Dàmíngmù 大名目
Great Roster of [Doctrinal] Terms by 顯智 Kenchi (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle Shinshū doctrinal handbook by Kenchi 顯智 顯智 (1226–1310), third abbot of the Senju-ji 専修寺 (the head temple of the Takada 高田 branch of Jōdo Shinshū). The work is a systematic name-list / outline (meimoku 名目) of the principal doctrinal categories of Pure Land Buddhism, organized as a branching scholastic tree for use as a teaching reference. The author’s preface states: “In recording these terms, [the work] is not for those who pursue concurrent learning in other schools, nor for those of broad wisdom and grand talent. It is for ordinary lay persons of little wisdom and for talentless small youths who are gathering [the basics]” (夫記此名目者、非為餘宗兼學之人、非為廣智宏才之士、唯為少智俗人、為無才小童集之耳).
Abstract
The work organizes Pure Land doctrine as a two-fold partition between shōdō-mon 聖道門 (the Path-of-Sages, comprising nine schools — Hossō, Sanron, Tendai, Kegon, Shingon, Zen, Abhidharma, Satyasiddhi, Vinaya) and jōdo-mon 淨土門 (the Pure Land path, comprising two schools — Pure Land scholasticism and Shinshū). Each entry is a brief lexical-doctrinal note in classical Chinese, often with parallel structures for Shinran’s distinctive doctrines (the sixteen meditations of the Guan-jing, the three good deeds, the five precepts, the eight precepts, the seven masters, etc.).
The work is doctrinally significant as the earliest systematic attempt to provide a Shinshū scholastic vocabulary in classical Chinese — most Shinshū texts before Kenchi were in vernacular Japanese. Kenchi’s polemical aim is to establish doctrinal parity between Shinshū and the established Tendai-Kegon-Shingon scholasticism by providing the same kind of systematic reference apparatus that those schools used.
The author signs himself Shaku Kenchi 釋顯智 in the colophon. Kenchi’s lifespan (1226–1310) and his career at Senju-ji place composition between c. 1270 (when he took over the Senju-ji headship after his master Shinbutsu) and 1310 (the year of his death).
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2671) records the work as a single-fascicle treatise by Kenchi with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Shinshū shōgyō zensho, vol. 3 (Takada-ha section). No English translation. Studies: Inaki Sen’e, Takada-ha shisō no kenkyū (Hongan-ji, 1990); Tsuji Zen’nosuke 辻善之助, Nihon Bukkyō-shi 日本佛教史 (Iwanami, 1944–55), vol. 4. On the Takada-ha generally: Mark L. Blum & Yasutomi Shin’ya (eds.), Rennyo and the Roots of Modern Japanese Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2006), index s.v. Takada.
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 顯智 (Kenchi)
- Cognate Takada-ha texts: KR6t0383 (Ji-yō-shū), KR6t0384 (Kenshō ryūgishō)