Tiāntái yuánzōng sìjiào wǔshí Xīgǔ míngmù 天台圓宗四教五時西谷名目
The Nishidani-Lineage Doctrinal Nomenclature of the Tendai Round-School’s Four-Teachings-Five-Times Anonymous
About the work
A two-fascicle doctrinal catechism of the Japanese Tendai school’s four-teachings-five-times classification system, transmitted within the Nishidani 西谷 (“Western Valley”) sub-lineage of Hiei-zan Sammon-school Tendai. The work is structured as a question-and-answer text covering the basic doctrinal framework of Tendai exegesis: the teaching-lord of the Sahā-world, the historical Buddha, the four-vehicle teachings (sānzàng, tōng, bié, yuán), the five doctrinal periods (Avataṃsaka, Āgama, Vaipulya, Prajñāpāramitā, Lotus-Nirvāṇa), and the principal doctrinal positions of the Tendai school.
Abstract
Authorship. The catalog meta and CANWWW record give no author; the work appears to be a collective product of the Nishidani 西谷 lineage of Hiei-zan Sammon-school Tendai. Nishidani is one of the three traditional valleys of Mt. Hiei (East Valley 東谷, West Valley 西谷, North Valley 北谷), and was the seat of an important sub-lineage of doctrinal teaching distinct from the Yokawa lineage of Genshin and the Mudō-ji lineage.
Date. No internal date. The work is a stable medieval Tendai catechetic compendium, transmitted within the Nishidani lineage from the late Kamakura through the Muromachi period. The bracket notBefore = 1200, notAfter = 1500 is conservative.
The work opens with the canonical didactic question: “Question. What Buddha is the Teaching-Lord of this Sahā-world?” Answer: “Śākyamuni Tathāgata. Though the Buddhas are many, their respective Buddha-lands are distinct. Amitābha is the Teaching-Lord of the Sukhāvatī Pure Land of the West; Bhaiṣajyaguru is the Teaching-Lord of the Pure Vaiḍūrya world of the East. So each Buddha-land is different. Within these, this Sahā-world has Śākyamuni’s Buddha-land, and therefore Śākyamuni is called the Teaching-Lord of this Land. Accordingly the entire body of holy teaching transmitted to us at present is all the Dharma-method preached by Śākyamuni. Were there no teachings of this Śākyamuni, we sentient beings would wander in the darkness of defilements, in a shallow and pitiable condition like cattle, horses, and animals. But by virtue of the Buddha’s teaching we know the principle of cause-and-effect, we revere our parents, we discern how to serve our teachers, we tire of the defiled land and aspire to the Pure Land — all are the gracious-favor of Śākyamuni. Therefore Śākyamuni is called the Great-Favor Teaching-Lord.”
The work then proceeds through the canonical doctrinal nomenclature in dense Q&A pedagogical format: the historical biography of Śākyamuni (born to Śuddhodana and Mahāmāyā in Madhyadeśa, the Middle India; called Siddhārtha as prince; renounced at age 19 leaving the palace at midnight for Mount Daṇḍaka; six years of austerities; attained Buddhahood at 30 under the Bodhi tree); the four teachings (sānzàng — the Hīnayāna; tōng — the Common Vehicle; bié — the Distinctive Bodhisattva Vehicle; yuán — the Perfect Round Teaching); the five times (Avataṃsaka-period, Lujīta-Mṛgadāva Āgama-period, Vaipulya-period, Prajñāpāramitā-period, Lotus-Nirvāṇa-period); the huà-yí (transformation-method) and huà-fǎ (transformation-doctrine) classifications; the yī-niàn sān-qiān doctrine; the yī-xīn sān-guān contemplation; the Three Truths of jiǎ-zhōng-kōng (provisional-middle-empty); and the principal terminology of the Tendai contemplative tradition.
The text concludes simply with “Nishidani Nomenclature, Fascicle Two, complete.”
The work is a canonical Hiei-zan doctrinal pedagogical primer of the late Kamakura-Muromachi period, parallel in function to the Nishidani-lineage’s other transmitted texts and to the Sammon-school’s “Kashiwabara ànlì” compendium (KR6t0072).
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Hazama Jikō 硲慈弘, Nihon bukkyō no tenkai to sono kichō (Sanseidō, 1948), for the medieval Tendai catechetic tradition.
- Tamura Yoshirō 田村芳朗, Hongaku shisō no kenkyū 本覺思想の研究 (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1965).
- Hubbard, Jamie, The Doctrinal Foundations of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (forthcoming).
Other points of interest
The work is a useful witness to the Hiei-zan sub-lineage geography — the East/West/North-Valley divisions that structured medieval Tendai doctrinal transmission. The fact that the same school produced parallel doctrinal compendia under different lineage-names (Kashiwabara, Nishidani, etc.) indicates the depth of doctrinal sectarianism within Hiei-zan itself at the late medieval period.