Qìpǔ lùn 器朴論
Treatise on the Vessel and the Unhewn [Wood] by 託何 Takuka (述)
About the work
A three-fascicle Pure Land doctrinal treatise by Takuka 託何 託何, senior cleric of the Yūzū-nenbutsu-shū 融通念佛宗 in the mid-Edo period. The colophon attribution gives the author as Takuka, former resident of Mt. Ōdai (黄臺山前住託何述). The work is a substantial companion piece to Yūkan’s 融觀 Yūzū enmon-shō KR6t0391 and was composed in the early 18th c. in the orbit of Yūkan’s reorganization of the Yūzū-nenbutsu school under official Tokugawa recognition.
Abstract
The work organizes Pure Land doctrine in twelve principal chapters (the preface enumerates: Shōjō nan’i-monjō 聖淨難易門状, Honkai-shū 本懷樞, Ni-son ni-kyō shō 二尊二教章, Sho-butsu shōgakujō 諸佛正覺條, Sho-kyō shutsuri-yō 諸教出離要, Dai-shō gon-jitsu chō 大小權實牒, Ni-shu sanmai-sen 二種三昧詮, Jōbutsu ōjō-kan 成佛往生簡, Hotsu bodaishin-kō 發菩提心綱, U-sō mu-sō i 有相無相維, Sho-kyō tsū-san jō 諸經通讚緗, Nenbutsu ta-fuku-chitsu 念佛多福袟, Mappō gutsūryū 末法弘通流, Rinjū yō-shin shi 臨終要心縡, Sosō nenbutsu-roku 祖祖念佛録).
The title — Kiboku-ron, “Vessel and Unhewn-Wood” — alludes to the Daoist Zhuāngzǐ topos of the unhewn block (朴 pǔ) that, when worked, becomes a vessel (器 qì). The pun is doctrinal: the practitioner’s unhewn (untrained) condition is precisely what the nenbutsu works upon to produce the vessel of Pure Land rebirth. The author plays with classical Chinese vocabulary in a manner characteristic of Edo-period Buddhist literati.
The doctrinal content is broadly synthetic — Takuka explicitly aims to integrate Pure Land doctrine with Tendai, Hossō, Kegon, and Zen perspectives, while preserving the Yūzū-nenbutsu distinctive thesis that one nenbutsu interpenetrates all. Takuka represents the scholastic culmination of Yūkan’s reorganization — Yūkan provided the doctrinal foundation, Takuka provided the systematic apparatus.
Date. Composition in the early-to-mid 18th c., after Yūkan’s reorganization. Conservatively c. 1700–1750. Takuka’s lifedates are not precisely fixed in modern reference works.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T84N2681) records the work as a 3-fascicle treatise by Takuka with no internal toc sub-list (the 15-section structure is internal to the text and not separately tabulated) and no related-text cross-references.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. Japanese: Etani Ryūkai, Yūzū-nenbutsu no shisō to rekishi (Daitō shuppan, 1971); Kōno Kakushū, Yūzū-nenbutsu-shū no kyōgi (Hozokan, 1965); on Takuka specifically: Kawasaki Hiroyuki, Daitsū yūkan no kenkyū (Hōzōkan, 1995), ch. on Takuka.
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 託何 (Takuka)
- Companion: KR6t0391 (Yūkan, Yūzū enmon-shō)
- School founder: 良忍 (Ryōnin)