Dàshèng yuánjiè xiǎnzhèng lùn 大乘圓戒顯正論
Treatise Revealing the Correct Doctrine of the Mahāyāna Perfect-Precepts by 宗覺 (編輯, signed 宗覺直 in the colophon)
About the work
A single-fascicle polemical defence of the joint observance of the Brahmajāla bodhisattva-precepts and the Sì-fēn-lǜ prātimokṣa by Shūkaku-Jiki 宗覺直 of the Kushū-on Vinaya Cloister 久修園律院 in Kyoto, dated 1684 CE. The work answers a hypothetical “misuser of the Mahāyāna” (濫大不肖之士) who claims that bodhisattvas of the Tendai yuán-jiào (perfect teaching) need not observe the Sì-fēn-lǜ prātimokṣa (聲聞律儀). Shūkaku-Jiki argues, in five doctrinal chapters, that the yuán-jiào presupposes — does not exclude — the prātimokṣa, and that the Brahmajāla-precept tradition was always understood by Zhìyǐ and Dàoxuān to encompass and not supersede the Vinaya. The work is one of the principal documentary witnesses of the Edo-period Shingon-Vinaya (Shingon-Risshū) revival movement initiated by Jōgon 淨嚴 (1639–1702).
Abstract
Authorship and date are precisely fixed by the preface colophon: “At this time, Jōkyō 1, the year wù-shū-jiǎ-zǐ [1684], the 5th month [蕤賓], a propitious day. The Kushū-on Vinaya Cloister bhikṣu Shūkaku Jiki respectfully records.” The body of the work names him at the cover-line: “Compiled by Shūkaku-Jiki, bhikṣu of the Capital (京師)“. Kushū-on Ritsu-in 久修園律院 was a Shingon-Vinaya temple in Kyoto founded by Jōgon 淨嚴 in 1678, and the author is presumably Jōgon’s pupil or contemporary. notBefore = notAfter = 1684 is exact.
The preface narrates the historical trajectory of the Bodhisattva-precept tradition. Zhìyǐ of Tiantai opened the yuán-zōng in the Chén-Suí transition; Dàoxuān (the Nán-shān Master) reopened the yuán-zōng in the Táng and “resolved the śrāvaka Dharma and made manifest the bodhisattva vinaya”; the tradition was transmitted to Japan in the Tenpyō-Shōhō era (749–757, with Jiànzhēn’s arrival); since which time “reception-and-following has not ceased.” Recently, however, the school’s revival has been disturbed by a corrupt party that selectively cites the scriptures to argue against the prātimokṣa — an error which Shūkaku-Jiki here corrects.
The work is structured as a series of five “refutation-and-revelation” chapters: (1) the round-teaching bodhisattva does NOT dispense with the śrāvaka vinaya (彈圓教菩薩不假聲聞律儀章); (2) the Pú-sà běn-yè jīng and its ten-major/forty-eight-minor precepts do not dispense with the śrāvaka discipline; (3) the yuán-shèng beginner is NOT permitted to suspend the lesser precepts; (4) the Sì-fēn-lǜ is NOT obsolescent in the mò-fǎ age; (5) one cannot, without the vinaya, establish the seven pariṣad communities.
Each chapter follows a question-and-answer format: the “misuser” (濫大) states a position drawn from current pamphlet literature, and “the orthodox-revealer” (顯正) refutes it by citing the original sources — the Brahmajālasūtra’s mind-ground chapter, the Púsà běnyè yīngluò jīng, the Yogācārabhūmi, Zhìyǐ’s Móhē zhǐguān, Zhànrán’s Fǔxíng zhuànhóngjué, and Dàoxuān’s Sìfēnlǜ shānfán bǔquè xíngshì chāo (= KR6k0128).
The work documents the Edo-period Vinaya revival’s polemical position against the Tendai-Edo yuán-jiè school of Reikū Kōken 靈空光謙 (1652–1739), which was beginning, around the 1680s, to argue that the yuán-jiè alone sufficed and that the Sì-fēn-lǜ could be dispensed with. Shūkaku-Jiki’s response is the classical Shingon-Risshū-Saidai-ji position carried forward into the Edo era: the yuán-jiè and the prātimokṣa must always be observed together.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Paul Groner, “The Lotus Sutra and Saichō’s Interpretation of the Realization of Buddhahood with This Very Body,” in The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1989), for background on Edo Tendai yuán-jiè doctrine.
- Akamatsu Toshihide 赤松俊秀, “Jōgon to Shingon Risshū” 淨嚴と眞言律宗, in Nihon bukkyōshi (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1979), for the Edo Shingon-Vinaya revival context.
Other points of interest
The work is an important document of the late 17th-century recalibration of the Japanese precept-tradition, specifically the institutional friction between the Edo Anraku-in Tendai yuánjiè school (Reikū Kōken) and the Kushū-on Shingon-Vinaya school (Jōgon, Shūkaku-Jiki). The historical sketch in the preface (Tiantai-Zhìyǐ → NánshānDàoxuān → Jiànzhēn → Saichō → Eison and Kakujō → present) is the canonical self-genealogy of the Edo Shingon-Risshū.