聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

選擇本願念佛集

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Text ID
KR6t0314
Date
1198–1198
Dynasty
日本

Xuǎnzé běnyuàn niànfó jí 選擇本願念佛集

Collection on the Selection of the Original Vow of Nenbutsu by 源空 Hōnen (撰)

About the work

The founding doctrinal text of Jōdoshū 浄土宗 (Pure Land school of Japanese Buddhism), composed by 源空 Hōnen (1133–1212) at age 65 in Kenkyū 9 / 1198 at the request of his lay-disciple-patron the regent Kujō Kanezane 九条兼実 (1149–1207). Standardly known by its abbreviated title Senchaku-shū 選擇集. The full title is Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shū 選擇本願念佛集 — “Collection on the Selection of the Original Vow of Nenbutsu” — senchaku (selection) being the technical term for Amitābha’s pre-Buddhic selection of the eighteenth vow (the vow of Nenbutsu-rebirth) as the principal vehicle of universal salvation.

Abstract

The text is structured as a sequence of about sixteen chapters (章門 shōmon), each headed by a doctrinal proposition and supported by extensive citation of the Pure-Land canonical sources. The chapter-headings (selected):

  1. Dōshaku Zenji ritsu shōdō jōdo nimon, sha shōdō shō ki jōdo no mon 道綽禪師立聖道淨土二門而捨聖道正歸淨土之文 — “The passage of Daochuo Zenji establishing the two gates of the Sage’s Way (shōdō — Mahāyāna sūtras and treatises) and the Pure Land (jōdo — the Western Paradise reciting-the-Buddha way), and casting off the Sage’s Way to properly return to the Pure Land”.
  2. Senchaku honshū no nenbutsu — “The selected-and-fundamental nenbutsu”.
  3. Hongan no senchaku no rikishin — “The selection by the original-vow’s force-mind”.
  4. Kotsu jōzen sangen — “The contemplative-good and the dispersed-good”.
  5. Sangen no nenbutsu hongan — “The dispersed-good’s nenbutsu original-vow”.
  6. Nyū bus-shō chō ni shōnan-shi-no-mon — Pure-Land particular-praise of nenbutsu over other practices.
  7. (Continued…) with chapters on jōnyo no shōka (constant-conduct of recitation), gōjō rai-bū (the body-evidence of welcoming-by-Amitābha), and others, culminating in the closing chapters on the practice of Nenbutsu in everyday life and the transmission to descendants.

The principal doctrinal moves of the Senchaku-shū are three:

  • The Two-Gates Doctrine (shōdōjōdo nimon 聖道淨土二門), inherited from Daochuo’s Anrakushū 安樂集: division of the entire Buddhist tradition into the Sage’s Way (Mahāyāna sūtras-and-treatises practiced for buddha-attainment in this lifetime) and the Pure Land Way (recitation of Amitābha’s name for rebirth in the Western Paradise). In the present mappō (degenerate-dharma) age, only the Pure Land Way is viable.
  • The Selection (senchaku 選擇) doctrine: among all possible practices, Amitābha himself, in his pre-Buddhic vow-period, selected nenbutsu (the recitation of his name) as the unique vehicle of universal salvation — and excluded all other practices from the saving-power of the Original Vow.
  • The Exclusive-Nenbutsu Doctrine (senju nenbutsu 専修念佛): consequently, the Pure-Land practitioner should practise only nenbutsu and abandon all other Buddhist practices (including the precepts, contemplation, and sūtra-study) — a position that scandalised the established schools and led directly to the persecution of the senju-nenbutsu movement (1207-08) and Hōnen’s exile.

The opening preface 序 by Taira no Motochika 平基親 (the Kura-no-tō Sanmi-Sa-no-Daiben Hyōbukyō Taira no Asomi), dated 辛未之歳建子之月 = Kanoto-hitsuji year, eleventh month — most probably Kenryaku 1 / 11 / 1211 (the year after Hōnen’s recall from exile, six weeks before his death) — provides the textual transmission-context: the text was originally embargoed by Hōnen himself (“encased in the wall”, 埋壁之誡), and only after his recall from exile was it allowed to be carved on woodblocks. Motochika’s preface is therefore the editio princeps preface, dating the first printing to early 1212 — within months of Hōnen’s death.

The dating bracket: composition 1198 (Kenkyū 9 / firmly fixed by Hōnen’s biographies and Kanezane’s Gyokuyō 玉葉 diary); editio princeps 1211–12.

The work is one of the most consequential single texts in the history of Japanese religion. Its exclusive-nenbutsu doctrine became the foundation of all later Japanese Pure-Land schools: the Jōdoshū through Hōnen’s direct heirs (Shōkū 證空 → Seizan branch; 良忠 Ryōchū → Chinzei branch); the Jōdoshinshū through Shinran 親鸞; and indirectly the Ji-shū through Ippen 一遍 — the four schools together comprising by far the largest single segment of pre-modern and modern Japanese Buddhism.

Translations and research

The text has been translated into English several times:

  • Augustine and Susumu Hyōdō Yokoyama (eds.), Hōnen’s Senchakushū: Passages on the Selection of the Nembutsu in the Original Vow (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1998) — the standard scholarly English translation, with extensive introduction.
  • Senchakushū English Translation Project (Jōdo-shū Research Institute), Hōnen’s Senchakushū (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1998) — collaborative scholarly translation.
  • Selections in Tetsuden Kashima, Buddhism in America: The Social Organization of an Ethnic Religious Institution (Greenwood, 1977).

Principal scholarly studies in English: James C. Dobbins, Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan (Indiana UP, 1989, repr. Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 2002); Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism: A Study and Translation of Gyōnen’s Jōdo Hōmon Genrushō (Oxford UP, 2002); Allan A. Andrews, The Teachings Essential for Rebirth: A Study of Genshin’s Ōjōyōshū (Sophia Univ. Press, 1973); Richard Bowring, The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500–1600 (Cambridge UP, 2005), ch. 12 on Hōnen.

Other points of interest

The Motochika preface observes that Hōnen had himself embargoed the work — “although knowing the cautionary ‘burying it in the wall’, I have nevertheless caused the carving-block-printing” (雖知埋壁之誡還貽彫版之印). The reference is to the famous instance of Kongzi-house wall-burial (孔壁) at the Burning of the Books — Motochika is suggesting that Hōnen’s own wish to suppress circulation has been overridden by the urgency of preserving the text after the persecution. This embargoed character of the text is a principal feature of its early reception: Senchaku-shū circulated only in restricted manuscript among Hōnen’s senior disciples until the early 1210s, and its eventual public release directly precipitated the second wave of anti-senju-nenbutsu polemics (the Kōfuku-ji and Hieizan attacks of the 1220s onward).

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