Mílè jiǎngshì 彌勒講式
Lecture-Liturgy for Maitreya by 貞慶 Jōkei (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle kōshiki for the devotional veneration of Maitreya (彌勒 Miroku), the future Buddha, by Jōkei 貞慶 貞慶 (1155–1213). The work is the principal medieval Japanese Maitreyan devotional text and is the Hossō-school counterpart to the Pure Land Ōjō- / Amida-kōshiki of Genshin and Yōkan. The Hossō school had been from its Indian origins (Asaṅga, Vasubandhu) particularly devoted to Maitreya, and Jōkei’s Miroku kōshiki is the classical Japanese expression of that devotional tradition.
Abstract
The kōshiki is structured in the classical three-danran form: (1) Maitreya’s location and accessibility — in the Tuṣita heaven, where the practitioner aspires to be reborn for direct encounter; (2) the practitioner’s vow to be reborn in Tuṣita and there to receive teaching directly from Maitreya; (3) the devotional response of gratitude and the kanjō (勸請) petition that Maitreya’s eventual descent to this world be hastened.
The work is doctrinally significant as the principal Hossō counter-text to the Amida-Sukhāvatī devotional dominance of late-Heian and Kamakura Japan. While Chinkai 珍海’s An’yō chisoku sōtai-shō KR6t0396 had argued Sukhāvatī over Tuṣita from the Pure Land side, Jōkei here argues Tuṣita as a legitimate alternative from the Hossō side: the practitioner who is unprepared for the immediate Buddha-encounter of Sukhāvatī may legitimately aspire instead to the graded path of Tuṣita, in which Maitreya provides ongoing teaching at the next stage of practice. The doctrinal contest between the two devotional cults was one of the principal theological debates of medieval Japanese Buddhism.
Jōkei was personally devoted to Maitreya throughout his life and conducted Maitreyan retreat-practices at the Kasagi-dera, which housed a famous massive cliff-carved Maitreya image. The Miroku kōshiki was performed at Kasagi-dera annually and was one of the principal kōshiki of the Hossō school throughout the medieval period.
Date. Composition during Jōkei’s mature career, c. 1196–1213.
Structural Division
The CANWWW entry (div25.xml, T84N2729) records the work as a single-fascicle kōshiki by Jōkei with no internal toc sub-list and no related-text cross-references tabulated.
Translations and research
Critical edition: Taishō vol. 84. English study: James L. Ford, Jōkei and Buddhist Devotion in Early Medieval Japan (Oxford UP, 2006), ch. on the Miroku kōshiki and the Maitreyan cult. Niels Guelberg, Buddhistische Zeremoniale (kōshiki) (Stuttgart, 1999). Japanese: Hiraoka Jōkai, Jōkei: Kasagi shōnin (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1958); Etani Ryūkai, Kōshiki no kenkyū (Sankibō, 1986); on the Tuṣita / Sukhāvatī devotional contest: Hayami Tasuku, Miroku shinkō 彌勒信仰 (Yūzankaku, 1971).
Links
- CBETA online
- Author: 貞慶 (Jōkei)
- Companion: KR6t0439 (Jōkei, Kannon kōshiki)
- Counter-text from Pure Land side: KR6t0396 (Chinkai, An’yō chisoku sōtaishō)