Ānyǎng chāo 安養抄
Anthology of [Sukhāvatī, the Land of] Peaceful Repose [author unknown; late-Heian / early-Kamakura compilation]
About the work
An eight-fascicle Pure Land doctrinal-encyclopedic compilation, anonymous, of the late-Heian / early-Kamakura period (11th–12th c.). The work is structured as a question-and-answer treatise addressing the principal doctrinal questions about Sukhāvatī — An’yō 安養 — and its relation to the broader Mahāyāna cosmological and soteriological schema. The catalog meta entry inadvertently records the author as “12es” and the dynasty as “11e” — these are placeholder strings used in the unfinished catalog rather than substantive attestations; the work is correctly anonymous and best dated to the late 11th to 12th c.
Abstract
The work is organized as a sequence of doctrinal questions with citation-based answers drawing on the standard Pure Land scriptural corpus. The first few questions (preserved in the opening folio) illustrate the method: (1) “Among the four kinds of Buddha-lands, which is Sukhāvatī?” with discussion of the three-bodies (sanshin 三身) doctrine; (2) “Is Sukhāvatī the highest of the Pure Lands?”; (3) “How far is Sukhāvatī from this world?”; (4) “In the sixteen meditations of the Guan-jing, what is contemplated in the lotus-throne meditation?”; (5) “What is the body-measurement of Amida Buddha?”; (6) “What does the contemplator of Amida see when he contemplates?”; (7) “Can one without the complete observance of the precepts be reborn in Sukhāvatī?” And so on through eight fascicles.
The work draws heavily on Tánluán’s Wǎng-shēng lùn-zhù, Shàndǎo’s Guān-jīng shū, the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa commentary (淨名疏 Jōmyō-sho), and Tendai authors. It functions as an encyclopedic reference work for Pure Land doctrinal questions and circulated widely in late-Heian and Kamakura monastic communities as a learning text.
Date and authorship. Anonymous. The textual style and doctrinal vocabulary place it in the late 11th to 12th c., in the period between Yōkan and Hōnen. Some scholarly conjectures associate it with the Tōdai-ji learning environment of Yōkan and Chinkai, but no firm attribution is possible.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T84N2686) records the work as an 8-fascicle anonymous text with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. No English translation. Japanese: Hayami Tasuku, Heian kizoku shakai to Bukkyō (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1975); Etani Ryūkai, Nihon Jōdo-kyō seiritsu katei no kenkyū (Sankibō, 1976). The An’yō-shō is treated as a useful source in Inoue Mitsusada, Nihon Jōdo-kyō seiritsu-shi no kenkyū (Yamakawa, 1956).
Links
- CBETA online
- Related: KR6t0395 (Chinkai, Ketsujōōjōshū), KR6t0396 (Chinkai, An’yō chisoku sōtaishō)