Chūxīn xínghù chāo 初心行護鈔
Notes on the Practice-Protection for Beginning [Practitioners] (anon., Chinzei-line novice-discipline manual)
About the work
A single-fascicle novice-discipline manual for Chinzei-line Jōdoshū neophytes, organized as a sequence of jōjō 條條 (“article-by-article”) rules for daily liturgical conduct. The opening section is titled Shō-butsu-den-tō hei-za gongyō jōjō 小佛殿等平座勤行條條 — “the article-by-article protocol for the flat-sitting daily-office in the lesser Buddha-halls and similar [shrines]” — establishing the work’s genre as a guide to the routine ritual conduct of monastery life rather than a doctrinal treatise. The title’s gyōgo 行護 (“practice-protection”) signals the work’s purpose: to protect the novice’s practice from the common errors of inexperienced monastic life.
Abstract
The articles cover the practical-disciplinary details of daily monastic conduct:
- Entry to the Buddha-hall: “First, on entering the hall-gate, face the Buddha, lower the head, and make gasshō. Reaching the seat-place, face the higher and lower seats and make a monju-shitsu greeting with gasshō. Then make a wanan (greeting) toward the neighbouring monk. After this, facing the Buddha, [perform] …” (入堂門先向佛低頭合掌。至座所對上下座合掌問訊セヨ …);
- The seated gongyō (勤行 — daily office): the order of the daily liturgies, the raisan hymns, the Nyorai-myōgō (如來名號 — Tathāgata’s-name) recitation, the eikō (廻向 — merit-transfer) verses;
- The takuhatsu (托鉢 — alms-rounds) protocols;
- The jiki / sai (食 / 齋 — meal-and-fast) protocols including the bansatsu (晩察 — evening-self-examination); 5.–N. Further articles on the sōrin (sleeping-quarters) etiquette, the seijō (清淨 — washroom) procedures, the kana-shū (假寢 — short nap) regulations, and the seasonal ango (安居 — rains-retreat) discipline.
The work is the practical complement to the doctrinal primer KR6t0343 Jōdo dōmō shiki-meimoku: where the Dōmō primer addresses doctrinal training, the Gyōgoshō addresses behavioural training, and together they constitute the basic Chinzei-line novice curriculum.
Author and date. Anonymous. The doctrinal-disciplinary context places the underlying composition in the Chinzei-line tradition (which maintained the Hieizan-Tendai kaidan ordination and the jōjō-style behavioural protocols, as seen in companion text KR6t0347). A medieval-to-early-Edo date (14th–17th c.) is most plausible.
Translations and research
No Western-language translation has been located. Treated in: Itō Yuishin 伊藤唯眞, Jōdo-shū no seiritsu to tenkai (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981); Ōhashi Shunnō 大橋俊雄, Jōdo-shū no kyōdan-shi (Daizō Shuppan, 1972); critical text in Jōdo-shū zensho 浄土宗全書 vol. 14.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion: KR6t0347 (Zayūshō — disciplinary protocol)
- Cf. parallel-genre Edo-period institutional manual: KR6t0325 (Daigen, Renmon gakusoku)