Jiàoshí zhēng 教時諍
Dispute on the Teaching-Times by 安然 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal-historical survey of the nine-school doctrinal-classification (jiàoshí) controversy by Annen 安然 (841–c.915). The work is the shorter and earlier of two paired Annen treatises on the jiàoshí dispute (KR6t0093 = T75n2395A; KR6t0094 = T75n2395B = Jiàoshí zhēng lùn — the longer expanded version), and a major doctrinal source for understanding how Japanese Buddhists conceptualized the relative status of the nine principal schools of Heian Buddhism.
Abstract
Authorship. The header reads “Composed by Preceptor Annen.” Date. Annen’s mature systematic period, 876–915 CE.
The work opens by setting out the polemical landscape: “Our country, the Great Japan, has nine schools of teaching. The dispute on persons and dharmas extends across three countries — India, China, and Japan.” Annen then surveys the five distinct enumerations of “nine schools” that had been offered in Heian Buddhist literature:
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Saichō’s annual-apportionment memorial enumeration (傳教大師請年分表): Kegon 3 persons, Tendai-Hokke 2, Risshū 2, Hossō 3, with the addition of the Hīnayāna Jōjitsu (Tattvasiddhi) school and the Hīnayāna Kushasha (Abhidharmakośa) school, the “Abhidharma School” — for a total of 9 if grouped differently. The fundamental schema lists eight schools plus one.
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The second variant lists slightly differently.
(Annen lists three more variants in turn, but the work’s brief one-fascicle scope means the discussion is condensed.)
Annen then identifies the two foundational Shingon-school transmissions he recognizes: “The Shingon school has two different versions: (1) the Three-Stream Blood-Lineage of Shingon composed in the Enryaku era by Saichō Dengyō Daishi; (2) the Three-Certificate Shingon Transmission received in the Jōwa era by Ennin Jikaku Daishi.”
The work proceeds to expound the dispute concerning the Mahāvairocanasūtra’s temporal position in the Buddha’s preaching career — was it preached before the Lotus (and therefore subordinate to it as a provisional teaching), concurrently with the Lotus (and therefore equal), or after the Lotus (and therefore superior)? Annen’s answer — articulated more fully in KR6t0094 and especially KR6t0095 — is the canonical Taimitsu position: the Mahāvairocanasūtra is preached eternally by the dharma-kāya Vairocana, transcending the temporal frame altogether, and is therefore at once prior to, contemporary with, and posterior to the Lotus. This is the doctrinal foundation of the Taimitsu jiàopàn (doctrinal-classification) tradition.
The text closes simply: “Jiàoshí zhēng, one fascicle.”
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Misaki Ryōshū 三崎良周, Taimitsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1988), the principal Japanese study.
- Mizukami Fumiyoshi 水上文義, Annen no taimitsu shisō (Hōzōkan, 2008).
- Paul Groner, “Annen, Tankei, Henjō, and Monastic Discipline,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 14 (1987): 129–159.
Other points of interest
The work provides one of the most valuable witnesses to the early Heian Buddhist doctrinal-classification debate: which schools were officially recognized, in what order, with what hierarchical relations? Annen’s “five variant enumerations” preserves the doctrinal diversity of the period before the Heian-late establishment of the kenmitsu eight-school orthodoxy (kenshū: Sanron, Hossō, Kegon, Tendai, Kusha, Jōjitsu, Risshū, Shingon).