the karma-class’ have each got concealment and accompanying-concealment-aspects; according to whether the offense exists or not, repent. The recitation goes: ‘Reverend masters, mindful of me, bhikṣu or śrāmaṇera So-and-So, having violated the Bodhisattva vinaya rule No. [X], the basic offense’s silent-defaming-applied: each thereby committed the three secondary-learning offenses, having committed these three basic offenses without disclosure, having passed the night and concealed it, having committed the duṣkṛta offense, the number not remembered (if remembered, state the number).”
The procedural-textual differences between Tōshōdai-ji and Saidai-ji are recorded throughout — each specific point of divergence noted with the Saidai-ji and Tōshōdai-ji readings given in parallel.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Lori Meeks, Hokkeji and the Reemergence of Female Monastic Orders in Premodern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010) — context for the Kakujō-Eison Vinaya revival.
- Paul B. Watt, Demystifying Pure Land Buddhism: Yasuda Rijin and the Shin Buddhist Tradition — for the broader institutional Vinaya-revival context.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Gyōnen 凝然 and Tsūju biku zange ryōji fudō ki 通受比丘懺悔兩寺不同記.
Other points of interest
The work is the principal canonical witness to the doctrinal-liturgical bifurcation of the Kamakura Vinaya revival between Tōshōdai-ji (Kakujō line) and Saidai-ji (Eison line) — a division that continued to define Japanese Vinaya scholarship through the medieval and Edo periods. As Gyōnen’s last surviving Vinaya work, it represents his mature view of the Vinaya revival’s institutional development.