Běnyuànsì shèngrén Qīnluán chuánhuì 本願寺聖人親鸞傳繪
The Illustrated Biography of [Shinran], Holy Man of the Hongan-ji by 覺如 Kakunyo (撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle illustrated hagiography of 親鸞 Shinran by Kakunyo 覺如 覺如 (1270–1351), originally composed in Einin 3 / 1295 (Kakunyo age 26) and revised through Kōei 2 / 1343 (age 74). The work — variously titled Den-e 傳繪, Goden-shō 御傳鈔, or simply Shinran shōnin den-e — is the foundational hagiographic narrative of the Shinshū tradition and the textual core of the Den-e picture-scroll tradition that became, over the following century, one of the most reproduced visual artifacts in medieval Japanese Buddhism.
Abstract
The work narrates Shinran’s life in 15 episodes, beginning with his birth into the Hino aristocratic line and his ordination at age 9 on Mt. Hiei, through his decisive encounter with Hōnen 源空 at age 29 in 1201 (the yoshimizu kechi-en), the Jōgen-no-hōnan persecution of 1207 (Shinran’s exile to Echigo), the Kantō evangelization (1214–1232), and the Kyoto return and death in 1262. Two episodes set the doctrinal core: (1) the rokkaku-dō yume-no-keiji 六角堂夢の啓示 — Shinran’s six-corner-hall vision of Kannon-as-Shōtoku-Taishi guiding him to Hōnen (the foundation-myth of Shinran’s conversion); (2) the Yoshimizu kechi-en — the moment when Hōnen handed Shinran the Senjaku-shū and authorized him to copy and propagate the senju-nenbutsu teaching.
The narrative is heavily hagiographic and visibly shaped by the polemic-needs of Kakunyo’s project to establish the Hongan-ji as the legitimate Shinshū lineage: Shinran is consistently distinguished from his Pure Land contemporaries (Kōsai, Shōkū, Benchō) as Hōnen’s true heir, and the unbroken transmission Hōnen → Shinran → Nyoshin → Kakunyo is emphasized at every step. Modern critical biographies (Akamatsu Toshihide, Hirata Atsushi) have replaced Den-e as historical record but use it extensively as a source for the post-1295 Hongan-ji self-representation.
Date and recensions. The work exists in three principal recensions: (1) Eishin-bon 永仁本 (1295, autograph original); (2) Kantoku-bon 觀徳本 (1314, expanded with new episodes); (3) Kōei-bon 康永本 (1343, the final authorial version, with text by Kakunyo and pictures by Jōga 浄賀 and Sōshun 宗舜). The Taishō text follows the Kōei-bon.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2664) records the work as a 2-fascicle text by Kakunyo with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
The Den-e picture-scroll tradition is one of the most-studied corpora of medieval Japanese Buddhist art. Critical edition: Shinshū shōgyō zensho, vol. 3. The most important picture-scroll witnesses are the Senju-ji-bon (Mie pref., 14th c.), the Bukkō-ji-bon (Kyoto, 14th c., heavily revised), and the Nishi Hongan-ji-bon (Kyoto). English: James C. Dobbins, Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan (Hawai’i, 2004); Mark Unno, Shingon Refractions (Wisdom, 2004); Allan Andrews, “The Senchaku-shū in Japanese Religious History,” JIABS 10.1 (1987). Japanese: Sasaki Kōken 佐々木興賢, Shinran den-e no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1976); Tsujimoto Kazuaki 辻本一明, Goden-shō no sekai (Yūzankaku, 2006).