祕密因縁管絃相成義

Mìmì yīnyuán guǎnxián xiāngchéng yì 祕密因縁管絃相成義

The Doctrine of the Secret Cause-and-Condition Pipe-and-String Reciprocal Completion by 法住 (記)

About the work

A two-fascicle scholastic-doctrinal treatise by 法住 Hōjū (1723–1800), the thirty-second-generation patriarch of the Yamato Hase-dera Buzan-ha of Shingi-Shingon, signed at the head Konrei sramana Hōjū ki 根嶺沙門法住記 (“recorded by sramana Hōjū of Negoro Peak” — Negoro being the original headquarters of the Shingi-Shingon school and the lineage-source of the Hase-dera Buzan-ha).

Abstract

Structure: the work expounds the secret cause-and-condition (祕密因縁 himitsu innen) doctrine — the Shingon understanding that cause-and-condition (因縁) is not merely the pratītyasamutpāda doctrine of the exoteric Buddhist tradition but the inner-realisation self-witness of Mahāvairocana-Dharma-body — through a ten-gate framework deployed as if in pipe-and-string mutual-tuning (管絃相成 kangen-sōjō).

The ten gates:

1. Secret cause-and-condition both-completion 祕密因縁倶成門
2. Three-greats fundamental-cultivation immediate-separation 三大本修即離門
3. One-and-many phenomena-and-principle both-secret 一多事理倶密門
4. Principle-and-wisdom two-sections manifestation 理智兩部顯現門
5. Secret One-Vehicle establishment 祕密一乘建立門
6. Capacities-of-the-recipient distinctions 所被機根差別門
7. Practice-positions cutting-off-and-realising 所行行位斷證門
8. Acquired five-wisdoms four-bodies 所得五智四身門
9. Preaching-master-and-companion time-and-place 説法主伴時處門
10. Three-Lands phenomena-teaching transmission 三國事教流傳門

Opening doctrinal exposition (Gate 1): “In the original sense, cause-and-condition is the supporting framework of the Buddha-gate. Not only is it preached by the three-time-period all-Buddhas; it is also the inner-realisation self-witnessed by the Dharma-body Vairocana.”

Significance: a late-Edo Buzan-ha doctrinal-restoration document, representative of Hōjū’s broad scholastic output (over thirty fascicles in surviving works). The kangen-sōjō musical metaphor — the doctrine that the various dharmas “tune themselves” by mutual-completion in the Shingon dharma-realm — is a characteristic Buzan-ha doctrinal trope.

Translations and research

• No substantial Western-language translation located.
• For Hōjū and the Edo Buzan-ha doctrinal restoration: Sakai Shinten 酒井真典, Shingon-shū gakurin yōroku (1962).

Links

• CBETA: T79n2541