Shānjiā xuéshēng shì 山家學生式
Regulations for the Mountain-Family Students by 最澄 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle regulatory document by Saichō 最澄 (Dengyō Daishi, 767–822) prescribing the institutional structure, curriculum, and discipline of the Hiei-zan annual-apportionment students (nenbun dosha 年分度者) — the imperial-quota Tendai novitiates assigned to Mt. Hiei from the imperial court. The work is, properly speaking, a compilation of three sequentially-submitted memorials to the imperial court (818–819), submitted as part of Saichō’s institutional drive for an independent Mahāyāna ordination platform at Hiei-zan. Together with KR6t0074 (Xiǎnjiè lùn) it constitutes the canonical Saichō-corpus of kaidan-related petition documents and is the foundational regulatory text of the Tendai school’s monastic institution.
Abstract
Authorship. The closing colophon is explicit: “The formerly-entered-Tang Tendai-Lotus-school śramaṇa Saichō, submits.”
Date. The work compiles three sequentially-submitted documents, each dated in the colophon: (1) the Eight-Article Regulations (八條式) of Kōnin 9, 5th month, 13th day = June 818; (2) the Six-Article Regulations (六條式) of Kōnin 9, 8th month, 27th day = September 818; (3) the Four-Article Regulations (四條式) of Kōnin 10, 3rd month, 15th day = April 819. The Taishō version reproduces all three. notBefore = 818, notAfter = 819 brackets the composition.
The work opens with one of the most famous philosophical pronouncements in early Japanese literature: “What is the treasure of a nation? The treasure is the heart-of-the-Way. A person with a heart-of-the-Way is called a treasure of the nation. Therefore an ancient said, ‘A diameter-inch pearl of ten units is not a treasure of the nation; one who illumines a single corner of the country — this is a treasure of the nation.’ Another ancient sage said, ‘Capable in speech but not in action — this is a teacher of the nation. Capable in action but not in speech — this is a tool of the nation. Capable in both speech and action — this is a treasure of the nation. Of these three categories, only one who is capable in neither speech nor action is a brigand to the nation.’ Now: a person with the heart-of-the-Way and the Buddha-son’s vow — in the West he is called bodhisattva, in the East he is called junzi (gentleman).”
Saichō then sets out the regulatory structure of the Hiei-zan annual-apportionment system: (1) two yearly-apportionment students from Kōnin 9 = 818 forward, designated bodhisattva-novices, to receive the round-and-perfect ten-good precepts (圓十善戒) and the bodhisattva sāṃvara precept-tradition of the Brahmajāla; (2) following the bodhisattva-precept reception, the novitiates take the great precepts (the prātimokṣa) and are confined to Mt. Hiei for twelve years during which they may not leave the mountain (the famous jūni-nen rōzan twelve-year-mountain-confinement system); (3) during the twelve years they study according to a dual curriculum: the Zhǐ-guān curriculum (止觀業) — focused on the Lotus, the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, the Renwang, and the state-protecting sūtras — and the Zhē-nāmōne (Shana-gō 遮那業) — focused on the Mahāvairocana and esoteric texts.
The Eight-Article Regulations and the Four-Article Regulations elaborate institutional rules: novice-class graduations, the kuden transmission requirements, the discipline-violations schedule with proportional penalties, the relations between Zhǐguān-students and Shana-students, the inheritance of teaching-positions, the relationship with the imperial court, and the funding-and-supply arrangements for the cloister.
The closing sentence is one of the rhetorical high points of early Heian doctrinal-political prose: “The bodhisattva-class, in our country, has not yet been openly transmitted. I humbly beseech Your Majesty: from Kōnin year forward, newly establish this Great Way; transmit and propagate the Mahāyāna precepts; benefit-now and benefit-after; engrave it deeply in the belly of the great bell; transmit it distantly to the kalpas of dust-particles to come. I therefore present the Regulations and respectfully await the Heavenly Disposition.”
The work is the canonical institutional charter of the Japanese Tendai school and one of the founding documents of the entire later Japanese Buddhist tradition.
Translations and research
- Paul Groner, Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School (rev. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2000), translates substantial passages and analyzes the institutional context. The most comprehensive Western-language treatment.
- Ryūichi Abé, The Weaving of Mantra: Kūkai and the Construction of Esoteric Buddhist Discourse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 219–232.
- William E. Deal and Brian Ruppert, A Cultural History of Japanese Buddhism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), for the broader institutional context.
- Tamura Kōyū 田村晃祐, Saichō 最澄 (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1988).
Other points of interest
The “illuminator of one corner” passage (照于一隅 此則國寶) has been a continuously cited phrase in Japanese Buddhist and educational rhetoric for over a millennium; it remains today the motto of Enryaku-ji and a widely-quoted phrase in Japanese cultural-discursive life. The twelve-year rōzan mountain-confinement requirement, established here, became the canonical training regime of the Hiei-zan novitiate system and continues, in modified form, as the jūni-nen rōzan discipline of the modern Tendai school.