Yīchéng yàojué 一乘要決
Essential Determinations on the One Vehicle by 源信 (撰)
About the work
A three-fascicle doctrinal monograph defending the Tendai-Lotus yī-shèng (ekayāna) doctrine against the Hossō (Yogācāra-Faxiang) position that some sentient beings (the icchantikas and the determined śrāvaka- and pratyekabuddha-yāna practitioners) are without the Buddha-nature and will never attain Buddhahood. The work is the principal mature doctrinal monograph of Genshin 源信 (Eshin Sōzu 惠心僧都, 942–1017) — the Mount Hiei master best known for the seminal Ōjō yōshū 往生要集 (985) — and a major contribution to the second wave of the Saichō-Tokuitsu controversy that continued through the Heian period.
Abstract
Authorship and date. The preface bears the unambiguous statement: “The śramaṇa Genshin composed [this]. The various vehicles’ provisionality-and-actuality has been disputed from antiquity. All cite the sūtras and śāstras; mutually they hold opposite positions. I, in the Kankō, bǐng-wǔ year, winter, 10th month [= November 1006 CE], during illness, lamented: ‘Although I have encountered the Buddha-Dharma, I have not understood the Buddha’s intention. If I should end empty-handed, what regret could ever follow?’ Then I went through the doctrinal texts of the sūtras and śāstras and the chapter-commentaries of the worthies and wise, sometimes asking others, sometimes selecting through my own thinking, completely abandoning the partial-prejudices of my own school and others’ schools, and exclusively probing the deep recesses of the provisional and actual wisdoms. Finally, I attained the principle of the one-vehicle real-truth, with the five vehicles only as expedient teaching. Having opened up the ignorance of my present life, why should I cherish the regret of an evening death?”
The work is therefore datable precisely to the 10th month of 1006 CE. Genshin was 65 sui. notBefore = notAfter = 1006 is exact.
The preface continues with the work’s structure: “I briefly divide [the work] into eight gates, to record its essentials: (1) Establishing the one-vehicle on the basis of the Lotus (依法華立一乘); (2) Adducing the “śrāvakas-becoming-Buddhas” texts of other teachings (引餘教二乘作佛文); (3) Discriminating the ‘turning-mind’ in the anupadhiśeṣa-dhātu (辨無餘界迴心); (4) Adducing the texts on all sentient beings having Buddha-nature and attaining Buddhahood (引一切衆生有性成佛文); (5) Refuting the doctrine of the perpetual extinction of the fixed-nature śrāvaka-and-pratyekabuddha (斥定性二乘永滅計); (6) Refuting the doctrine that the natureless beings really exist (遮無性有情實有執); (7) Discriminating the differentiations within Buddha-nature (辨佛性差別); (8) Clarifying the provisional and actual in the various teachings (明諸教權實).”
The body of the work proceeds through these eight gates with systematic citation of the Lotus, Mahāparinirvāṇa, Avataṃsaka, Tathāgatagarbha, Śrīmālā sūtras, the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, the Treatise on the Awakening of Faith, Zhì-yǐ’s Mó-hē zhǐ-guān, and Zhànrán’s Fǎ-huá xuán-yì shì-qiān. The principal antagonist is the Hossō school’s reading of the Yogācāra-bhūmi and the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra: Genshin argues that the five-natures distinction is provisional, that all icchantikas will eventually be liberated, and that the Lotus’s One Vehicle is the definitive (nītārtha) teaching.
Particularly noteworthy is the work’s tone: written “during illness” by a master who has spent his life pondering the question, the Yīchéng yàojué has the character of a final philosophical testament. Genshin does not advance new doctrines but settles a controversy that had been ongoing since Saichō and Tokuitsu — and the verdict is the definitive Tendai-Lotus position that all sentient beings will become Buddhas.
The Taishō edition is the Tenmei 1 = 1781 CE Edo edition prefaced by Keikō 敬光 (see 敬光), the Anraku-in Tendai zasu, who reports that the work had become rare in transmission and notes that a contemporary monk “Reki Shōnin” 暦上人 was lecturing on it. Keikō’s Tenmei preface dates from his 41st year and reflects the late-Edo Tendai precept revival’s enthusiasm for the Genshin tradition.
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), pp. 281–296, discusses the Ichijō yōketsu in its 10th-century context.
- Eshin Sōzu Genshin sensei senshū 惠心僧都源信先生選集 (Hiei-zan Senshū Hensankai, multiple volumes, 1971–1982), gives the standard text-critical edition.
- Hazama Jikō 硲慈弘, Nihon bukkyō no tenkai to sono kichō (Sanseidō, 1948), Vol. 1, on the Heian Tendai-Hossō polemic.
- Robert Rhodes, Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū and the Construction of Pure Land Discourse in Heian Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2017), for biographical context.
Other points of interest
The work was Genshin’s response to the Heian-period revival of the Hossō five-natures polemic by figures associated with Kōfuku-ji, principally Chūsan 仲算 (the alleged author of the Hossō dōki-mon questioning the Tendai yīshèng) — though Chūsan is not named explicitly. The 11-month interval between the work’s composition (October 1006) and its presumed dedication-completion is a striking detail of mature-doctrinal composition under illness. Genshin had been Tendai zasu-equivalent senior at Yokawa for some 20 years at the time of writing.