Xīyào chāo 西要抄
Notes on the Essentials of the Western [Pure Land] by 向阿 Kōa Shōken (撰)
About the work
The second work of the Kōa sanbu 向阿三部 trilogy by 向阿 Kōa Shōken (1265–1345). Two fascicles. The title Saiyō 西要 — “the essentials of the West” — is a Pure-Land technical term: the summary essentials of rebirth in the Western Pure Land (西方淨土) of Amitābha. The work is a vernacular-Japanese (wabun) Pure-Land treatise of the Seizan-Senjō branch, organized as a deeply personal, partly autobiographical meditation on the practitioner’s relation to the Pure Land.
Abstract
The opening of fascicle 1 sets a strikingly literary mood, in the manner of a Heian nikki (diary): “Just past, around the twentieth day of the ninth (long) month, I went into retreat at Seiryō-ji 清涼寺 [the great Sākyamuni-image temple at Saga in northwestern Kyoto] in fulfilment of an old vow. The grounds, dimly, in the deep autumn, gathered with the aware (pathos) of every thing — only to be guessed at, indeed. The crimson leaves coloured darkly: who could have dyed them with yellow-knotted-cloth? The white tuft [of the Buddha image] hung down: who could have carved the red sandalwood [of the Sākya statue]? …” (スギニシ。ナガ月ノ二十日アマリノコロ …). This Heian-courtly opening — drawing on the religious mood of Genji-style autumnal retreat — sets the tone for the work as a contemplative Pure-Land essay rather than a polemical scholastic treatise.
The body proceeds through (i) the seven-day retreat practice (七日參籠) and its religious psychology — the gradual gathering of shinjin (faith) during retreat at the Sākyamuni-image; (ii) the doctrinal core: that rebirth in the West (西方往生) is the necessary corollary of the practitioner’s human condition in the degenerate age — the Way of Sages being closed to ordinary beings, the Pure Land Way is the only viable path; (iii) the Three Minds (三心) doctrine — sincere mind, deep mind, aspiration-to-rebirth-by-merit-transfer — drawn from the Guānjīng; (iv) the relation between Śākyamuni (the historical Buddha, worshipped at Seiryō-ji) and Amitābha (the Pure-Land Buddha, the proper object of nenbutsu); and (v) the practical implications for the lay practitioner’s daily life — the nichiya monogon (day-and-night non-cessation) of nenbutsu recitation.
Date and circumstances. No internal date. The Seiryō-ji retreat narrative is presented as a real autobiographical event; this places the composition in Kōa’s mature Kyoto period, c. 1300–1345. The work’s vernacular literary register — combining religious doctrine with the Heian-courtly aware aesthetic — is the distinctive Seizan-line contribution to medieval Japanese religious literature.
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation has been located. The work is treated in: Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2002); Itō Yuishin 伊藤唯眞, Jōdo-shū no seiritsu to tenkai (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981); critical text in Jōdo-shū zensho 浄土宗全書 vol. 14; Iwanami Nihon shisō taikei 岩波日本思想大系 vol. 10 (Hōnen, Ippen) includes selections from the Kōa sanbu in modern annotated editions.
Other points of interest
The opening passage on the Seiryō-ji retreat is one of the most literarily ambitious passages in medieval Jōdo-shū writing, drawing explicitly on the mono no aware aesthetic of Heian nikki-literature to frame Pure-Land doctrine in courtly terms. This wakan-konkō (mixed Japanese-Chinese) literary register, with its evocation of kōyō (autumnal leaves), byakugō (the Buddha’s ūrṇā tuft), and shakusendan (red sandalwood — the Sākyamuni image’s traditional material), is meant to mediate Pure-Land doctrine through aristocratic literary culture and represents an early move in the medieval bunjin Buddhism that would mature in the writings of Tonna, Yoshida Kenkō, and others.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion: KR6t0321 (Kimyō-hongan-shō) and KR6t0323 (Fushi-sōgei)