Guīmìng běnyuàn chāo 歸命本願抄
Notes on Taking Refuge in the Original Vow by 向阿 Kōa Shōken (撰)
About the work
The first work of the Kōa sanbu 向阿三部 trilogy — three Pure-Land doctrinal essays in vernacular Japanese (wabun 和文) by Kōa Shōken 向阿證賢 (1265–1345), the sixth-generation abbot of Zenrin-ji (Eikan-dō) 禪林寺・永觀堂 in Kyoto and a leading scholar of the Seizan-Senjō branch (西山禪林寺派) of Jōdoshū. Three fascicles. The work treats the central doctrine of the Original Vow (本願 hongan) of Amitābha — specifically the eighteenth vow of senchaku-hongan-nenbutsu — and the practitioner’s posture of kimyō 歸命 (taking refuge in, lit. “returning-life” to) that vow.
Abstract
The opening of fascicle 1 sets the doctrinal frame: “Although the gates of the eighty-thousand contextual teachings are all dharma-vessels for crossing the sea of suffering, only the Sixty-Eight Vows’ (六八超世) Original Vow alone is the salvific net that rescues the always-drowning [beings]; it is the kalpa-five reflection expedient of our original teacher 阿彌陀佛 Amitābha, the nine-grade rebirth device for sentient beings of the latter age” (夫八萬隨情ノ教門ハ … 六八超世ノ本願ノミ … 是スナハチ本師彌陀五劫思惟ノ善巧 …). The sixty-eight is a textual reference to the Larger Sukhāvatīvyūha’s account of Amitābha’s forty-eight vows arrived at after sixty-eight kalpas of contemplation — Kōa here following the Wǎngshēng lùn tradition.
The doctrinal structure proceeds through (i) the kimyō posture (taking refuge in the Original Vow as the central religious act); (ii) the historical line of patriarchs through whom this doctrine has been transmitted — Shàndǎo 善導 in China, 源空 Hōnen of Kurodani 黒谷 in Japan, and the implicit Seizan transmission Shōkū → Jōon → Kōa; (iii) the doctrinal contrast with the jiriki (self-power) paths of the Way-of-Sages; (iv) the nine grades of rebirth (九品往生) doctrine drawn from the Contemplation Sūtra; and (v) the practical implications for the mappō (degenerate-age) practitioner — the yoki ya ashiki yatomo arazu (neither-evil-nor-good) accessibility of nenbutsu salvation.
Date. No internal date. Kōa’s literary career falls in his mature period as abbot of Zenrin-ji, c. 1300–1345; the Kōa sanbu is conventionally dated to the first half of the 14th century.
Linguistic register. Like the other two parts of the trilogy, the text is composed in wabun (Heian-style courtly Japanese with mixed-on-kana orthography) rather than literary Chinese — making it accessible to lay readers and to women, who in the medieval period were less likely to be trained in kanbun. This vernacular accessibility is the distinctive contribution of Kōa’s trilogy to medieval Jōdoshū literature.
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation has been located. The Kōa sanbu is discussed in: Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2002), and Blum’s translation of Gyōnen’s Jōdo hōmon genrushō; Itō Yuishin 伊藤唯眞, Jōdo-shū no seiritsu to tenkai (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981); Hayashima Akinori 早島鏡正 & Otani Kōshō 大谷光照, Jōdo-shū-shi 浄土宗史 (Kōdansha, 1969); critical texts in Jōdo-shū zensho 浄土宗全書 vol. 14 and Iwanami Bunko’s Nihon koten bungaku taikei selections.