Zhēnyán suǒlì sānshēn wèndá 眞言所立三身問答
Questions and Answers on the Three Bodies as Established in the Shingon Teaching by 圓仁 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal question-and-answer text by Ennin 圓仁 (Jikaku Daishi, 794–864) on the doctrinal-theological question of the three bodies (trikāya: dharma-body, sambhoga-body, nirmāṇa-body) as the Shingon esoteric teaching establishes them. The work is the fifth and final in Ennin’s series of five esoteric records (KR6t0083–KR6t0087) and the most doctrinally-theoretical of the set, addressing the Hiei-zan controversial question: when the Mahāvairocana-sūtra is said to be preached “by the Dharma-body,” what is meant doctrinally? Is the dharma-body, by its very nature, capable of preaching the Dharma?
Abstract
Authorship. The header reads “Jikaku 慈覺” — Ennin’s posthumous title. Date is post-847 (his return from Tang). notBefore = 847, notAfter = 864 is the appropriate bracket.
The work is organized as a sequence of catechetic questions:
Question 1: “The Buddha has three bodies. The present sūtra [Mahāvairocanasūtra] — by which body is it preached?” Answer: “Vairocana’s dharma-body preaches it.”
Question 2: “This dharma-body — in the principle-and-wisdom [divisions], is it which body?” Answer: “It is the principle-and-wisdom-non-dual wisdom-dharma-body Tathāgata.*”
Question 3: “The principle-and-wisdom-non-dual dharma-body — principle and wisdom co-fused — is constantly and eternally abiding and does not preach the Dharma. Now how is it that it preaches?” Answer: “The principle-body is constantly eternal and does not preach Dharma — this is the shallow-faculties teaching, called the manifest-teaching meaning. If the principle-dharma-body is able to preach for sentient beings, this is the deep-mystery-faculties teaching, taken as the esoteric meaning.*”
Question 4: “By what authority can we say the principle-and-wisdom-non-dual is preached?” Answer: [The text proceeds with extensive scriptural citation from the Mahāvairocanasūtra commentaries].
The exchanges proceed to resolve the classical Tendai-Esoteric doctrinal-theological puzzle: how can the dharma-kāya — the absolute Buddha-body, by definition without form or speech — be the preacher of the Mahāvairocanasūtra? Ennin’s resolution is the canonical deep-shallow distinction of the esoteric tradition: for the manifest (shallow) faculties, the dharma-body cannot preach; for the esoteric (deep) faculties, the dharma-body can and does preach precisely as the dharma-body. This is the doctrinal foundation of the entire esoteric understanding of the Mahāvairocanasūtra’s mode of self-revelation.
The text bears two transmission marks: a copy date of Kayei 3, 6th month, 14th day (= July 1850) at the Imperial Sūtra Storehouse, copied directly from “the Master’s grass-stroke text” (御草木); and an earlier copy by HenjōKongō Genshun 遍照金剛源俊 dated Kōchō 1, 3rd month, 20th day (= April 1261).
Translations and research
- Misaki Ryōshū 三崎良周, Taimitsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1988), discusses Ennin’s doctrinal positions in the trikāya question.
- 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).
Other points of interest
The work documents one of the central doctrinal innovations of Taimitsu — the deep-shallow (shēnqiǎn 深淺) distinction in interpreting the Mahāvairocanasūtra’s “dharma-body-preaching” doctrine. This distinction, formulated by Ennin and developed by Annen and his successors, became the foundation of the distinctively Tendai interpretation of esoteric Buddhism that distinguished it from the Tōmitsu (Kōya-san) tradition.