Wǎngshēng shíyīn 往生拾因
Ten Causes of Rebirth [in the Pure Land] by 永觀 Yōkan (集)
About the work
A single-fascicle Pure Land doctrinal treatise by Yōkan 永觀 永觀 (1033–1111, alternatively read Eikan), one of the most influential Pure Land teachers of the late-Heian period and a precursor of 源空 Hōnen. The Ōjō jūin — “Ten Causes of Rebirth” — sets out, as the title indicates, ten reasons that the practitioner of nenbutsu attains rebirth in the Pure Land. The work was composed during Yōkan’s tenure as a senior cleric at the Tōdai-ji and the Zenrin-ji (the latter being the Pure Land temple in eastern Kyoto with which his name is permanently linked, also called Eikan-dō 永觀堂 after him).
Abstract
The ten causes (拾因 shū-in, also read jūin) are: (1) the universal salvific intent of Amida’s vow; (2) the universality of the practitioner’s capacity; (3) the simplicity of nenbutsu; (4) the scriptural attestation of Pure Land rebirth in the sūtras; (5) the patriarchal attestation in the writings of Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Tánluán, Dàochuò, and Shàndǎo; (6) the historical attestation of past rebirths in China and Japan; (7) the rational coherence of the doctrine; (8) the practical efficacy demonstrated by deathbed visions and raigō welcoming-descents; (9) the contrast with the difficulty of other paths; (10) the urgency in mappō eschatological time.
The argument is catechetical — Yōkan addresses lay practitioners and provides them with a complete defense of Pure Land practice that can be deployed against doctrinal skeptics. The work is doctrinally moderate — Yōkan does not yet make the radical senju-nenbutsu claim of Hōnen (1133–1212) that only nenbutsu suffices; rather, he argues that nenbutsu is uniquely well-suited to the mappō age and uniquely accessible to lay practitioners.
Yōkan stands in the direct lineage Tánluán → Dàochuò → Shàndǎo → Genshin → Yōkan → Hōnen → Shinran — i.e. he is the immediate precursor of Hōnen, and the Ōjō jūin is the work that, more than any other late-Heian text, paved the way for Hōnen’s Senjaku-shū of 1198. Hōnen explicitly cites Yōkan repeatedly; Shinran cites him through Hōnen.
Date. Composition is generally placed in Yōkan’s late career, c. 1100–1111; he died in Tennin 4 / 1111 at age 79.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T84N2683) records the work as a single-fascicle text by Yōkan with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No complete English translation. Studies: Hayami Tasuku, Genshin (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1988); Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon Jōdo-kyō seiritsu-shi no kenkyū (Yamakawa, 1956); Etani Ryūkai, Nihon Jōdo-kyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū (Sankibō, 1976), ch. on Yōkan; Sōhō Machida, Renegade Monk: Hōnen and Japanese Pure Land Buddhism (UC Press, 1999); Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2002).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 永觀 (Yōkan / Eikan)
- Precursor: 源信 (Genshin)
- Continuation: 源空 (Hōnen)
- Companion liturgical text by Yōkan: KR6t0436 (Ōjō kōshiki)