Jìngtǔ fǎmén yuánliú zhāng 淨土法門源流章
The Origin and Course of the Pure Land Dharma-Gate by 凝然 Gyōnen (述)
About the work
A single-fascicle Pure Land doctrinal-historical treatise by Gyōnen 凝然 凝然 (1240–1321), the foremost Kamakura-period scholar of Japanese Buddhist sectarian history. The work is essentially a historical survey of the development of Pure Land doctrine from its Indian origins (Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu) through the Chinese masters (Tánluán, Dàochuò, Shàndǎo) to the Japanese tradition (Genshin, Hōnen, Shinran, etc.), with attention to the various Japanese Pure Land sub-traditions of Gyōnen’s day.
Abstract
The treatise is the principal source for what was known in early-Kamakura learned circles about the sectarian history of Japanese Pure Land. Gyōnen — a Kegon scholar by training, monastic at the Tōdai-ji — surveys with characteristic learning: (1) the Indian patriarchs (Nāgārjuna’s Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā “Easy-Path” chapter; Vasubandhu’s Sukhāvatī-vyūha-upadeśa); (2) the Chinese patriarchs (Tánluán, Dàochuò, Shàndǎo, with attention to the Shàndǎo-line and the rival Cí-mǐn 慈愍 line of Huìrì 慧日); (3) the Japanese patriarchs — Genshin, Yōkan, Chinkai, Hōnen — and the Hōnen-school splits into Chinzei (Benchō 辯長 and Ryōchū 良忠), Seizan (Shōkū 證空), Kuhon-ji (Chōsai 長西), and Shinshū (Shinran).
The work is invaluable for our knowledge of the second-generation Hōnen-school splits of the mid-13th c., which Gyōnen describes with the objectivity of an outside Kegon observer rather than the polemic of an interested partisan. His descriptions of the doctrinal positions of the rival Hōnen-school branches are the principal source for our reconstruction of those positions in cases where the schools’ own writings are lost or fragmentary.
Gyōnen wrote a companion work, the Hasshū kōyō 八宗綱要 (in two fascicles), surveying the Eight Schools of Japanese Buddhism in similar historical-doctrinal terms; the Jōdo hōmon genryūshō is the more focused Pure Land complement.
Date. Composition in Gyōnen’s mature career as Tōdai-ji scholar, c. 1280–1321. He died in Genkō 1 / 1321 at age 82.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div29.xml, T84N2687) records the work as a single-fascicle treatise by Gyōnen with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. English partial translation: Marc Lambert Pruden, “Gyōnen’s Jōdo hōmon genryū-shō: A Translation” (PhD diss., UCLA, 1989). Japanese: Etani Ryūkai, Jōdo-kyō no shisō to bunka 浄土教の思想と文化 (Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1972); Kashiwahara Yūsen 柏原祐泉, Nihon Bukkyō-shi kindai 日本仏教史近代 (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1990); Sueki Fumihiko, Nihon Bukkyō shisō-shi ronkō (Daizō shuppan, 1993). On Gyōnen generally: Ishida Mizumaro 石田瑞麿, Gyōnen no kenkyū 凝然の研究 (Daitō shuppan, 1973).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 凝然 (Gyōnen)
- Companion: KR6t0431 (Gyōnen, Shōmyō genryū-ki), KR6t0432 (Gyōnen, Onkyoku hiyōshō)