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興禪護國論

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Text ID
KR6t0249
Date
1198–1198
Dynasty
日本

Xīngchán hùguó lùn 興禪護國論

Treatise on the Promotion of Zen for the Protection of the Country by 榮西 (撰)

About the work

A three-fascicle doctrinal-apologetic treatise by 榮西 Myōan Eisai (1141–1215), founder of the Japanese Rinzai-Zen 臨濟宗 tradition. Composed in Kenkyū 9 (1198) at Hakata, and explicitly designed as a defense of Eisai’s introduction of Línjì-school Chán transmission against the opposition of the established Mount Hiei Tendai establishment (which had successfully petitioned the imperial court for an injunction against the new Zen practice). The work is the foundational doctrinal manifesto of Japanese Rinzai-Zen.

Abstract

Dating: explicitly Kenkyū 9 = 1198 in the prefatory matter. Composed at Hakata after Eisai’s return to Japan (1191) and the founding of Shōfuku-ji (1195), but before his establishment of Kennin-ji in Kyoto (1202).

Biographical preface (the Kōzen gokoku-ron jo): the work opens with a biographical preface establishing Eisai’s credentials. The text reads: “The composing of this treatise has its sole purpose in the propagation of the [Zen] school. The master is the first patriarch of the Buddha-Mind school in our country, by reason of which he is named the Senkō Soshi 千光祖師 (Thousand-Light Founding-Master). Born in Bicchū province, of the Kaya 賀陽 clan, a descendant of Emperor Kōrei 孝靈天皇. His mother was of the Tā 田 clan; she prayed at the Kibitsu-shrine 吉備津宮 sacred-shrine, dreamed of the morning-star (Venus) and so conceived. Eisai was also born at the rising of the morning-star. At eight he took leave of his parents to study the Mii-temple Kusha-Vasubhāṣya teaching. In Jinpei 3 (1153), autumn, at age 13, he ascended Mount Hiei and was ordained, given the dharma-name Eisai 榮西. He studied the Tendai-school doctrine, and within the same study-cohort already excelled. Yet contemplating the world’s floating illusoriness, his world-weariness grew daily. At 23 he descended Mount Hiei, residing at Nichiō-zan 日應山 in Bizen Province; abstaining from grain he practiced the samaya rites for some years…” The preface continues through his two Song-Dynasty study-trips (1168, 1187), his transmission from Xū’ān Huáichǎng 虛庵懷敞 at Wànnián-sì 萬年寺 on Mount Tiāntái, and his return to Japan in 1191.

Structure: three fascicles divided into ten doctrinal-apologetic chapters (門):

  1. Establishing the Right-Dharma persistent 令法久住門
  2. Protecting the country 鎭護國家門
  3. Universally welcoming the dharma-vehicle 普攝法乘門
  4. Refuting the disorders of the world 世人決疑門
  5. The way and patriarchs of the Zen-school 宗派血脈門
  6. Quoting the canonical evidence 典據增信門
  7. Encouraging the construction of Zen-temples 建立支度門
  8. Reporting on Chán in the great Song 大綱勸參門
  9. The contemporary state of Chán-school 世間目的門
  10. Bequeathing dharma to descendants 迴向發願門

Doctrinal-polemical content: the work answers the principal Tendai objections — that Zen is a new and foreign school, that it abandons the precepts, that it denies the canonical sūtras. Eisai’s response: Zen is the Buddha-Mind (佛心) school transmitted by the Buddha at Vulture-Peak through Mahākāśyapa, the direct successor of all 28 Indian patriarchs and 6 Chinese; it is the only authentic transmission of the dharma-essence. Its practice of Vinaya is more rigorous, not less, than the existing Japanese schools. The treatise concludes with a strong endorsement of Zen as a guardian of the nation (護國) — the work’s title being a programmatic statement: the establishment of Zen is for the protection of the nation.

Significance: the foundational document of Japanese Rinzai-Zen Buddhism. The work successfully secured imperial / aristocratic support for Eisai’s project; within four years of its composition (1202) the imperial court approved the founding of Kennin-ji 建仁寺 in Kyoto. The treatise also remains a primary documentary source for Eisai’s biography and for the late-twelfth-century Japanese Buddhist field.

Translations and research

  • Partial English translation: Albert Welter, Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 (contextualizes Eisai’s transmission); Dumoulin, Heinrich, Zen Buddhism: A History, vol. 2: Japan, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2005, pp. 22–28 — discusses the Kōzen gokoku-ron extensively.
  • Welter, Albert, “Eisai’s Promotion of Zen for the Protection of the Country,” in Tanabe, George J. Jr. (ed.), Religions of Japan in Practice, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
  • Bielefeldt, Carl, Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988 — contextualizes Eisai vis-à-vis the subsequent Sōtō tradition.

Other points of interest

The Kōzen gokoku-ron is the principal Japanese antecedent of the genre of zen-school apologetic-doctrinal manifestos; it serves as the model for Dōgen’s later Bendō-wa 辨道話 (composed 1231) — the foundational Sōtō manifesto — though Dōgen’s doctrinal positions differ sharply from Eisai’s.

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