Jiǎngyuàn xuétáng tōngguī 講院學堂通規
General Regulations for the Lecture-Cloister and Study-Hall (by an anonymous Seizan-line abbot, 1367)
About the work
A single-fascicle academy-regulations document for the Seizan-school jiang-yuan (講院 — “lecture cloister”) and xue-tang (學堂 — “study hall”) institutional pedagogy, dated by its colophon to Jōji 6 / 8 / 11 = 1367-09-04. The colophon-signature gives the author only by institutional position: “Seizan jūji rō-biku Jin” 西山住持老比丘仁 (“the Seizan-resident elder-monk Jin”) — i.e. the then-incumbent abbot of a Seizan-school principal temple, identified only by the single graph Jin 仁. The work is the earliest extant Seizan-school gakkō (study-hall) regulations document and an important witness to the late-Nanboku-chō institutional consolidation of the Seizan school.
Abstract
The opening articles establish the age-and-attendance protocols of the academy:
- Age-and-attendance: “Aged fifteen and above, and fifty and below — without selection of [intellectual] faculties dull or sharp, without discussion of [moral] capability lower or higher: attend the lectures and apply oneself to study; at both times [morning and evening lecture-sessions] join the gathering — do not be slack. After half-a-hundred [years of age], being already elderly, no further regulations may be applied; those who come, however, should not be dismissed but should serve as monastic-elders” (一。十五歳以上五十以下 …);
- Curriculum sequence: the eight-part Hachi-bu course modelled on the structure later codified in the Edo-period Renmon gakusoku KR6t0325;
- Lecturer-and-student protocol: the kōji (講師 — lecturer) and monjusha (問者 — objector) roles; the rongi (disputation) procedures;
- Academy regulations: the sōrin (sleeping-quarters), refectory, and seijō (washroom) protocols, parallel to those in KR6t0348; 5.–N. Closing articles on the institutional governance of the academy and the disciplinary procedures for monks-in-training.
The work is the principal documentary witness to Seizan-school academic institutional life in the mid-fourteenth century and predates the Edo-period Chinzei-line jūhachi danrin system by some three centuries. Its careful attention to age-and-faculty inclusivity (admitting all between 15 and 50 regardless of intellectual faculty) reflects the Seizan-school’s commitment to the universality of the Pure-Land path: doctrinal training, like Pure-Land salvation itself, is to be offered to all without distinction of intellectual or moral capacity.
Date and author. Jōji 6 / 8 / 11 = 1367-09-04. The author “Jin” 仁 cannot be securely identified with any of the known Seizan-school figures of the mid-fourteenth century; he is presumably the then-incumbent abbot of Yoshimine-dera 善峯寺, Eikan-dō 永觀堂, or one of the other principal Seizan temples. The exact temple is not specified in the colophon.
Translations and research
No Western-language translation has been located. Treated in: Fujimoto Kiyohiko 藤本淨彦, Seizan jōdokyō no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1988); Itō Yuishin 伊藤唯眞, Jōdo-shū no seiritsu to tenkai (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981); critical text in Seizan zensho (1928–35).
Links
- CBETA online
- Cf. parallel Chinzei-line institutional pedagogy: KR6t0325 (Daigen, Renmon gakusoku)
- Cf. Seizan-line monastic-protocol: KR6t0347 (Zayūshō)