Yīniàn duōniàn fēnbié shì 一念多念分別事
Distinguishing Single-Thought and Many-Thoughts by 隆寛 Ryūkan (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle vernacular-Japanese Pure Land doctrinal treatise by Ryūkan 隆寛 隆寛 (1148–1227), one of the most senior of 源空 Hōnen’s disciples. The work — the Ichi-nen ta-nen funbetsu-ji — is the classical statement of the doctrinal middle position in the single-thought / many-thoughts controversy that split the Hōnen school in the years after Hōnen’s death (1212), and it is the direct object of commentary of 親鸞 Shinran’s Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i KR6t0367.
Abstract
The controversy: Kōsai 幸西 (1163–1247) had advanced the senju-ichinen-gi — the doctrine that a single moment of nenbutsu exclusively secures rebirth, and that subsequent recitation is doctrinally irrelevant. Against this radical position, several Chinzei-line teachers had advanced the tariki-tanen position — that continuous recitation throughout life is required.
Ryūkan’s middle position, articulated in this treatise, is that the controversy itself misframes the issue: ichinen and tanen are not competing alternatives but two correct descriptions of the same reality under different aspects. Ichinen describes the moment in which faith arises (a single moment is sufficient and indeed necessary); tanen describes the continuous expression of that faith throughout life in the practice of nenbutsu. Each description is correct in its own category; the error is to treat them as competing.
This is the position later adopted and commented upon by Shinran in his Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i (1257); the Ichi-nen ta-nen funbetsu-ji is therefore the direct doctrinal ancestor of Shinran’s mature position on the controversy.
Date. Composition is in Ryūkan’s late career, after his exile in Karoku 3 / 1227 (the year of his death at age 80 on Ōshima in Sagami) but the treatise circulated already in the early 1220s. Conservatively c. 1224–1227.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T83N2677) records the work as a single-fascicle treatise by Ryūkan with a reltexts-old list pointing to T83N2657 — i.e. to KR6t0367 Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i (Shinran’s commentary). This is the central cross-reference of the entire dossier.
Translations and research
English translation: Yoshifumi Ueda & Dennis Hirota (trans.), in The Collected Works of Shinran (Hongwanji-ha, 1997), vol. 1. Studies: James C. Dobbins, Jōdo Shinshū (Indiana UP, 1989); Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2002); Ōhara Shōjitsu, Hōnen kyōgaku no kenkyū (Ryūbunkan, 1956); on the controversy: Sōhō Machida, Renegade Monk: Hōnen and Japanese Pure Land Buddhism (UC Press, 1999).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 隆寛 (Ryūkan)
- Shinshū commentary: KR6t0367 (Shinran, Ichi-nen ta-nen mon’i)
- Companion: KR6t0389 (Ryūkan, Jiriki tariki-ji)