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報恩編

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Text ID
KR6t0306
Date
1720–1744
Dynasty
日本

Bàoēn biān 報恩編

Compendium of Repaying Kindness by 傳尊 Tenkei Denson (撰)

About the work

A three-fascicle systematic commentary on the three foundational doctrinal verses of the Cáodòng-school, by 傳尊 Tenkei Denson (1648–1735), Edo-period Sōtō scholar-monk. The full title is Tenkei rōjin Hōon-hen 天桂老人報恩編. Composed in the 1720s–early 1730s, with an editio princeps prepared posthumously by his disciples; the surviving Taishō recension is the Enkyō 1 / 1744 printing with two prefaces — the principal preface dated Enkyō 1 / arabic 1744 by Princess Matsumine (松嶺尼公禪師 — Linkyū-ji Princess Reverend Ama-no-shukke), and a 1737 preface (Genbun 2) by the monk Tōmei 東溟.

Abstract

Tōmei’s preface (1737) frames the work as a doctrinal-restoration project:

“In the past, the Eihei first patriarch [Dōgen] travelled into the Sòng territory and saw Tiāntóng Chángwēng Zenji [Rújìng]; received his seal-verification. After returning east, the Tōjō [Caodong-school] mystic-style has to the present pervaded the realm. Now there is the Tenkei old-man, of standout-style solitary-high, not falling into the current-time tracks. Comprehensively raising the great machine, proclaiming the lineage essence. In the leisure of leading the assembly and walking the Way, he selected the Sandō-kai 參同契, Hōkyō zanmai 寶鏡三昧, and Five Ranks 五位 — for each, he set down annotation-explanations, clearly raising the proper teaching, expelling the heterodox theories. He named it Hōon-hen (‘Compendium of Repaying Kindness’). It causes the reader’s crowd-doubts to dissolve like ice and to directly arrive at the essential ford. The merit of supporting and rooting the patriarchal Way is great.”

The principal preface by Princess Matsumine of Linkyū-ji adds, on the bushi style of Sōtō: “The lower-grade person hears the Way and laughs; if he doesn’t laugh it isn’t the Way. … Even grinding bones to powder and pulverising the body is not enough to repay [the patriarch’s kindness]. So they say: ‘Not letting the Buddha-seed-be-cut-off is what is meant by repaying the kindness.’ The first patriarch of Taizō-mine [退藏峯] Reverend Kei old-man [Tenkei] brought-out-and-revealed the marrow-and-bone of the Sandō-kai, Hōkyō zanmai, and the Five Ranks, and named them the Compendium of Repaying Kindness. Greatly there is import! May the disciples-and-learners by means of this book personally shed their own opinions and know that there is the lineage-essence of not-cutting-off-the-Buddha-seed.”

The three-fascicle table of contents:

  • Fasc. 1 (上): Sandō-kai dokku 參同契毒鼓 — commentary on the Sandō-kai of Shítóu Xīqiān 石頭希遷 (700–790), the foundational Cáodòng-school verse on the inseparability-of-difference-and-identity. Tenkei’s word-by-word commentary opens by parsing the title-graphs cāntóngqì 參同契 (sān = mutual-relation, tóng = identity, qì = covenant), characterising the verse as “Stone-Head [Shitou] Great Master pointing-up the unfindable-stem of the unmeasurable-stem; on the no-face-no-eye marking-out the not-hidden face-and-eye.”
  • Fasc. 2 (中): Hōkyō zanmai 寶鏡三昧 — commentary on the Hōkyō zanmai of Dòngshān Liángjiè 洞山良价 (807–869), the foundational Cáodòng verse on the jewel-mirror samādhi.
  • Fasc. 3 (下): Five Ranks 五位 — commentary on the Cáodòng Five Ranks (shōhen go-i 正偏五位) doctrine, including extended discussion of the Caoshan Five Ranks Diagrams and their relation to Línjì-school jǐng (ranks) classifications.

The dating bracket: composition during Tenkei’s mature scholastic career (c. 1720–early 1730s); editio princeps 1744 (nine years posthumous).

The work is the principal Edo-period Sōtō doctrinal commentary on the three foundational Cáodòng verses, and Tenkei’s reading of them remains a basis of modern Sōtō scholastic interpretation. The Sandō-kai and Hōkyō zanmai are recited daily in every Sōtō temple; Tenkei’s commentary supplies the principal doctrinal apparatus.

Translations and research

No book-length English translation located. For Tenkei’s commentaries and their place in the post-Manzan scholastic divergence, see Sasaki Genjun 佐々木現順, Tenkei Denson no kenkyū 天桂伝尊の研究 (Hōzōkan, 1978); for the Sandō-kai / Hōkyō zanmai as Cāodong foundational texts, see William Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1993), ch. 1; Taigen Dan Leighton, Visions of Awakening Space and Time: Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra (Oxford UP, 2007).

Other points of interest

Tenkei’s commentary on the Five Ranks in fasc. 3 is one of the principal Edo-period for-the-doctrine statements on the Cáodòng Five Ranks — at a time when Manzan-school authorities were divided about whether Dōgen had repudiated the Five Ranks or whether they remained core Cáodòng doctrine. Tenkei’s affirmative reading became the dominant mainstream Sōtō position in the eighteenth century.

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