Huángtàizǐ Shèngdé fèngzàn 皇太子聖徳奉讃
Devotional Hymns to Crown-Prince [Shōtoku] in the Saint-Virtue [Posthumous Title] by 親鸞 Shinran (作)
About the work
A single-fascicle hymn-cycle of vernacular-Japanese devotional verses (wasan) to Prince Shōtoku 聖徳太子 (574–622), the legendary 7th-century Japanese imperial regent traditionally credited with introducing Buddhism to Japan and authoring the Sangyō-gisho 三經義疏 (commentaries on the Lotus, Vimalakīrti, and Śrīmālā sūtras). Composed by 親鸞 Shinran (self-designation here Gutoku Zenshin 愚禿善信 — using his earlier dharma-name Zenshin = Yoshizane, conferred at the time of his Echigo exile in 1207). The Taishō text presents this entry as part of a paired set with KR6t0360 (a continuation / variant cycle of Shōtoku Hōsan hymns).
Abstract
The opening hymn introduces the relationship: “The inconceivable vow of Buddha-wisdom, [we] receive through Prince Shōtoku’s blessing…” (1 佛智不思議ノ誓願ヲ。聖徳皇ノメクミ …). The hymn-cycle proceeds through ~75 hymns covering:
- Shōtoku as the honji-suijaku manifestation of Kannon Bosatsu: in Shinran’s tradition (following Tendai precedent), Shōtoku is identified as the suijaku (descended-trace) of Kannon Bosatsu, who in turn is the suijaku of Amitābha; thus Shōtoku is doctrinally the Japanese manifestation of Amitābha himself.
- Shōtoku’s role in Shinran’s spiritual biography: the 1201 Rokkaku-dō dream-vision of Shōtoku that brought Shinran from Hieizan to Hōnen’s Yoshimizu assembly is the central event of Shinran’s conversion-narrative; the Hōsan hymns repeatedly invoke this episode and present Shōtoku as Shinran’s spiritual patron and Pure-Land guide.
- Shōtoku’s seventeen-article constitution and the Buddhist-state foundation of Japan: the Hōsan praises Shōtoku as the founder of Buddhist Japan and the bodhisattva-regent, whose dispensation made the Pure-Land Way possible for later generations of Japanese practitioners.
- Devotional invocations: closing hymns calling on Shōtoku to grant the practitioner the senchaku-hongan grace and to secure the practitioner’s rebirth in the Pure Land.
The Shōtoku-cult is doctrinally central to Shinshū: alongside the Shichi-kōsō (seven patriarchs, KR6t0357) and the doctrine of muga-tariki, the Shōtoku-cult provides Shinshū with its Japanese-imperial-mythological grounding. The 1201 Rokkaku-dō dream that converted Shinran to the senju-nenbutsu makes Shōtoku, in Shinshū tradition, the Japanese eighth patriarch de facto — though formally outside the Shichi-kōsō seven-patriarch list.
Date. No internal precise date. Composition is conventionally placed in Shinran’s late-Kyoto period, c. 1255–1257 (contemporary with the Shōzō mappō wasan and using his older Zenshin dharma-name in self-designation, suggesting an authorial decision to mark the work’s continuity with his pre-1212 Hōnen-discipleship).
Translations and research
English translation: in Hongwanji Translation Series, The Collected Works of Shinran (1997). Treated in: Michael I. Como, Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition (Oxford UP, 2008) — the major modern English-language study of the Shōtoku-cult; Kenneth Doo Lee, The Prince and the Monk: Shōtoku Worship in Shinran’s Buddhism (SUNY, 2007) — specifically on Shinran’s Shōtoku-cult; James C. Dobbins, Jōdo Shinshū (Indiana UP, 1989); critical text in Shinran Shōnin zenshū 親鸞聖人全集 (Hongan-ji, 1985).
Other points of interest
The Shōtoku-cult of Shinshū has been the principal vehicle by which Japanese imperial-mythological elements were integrated into Pure-Land Buddhism: by tying Shinran’s lineage to the foundational Buddhist-Japanese myth of Shōtoku, Shinshū grounded itself in the imperial-Buddhist national-religious imagination, and the Hōsan hymns were a principal liturgical vehicle for this integration. The cult became politically delicate in the modern period (Meiji-Restoration shinbutsu-bunri and the State Shintō establishment treated the Shōtoku-cult ambiguously), but remained doctrinally central within Shinshū through to the present.
Links
- CBETA online
- Companion / continuation cycle: KR6t0360 (Kōtaishi Shōtoku Hōsan — variant cycle)
- Companion wasan: KR6t0356–KR6t0358