Shòujué jí 授決集
Collection of Transmitted Decisions by 圓珍 (述)
About the work
A two-fascicle doctrinal manual of fifty-four “decisions” (jué 決) on disputed points of Tiantai doctrine, compiled by Enchin 圓珍 (Chishō Daishi 智證大師, 814–891) — the fifth Tendai zasu (Tendai abbot) and founder of the Jimon 寺門 lineage of the Tendai school at Onjō-ji 園城寺 / Mii-dera 三井寺. The work is the principal documentary witness of Enchin’s mature doctrinal teaching and the founding text of the Jimon Tendai exegetical tradition.
Abstract
Date and authorship are securely fixed by the preface colophon, which is among the most precise composition-records in the corpus: “Japan, Gangyō 8, jiǎ-chén year, 2nd month, 23rd day, jiǎ-yín, formerly-entered-Tang Dharma-seeking śramaṇa Enchin, prefaces.” Gangyō 8 = 884 CE; Enchin was 71 sui. notBefore = notAfter = 884 is exact.
The preface narrates the origin of the work in moving personal terms: “The origin of this collection: the bhikṣu Ryōyū 良勇 from his earliest childhood has followed me, adding to and reducing my pot (扶老 added-young-cooking-pot — i.e., faithfully serving). To today he has not ceased. Yet he has accomplished nothing [in his own study]. Now he reaches the age of “not-bewildered” [40 — Analects ref.], and I have already grown into the dotage of an aged remnant; my remaining life is not much. If I do not bequeath instruction, I fear I will harm my fellow’s merit. Therefore, leaning on my aged frame, I have drawn out my Tang-period notes and combined them with the texts I have since seen, gathering 54 items as one book, divided into upper and lower, called Shòu-jué jí — Collection of Transmitted Decisions. Modelled on the Nán-shān lùn-héng of Dàoxuān and the Xiǎn-jiè lùn of the Ancestor Master [Saichō, KR6t0074], I first list the items, then explain them in turn.” Enchin then asks Ryōyū to keep the collection private during his teacher’s life — to be guarded “for one hundred nights” and then “surely buried beneath the wall” if not yet integrated — a poignant grace-clause that captures the master’s diffidence about his own work.
The two fascicles consist of 54 numbered “decisions” on disputed Tiantai-and-Tang Buddhist doctrinal questions. The 18 items of fascicle 1 include: (1) the general outline of Tiantai; (2) the names and meanings of the four teachings; (3) the five flavors; (4) whether the Lotus is subsumed under the ‘round teaching’ of the eight teachings; (5) the vehicle-counting (車數); (6) whether the round-teaching person eliminates or does not eliminate the defilements; (7) the hidden-and-manifest meaning; (8) Mt. Sumeru fitting within a mustard-seed; (9) the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th consciousnesses; (10) the 7th-consciousness’s reckoning of “I” and “mine”. Subsequent items address the Lotus’s position relative to the Avataṃsaka, the doctrinal status of the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, and the Tang esoteric (mantra) traditions Enchin had encountered.
The last item of the work, on the five-time/four-teachings status of the Lotus, ends with Enchin’s characteristic doctrinal caution: “Strictly speaking, even among the five times, the three round-teachings are still not fully definitive — they have not opened the gross. For now we work with provisional definitiveness, accepting partial definitiveness and partial non-definitiveness. Trust the preceding decisions; do not isolate yourself in doubt.” This is the Jimon school’s hallmark doctrinal position: a more cautious, qualified definitivism than the more confident yuánjiào assertion of the rival Sammon 山門 (Enryaku-ji main lineage) tradition.
The text was widely transmitted in the Tendai tradition; the Taishō edition is based on the Genna 4 = 1618 Edo-period print issued from the Hōdō-in 寶幢院 of the Mountain-Gate (Sammon) Enryaku-ji — an interesting survival in the rival lineage’s hands.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Paul Groner, Ryōgen and Mt. Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2002), for the Jimon-Sammon split context.
- Misaki Ryōshū 三崎良周, Taimitsu no kenkyū 台密の研究 (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1988), for Enchin’s esoteric teachings.
- Atone Jōshō 阿純章, Chishō daishi Enchin no kenkyū 智證大師圓珍の研究 (Hōzōkan, 1990), the standard Enchin monograph.
Other points of interest
The preface’s personal-emotional register — a master leaning on his aged frame to bequeath the dharma to his lifelong attendant — is one of the most affecting passages in early Heian Buddhist literature. The work’s structural innovation, organizing doctrinal teaching as a series of numbered “decisions” on disputed points, became a standard genre of Tendai exegetical literature in subsequent centuries, paralleled in KR6t0066 (also by Enchin), and developed extensively in the Sammon-Jimon polemic writings of the 11th–13th centuries.