Shízhùxīn lùn dǎwén jí 十住心論打聞集
Lecture-Notes on the Treatise on the Ten Levels of Mind
(anonymous lecture-record on Kūkai’s Jūjūshin-ron)
About the work
A single-fascicle lecture-notes record (uchigiki 打聞 — literally “beaten-hearings,” i.e., notes taken during a master’s lectures) on Kūkai’s Jūjūshin-ron (KR6t0125). The record dates from Hōen 4–5 (保延四五, 1138–1139) and is among the precisely-dated medieval Shingon scholastic documents.
Abstract
Authorship. The note-taker is anonymous. The catalog meta records no author. The opening line is explicit: “Hōen 4 and 5, two years’ worth of doctrinal discussions; from within the petition / pledged study, here selected and excerpted” (保延四五兩年談義 起請之内抄出也). The lecturer also is not named in the Taishō text but was a senior Shingon scholastic of that generation; modern scholarship has tentatively associated the work with the doctrinal-disputational tradition of Daigo-ji.
Date. The record covers doctrinal lectures of Hōen 4–5 = 1138–1139 CE. The opening of the first day’s lecture is dated explicitly: “Jūjūshin-ron, chapter 1, Hōen 4 / 1138 third-month twenty-first day, begun.” (十住心論第一保延四年三月二十一日始之). This is one of the most precisely-dated medieval Shingon scholastic documents in the Taishō.
Content. The work opens with the question of the title-analysis of the Jūjūshin-ron:
“Concerning the Mìmì màntúluó shízhùxīn lùn — first dealing with the nine-character title. Do the first five characters indicate the apparent/esoteric two teachings?”
“Answer. Regarding this title, there are various meanings…”
(秘密曼荼羅十住心論云事。先付題九字。前五字表顯密二教歟 答。付此。題有種種義。)
The lecture-notes proceed through the Jūjūshin-ron in systematic detail, recording the lecturer’s exposition on each successive doctrinal-philosophical question. The uchigiki genre — preserving the oral-discursive character of the lecturer’s exposition — captures the live doctrinal-disputational atmosphere of mid-Heian Shingon scholastic study in a way that the formal sub-commentaries do not.
Significance. As a precisely-dated lecture-record of the late 1130s, the work is one of the most direct documentary witnesses for the medieval Shingon scholastic curriculum in actual practice. It is studied alongside the formal sub-commentaries as a key supplementary witness for the live oral-doctrinal culture of medieval Shingon scholastic study.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation located.
- Ryūichi Abé, The Weaving of Mantra (Columbia, 1999).