Liánrú shàngrén yùyīdàijì wénshū 蓮如上人御一代記聞書
Record of Things Heard Concerning the Life of Master Rennyo [compilers: senior Hongan-ji disciples; principal compiler unattributed]
About the work
A single-fascicle anecdotal-biographical collection assembled from the oral recollections of 蓮如 Rennyo’s senior disciples in the period immediately after Rennyo’s death (Meiō 8 / 1499), and circulated in growing recensions through the first half of the 16th c. The work consists of 314 numbered anecdotes (varying somewhat by recension) of Rennyo’s pastoral counsel, doctrinal sayings, and personal example, recorded by Renjun 蓮淳 (Rennyo’s sixth son), Renkō 蓮光, Hōkyō 法敬, Kūzen 空善, and other senior figures.
Abstract
The anecdotes are organized loosely by theme — doctrinal sayings, pastoral counsel, kanto-Shinshū polemic, ritual practice, kami-and-Buddha questions, the conduct of the lay believer. Several anecdotes have become defining for Shinshū self-understanding: Rennyo’s saying that “Among the Tannishō, [the chapter that says] ‘Even a good person, how much more so a bad person’ is the doctrinal core of our school” (which is one of the few attestations of Rennyo’s view of the Tannishō); Rennyo’s saying that “One should hear, hear, and hear again” (聞きて開きて、また聞け) on the centrality of shōmon (hearing the Dharma) in Shinshū practice; the famous yamai (illness) sayings on the limits of anjin certainty.
The work is the principal anecdotal source for the historical Rennyo — supplementing the formal Ofumi KR6t0379 and the official biographies (Rennyo shōnin go-ichidai-ki and Rennyo shōnin gyōjitsu). Modern Rennyo scholarship (Kasahara Kazuo, Hosokawa Gyōshin, Yasutomi Shin’ya) draws on it extensively for the non-Ofumi Rennyo — the man behind the letters.
Date. The first recension was assembled within years of Rennyo’s death (1499); the textus receptus is the Tenbun-bon 天文本 of c. Tenbun 19 / 1550. The Taishō text follows the Tenbun-bon.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2669) records the work as a single-fascicle text with no compiler attribution and no internal toc sub-list (the 300+ anecdotes are not separately tabulated).
Translations and research
English: Rogers & Rogers, Rennyo: The Second Founder of Shin Buddhism (1991) — substantial selections; Hisao Inagaki, Anecdotes of Rennyo (Numata, 2002). Japanese: Kasahara Kazuo, Rennyo (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1963); Yasutomi Shin’ya 安富信哉, Rennyo Shōnin go-ichidaiki kikigaki kōgi (Hōzōkan, 1985); Hosokawa Gyōshin, Rennyo Shōnin den no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1989).
Links
- CBETA online
- Subject: 蓮如 (Rennyo)
- Companion: KR6t0379 (Ofumi), KR6t0381 (Go-zokushō o-fumi)